Johannes Kepler

Roman’s Five-Year Forecast: A Downpour of Data!

Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope recently passed a major review of the ground system, which will make data from the spacecraft available to scientists and the public.

Since the telescope has a gigantic field of view, it will be able to send us tons of data really quickly — about 500 times faster than our Hubble Space Telescope! That means Roman will send back a flood of new information about the cosmos.

Let’s put it into perspective — if we printed out all of Roman’s data as text, the paper would have to hurtle out of the printer at 40,000 miles per hour (64,000 kilometers per hour) to keep up! At that rate, the stack of papers would tower 330 miles (530 kilometers) high after a single day. By the end of Roman’s five-year primary mission, the stack would extend even farther than the Moon! With all this data, Roman will bring all kinds of cosmic treasures to light, from dark matter and dark energy to distant planets and more!

Learn more about the Roman Space Telescope.

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We Found the Perfect Spot to Land our Moon Rover

After an extensive selection process, we chose the mountainous area west of Nobile Crater at the Moon’s South Pole as the landing site for our first-ever robotic Moon rover. The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, will explore the Moon’s surface and subsurface in search of water and other resources beginning in late 2023. Thanks to past missions, such as satellites orbiting the Moon or impacting its surface, we know there is ice at the Moon’s poles. But how much? And where did it come from? VIPER aims to answer these questions and more by venturing into shadowed craters and visiting other areas of scientific interest over its 100-day mission. The findings will inform future landing sites under the Artemis program and help pave the way toward establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon. Here are five things to know:

The landing site is located just outside the western rim of Nobile Crater at the Moon’s South Pole.

The region has suitable lighting and terrain for our solar-powered rover to navigate.

VIPER will travel up to 15 miles in search of water and other resources.

Its traverse will change depending on what it finds, but it could look like this.

Drivers on Earth will tell the rover where to explore during its 100-day mission.

The VIPER mission is managed by our Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. The approximately 1,000-pound rover will be delivered to the Moon by a commercial vendor as part of our Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, delivering science and technology payloads to and near the Moon.

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"The vast sun-clusters' gather'd blaze, world-isles in lonely skies, whole heavens within themselves, our brief humanities."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1885

Celebrating Spitzer, One of NASA’s Great Observatories

As the Spitzer Space Telescope’s 16-year mission ends, we’re celebrating the legacy of our infrared explorer. It was one of four Great Observatories – powerful telescopes also including Hubble, Chandra and Compton – designed to observe the cosmos in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Light our eyes can see

The part of the spectrum we can see is called, predictably, visible light. But that’s just a small segment of all the wavelengths of the spectrum. The Hubble Space Telescope observes primarily in the visible spectrum. Our Chandra X-ray Observatory is designed to detect (you guessed it) X-ray emissions from very hot regions of the universe, like exploded stars and matter around black holes. Our Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, retired in 2000, produced the first all-sky survey in gamma rays, the most energetic and penetrating form of light.

Then there’s infrared…

Infrared radiation, or infrared light, is another type of energy that we can’t see but can feel as heat. All objects in the universe emit some level of infrared radiation, whether they’re hot or cold. Spitzer used its infrared instrument to make discoveries in our solar system (including Saturn’s largest ring) all the way to the edge of the universe. From stars being born to planets beyond our solar system (like the seven Earth-size exoplanets around the star TRAPPIST-1), Spitzer’s science discoveries will continue to inspire the world for years to come.

Multiple wavelengths

Together, the work of the Great Observatories gave us a more complete view and understanding of our universe.

Hubble and Chandra will continue exploring our universe, and next year they’ll be joined by an even more powerful observatory … the James Webb Space Telescope!

Many of Spitzer’s breakthroughs will be studied more precisely with the Webb Space Telescope. Like Spitzer, Webb is specialized for infrared light. But with its giant gold-coated beryllium mirror and nine new technologies, Webb is about 1,000 times more powerful. The forthcoming telescope will be able to push Spitzer’s science findings to new frontiers, from identifying chemicals in exoplanet atmospheres to locating some of the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang.

We can’t wait for another explorer to join our space telescope superteam!

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Meet the Artemis Team Returning Humans to the Moon

We. Are. Going 🌙

Today, we introduced the eighteen NASA Astronauts forming the Artemis team. Together, they’ll use their diverse range of backgrounds, expertise, and experience to pave the way for humans to return to the Moon, to stay. 

Meet the heroes of the future who’ll carry us back to the Moon and beyond - the Artemis generation. 

Joe Acaba 

Fun fact: Joe is a veteran of the U.S. Peace Corps! Get to know Joe personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Kayla Barron

Fun fact: Kayla got her start in public service through serving in the U.S. Navy. Get to know Kayla personally with this video –> Watch HERE.

Raja Chari

Fun fact: Raja’s nickname is “Grinder,” and he comes from a test pilot background. Get to know Raja personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Jessica Watkins

Fun fact: Jessica is a rugby national champion winner and geologist. Get to know Jessica personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Matthew Dominick

Fun fact: Matthew sums himself up as a father, a husband and an explorer. Get to know Matthew personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Jasmin Moghbeli

Fun fact: Jasmin says she still wakes up every morning and it feels like a “pinch me moment” to think she’s actually an astronaut right now. Get to know Jasmin personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Victor Glover

Fun fact: Victor’s dream is to work on the surface of the Moon. Get to know Victor personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Jessica Meir

Fun fact: Jessica was five years old when she knew she wanted to be an astronaut. Get to know Jessica personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Woody Hoburg

Fun fact: Woody used to spend summers away from graduate school working search and rescue in Yosemite National Park. Get to know Woody personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Anne McClain

Fun fact: Anne is a West Point alumni who describes herself as an impractical dreamer. Get to know Anne personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Jonny Kim

Fun fact: Jonny is also a U.S. Navy SEAL with a medical degree from Harvard. Get to know Jonny personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Nicole Mann

Fun fact: Nicole is a U.S. Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps! Get to know Nicole personally with this video –> Watch HERE. 

Kjell Lindgren

Fun fact: Kjell was a flight surgeon, a physician who takes care of astronauts, before applying to be an astronaut himself! Get to know Kjell personally with this video –> Watch HERE.

Christina Koch

Fun fact: Christina set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space. Get to know Christina personally with this video –> Watch HERE.

Frank Rubio

Fun fact: Frank was a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army and family medical physician. Get to know Frank personally with this video –> Watch HERE.

Stephanie Wilson

Fun fact: Stephanie was the voice in Mission Control leading our NASA Astronauts for the all-woman spacewalk last year. Get to know Stephanie personally with this video –> Watch HERE.

Scott Tingle

Fun fact: Scott said he wanted to be an astronaut in a high school class and the students laughed – look at him now. Get to know Scott personally with this video –> Watch HERE.

Kate Rubins

Fun fact: Kate is actually IN space right now, so she will have to get her official portrait when she comes home! She is also the first person to sequence DNA in space. Get to know Kate personally with this video –> Watch HERE.  Stay up to date with our Artemis program and return to the Moon by following NASA Artemis on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

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It's the 1 year birthday for this acct!!!

what is the biggest challenge in the preparation of such a mission and how do you handle it?

The Legacy of Viking

On this day in 1976, we landed an ambitious mission on Mars –– the Viking 2 mission.

One of a pair of identical spacecraft, Viking found a place in history when it became the first U.S. mission to successfully land on Mars and return images of the surface.

Viking imaged and collected different types of data on the Martian surface. It also conducted experiments specifically designed to look for possible signs of life.

These experiments discovered unexpected chemical activity in the Martian soil but provided no clear evidence for the presence of living microorganisms.

Viking didn’t find unambiguous signs of life on Mars, but it made astrobiologists wonder if we devised the right tests. To this day, the results from Viking are helping to shape the development of life detection strategies at NASA.

So, what’s next in our search for life?

Our Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is the first mission designed to seek possible signs of past Martian life. For astrobiologists, the answers to questions about Mars’ habitability are in Perseverance’s “hands.” The robot astrobiologist and geologist launched earlier this year on July 30 and will touch down on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021.

Discover more about Viking and the history of exploration at Mars with our “Missions To Mars” graphic history novel here.

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Happy New Year From NASA! The year 2021 was one for the books, so what will 2022 bring? No matter what, remember: You are made of star stuff. Sparkly, glorious star stuff.

What's this image? Click here. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, A. Sarajedini Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Women who had ADHD (24%) [were more likely to have attempted suicide] compared to women who had not (3%). 

Men with ADHD were also more likely to have attempted suicide compared to men without ADHD (9% vs. 2%). 

Adults with ADHD were much more likely to have attempted suicide than those without (14.0% vs. 2.7%).

(Study in full)