Latest Posts by nasa - Page 9

Hi, I'm a 20 year old Aeronautical Engineering student, I live in Mexico, and I'm interested in getting involved in some way with NASA, my question is, what's the best way of doing this?

How long does each project take (approximately) . . . PS: you guys are so awesome >:D

When sending experiments to space, what is the most unexpected thing you have to think about? Like you're probably have to consider things like radiation damage, but what is something that isn't an immediately obvious issue that you have to account for?

What inspired you to attempt a SPOCS project?

What's a SPOC? Isn't that a star trek character?

Thank you for joining! It’s time to find out how YOU can get involved with NASA as a student or send your experiments to the International Space Station.

One of our experts today is Hannah Johnson, the team lead of a student group sending their experiment to the space station! She is joined by Becky Kamas, our lead for STEM on Station activities for students.

Between 12-1 p.m. EDT today, our experts will talk about about designing an experiment for microgravity, working with NASA to launch it to space, how you can join this initiative, and more!

View all answers HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

In a Warming World, NASA’s Eyes Offer Crucial Views of Hurricanes

June 1 marks the start of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean. Last year’s hurricane season saw a record-setting 30 named storms. Twelve made landfall in the United States, also a record. From space, NASA has unique views of hurricanes and works with other government agencies -- like the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) -- to better understand individual storms and entire hurricane seasons.

Here, five ways NASA is changing hurricane science:

1. We can see storms from space

From space, we can see so much more than what’s visible to the naked eye. Among our missions, NASA and NOAA have joint satellite missions monitoring storms in natural color -- basically, what our eyes see -- as well as in other wavelengths of light, which can help identify features our eyes can’t on their own. For instance, images taken in infrared can show the temperatures of clouds, as well as allow us to track the movement of storms at night.

2. We can see inside hurricanes in 3D

If you’ve ever had a CT scan or X-ray done, you know how important 3D imagery can be to understanding what’s happening on the inside. The same concept applies to hurricanes. Our Global Precipitation Measurement mission’s radar and microwave instruments can see through storm clouds to see the precipitation structure of the storm and measure how much total rain is falling as a result of the storm. This information helps scientists understand how the storm may change over time and understand the risk of severe flooding.

We can even virtually fly through hurricanes!

3. We’re looking at how climate change affects hurricane behavior

Climate change is likely causing storms to behave differently. One change is in how storms intensify: More storms are increasing in strength quickly, a process called rapid intensification, where hurricane wind speeds increase by 35 mph (or more) in just 24 hours.

In 2020, a record-tying nine storms rapidly intensified. These quick changes in storm strength can leave communities in their path without time to properly prepare.

Researchers developed a machine learning model that could more accurately detect rapidly intensifying storms.

It’s not just about how quickly hurricanes gain strength. We’re also looking at how climate change may be causing storms to move more slowly, which makes them more destructive. These “stalled” storms can slow to just a few miles an hour, dumping rain and damaging winds on one location at a time. Hurricane Dorian, for example, stalled over Grand Bahama and left catastrophic damage in its wake. Hurricanes Harvey and Florence experienced stalling as well, both causing major flooding.

4. We can monitor damage done by hurricanes

Hurricane Maria reshaped Puerto Rico’s forests. The storm destroyed so many large trees that the overall height of the island’s forests was shortened by one-third. Measurements from the ground, the air, and space gave researchers insights into which trees were more susceptible to wind damage.

Months after Hurricane Maria, parts of Puerto Rico still didn’t have power. Using satellite data, researchers mapped which neighborhoods were still dark and analyzed demographics and physical attributes of the areas with the longest wait for power.

5. We help communities prepare for storms and respond to their aftermath

The data we collect is available for free to the public. We also partner with other federal agencies, like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and regional and local governments to help prepare for and understand the impacts of disasters like hurricanes.

In 2020, our Disasters Program provided data to groups in Alabama, Louisiana, and Central America to identify regions significantly affected by hurricanes. This helps identify vulnerable communities and make informed decisions about where to send resources.

The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season starts today, June 1. Our colleagues at NOAA are predicting another active season, with an above average number of named storms. At NASA, we’re developing new technology to study how storms form and behave, including ways to understand Earth as a system. Working together with our partners at NOAA, FEMA and elsewhere, we’re ready to help communities weather another year of storms.

Bonus: We see storms on other planets, too!

Earth isn’t the only planet with storms. From dust storms on Mars to rains made of glass, we study storms and severe weather on planets in our solar system and beyond. Even the Sun has storms. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, for instance, is a hurricane-like storm larger than the entire Earth.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Curious about how to send research to the International Space Station or how to get involved with NASA missions as a college student? Ask our experts!

Through our Student Payload Opportunity with Citizen Science, or SPOCS, we’re funding five college teams to build experiments for the International Space Station. The students are currently building their experiments focusing on bacteria resistance or sustainability research. Soon, these experiments will head to space on a SpaceX cargo launch! University of Idaho SPOCS team lead Hannah Johnson and NASA STEM on Station activity manager Becky Kamas will be taking your questions in an Answer Time session on Thurs., June 3, from 12-1 p.m. EDT here on our Tumblr! Make sure to ask your question now by visiting http://nasa.tumblr.com/ask. Hannah Johnson recently graduated from the University of Idaho with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering. She is the team lead for the university’s SPOCS team, Vandal Voyagers I, designing an experiment to test bacteria-resistant polymers in microgravity. Becky Kamas is the activity manager for STEM on Station at our Johnson Space Center in Houston. She helps connect students and educators to the International Space Station through a variety of opportunities, similar to the ones that sparked her interest in working for NASA when she was a high school student. Student Payload Opportunity with Citizen Science Fun Facts:

Our scientists and engineers work with SPOCS students as mentors, and mission managers from Nanoracks help them prepare their experiments for operation aboard the space station.

The Vandal Voyagers I team has nine student members, six of whom just graduated from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Designing the experiment served as a senior capstone project.

The experiment tests polymer coatings on an aluminum 6061 substrate used for handles on the space station. These handles are used every day by astronauts to move throughout the space station and to hold themselves in place with their feet while they work.

The University of Idaho’s SPOCS project website includes regular project updates showing the process they followed while designing and testing the experiment.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

ICYMI: New sounds from Mars dropped! Turn the volume up to hear our Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flying on the Red Planet.

Captured by our Perseverance Mars Rover, this is the first time a spacecraft on another planet has recorded the sounds of a separate spacecraft. In this audio track, Perseverance used its SuperCam microphone to listen to the Ingenuity helicopter on April 30, 2021 as it flew on Mars for the fourth time.

With Perseverance parked 262 feet (80 meters) from the helicopter’s takeoff and landing spot, the mission wasn’t sure if the microphone would pick up any sound of the flight. Even during flight when the helicopter’s blades are spinning at 2,537 rpm, the sound is greatly muffled by the thin Martian atmosphere. It is further obscured by Martian wind gusts during the initial moments of the flight. Listen closely, though, and the helicopter’s hum can be heard faintly above the sound of those winds.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

The Stellar Buddy System

Our Sun has an entourage of planets, moons, and smaller objects to keep it company as it traverses the galaxy. But it’s still lonely compared to many of the other stars out there, which often come in pairs. These cosmic couples, called binary stars, are very important in astronomy because they can easily reveal things that are much harder to learn from stars that are on their own. And some of them could even host habitable planets!

The birth of a stellar duo

New stars emerge from swirling clouds of gas and dust that are peppered throughout the galaxy. Scientists still aren’t sure about all the details, but turbulence deep within these clouds may give rise to knots that are denser than their surroundings. The knots have stronger gravity, so they can pull in more material and the cloud may begin to collapse.

The material at the center heats up. Known as a protostar, it is this hot core that will one day become a star. Sometimes these spinning clouds of collapsing gas and dust may break up into two, three, or even more blobs that eventually become stars. That would explain why the majority of the stars in the Milky Way are born with at least one sibling.

Seeing stars

We can’t always tell if we’re looking at binary stars using just our eyes. They’re often so close together in the sky that we see them as a single star. For example, Sirius, the brightest star we can see at night, is actually a binary system (see if you can spot both stars in the photo above). But no one knew that until the 1800s.

Precise observations showed that Sirius was swaying back and forth like it was at a middle school dance. In 1862, astronomer Alvan Graham Clark used a telescope to see that Sirius is actually two stars that orbit each other.

But even through our most powerful telescopes, some binary systems still masquerade as a single star. Fortunately there are a couple of tricks we can use to spot these pairs too.

Since binary stars orbit each other, there’s a chance that we’ll see some stars moving toward and away from us as they go around each other. We just need to have an edge-on view of their orbits. Astronomers can detect this movement because it changes the color of the star’s light – a phenomenon known as the Doppler effect.

Stars we can find this way are called spectroscopic binaries because we have to look at their spectra, which are basically charts or graphs that show the intensity of light being emitted over a range of energies. We can spot these star pairs because light travels in waves. When a star moves toward us, the waves of its light arrive closer together, which makes its light bluer. When a star moves away, the waves are lengthened, reddening its light.

Sometimes we can see binary stars when one of the stars moves in front of the other. Astronomers find these systems, called eclipsing binaries, by measuring the amount of light coming from stars over time. We receive less light than usual when the stars pass in front of each other, because the one in front will block some of the farther star’s light.

Sibling rivalry

Twin stars don’t always get along with each other – their relationship may be explosive! Type Ia supernovae happen in some binary systems in which a white dwarf – the small, hot core left over when a Sun-like star runs out of fuel and ejects its outer layers – is stealing material away from its companion star. This results in a runaway reaction that ultimately detonates the thieving star. The same type of explosion may also happen when two white dwarfs spiral toward each other and collide. Yikes!

Scientists know how to determine how bright these explosions should truly be at their peak, making Type Ia supernovae so-called standard candles. That means astronomers can determine how far away they are by seeing how bright they look from Earth. The farther they are, the dimmer they appear. Astronomers can also look at the wavelengths of light coming from the supernovae to find out how fast the dying stars are moving away from us.

Studying these supernovae led to the discovery that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will scan the skies for these exploding stars when it launches in the mid-2020s to help us figure out what’s causing the expansion to accelerate – a mystery known as dark energy.

Spilling stellar secrets

Astronomers like finding binary systems because it’s a lot easier to learn more about stars that are in pairs than ones that are on their own. That’s because the stars affect each other in ways we can measure. For example, by paying attention to how the stars orbit each other, we can determine how massive they are. Since heavier stars burn hotter and use up their fuel more quickly than lighter ones, knowing a star’s mass reveals other interesting things too.

By studying how the light changes in eclipsing binaries when the stars cross in front of each other, we can learn even more! We can figure out their sizes, masses, how fast they’re each spinning, how hot they are, and even how far away they are. All of that helps us understand more about the universe.

Tatooine worlds

Thanks to observatories such as our Kepler Space Telescope, we know that worlds like Luke Skywalker’s home planet Tatooine in “Star Wars” exist in real life. And if a planet orbits at the right distance from the two stars, it could even be habitable (and stay that way for a long time).

In 2019, our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) found a planet, known as TOI-1338 b, orbiting a pair of stars. These worlds are tricker to find than planets with only one host star, but TESS is expected to find several more!

Want to learn more about the relationships between stellar couples? Check out this Tumblr post: https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/190824389279/cosmic-couples-and-devastating-breakups

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

NASA Spotlight: Earth Climate Scientist Dr. Yolanda Shea

Dr. Yolanda Shea is a climate scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center. She’s the project scientist for the CLARREO Pathfinder (CPF) mission, which is an instrument that will launch to the International Space Station to measure sunlight reflected from Earth. It will help us understand how much heat is being trapped by our planet’s atmosphere. Her mission is designed to help us get a clearer picture than we currently have of the Earth’s system and how it is changing

Yolanda took time from studying our home planet to answer questions about her life and career! Get to know this Earth scientist:

What inspired you to study climate science?

Starting in early middle school I became interested in the explanations behind the weather maps and satellite images shown on TV. I liked how the meteorologists talked about the temperature, moisture, and winds at different heights in the atmosphere, and then put that together to form the story of our weather forecasts. This made me want to learn more about Earth science, so I went to college to explore this interest more.

The summer after my junior year of college, I had an internship during which my first assignment was to work with a program that estimated ocean currents from satellite measurements. I was fascinated in the fact that scientists had discovered a way to map ocean currents from space!

Although I had learned about Earth remote sensing in my classes, this was my first taste of working with, and understanding the details of, how we could learn more about different aspects of the physical world from satellite measurements.

This led to my learning about other ways we can learn about Earth from space, and that includes rigorous climate monitoring, which is the area I work in now.

What does a day in your life look like?

Before I start my workday, I like to take a few minutes to eat breakfast, knit (I’m loving sock knitting right now!), and listen to a podcast or audio book. Each workday really looks different for me, but regardless, most days are a combination of quieter moments that I can use for individual work and more interactive times when I’m interfacing with colleagues and talking about project or science issues. Both types of work are fun in different ways, but I’m glad I have a mixture because all researchers need that combination of deep thinking to wrap our minds around complex problems and also time to tackle those problems with others and work on solving them together.

When do you feel most connected to Earth?

I’ve always loved sunsets. I find them peaceful and beautiful, and I love how each one is unique. They are also a beautiful reminder of the versatility of reflected light, which I study. Sitting for a moment to appreciate the beauty and calm I feel during a sunset helps me feel connected to Earth.

What will your mission – CLARREO Pathfinder – tell us about Earth?

CLARREO Pathfinder (CPF) includes an instrument that will take measurements from the International Space Station and will measure reflected sunlight from Earth. One of its goals is to demonstrate that it can take measurements with high enough accuracy so that, if we have such measurements over long periods of time, like several decades, we could detect changes in Earth’s climate system. The CPF instrument will do this with higher accuracy than previous satellite instruments we’ve designed, and these measurements can be used to improve the accuracy of other satellite instruments.

How, if at all, has your worldview changed as a result of your work in climate science?

The longer I work in climate science and learn from the data about how humans have impacted our planet, the more I appreciate the fragility of our one and only home, and the more I want to take care of it.

What advice would you give your younger self?

It’s ok to not have everything figured out at every step of your career journey. Work hard, do your best, and enjoy the journey as it unfolds. You’ll inevitably have some surprises along the way, and regardless of whether they are welcome or not, you’re guaranteed to learn something.

Do you have a favorite metaphor or analogy that you use to describe what you do, and its impact, to those outside of the scientific community?

I see jigsaw puzzles as a good illustration of how different members of a science community play a diverse set of roles to work through different problems. Each member is often working on their own image within the greater puzzle, and although it might take them years of work to see their part of the picture come together, each image in the greater puzzle is essential to completing the whole thing. During my career, I’ll work on a section of the puzzle, and I hope to connect my section to others nearby, but we may not finish the whole puzzle. That’s ok, however, because we’ll hand over the work that we’ve accomplished to the next generation of scientists, and they will keep working to bring the picture to light. This is how I try to think about my role in climate science – I hope to contribute to the field in some way; the best thing about what I have done and what I will do, is that someone else will be able to build on my work and keep helping humanity come to a better understanding of our Earth system.

What is a course that you think should be part of required school curriculum?

Time and project management skills – I think students tend to learn these skills more organically from their parents and teachers, but in my experience I stumbled along and learned these skills through trial and error. To successfully balance all the different projects that I support now, I have to be organized and disciplined, and I need to have clear plans mapped out, so I have some idea of what’s coming and where my attention needs to be focused.

Another course not specifically related to my field is personal financial management. I was interested in personal finance, and that helped me to seek out information (mainly through various blogs) about how to be responsible with my home finances. There is a lot of information out there, but making sure that students have a solid foundation and know what questions to ask early on will set them to for success (and hopefully fewer mistakes) later on.

What’s the most unexpected time or place that your expertise in climate science and/or algorithms came in handy?

I think an interesting part of being an atmospheric scientist and a known sky-watcher is that I get to notice beautiful moments in the sky. I remember being on a trip with friends and I looked up (as I usually do), and I was gifted with a gorgeous sundog and halo arc. It was such a beautiful moment, and because I noticed it, my friends got to enjoy it too.

Can you share a photo or image from a memorable NASA project you’ve worked on, and tell us a little bit about why the project stood out to you?

I absolutely loved being on the PBS Kids TV Show, SciGirls for their episode SkyGirls! This featured a NASA program called Students’ Clouds Observations On-Line (S’COOL). It was a citizen science program where students from around the globe could take observations of clouds from the ground that coincided with satellite overpasses, and the intention was to help scientists validate (or check) the accuracy of the code they use to detect clouds from satellite measurements. I grew up watching educational programming from PBS, so it was an honor to be a science mentor on a TV show that I knew would reach children across the nation who might be interested in different STEM fields. In this photo, the three young women I worked with on the show and I are talking about the different types of clouds.

To stay up to date on Yolanda's mission and everything going on in NASA Earth science, be sure to follow NASA Earth on Twitter and Facebook.

🌎 If you're looking for Earth Day plans, we have live events, Q&As, scavenger hunts and more going on through April 24. Get the details and register for our events HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Meet Megan McArthur, NASA Astronaut & Crew-2 Pilot

NASA astronaut Megan McArthur will launch on Friday, April 23 to the International Space Station as the pilot for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission! This is the second crew rotation flight with astronauts on the Crew Dragon spacecraft and the first launch with two international partners as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. McArthur is responsible for spacecraft systems and performance and is assigned to be a long-duration space station crew member. While this is her first trip to the space station, McArthur’s career has prepared her well for this important role on the Crew-2 team!

McArthur on the Crew Access Arm of the mobile launcher inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center. Credits: NASA/Joel Kowsky

McArthur was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and grew up in California. She is a former Girl Scout and has a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of California, San Diego where she performed research activities at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

McArthur floating in microgravity during her STS-125 mission in 2009 aboard space shuttle Atlantis. Credits: NASA

While in graduate school, McArthur conducted research, served as Chief Scientist for at-sea data collection operations, and planned and led diving operations. She also volunteered at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps, conducting educational demonstrations for the public from inside a 70,000-gallon exhibit tank of the California Kelp Forest. Her experience conducting research in extreme conditions will certainly come in handy once she’s aboard the space station, as a big part of the astronauts’ job involves running research experiments in microgravity.

McArthur, seen through the window of space shuttle Atlantis, operating the robotic arm during a spacewalk. Credits: NASA

McArthur was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2000 and flew her first spaceflight aboard STS-125, the final space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. She worked as the flight engineer during launch and landing, and also served as the shuttle's robotic arm operator as she carefully retrieved the telescope and placed it in the shuttle’s cargo bay for servicing. The successful mission improved the telescope's capabilities and extended its life – and Hubble is still helping us make discoveries about our universe.

McArthur pictured in her pressure suit during a training session at SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California. Credits: NASA

Now, it’s time for the next big milestone in McArthur’s career! On Friday, April 23 Crew-2 will launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida en route to the International Space Station. McArthur is the pilot of the Crew Dragon spacecraft and second-in-command for the mission.

NASA TV coverage of Crew-2 launch preparations and liftoff will begin at 1:30 a.m. EDT Friday, April 23 with launch scheduled for 5:49 a.m. EDT. Crew Dragon is scheduled to dock to the space station Saturday, April 24, at approximately 5:10 a.m. EDT. Watch live: www.nasa.gov/nasalive

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

A dream takes flight! Today, our Ingenuity #MarsHelicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet.

In a video captured by our Perseverance Mars rover, the helicopter is shown hovering above the Red Planet's surface. During this first flight, the helicopter climbed to an altitude of 10 feet (3 meters), hovered, and then touched back down on the surface of Mars.

More images and video to come...

Join us at 2 p.m. ET (18:00 UTC) for an analysis of Ingenuity’s first flight and what's to come:

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Going the Distance... In Space

On April 17, NASA's New Horizons crossed a rare deep-space milestone – 50 astronomical units from the Sun, or 50 times farther from the Sun than Earth is. New Horizons is just the fifth spacecraft to reach this great distance, following the legendary Voyagers 1 and 2 and Pioneers 10 and 11. It’s almost 5 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) away; a remote region where a signal radioed from NASA's largest antennas on Earth, even traveling at the speed of light, needs seven hours to reach the far-flung spacecraft.

To celebrate reaching 50 AU, the New Horizons team compiled a list of 50 facts about the mission. Here are just a few of them; you'll find the full collection at: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Fifty-Facts.php.

New Horizons is the first – and so far, only – spacecraft to visit Pluto. New Horizons sped through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015, providing a history-making close-up view of the dwarf planet and its family of five moons.

New Horizons is carrying some of the ashes of Pluto’s discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh. In 1930, the amateur astronomer spotted Pluto in a series of telescope images at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, making him the first American to discover a planet.

The “Pluto Not Yet Explored” U.S. stamp that New Horizons carries holds the Guinness World Record for the farthest traveled postage stamp. The stamp was part of a series created in 1991, when Pluto was the last unexplored planet in the solar system.

Dispatched at 36,400 miles per hour (58, 500 kilometers per hour) on January 19, 2006, New Horizons is still the fastest human-made object ever launched from Earth.

As the spacecraft flew by Jupiter’s moon Io, in February 2007, New Horizons captured the first detailed movie of a volcano erupting anywhere in the solar system except Earth.

New Horizons’ radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) – its nuclear battery – will provide enough power to keep the spacecraft operating until the late-2030s.

Measurements of the universe’s darkness using New Horizons data found that the universe is twice as bright as predicted – a major extragalactic astronomy discovery!

New Horizons’ Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter is the first student-built instrument on any NASA planetary mission – and is providing unprecedented insight into the dust environment in the outer solar system.

New Horizons is so far away, that even the positons of the stars look different than what we see from Earth. This view of an "alien sky" allowed scientists to make stereo images of the nearest stars against the background of the galaxy.

Arrokoth – the official name the mission team proposed for the Kuiper Belt object New Horizons explored in January 2019 – is a Native American term that means “sky” in the Powhatan/Algonquin language.

Stay tuned in to the latest New Horizons updates on the mission website and follow NASA Solar System on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

What’s Inside a ‘Dead’ Star?

Matter makes up all the stuff we can see in the universe, from pencils to people to planets. But there’s still a lot we don’t understand about it! For example: How does matter work when it’s about to become a black hole? We can’t learn anything about matter after it becomes a black hole, because it’s hidden behind the event horizon, the point of no return. So we turn to something we can study – the incredibly dense matter inside a neutron star, the leftover of an exploded massive star that wasn’t quite big enough to turn into a black hole.

Our Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, is an X-ray telescope perched on the International Space Station. NICER was designed to study and measure the sizes and masses of neutron stars to help us learn more about what might be going on in their mysterious cores.

When a star many times the mass of our Sun runs out of fuel, it collapses under its own weight and then bursts into a supernova. What’s left behind depends on the star’s initial mass. Heavier stars (around 25 times the Sun’s mass or more) leave behind black holes. Lighter ones (between about eight and 25 times the Sun’s mass) leave behind neutron stars.

Neutron stars pack more mass than the Sun into a sphere about as wide as New York City’s Manhattan Island is long. Just one teaspoon of neutron star matter would weigh as much as Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth!

These objects have a lot of cool physics going on. They can spin faster than blender blades, and they have powerful magnetic fields. In fact, neutron stars are the strongest magnets in the universe! The magnetic fields can rip particles off the star’s surface and then smack them down on another part of the star. The constant bombardment creates hot spots at the magnetic poles. When the star rotates, the hot spots swing in and out of our view like the beams of a lighthouse.

Neutron stars are so dense that they warp nearby space-time, like a bowling ball resting on a trampoline. The warping effect is so strong that it can redirect light from the star’s far side into our view. This has the odd effect of making the star look bigger than it really is!

NICER uses all the cool physics happening on and around neutron stars to learn more about what’s happening inside the star, where matter lingers on the threshold of becoming a black hole. (We should mention that NICER also studies black holes!)

Scientists think neutron stars are layered a bit like a golf ball. At the surface, there’s a really thin (just a couple centimeters high) atmosphere of hydrogen or helium. In the outer core, atoms have broken down into their building blocks – protons, neutrons, and electrons – and the immense pressure has squished most of the protons and electrons together to form a sea of mostly neutrons.

But what’s going on in the inner core? Physicists have lots of theories. In some traditional models, scientists suggested the stars were neutrons all the way down. Others proposed that neutrons break down into their own building blocks, called quarks. And then some suggest that those quarks could recombine to form new types of particles that aren’t neutrons!

NICER is helping us figure things out by measuring the sizes and masses of neutron stars. Scientists use those numbers to calculate the stars’ density, which tells us how squeezable matter is!

Let’s say you have what scientists think of as a typical neutron star, one weighing about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass. If you measure the size of the star, and it’s big, then that might mean it contains more whole neutrons. If instead it’s small, then that might mean the neutrons have broken down into quarks. The tinier pieces can be packed together more tightly.

NICER has now measured the sizes of two neutron stars, called PSR J0030+0451 and PSR J0740+6620, or J0030 and J0740 for short.

J0030 is about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass and 16 miles across. (It also taught us that neutron star hot spots might not always be where we thought.) J0740 is about 2.1 times the Sun’s mass and is also about 16 miles across. So J0740 has about 50% more mass than J0030 but is about the same size! Which tells us that the matter in neutron stars is less squeezable than some scientists predicted. (Remember, some physicists suggest that the added mass would crush all the neutrons and make a smaller star.) And J0740’s mass and size together challenge models where the star is neutrons all the way down.

So what’s in the heart of a neutron star? We’re still not sure. Scientists will have to use NICER’s observations to develop new models, perhaps where the cores of neutron stars contain a mix of both neutrons and weirder matter, like quarks. We’ll have to keep measuring neutron stars to learn more!

Keep up with other exciting announcements about our universe by following NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Rare & Record-Breaking Black Holes

While even the most “normal” black hole seems exotic compared to the tranquil objects in our solar system, there are some record-breaking oddballs. Tag along as we look at the biggest, closest, farthest, and even “spinniest” black holes discovered in the universe … that we know of right now!

Located 700 million light-years away in the galaxy Holmberg 15A, astronomers found a black hole that is a whopping 40 billion times the mass of the Sun — setting the record for the biggest black hole found so far. On the other hand, the smallest known black hole isn’t quite so easy to pinpoint. There are several black holes with masses around five times that of our Sun. There’s even one candidate with just two and a half times the Sun’s mass, but scientists aren’t sure whether it’s the smallest known black hole or actually the heaviest known neutron star!

You may need to take a seat for this one. The black hole GRS 1915+105 will make you dizzier than an afternoon at an amusement park, as it spins over 1,000 times per second! Maybe even more bizarre than how fast this black hole is spinning is what it means for a black hole to spin at all! What we're actually measuring is how strongly the black hole drags the space-time right outside its event horizon — the point where nothing can escape. Yikes!

If you’re from Earth, the closest black hole that we know of right now, Mon X-1 in the constellation Monoceros, is about 3,000 light-years away. But never fear — that’s still really far away! The farthest known black hole is J0313-1806. The light from its surroundings took a whopping 13 billion years to get to us! And with the universe constantly expanding, that distance continues to grow.

So, we know about large (supermassive, hundreds of thousands to billions of times the Sun's mass) and small (stellar-mass, five to dozens of times the Sun's mass) black holes, but what about other sizes? Though rare, astronomers have found a couple that seem to fit in between and call them intermediate-mass black holes. As for tiny ones, primordial black holes, there is a possibility that they were around when the universe got its start — but there’s not enough evidence so far to prove that they exist!

One thing that’s on astronomers’ wishlist is to see two supermassive black holes crashing into one another. Unfortunately, that event hasn’t been detected — yet! It could be only a matter of time before one reveals itself.

Though these are the records now, in early 2021 … records are meant to be broken, so who knows what we’ll find next!

Add some of these records and rare finds to your black hole-watch list, grab your handy-dandy black hole field guide to learn even more about them — and get to searching!

Keep up with NASA Universe on Facebook and Twitter where we post regularly about black holes.

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Black Holes: Seeing the Invisible!

Black holes are some of the most bizarre and fascinating objects in the cosmos. Astronomers want to study lots of them, but there’s one big problem – black holes are invisible! Since they don’t emit any light, it’s pretty tough to find them lurking in the inky void of space. Fortunately there are a few different ways we can “see” black holes indirectly by watching how they affect their surroundings.

Speedy stars

If you’ve spent some time stargazing, you know what a calm, peaceful place our universe can be. But did you know that a monster is hiding right in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy? Astronomers noticed stars zipping superfast around something we can’t see at the center of the galaxy, about 10 million miles per hour! The stars must be circling a supermassive black hole. No other object would have strong enough gravity to keep them from flying off into space.

Two astrophysicists won half of the Nobel Prize in Physics last year for revealing this dark secret. The black hole is truly monstrous, weighing about four million times as much as our Sun! And it seems our home galaxy is no exception – our Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that the hubs of most galaxies contain supermassive black holes.

Shadowy silhouettes

Technology has advanced enough that we’ve been able to spot one of these supermassive black holes in a nearby galaxy. In 2019, astronomers took the first-ever picture of a black hole in a galaxy called M87, which is about 55 million light-years away. They used an international network of radio telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope.

In the image, we can see some light from hot gas surrounding a dark shape. While we still can’t see the black hole itself, we can see the “shadow” it casts on the bright backdrop.

Shattered stars

Black holes can come in a smaller variety, too. When a massive star runs out of the fuel it uses to shine, it collapses in on itself. These lightweight or “stellar-mass” black holes are only about 5-20 times as massive as the Sun. They’re scattered throughout the galaxy in the same places where we find stars, since that’s how they began their lives. Some of them started out with a companion star, and so far that’s been our best clue to find them.

Some black holes steal material from their companion star. As the material falls onto the black hole, it gets superhot and lights up in X-rays. The first confirmed black hole astronomers discovered, called Cygnus X-1, was found this way.

If a star comes too close to a supermassive black hole, the effect is even more dramatic! Instead of just siphoning material from the star like a smaller black hole would do, a supermassive black hole will completely tear the star apart into a stream of gas. This is called a tidal disruption event.

Making waves

But what if two companion stars both turn into black holes? They may eventually collide with each other to form a larger black hole, sending ripples through space-time – the fabric of the cosmos!

These ripples, called gravitational waves, travel across space at the speed of light. The waves that reach us are extremely weak because space-time is really stiff.

Three scientists received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for using LIGO to observe gravitational waves that were sent out from colliding stellar-mass black holes. Though gravitational waves are hard to detect, they offer a way to find black holes without having to see any light.

We’re teaming up with the European Space Agency for a mission called LISA, which stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. When it launches in the 2030s, it will detect gravitational waves from merging supermassive black holes – a likely sign of colliding galaxies!

Rogue black holes

So we have a few ways to find black holes by seeing stuff that’s close to them. But astronomers think there could be 100 million black holes roaming the galaxy solo. Fortunately, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a way to “see” these isolated black holes, too.

Roman will find solitary black holes when they pass in front of more distant stars from our vantage point. The black hole’s gravity will warp the starlight in ways that reveal its presence. In some cases we can figure out a black hole’s mass and distance this way, and even estimate how fast it’s moving through the galaxy.

For more about black holes, check out these Tumblr posts!

⚫ Gobble Up These Black (Hole) Friday Deals!

⚫ Hubble’s 5 Weirdest Black Hole Discoveries

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Pioneering with Perseverance: More Technology Firsts

From launching the largest, heaviest, most sophisticated vehicle we have ever sent to Mars, to its elegant landing at Jezero Crater – a treacherous yet promising location for finding signs of ancient life – the journey of our Perseverance rover has already been and continues to be a bold one.

But let’s not forget, building new tools and instruments or designing ways to study other worlds is not easy. Before engineers even dreamt of sending their hardware for a spin on Mars, they spent years doing all they could to validate tech on Earth – modeling in labs, flying experiments on suborbital rockets or high-altitude balloons, or testing in various facilities to simulate the harsh conditions of space.

We know that technology demonstrations – that test a new capability in space – can be risky, but trying new things is how we forge ahead, learn for future missions, and reach new heights in space.

Perseverance has already accomplished some amazing “firsts” but there are more to come. Here are four more trailblazing technologies on the Mars 2020 mission.

1. First Powered Flight on Another World

This week, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft originally stowed beneath the rover, will make the first-ever attempt at powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet.

In the last few weeks, Ingenuity safely deployed from Perseverance, charged up its solar panel, survived its first bone-chilling Martian night and firmly planted four legs on the ground. Once the team on Earth confirms that the rover drove about 16 feet (about 5 meters) away, and that both helicopter and rover are communicating via their onboard radios, preflight checks will begin, and Ingenuity will be on its way skyward.

Perseverance will receive and relay the final flight instructions from mission controllers at our Jet Propulsion Laboratory to Ingenuity. Ingenuity will run its rotors to 2,537 rpm and, if all final self-checks look good, lift off. After climbing at a rate of about 3 feet per second (1 meter per second), the helicopter will hover at 10 feet (3 meters) above the surface for up to 30 seconds. Then, the Mars Helicopter will descend and touch back down on the Martian surface. With a smooth landing and continued operability, up to four more flights could be attempted, each one building on the success of the last.

Ingenuity could pave the way for other advanced robotic flying vehicles. Possible uses of next-generation rotorcraft on Mars include:

A unique viewpoint not provided by current orbiters, rovers or landers

High-definition images and reconnaissance for robots or humans

Access to terrain that is difficult for rovers to reach

Could even carry light but vital payloads from one site to another

Here’s how to follow along as this flight makes history.

2. First Production of Oxygen from Martian Atmosphere

The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, better known as MOXIE, is preparing us for human exploration of Mars by demonstrating a way to extract oxygen directly from the Martian atmosphere. That could mean access to air for breathing, but also the ability to produce vast quantities of rocket fuel to return astronauts to Earth.

Located inside the body of Perseverance, the car battery-sized instrument works like a miniature electronic tree on the rover, inhaling carbon dioxide, separating the molecule, and exhaling carbon monoxide and oxygen.

MOXIE is the first demonstration of its kind on another planet – the first test of an in-situ resource utilization technology, meaning it generates a usable product from local materials. The farther humans go into deep space, the more important this will be, due to the limited immediate access to supplies.

MOXIE will give a go at its first operations soon, a huge first step in proving it’s feasible to make oxygen, in situ, on Mars. Future, larger versions of MOXIE (something about the size of a washing machine) could produce oxygen 200 times faster by operating continuously.

3. First Weather Reporter at Jezero Crater

The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) system makes weather measurements including wind speed and direction, temperature and humidity, and also measures the amount and size of dust particles in the Martian atmosphere.

Using MEDA data, engineers on Earth recently pieced together the first weather report from Jezero Crater. Measurements from MEDA sensors are even helping to determine the optimal time for Ingenuity’s first flight.

The weather instrument aboard the Curiosity rover – currently located a good 2,300 miles away from Perseverance on Mars – provides similar daily weather and atmospheric data. But MEDA can record the temperature at three atmospheric heights in addition to the surface temperature. It also records the radiation budget near the surface, which will help prepare for future human exploration missions on Mars.

MEDA’s weather reports, coupled with data gathered by Curiosity and NASA’s Insight lander, will enable a deeper understanding of Martian weather patterns, events, and atmospheric turbulence that could influence planning for future endeavors like the landing or launch of the proposed Mars Sample Return mission.

4. First Radar Tool to Probe Under the Martian Surface

On Earth, scientists use radar to look for things under the ground. They use it to study Mars-like glacial regions in the Arctic and Antarctic. Ground-penetrating radar helps us locate land mines; spot underground cables, wires, and pipes; or reveal ancient human artifacts and even buried treasure! On Mars, the "buried treasure" may be ice, which helps scientists understand the possibilities for Martian life and also identifies natural resources for future human explorers.

Perseverance's Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) uses radar waves to probe the ground and reveal the unexplored world that lies beneath the Martian surface.

It’s the first ground-penetrating radar on the surface of Mars. RIMFAX will provide a highly detailed view of subsurface structures down to at least 30 feet (10 meters). With those measurements, the instrument will reveal hidden layers of geology and help find clues to past environments on Mars, especially those with conditions necessary for supporting life.

Stay tuned in to the latest Perseverance updates on the mission website and follow NASA Technology on Twitter and Facebook.

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Want to watch me make a big splash? Tuesday we will doing a water drop test NASA Langley Recearch Center’s gantry. This is the second of four tests, which are aimed to help our team prepare for Artemis II, NASA’s first Artemis mission with crew. Watch here: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-host-virtual-viewing-of-orion-spacecraft-drop-test

Weird and Wonderful Irregular Galaxies

Spiral and elliptical galaxies seem neatly put together, but what happened to irregular galaxies? Irregular galaxies have one-of-a-kind shapes and many look like blobs! Why do they look the way they do? Astronomers think the uniqueness of these galaxies results from their interactions with other galaxies — like when they pass close to one another or even collide!

Looking back at the early universe with the help of our Hubble Space Telescope’s “deep field” observations, astronomers can peek at galaxies millions and billions of light-years away. They noticed that these far-away galaxies appear unusually messy, showing more star formation and mergers than galaxies closer to the Milky Way.

We also see irregular galaxies closer to home, though. Some may form when two galaxies pass close together in a near-miss. When this happens, their gravity pulls stars out of place in both galaxies, messing up the neat structure they originally had as spiral or elliptical galaxies. Think of it like this: you happen to have a pile of papers sitting at the edge of a table and when someone passes close by the papers become ruffled and may scatter everywhere! Even though the two galaxies never touched, gravity's effects leave them looking smeared or distorted.

Some irregular galaxies result from the collision between two galaxies. And while some of these look like a blob of stars and dust, others form dazzling ring galaxies! Scientists think these may be a product of collisions between small and large galaxies. These collisions cause ripples that disturb both galaxies, throwing dust, gas, and stars outward. When this happens, it pushes out a ring of material, causing gas clouds to collide and spark the birth of new stars. After just a few million years, stars larger than our Sun explode as supernovae, leaving neutron stars and black holes throughout the ring!

Not all galaxy collisions create irregular galaxies — our Milky Way spiral galaxy has gone through many mergers but has stayed intact! And for some interacting galaxies, being an irregular galaxy may just be a phase in their transformation. We’re observing them at a snapshot in time where things are messy, but they may eventually become neat and structured spirals and ellipticals.

Irregular galaxies are similar to each other, but unique and beautiful because of their different interactions, whether they’re just passing another galaxy or taking part in a dramatic collision. Keep up with NASA Universe on Facebook and Twitter where we post regularly about galaxies.

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Stars, Sea, and Smoke from the ISS: Tournament Earth 2021

We started Tournament Earth with 32 photos taken by astronauts from the Interantional Space Station and now we are down to 8. All of the #1 seeds are gone. Two #8 seeds are dominating their groups. Who will win? Let's take a closer look at the competitors still in the game. Then remember to vote for your favorites. The champion will be announced on April 13, 2021.

Stars in Motion vs. Cleveland Volcano

This matchup pits smoke against stars, but both have interesting stories.

The International Space Station (ISS) is constantly in motion. For astronaut photographers on board, that motion has consequences. For one, it makes it challenging to take photos. The same motion makes it possible to shoot spectacular photos like the one above. The image is compiled from a series of photographs taken by astronaut Don Pettit while he was onboard the ISS in April 2012. This composite was made from more than 72 individual long-exposure photographs taken over several minutes as the ISS traveled over the Caribbean Sea, across South America, and over the South Atlantic Ocean.

Astronaut Jeff Williams was the first to witness activity at the Cleveland Volcano on May 3, 2006. The Cleveland Volcano is one of the most active in the Aleutian Islands, which extend west-southwest from the Alaska mainland. It is a stratovolcano composed of alternating layers of hardened lava, compacted volcanic ash, and volcanic rocks. The event proved to be short-lived; two hours later, the plume had completely detached from the volcano. The ash cloud height could have been as high as 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) above sea level.

Stargazing from the ISS vs. Cruising Past the Aurora Borealis

This is the most stellar matchup of the tournament, literally. Two beloved star pictures face off in what will be one of the most difficult choices of the tournament.

An astronaut took this broad, short-lens photograph of Earth’s night lights while looking out over the remote reaches of the central equatorial Pacific Ocean. The ISS was passing over the island nation of Kiribati at the time, about 2600 kilometers (1,600 miles) south of Hawaii. Scientists identified the pattern of stars in the photo as our Milky Way galaxy (looking toward its center). The dark patches are dense dust clouds in an inner spiral arm of our galaxy; such clouds can block our view of stars toward the center. The curvature of the Earth crosses the center of the image and is illuminated by a variety of airglow layers in orange, green, and red.

Commonly known as the northern lights, these colorful ribbons of light appear to dance in the sky over the planet’s high latitudes, attracting sky chasers and photographers. Astronaut Randy “Komrade” Bresnik shot this photograph on September 15, 2017, as the space station passed over Ontario, Canada. Curtains of green—the most familiar color of auroras—dominate the light show, with hints of purple and red.

Rolling Through the Appalachians vs. Castellanus Cloud Tower

The Susquehanna River cuts through the folds of the Valley-and-Ridge province of the Appalachian Mountains in this photograph taken from the International Space Station by astronaut Christina Koch. The Valley-and-Ridge province is a section of the larger Appalachian Mountain Belt between the Appalachian Plateau and the Blue Ridge physiographic provinces. The northeast-southwest trending ridges are composed of Early Paleozoic sedimentary rocks. The valleys between them were made of softer rocks (limestone and shales) that were more susceptible to erosion; they are now occupied by farms.

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photograph of a massive vertical cloud formation—known to meteorologists as cumulus castellanus—above Andros Island. The cloud name castellanus comes from the similarity to the crenellated towers or turrets of medieval castles. These clouds develop due to strong vertical air movement typically associated with thunderstorms.

Lake Van, Turkey vs. Typhoon Maysak from the Space Station

While orbiting on the International Space Station, astronaut Kate Rubins shot this photograph of part of Lake Van in Turkey, the largest soda or alkaline lake on Earth. Generally, soda lakes are distinguished by high concentrations of carbonate species. Lake Van is an endorheic lake—it has no outlet, so its water disappears by evaporation—with a pH of 10 and high salinity levels.

This photograph of super typhoon Maysak was taken by European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti as the International Space Station passed near the storm on March 31, 2015. The category 4 typhoon was headed for a possible landfall in the Philippines by the end of the week. It was unusual for the western Pacific to see such a strong storm so early in the year.

See all of the images and vote HERE. Follow @NASAEarth on social media for updates.

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6 Ways NASA is Involved in Climate Science

When it comes to climate change, we play a unique role in observing and understanding changes to the planet. Thanks to NASA’s Earth observations and related research, we know our planet and its climate are changing profoundly. We also know human activities, like releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, are driving this change.

Not only do we make these observations, we help people and groups use this knowledge to benefit society. The work we do at NASA is critical to helping us understand the ways our planet is responding to increased temperatures.

Here are 6 ways that we are involved in climate science and informing decisions:

1. Monitoring Earth’s vital signs

Just like a doctor checks your vitals when you go in for a visit, here at NASA we are constantly monitoring Earth’s vital signs - carbon dioxide levels, global temperature, Arctic sea ice minimum, the ice sheets and sea level, and more.

We use satellites in space, observations from airplanes and ships, and data collected on the ground to understand our planet and its changing climate. Scientists also use computers to model and understand what's happening now and what might happen in the future.

People who study Earth see that the planet’s climate is getting warmer. Earth's temperature has gone up more than 1 degree Celsius (~2 degrees Fahrenheit) in the last 100 years. This may not seem like much, but small changes in Earth's temperature can have big effects. The current warming trend is of particular significance, because it is predominantly the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and is proceeding at an unprecedented rate.

People drive cars. People heat and cool their houses. People cook food. All those things take energy. Human-produced greenhouse gas emissions are largely responsible for warming our planet. Burning fossil fuels -- which includes coal, oil, and natural gas -- releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where they act like an insulating blanket and trap heat near Earth’s surface.

At NASA, we use satellites and instruments on board the International Space Station to confirm measurements of atmospheric carbon levels. They’ve been increasing much faster than any other time in history.

2. Tracking global land use and its impacts 

We also monitor and track global land use. Currently, half the world's population lives in urban areas, and by 2025, the United Nations projects that number will rise to 60%. 

With so many people living and moving to metropolitan areas, the scientific world recognizes the need to study and understand the impacts of urban growth both locally and globally. 

The International Space Station helps with this effort to monitor Earth. Its position in low-Earth orbit provides variable views and lighting over more than 90% of the inhabited surface of Earth, a useful complement to sensor systems on satellites in higher-altitude polar orbits. This high-resolution imaging of land and sea allows tracking of urban and forest growth, monitoring of hurricanes and volcanic eruptions, documenting of melting glaciers and deforestation, understanding how agriculture may be impacted by water stress, and measuring carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere.

3. Research into the causes of climate change

Being able to monitor Earth’s climate from space also allows us to understand what’s driving these changes.

With the CERES instruments, which fly on multiple Earth satellites, our scientists measure the Earth’s planetary energy balance – the amount of energy Earth receives from the Sun and how much it radiates back to space. Over time, less energy being radiated back to space is evidence of an increase in Earth’s greenhouse effect. Human emissions of greenhouse gases are trapping more and more heat.

NASA scientists also use computer models to simulate changes in Earth’s climate as a result of  human and natural drivers of temperature change.

These simulations show that human activities such as greenhouse gas emissions, along with natural factors, are necessary to simulate the changes in Earth’s climate that we have observed; natural forces alone can’t do so.

4. Research into the effects of climate change

Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers and ice sheets have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted, and trees are flowering sooner.

The effects of global climate change that scientists predicted are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.

Climate modelers have predicted that, as the planet warms, Earth will experience more severe heat waves and droughts, larger and more extreme wildfires, and longer and more intense hurricane seasons on average. The events of 2020 are consistent with what models have predicted: extreme climate events are more likely because of greenhouse gas emissions.

Plants are also struggling to keep up with rising carbon dioxide levels. Plants play a key role in mitigating climate change. The more carbon dioxide they absorb during photosynthesis, the less carbon dioxide  remains trapped in the atmosphere where it can cause temperatures to rise. But scientists have identified an unsettling trend – 86% of land ecosystems globally are becoming progressively less efficient at absorbing the increasing levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Helping organizations to use all the data and knowledge NASA generates is another part of our job. We’ve helped South Dakota fight West Nile Virus, helped managers across the Western U.S. handle water, helped The Nature Conservancy protect land for shorebirds, and others. We also support developing countries as they work to address climate and other challenges through a 15-year partnership with the United States Agency for International Development.

5. Action on sustainability

Sustainability involves taking action now to enable a future where the environment and living conditions are protected and enhanced. We work with many government, nonprofit, and business partners to use our data and modeling to inform their decisions and actions. We are also working to advance technologies for more efficient flight, including hybrid-electric propulsion, advanced materials, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. 

These advances in research and technology will not only bring about positive changes to the climate and the world in which we live, but they will also drive the economic engine of America and our partners in industry, to remain the world-wide leader in flight development.  

We partner with the private sector to facilitate the transfer of our research and NASA-developed technologies. Many innovations originally developed for use in the skies above help make life more sustainable on Earth. For example:

Our Earth-observing satellites help farmers produce more with less water.

Expertise in rocket engineering led to a technique that lessens the environmental impact of burning coal.

A fuel cell that runs equipment at oil wells reduces the need to vent greenhouse gases.

6. Applying climate research to preserve NASA centers in coastal areas

Sea level rise in the two-thirds of Earth covered by water may jeopardize up to two-thirds of NASA's infrastructure built within mere feet of sea level.

Some NASA centers and facilities are located in coastal real estate because the shoreline is a safer, less inhabited surrounding for launching rockets. But now these launch pads, laboratories, airfields, and testing facilities are potentially at risk because of sea level rise. We’ve worked internally at NASA to identify climate risks and support planning at our centers.

NASA Climate Science

Climate change is one of the most complex issues facing us today. It involves many dimensions – science, economics, society, politics, and moral and ethical questions – and is a global problem, felt on local scales, that will be around for decades and centuries to come. With our Eyes on the Earth and wealth of knowledge on the Earth’s climate system and its components, we are one of the world’s experts in climate science.

Visit our Climate site to explore and learn more.

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New Rose-Colored Glasses for the Roman Space Telescope

Big news for our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope! Thanks to some new “shades” – an infrared filter that will help us see longer wavelengths of light – the mission will be able to spot water ice on objects in the outer solar system, see deeper into clouds of gas and dust, and peer farther across space. We’re gearing up for some super exciting discoveries!

Rocks on the rocks

You probably know that our solar system includes planets, the Sun, and the asteroid belt in between Mars and Jupiter – but did you know there’s another ‘belt’ of small objects out past Neptune? It’s called the Kuiper belt, and it’s home to icy bodies that were left over from when our solar system formed.

A lot of the objects there are like cosmic fossils – they haven’t changed much since they formed billions of years ago. Using its new filter, Roman will be able to see how much water ice they have because the ice absorbs specific wavelengths of infrared light, providing a “fingerprint” of its presence. This will give us a window into the solar system’s early days.

Upgraded heat vision

Clouds of dust and gas drift throughout our galaxy, sometimes blocking our view of the stars behind them. It’s hard for visible light to penetrate this dusty haze because the particles are the same size or even larger than the light’s wavelength. Since infrared light travels in longer waves, it hardly notices the tiny particles and can pass more easily through dusty regions.

With Roman’s new filter, we’ll be able to see through much thicker dust clouds than we could have without the upgrade. It’ll be much easier to study the structure of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

Roman’s expanded view will also help us learn more about brown dwarfs – objects that are more massive than planets, but not massive enough to light up like stars. The mission will find them near the heart of the galaxy, where stars explode more often.

These star explosions, called supernovae, are so extreme that they create and disperse new elements. So near the center of the galaxy, there should be higher amounts of elements that aren’t as common farther away, where supernovae don’t happen as often.

Astronomers think that may affect how stars and planets form. Using the new filter, Roman will probe the composition of brown dwarfs to help us understand more.

Baby galaxies

Roman’s upgraded filter will also help us see farther across space. As light travels through our expanding universe, its wavelength becomes stretched. The longer it travels before reaching us, the longer its wavelength becomes. Roman will be able to see so far back that we could glimpse some of the first stars and galaxies that ever formed. Their light will be so stretched that it will mostly arrive as infrared instead of visible light.

We’re still not sure how the very first galaxies formed because we’ve found so few of these super rare and faint beasts. But Roman will have such a big view of the universe and sharp enough vision that it could help us find a lot more of them. Then astronomers can zoom in on them with missions like our James Webb Space Telescope for a closer look.

Roman will help us explore these cosmic questions and many more! Learn more about the mission here: https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/

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One Step Closer to the Moon with the Artemis Program! 🌙

The past couple of weeks have been packed with milestones for our Artemis program — the program that will land the first woman and the next man on the Moon!

Artemis I will be an integrated, uncrewed test of the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket before we send crewed flights to the Moon.

On March 2, 2021, we completed stacking the twin SLS solid rocket boosters for the Artemis I mission. Over several weeks, workers with NASA's Exploration Ground Systems used one of five massive cranes to place 10 booster segments and nose assemblies on the mobile launcher inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.

On March 18, 2021, we completed our Green Run hot fire test for the SLS core stage at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The core stage includes the flight computers, four RS-25 engines, and enormous propellant tanks that hold more than 700,000 gallons of super cold propellant. The test successfully ignited the core stage and produced 1.6 million pounds of thrust. The next time the core stage lights up will be when Artemis I launches on its mission to the Moon!

In coming days, engineers will examine the data and determine if the stage is ready to be refurbished, prepared for shipment, and delivered to KSC where it will be integrated with the twin solid rocket boosters and the other rocket elements.

We are a couple steps closer to landing boots on the Moon!

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Vote for Your Favorite Astronaut Picture: Tournament Earth 2021

It is that time of year again…Tournament Earth is back! This year, NASA Earth Observatory has chosen a new theme for the tournament: astronaut photography. Choose your favorite image here.

For more than 20 years, astronauts have been shooting photos of Earth from the International Space Station that highlight the planet’s beauty, complexity, and vulnerabilities. So which are the most unforgettable ones? Over the next five weeks (March 8-April 13), you can help decide.

How can you get involved? It's easy as 1…2…3!

1. Read and Vote.

Not sure which image to vote for because they are ALL so captivating? Read the intriguing stories behind the images to help you decide! You can access the stories by clicking on the image headlines on the voting page: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/tournament-earth

For instance, the Stars in Motion image is actually a compilation of 72 photographs. And some of the night lights around Bangkok, Thailand, actually show fishing boats as well as city lights.

2. Fill out your bracket.

Think you know which photo will win it all? Fill out a #TournamentEarth bracket with your predictions and challenge friends! Then share your predictions with NASAEarth on our blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or right here on Tumblr!

We can't offer a trip to the Moon, but bragging rights are forever if you can pick the champion. Download a more print-friendly version of the bracket here.

3. View the results…and vote again!

Tournament Earth will have five rounds, and round one is currently underway. Voting for the following rounds begins on Tuesdays and will be open for six days. We will update our social media channels (including right here on Tumblr!) with the newest matchups. Check this space to see how your favorite images did. Then vote until we crown a champion on April 13, 2021.

See all of the images and vote HERE. Follow @NASAEarth on social media for updates.

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Here’s What You Need to Know About Near-Earth Objects

Our solar system is littered with asteroids and comets, and sometimes they get a little close to Earth. But no need to worry! This happens all the time. When an asteroid or comet could come close to our planet, it’s known as a near-Earth object – aka NEO.

But how close is “close”?

A near-Earth object is defined as an object that could pass by our Earth within 30 million miles. We begin to keep close watch on objects that could pass within 5 million miles of our planet.

To put that into perspective, our Moon is only 238,900 miles away.

However unlikely an impact is, we want to know about all near-Earth objects. Our Planetary Defense Coordination Office maintains watch for asteroids and comets coming close to Earth. Along with our partners, we discover, catalog and characterize these bodies.

But what if one of these objects posed a threat?

We want to be prepared. That is why we are working on several deflection techniques and technologies to help protect our planet.

So next time that you hear of an asteroid passing “close” to Earth, know that it’s just one of many that we are tracking.

Here are 10 more things you should know about Planetary Defense.

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Galaxies: Cities of Stars

Galaxies are like cities made of oodles of stars, gas, and dust bound together by gravity. These beautiful cosmic structures come in many shapes and sizes. Though there are a slew of galaxies in the universe, there are only a few we can see with the unaided eye or backyard telescope.

How many types are out there, how’d so many of them wind up with weird names, and how many stars live inside them? Hold tight while we explore these cosmic metropolises.

Galaxies come in lots of different shapes, sizes, and colors. But astronomers have noticed that there are mainly three types: spiral, elliptical, and irregular.

Spiral galaxies, like our very own Milky Way, look similar to pinwheels! These galaxies tend to have a bulging center heavily populated by stars, with elongated, sparser arms of dust and stars that wrap around it. Usually, there’s a huge black hole hiding at the center, like the Milky Way’s Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star). Our galactic neighbor, Andromeda (also known as Messier 31 or M31), is also a spiral galaxy!

Elliptical galaxies tend to be smooth spheres of gas, dust, and stars. Like spiral galaxies, their centers are typically bulges surrounded by a halo of stars (but minus the epic spiral arms). The stars in these galaxies tend to be spread out neatly throughout the galaxies and are some of the oldest stars in the universe! Messier 87 (M87) is one example of an elliptical galaxy. The supermassive black hole at its center was recently imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope.

Irregular galaxies are, well … a bit strange. They have one-of-a-kind shapes, and many just look like messy blobs. Astronomers think that irregular galaxies' uniqueness is a result of interactions with other galaxies, like collisions! Galaxies are so big, with so much distance between their stars, that even when they collide, their stars usually do not. Galaxy collisions have been important to the formation of our Milky Way and others. When two galaxies collide, clouds of gas, dust, and stars are violently thrown around, forming an entirely new, larger one! This could be the cause of some irregular galaxies seen today.

Now that we know the different types of galaxies, what about how many stars they contain? Galaxies can come in lots of different sizes, even among each type. Dwarf galaxies, the smallest version of spiral, elliptical, and irregular galaxies, are usually made up of 1,000 to billions of stars. Compared to our Milky Way’s 200 to 400 billion stars, the dwarf galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud is tiny, with just a few hundred million stars! IC 1101, on the other hand, is one of the largest elliptical galaxies found so far, containing almost 100 trillion stars.

Ever wondered how galaxies get their names? Astronomers have a number of ways to name galaxies, like the constellations we see them in or what we think they resemble. Some even have multiple names!

A more formal way astronomers name galaxies is with two-part designations based on astronomical catalogs, published collections of astronomical objects observed by specific astronomers, observatories, or spacecraft. These give us cryptic names like M51 or Swift J0241.3-0816. Catalog names usually have two parts:

A letter, word, or short acronym that identifies a specific astronomical catalog.

A sequence of numbers and/or letters that uniquely identify the galaxy within that catalog.

For M51, the “M” comes from the Messier catalog, which Charles Messier started compiling in 1771, and the "51" is because it’s the 51st entry in that catalog. Swift J0241.3-0816 is a galaxy observed by the Swift satellite, and the numbers refer to its location in the sky, similar to latitude and longitude on Earth.

There’s your quick intro to galaxies, but there’s much more to learn about them. Keep up with NASA Universe on Facebook and Twitter where we post regularly about galaxies.

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Local D.C. Artists Celebrate Mary W. Jackson's Legacy

On June 24, 2020, NASA announced the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., was to be named after Mary W. Jackson to celebrate her life and legacy. We collaborated with Events DC to create artwork inspired by Jackson’s story as the agency’s first Black female engineer.

Take a look at how six local female artists interpreted Jackson’s place in history through their individual creative lenses.

1. Trap Bob

“To see Mary [W.] Jackson be so successful and to get the recognition that she deserves, it hits home for me in a couple ways.”

Tenbeete Solomon AKA Trap Bob is a visual artist, illustrator, and animator based in Washington, D.C.

“Art is so important across the board because it’s really a form of documentation,” says Trap Bob. “It’s creating a form of a history… that’s coming from the true essence of what people feel in the communities.”

2. Jamilla Okubo

“People can relate to things that may seem foreign to them through imagery.”

Jamilla Okubo is an interdisciplinary artist exploring the intricacies of belonging to an American, Kenyan, and Trinidadian identity.

“I wanted to create a piece that represented and celebrated and honored Mary [W.] Jackson, to remember the work that she did,” says Okubo.

3. Tracie Ching

“This is a figure who actually looks like us, represents us.”

Tracie Ching is an artist and self-taught illustrator working in Washington, D.C.

“The heroes and the figures that we had presented to us as kids didn’t ever look like me or my friends or the vast majority of the people around me,” says Ching.

4. Jennifer White-Johnson

"To be even a Black artist making artwork about space — it’s because of her triumphs and her legacy that she left behind.”

Jennifer White-Johnson is an Afro-Latina, disabled designer, educator, and activist whose work explores the intersection of content and caregiving with an emphasis on redesigning ableist visual culture.

“My piece is… a take on autistic joy because my son is autistic," says White-Johnson. "And I really just wanted to show him… in a space where we often don’t see Black disabled kids being amplified.”

5. Kimchi Juice

“In my art, I try to highlight really strong and empowering women."

Julia Chon, better known by her moniker “Kimchi Juice,” is a Washington, D.C.-based artist and muralist.

“As minority women, we are too often overlooked and under recognized for the work and time that we give," says Kimchi Juice. "And so to see Mary W. Jackson finally being given this recognition is fulfilling to me.”

6. OG Lullabies

“I wanted when one listens to it, to feel like there is no limit.”

OG Lullabies is a Washington D.C. songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, including violin and electronics.

“When you look back at history… art is the color or the sound in the emotions that encapsulated the moment,” says OG Lullabies. “It’s the real human experience that happens as time passes.”

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Who Was Mary W. Jackson?

On June 24, 2020, NASA announced the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., was to be named after Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA.

Jackson’s story — along with those of her colleagues Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Christine Darden — was popularized with the release of the “Hidden Figures” movie, based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s book by the same name.

Today, as the accomplishments of these women are brought to light, we celebrate them as Modern Figures — hidden no longer. Despite their recent recognition, we cannot forget the challenges that women and BIPOC faced and continue to face in the STEM fields.

Background

Jackson showed talent for math and science at an early age. She was born in 1921 in Hampton, Virginia, and attended the all-Black George P. Phenix Training School where she graduated with honors. She graduated from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in 1942 with a bachelor of science degree in both mathematics and physical sciences.

Jackson worked several jobs before arriving at the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), the precursor organization to NASA. She was a teacher, a receptionist, and a bookkeeper — in addition to becoming a mother — before accepting a position with the NACA Langley Aeronautical Laboratory’s segregated West Area Computers in 1951, where her supervisor was Dorothy Vaughan.

Accomplishments 

After two years in West Computing, Jackson was offered a computing position to work in the 4-foot by 4-foot Supersonic Pressure Tunnel. She was also encouraged to enter a training program that would put her on track to become an engineer — however, she needed special permission from the City of Hampton to take classes in math and physics at then-segregated Hampton High School.

She completed the courses, earned the promotion, and in 1958 became NASA’s first African-American female engineer. That same year, she co-authored her first report, “Effects of Nose Angle and Mach Number on Transition on Cones at Supersonic Speeds.” By 1975, she had authored or co-authored 12 NACA and NASA technical publications — most focused on the behavior of the boundary layer of air around an airplane.

Legacy

Jackson eventually became frustrated with the lack of management opportunities for women in her field. In 1979, she left engineering to become NASA Langley’s Federal Women’s Program Manager to increase the hiring and promotion of NASA’s female mathematicians, engineers, and scientists.

Not only was she devoted to her career, Jackson was also committed to the advancement of her community. In the 1970s, she helped the students in the Hampton King Street Community Center build their own wind tunnel and run experiments. She and her husband Levi took in young professionals in need of guidance. She was also a Girl Scout troop leader for more than three decades.  

Jackson retired from Langley in 1985. Never accepting the status quo, she dedicated her life to breaking barriers for minorities in her field. Her legacy reminds us that inclusion and diversity are needed to live up to NASA’s core values of teamwork and excellence.

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You’re Always Surrounded by Neutrinos!

This second, as you’re reading these words, trillions of tiny particles are hurtling toward you! No, you don’t need to brace yourself. They’re passing through you right now. And now. And now. These particles are called neutrinos, and they’re both everywhere in the cosmos and also extremely hard to find.

Neutrinos are fundamental particles, like electrons, so they can’t be broken down into smaller parts. They also outnumber all the atoms in the universe. (Atoms are made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons. Protons and neutrons are made of quarks … which maybe we’ll talk about another time.) The only thing that outnumbers neutrinos are all the light waves left over from the birth of the universe! 

Credit: Photo courtesy of the Pauli Archive, CERN

Physicist Wolfgang Pauli proposed the existence of the neutrino, nearly a century ago. Enrico Fermi coined the name, which means “little neutral one” in Italian, because these particles have no electrical charge and nearly no mass.

Despite how many there are, neutrinos are really hard to study. They travel at almost the speed of light and rarely interact with other matter. Out of the universe’s four forces, ghostly neutrinos are only affected by gravity and the weak force. The weak force is about 10,000 times weaker than the electromagnetic force, which affects electrically charged particles. Because neutrinos carry no charge, move almost as fast as light, and don’t interact easily with other matter, they can escape some really bizarre and extreme places where even light might struggle getting out – like dying stars!

Through the weak force, neutrinos interact with other tiny fundamental particles: electrons, muons [mew-ons], and taus [rhymes with “ow”]. (These other particles are also really cool, but for right now, you just need to know that they’re there.) Scientists actually never detect neutrinos directly. Instead they find signals from these other particles. So they named the three types, or flavors, of neutrinos after them.

Neutrinos are made up of each of these three flavors, but cycle between them as they travel. Imagine going to the store to buy rocky road ice cream, which is made of chocolate ice cream, nuts, and marshmallows. When you get home, you find that it’s suddenly mostly marshmallows. Then in your bowl it’s mostly nuts. But when you take a bite, it’s just chocolate! That’s a little bit like what happens to neutrinos as they zoom through the cosmos.

Credit: CERN

On Earth, neutrinos are produced when unstable atoms decay, which happens in the planet’s core and nuclear reactors. (The first-ever neutrino detection happened in a nuclear reactor in 1955!) They’re also created by particle accelerators and high-speed particle collisions in the atmosphere. (Also, interestingly, the potassium in a banana emits neutrinos – but no worries, bananas are perfectly safe to eat!)

Most of the neutrinos around Earth come from the Sun – about 65 billion every second for every square centimeter. These are produced in the Sun’s core where the immense pressure squeezes together hydrogen to produce helium. This process, called nuclear fusion, creates the energy that makes the Sun shine, as well as neutrinos.

The first neutrinos scientists detected from outside the Milky Way were from SN 1987A, a supernova that occurred only 168,000 light-years away in a neighboring galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. (That makes it one of the closest supernovae scientists have observed.) The light from this explosion reached us in 1987, so it was the first supernova modern astronomers were able to study in detail. The neutrinos actually arrived a few hours before the light from the explosion because of the forces we talked about earlier. The particles escape the star’s core before any of the other effects of the collapse ripple to the surface. Then they travel in pretty much a straight line – all because they don’t interact with other matter very much.

Credit: Martin Wolf, IceCube/NSF

How do we detect particles that are so tiny and fast – especially when they rarely interact with other matter? Well, the National Science Foundation decided to bury a bunch of detectors in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice to create the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The neutrinos interact with other particles in the ice through the weak force and turn into muons, electrons, and taus. The new particles gain the neutrinos’ speed and actually travel faster than light in the ice, which produces a particular kind of radiation IceCube can detect. (Although they would still be slower than light in the vacuum of space.)

In 2013, IceCube first detected high-energy neutrinos, which have energies up to 1,000 times greater than those produced by Earth’s most powerful particle collider. But scientists were puzzled about where exactly these particles came from. Then, in 2017, IceCube detected a high-energy neutrino from a monster black hole powering a high-speed particle jet at a galaxy’s center billions of light-years away. It was accompanied by a flash of gamma rays, the highest energy form of light.

But particle jets aren’t the only place we can find these particles. Scientists recently announced that another high-energy neutrino came from a black hole shredding an unlucky star that strayed too close. The event didn’t produce the neutrino when or how scientists expected, though, so they’ve still got a lot to learn about these mysterious particles!

Keep up with other exciting announcements about our universe by following NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook.

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