Normal Things…Done In A Not So Normal Way

Our Cassini spacecraft has been traveling in space for almost 20 years, exploring Saturn, its rings and even some of its moons. This mission has revealed never-before-seen events that are changing our understanding of how planetary systems form and what conditions might lead to habitats for life.

Cassini will complete its remarkable story of exploration with an intentional plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, ending its mission.  

Participate in our Grand Finale Events

Wednesday, Sept. 13

1 p.m. EDT – News Conference from our Jet Propulsion Laboratory with a detailed preview of final mission activities Watch HERE.

Thursday, Sept 14

4:00 - 5:00 p.m. EDT - NASA Social Live Broadcast with mission experts Watch HERE.

Friday, Sept. 15

7:00 – 8:30 a.m. EDT – Live commentary on NASA TV and online of the spacecraft’s final dive into Saturn’s atmosphere. Watch HERE.

Around 8:00 a.m. EDT – Expected time of last signal and science data from Cassini Watch HERE.

9:30 a.m. EDT – Post-mission news conference Watch HERE.

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Sixteen Images for Spitzer's Sweet 16! 🎂

We launched our Spitzer Space Telescope into orbit around the Sunday on Aug. 25, 2003. Since then, the observatory has been lifting the veil on the wonders of the cosmos, from our own solar system to faraway galaxies, using infrared light.

Thanks to Spitzer, scientists were able to confirm the presence of seven rocky, Earth-size planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. The telescope has also provided weather maps of hot, gaseous exoplanets and revealed a hidden ring around Saturn. It has illuminated hidden collections of dust in a wide variety of locations, including cosmic nebulas (clouds of gas and dust in space), where young stars form, and swirling galaxies. Spitzer has additionally investigated some of the universe's oldest galaxies and stared at the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. 

In honor of Spitzer's Sweet 16 in space, here are 16 amazing images from the mission.

Giant Star Makes Waves

This Spitzer image shows the giant star Zeta Ophiuchi and the bow shock, or shock wave, in front of it. Visible only in infrared light, the bow shock is created by winds that flow from the star, making ripples in the surrounding dust.

The Seven Sisters Pose for Spitzer

The Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters, is a frequent target for night sky observers. This image from Spitzer zooms in on a few members of the sisterhood. The filaments surrounding the stars are dust, and the three colors represent different wavelengths of infrared light.

Young Stars in Their Baby Blanket of Dust

Newborn stars peek out from beneath their blanket of dust in this image of the Rho Ophiuchi nebula. Called "Rho Oph" by astronomers and located about 400 light-years from Earth, it's one of the closest star-forming regions to our own solar system.

The youngest stars in this image are surrounded by dusty disks of material from which the stars — and their potential planetary systems — are forming. More evolved stars, which have shed their natal material, are blue.

The Infrared Helix

Located about 700 light-years from Earth, the eye-like Helix nebula is a planetary nebula, or the remains of a Sun-like star. When these stars run out of their internal fuel supply, their outer layers puff up to create the nebula. Our Sun will blossom into a planetary nebula when it dies in about 5 billion years.

The Tortured Clouds of Eta Carinae

The bright star at the center of this image is Eta Carinae, one of the most massive stars in the Milky Way galaxy. With around 100 times the mass of the Sun and at least 1 million times the brightness, Eta Carinae releases a tremendous outflow of energy that has eroded the surrounding nebula.

Spitzer Spies Spectacular Sombrero

Located 28 million light-years from Earth, Messier 104 — also called the Sombrero galaxy or M104 — is notable for its nearly edge-on orientation as seen from our planet. Spitzer observations were the first to reveal the smooth, bright ring of dust (seen in red) circling the galaxy.

Spiral Galaxy Messier 81

This infrared image of the galaxy Messier 81, or M81, reveals lanes of dust illuminated by active star formation throughout the galaxy's spiral arms. Located in the northern constellation of Ursa Major (which includes the Big Dipper), M81 is also about 12 million light-years from Earth.

Spitzer Reveals Stellar Smoke

Messier 82 — also known as the Cigar galaxy or M82 — is a hotbed of young, massive stars. In visible light, it appears as a diffuse bar of blue light, but in this infrared image, scientists can see huge red clouds of dust blown out into space by winds and radiation from those stars.

A Pinwheel Galaxy Rainbow

This image of Messier 101, also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy or M101, combines data in the infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-rays from Spitzer and three other NASA space telescopes: Hubble, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer's Far Ultraviolet detector (GALEX) and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The galaxy is about 70% larger than our own Milky Way, with a diameter of about 170,000 light-years, and sits at a distance of 21 million light-years from Earth. Read more about its colors here.

Cartwheel Galaxy Makes Waves

Approximately 100 million years ago, a smaller galaxy plunged through the heart of the Cartwheel galaxy, creating ripples of brief star formation. As with the Pinwheel galaxy above, this composite image includes data from NASA's Spitzer, Hubble, GALEX and Chandra observatories.

The first ripple appears as a bright blue outer ring around the larger object, radiating ultraviolet light visible to GALEX. The clumps of pink along the outer blue ring are X-ray (observed by Chandra) and ultraviolet radiation.

Spitzer and Hubble Create Colorful Masterpiece

Located 1,500 light-years from Earth, the Orion nebula is the brightest spot in the sword of the constellation Orion. Four massive stars, collectively called the Trapezium, appear as a yellow smudge near the image center. Visible and ultraviolet data from Hubble appear as swirls of green that indicate the presence of gas heated by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium's stars. Less-embedded stars appear as specks of green, and foreground stars as blue spots. Meanwhile, Spitzer's infrared view exposes carbon-rich molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, shown here as wisps of red and orange. Orange-yellow dots are infant stars deeply embedded in cocoons of dust and gas.

A Space Spider Watches Over Young Stars

Located about 10,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Auriga, the Spider nebula resides in the outer part of the Milky Way. Combining data from Spitzer and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), the image shows green clouds of dust illuminated by star formation in the region.

North America Nebula in Different Lights

This view of the North America nebula combines visible light collected by the Digitized Sky Survey with infrared light from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Blue hues represent visible light, while infrared is displayed as red and green. Clusters of young stars (about 1 million years old) can be found throughout the image.

Spitzer Captures Our Galaxy's Bustling Center

This infrared mosaic offers a stunning view of the Milky Way galaxy's busy center. The pictured region, located in the Sagittarius constellation, is 900 light-years agross and shows hundreds of thousands of mostly old stars amid clouds of glowing dust lit up by younger, more massive stars. Our Sun is located 26,000 light-years away in a more peaceful, spacious neighborhood, out in the galactic suburbs.

The Eternal Life of Stardust

The Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located about 160,000 light-years from Earth, looks like a choppy sea of dust in this infrared portrait. The blue color, seen most prominently in the central bar, represents starlight from older stars. The chaotic, bright regions outside this bar are filled with hot, massive stars buried in thick blankets of dust.

A Stellar Family Portrait

In this large celestial mosaic from Spitzer, there's a lot to see, including multiple clusters of stars born from the same dense clumps of gas and dust. The grand green-and-orange delta filling most of the image is a faraway nebula. The bright white region at its tip is illuminated by massive stars, and dust that has been heated by the stars' radiation creates the surrounding red glow.

Managed by our Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Spitzer's primary mission lasted five-and-a-half years and ended when it ran out of the liquid helium coolant necessary to operate two of its three instruments. But, its passive-cooling design has allowed part of its third instrument to continue operating for more than 10 additional years. The mission is scheduled to end on Jan. 30, 2020.

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What's your opinion on astronaut food?

Houston, We Have a Launch!

Today, three new crew members will launch to the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Jeff Williams, along with Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka, are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:26 p.m. EDT. The three Expedition 47 crew members will travel in a Soyuz spacecraft, rendezvousing with the space station six hours after launch.

Traveling to the International Space Station is an exciting moment for any astronaut. But what if you we’re launching to orbit AND knew that you were going to break some awesome records while you were up there? This is exactly what’s happening for astronaut Jeff Williams.

This is a significant mission for Williams, as he will become the new American record holder for cumulative days in space (with 534) during his six months on orbit. The current record holder is astronaut Scott Kelly, who just wrapped up his one-year mission on March 1.

On June 4, Williams will take command of the station for Expedition 48. This will mark his third space station expedition…which is yet another record!

Want to Watch the Launch?

You can! Live coverage will begin at 4:30 p.m. EDT on NASA Television, with launch at 5:26 p.m.

Tune in again at 10:30 p.m. to watch as the Soyuz spacecraft docks to the space station’s Poisk module at 11:12 p.m.

Hatch opening coverage will begin at 12:30 a.m., with the crew being greeted around 12:55 a.m.

NASA Television: https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Follow Williams on Social!

Astronaut Jeff Williams will be documenting his time on orbit, and you can follow along on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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

Urban Growth of New Delhi

The capital of India, New Delhi, has been experiencing one of the fastest urban expansions in the world. Vast areas of croplands and grasslands are being turned into streets, buildings, and parking lots, attracting an unprecedented amount of new residents. By 2050, the United Nations projects India will add 400 million urban dwellers, which would be the largest urban migration in the world for the thirty-two year period.

These images show the growth in the city of New Delhi and its adjacent areas—a territory collectively known as Delhi—from December 5, 1989 to June 5, 2018. 

Most of the expansion in Delhi has occurred on the peripheries of New Delhi, as rural areas have become more urban. The geographic size of Delhi has almost doubled from 1991 to 2011, with the number of urban households doubling while the number of rural houses declined by half. Cities outside of Delhi—Bahadurgarh, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, and Gurugram—have also experienced urban growth over the past three decades, as shown in these images.

Read more: https://go.nasa.gov/2y32G7h

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

This week, we celebrate the fifth anniversary of the moment our Mars Science Laboratory mission landed the Curiosity rover in Gale Crater. 

In fact, this summer brings several red letter days in Red Planet exploration. Here are 10 things to know about the anniversary of the Curiosity landing—plus some other arrivals at Mars you may not know about.

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at a drilled sample site called "Okoruso," on the "Naukluft Plateau" of lower Mount Sharp. The scene combines multiple images taken with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on May 11, 2016. Credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS

1. Seven Minutes of Terror 

For Curiosity, landing on Mars meant slowing from about 13,000 MPH (21,000 KPH) to a full stop in just seven minutes. Engineers came up with an innovative--and bold--plan to make this happen, but no one could be 100% certain it would work. In this video, some of the Curiosity engineers who designed the entry, descent and landing system for the mission talk candidly about the challenges of Curiosity's final moments before touchdown in August 2012.

2. Sweet Success 

Relive the tension, and the celebration, of the night Curiosity landed on Mars. You can also simulate the entire landing process in 3-D on your own computer using NASA's free Eyes on the Solar System app.

3. Echoes of Ancient Waters 

What has Curiosity discovered during its roving so far? The key takeaway: the stark deserts of Gale Crater were once home to lakes and streams of liquid water, a place where life could potentially have thrived. Learn more about the mission's scientific findings.

4. Pretty as a Postcard

Sometimes science can be beautiful, as pictures from Mars prove. You can peruse some of Curiosity's best shots. What's more, you can see the very latest images—often on the same day they're downlinked from Mars.

5. Take It for a Spin

Have you ever wanted to try driving a Mars rover yourself? You can (virtually anyway). Try the Experience Curiosity app right in your web browser.

6. Mars Trekking 

Maybe someday you'll be able to take a day hike across the Martian landscape. You can at least plan your route right now, using NASA's Mars Trek site. This interactive mapping tool lets you explore important Red Planet locations using actual terrain imagery from orbiting satellites. You can even retrace the real locations on Mars where the fictional astronaut Mark Watney traveled in "The Martian."

7. A First Time for Everything

Curiosity stands (well, rolls) on the shoulders of giants. Several NASA missions blazed the trail for the current crop of robotic explorers. The first was Mariner 4, which is also celebrating an anniversary this summer. Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to return photos of another planet from deep space when it flew by Mars on July 15, 1965. Mariner engineers were so impatient to see the first pictures it sent back, that they hand-colored a printout of raw numeric data sent by the spacecraft, in order to construct one of the first color images of Mars.

8. Pathfinders and Panoramas 

Another important pathfinder on Mars was...Mars Pathfinder. This mission just marked its 20th anniversary. To commemorate the first successful Mars rover, NASA created a new 360-degree VR panorama of its landing site you can view right in your browser.

9. One Small Step for a Robot

The first spacecraft to make a successful landing on Mars was Viking 1, which touched down in the Chryse Planitia region on July 20, 1976. It worked for more than six years, performing the first Martian soil analysis using its robotic arm and an onbaord biological laboratory. While it found no conclusive evidence of life, Viking 1 did help us understand Mars as a planet with volcanic soil, a thin, dry carbon dioxide atmosphere and striking evidence for ancient river beds and vast flooding.

10. Mars Explorers Needed 

There is much more to come. The next Mars lander, InSight, is slated for launch next year. Ride along with NASA's ongoing adventures on the Red Planet at: mars.nasa.gov/mars-exploration/

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The Search for Starless Planets

While it’s familiar to us, our solar system may actually be a bit of an oddball. Our Milky Way galaxy is home to gigantic worlds with teeny-tiny orbits and planets that circle pairs of stars. We’ve even found planets that don’t orbit stars at all! Instead, they drift through the galaxy completely alone (unless they have a moon to keep them company). These lonely island worlds are called rogue planets.

Where do rogue planets come from?

The planet-building process can be pretty messy. Dust and gas around a star clump together to form larger and larger objects, like using a piece of play-dough to pick up other pieces.

Sometimes collisions and close encounters can fling a planet clear out of the gravitational grip of its parent star. Rogue planets may also form out in space on their own, like the way stars grow.

Seeing the invisible

We’ve discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets, but only a handful are rogue planets. That’s because they’re superhard to find! Rogue planets are almost completely invisible to us because they don’t shine like stars and space is inky black. It’s like looking for a black cat in a dark room without a flashlight.

Some planet-finding methods involve watching to see how orbiting planets affect their host star, but that doesn’t work for rogue planets because they’re off by themselves. Rogue planets are usually pretty cold too, so infrared telescopes can’t use their heat vision to spot them either.

So how can we find them? Astronomers use a cool cosmic quirk to detect them by their effect on starlight. When a rogue planet lines up with a more distant star from our vantage point, the planet bends and magnifies light from the star. This phenomenon, called microlensing, looks something like this:

Imagine you have a trampoline, a golf ball, and an invisible bowling ball. If you put the bowling ball on the trampoline, you could see how it made a dent in the fabric even if you couldn’t see the ball directly. And if you rolled the golf ball near it, it would change the golf ball’s path.

A rogue planet affects space the way the bowling ball warps the trampoline. When light from a distant star passes by a rogue planet, it curves around the invisible world (like how it curves around the star in the animation above). If astronomers on Earth were watching the star, they’d notice it briefly brighten. The shape and duration of this brightness spike lets them know a planet is there, even though they can’t see it.

Telescopes on the ground have to look through Earth’s turbulent atmosphere to search for rogue planets. But when our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches in the mid-2020s, it will give us a much better view of distant stars and rogue planets because it will be located way above Earth’s atmosphere — even higher than the Moon!

Other space telescopes would have to be really lucky to spot these one-in-a-million microlensing signals. But Roman will watch huge patches of the sky for months to catch these fleeting events.

Lessons from cosmic castaways

Scientists have come up with different models to explain how different planetary systems form and change over time, but we still don’t know which ones are right. The models make different predictions about rogue planets, so studying these isolated worlds can help us figure out which models work best.

When Roman spots little microlensing starlight blips, astronomers will be able to get a pretty good idea of the mass of the object that caused the signal from how long the blip lasts. Scientists expect the mission to detect hundreds of rogue planets that are as small as rocky Mars — about half the size of Earth — up to ones as big as gas giants, like Jupiter and Saturn.

By design, Roman is only going to search a small slice of the Milky Way for rogue planets. Scientists have come up with clever ways to use Roman’s future data to estimate how many rogue planets there are in the whole galaxy. This information will help us better understand whether our solar system is pretty normal or a bit of an oddball compared to the rest of our galaxy.

Roman will have such a wide field of view that it will be like going from looking at the cosmos through a peephole to looking through a floor-to-ceiling window. The mission will help us learn about all kinds of other cool things in addition to rogue planets, like dark energy and dark matter, that will help us understand much more about our place in space.

Learn more about the Roman Space Telescope at: https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/

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Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week

The solar system is huge, so let us break it down for you. Here are the top 10 things you should know this week:

1. Big “Wows” from Small Worlds

Our robotic explorers continue to send truly spectacular pictures and data from deep space. Our New Horizons mission to Pluto and Dawn mission to dwarf planet Ceres are revealing never-before-seen landscapes on a regular basis. If you missed it, check out the most recent images from Pluto and Ceres.

2. Deep Waters

Saturn’s moon Enceladus has intrigued many with its geysers that erupt continuously in spectacular plumes. Our Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists with data that is allowing them to determine the source of those plumes. New evidence points to a global ocean of liquid water hidden beneath the moon’s icy shell!

3. A Super Eclipse

This weekend a “supermoon” lunar eclipse will be visible in the night sky. Supermoons  occur when the moon is at its closest point to the Earth in its orbit, making it appear slightly larger. This one is extra special because it will also undergo a lunar eclipse! Beginning at 9:07 p.m. EDT on Sept. 27, make sure you get outside and look up! For more information visit: What’s Up for September.

4. All Things Equal

Sept. 23 marks the autumnal equinox, which is the official beginning of the Fall season in the northern hemisphere. The word “equinox” comes from the Latin for “equal night,” meaning day and night will be of equal length on that day.

5. Explore Goddard Space Flight Center

This weekend, Goddard Space Flight Center will be offering tours, presentations and other activities for children and adults. The theme this year is “Celebrating Hubble and the Spirit of Exploration”. This event is free and open to the public, and will be held on Saturday, Sept. 26 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Join in HERE.

6. Titan’s Haze

This week, our Cassini spacecraft will observe Saturn’s hazy, planet-sized moon Titan. Scientists will use these images to look for clouds across Titan’s exotic regions. Explore HERE.

7. New Horizons Team on Pluto

Ever wondered what it was like to be part of the team that explored Pluto for the first time? If you’ll be near the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC on Sept. 22 you’re invited to a free lecture and Q&A to find out! Get the details HERE.

8. Martian Weather Report

Every day, our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter delivers a global view of the planet and its atmospheric activity. The most recent report included lots of water-ice clouds in the afternoon, with dust storms developing along the south polar region. Get the latest HERE.

9. Imagine: The View from Pluto

If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like to stand on the icy terrain of Pluto, you’re not alone. Artist Karl Kofoed created a series of digital paintings that render scenes from the dwarf planet based on data from the New Horizons July 14 Pluto flyby. View them HERE.

10. What’s the Big Idea?

We’re giving university students a chance to help us come up with solutions for our journey to Mars. This Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge will look for creative solutions for generating lift using inflatable spacecraft heat shields on Mars. Enter your BIG Idea.

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A Journey of Eight Years

We’re taking time to highlight our progress and accomplishments over the past 8 years. Join our historical journey!

Obama Visit to NASA in 2010 

President Barack Obama visited our Kennedy Space Center in Florida to deliver remarks on the bold new course the administration is charting for America’s space program. During a speech at the center, President Obama said, “I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it.” R  

Commercial Crew

Our Commercial Crew and Cargo Program is investing financial and technical resources to stimulate efforts within the private sector to develop safe, reliable and cost-effective space transportation systems. This program has allowed us to continue to reach low-Earth orbit, even after the retirement of the Space Shuttle Program. In the coming years, we will once again launch U.S. astronauts from American soil to the International Space Station through this commercial partnership.  

Revamping KSC: Vehicle Assembly Building

Our Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center served through the Apollo and Space Shuttle Programs, and is now undergoing renovations to accommodate future launch vehicles…like our Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will carry astronauts to deep space destinations, like Mars. Already, shuttle-era work platforms have been removed from the VAB to make way for our advanced heavy-lift launch vehicle, SLS.  

Revamping KSC: Pad 39B

For the first time since our Apollo-era rockets and space shuttles lifted off on missions from Launch Complex 39 at our Kennedy Space Center in Florida, one of the launch pads is undergoing extensive upgrades to support our 21st century space launch complex. At launch pad B, workers are making upgrades to support our Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and a variety of other commercial launch vehicles. .

Commercial Resupply Program

Our commercial partnerships with companies like SpaceX and Orbital ATK are allowing us to find new ways to resupply the International Space Station. Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft is shown being captured using the Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. Packed with more than 5,100 pounds of cargo and research equipment, the vehicle made Orbital ATK's fifth commercial resupply flight to the station in October 2016.  

Pluto Flyby

After a seven-year journey, our New Horizons spacecraft arrived at dwarf planet Pluto. It captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of the planet on July 14, 2015. The image combines blue, red and infrared images taken by the craft’s imaging camera. Pluto’s surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many land forms have their own distinct colors, which tell a complex geological and climatological story.   

Juno at Jupiter

Juno’s 2011 launch brought it into orbit around Jupiter. This composite image depicts Jupiter’s cloud formations as seen through the eyes of Juno’s Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instrument as compared to the top layer, a Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem image of the planet. The MWR can see several hundred miles (kilometers) into Jupiter’s atmosphere with its largest antenna. The belts and bands visible on the surface are also visible in modified form in each layer below.  

Orion EFT-1

As we strived to make deep-space missions a reality, on Dec. 5, 2014, a Delta IV Heavy rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying our Orion spacecraft on an unpiloted flight test to Earth orbit. During the two-orbit, four-and-a-half hour mission, engineers evaluated the systems critical to crew safety, the launch abort system, the heat shield and the parachute system.  

 Building of SLS

Meet the Space Launch System, our latest rocket system and see how it stacks up (no pun intended) to earlier generations of launch vehicles. While we engaged commercial partners to help us reach low-Earth orbit, we also were able to focus on deep-space exploration. This resulted in the creation of SLS, the world’s most powerful rocket and the one that will carry humans to deep-space destinations, like Mars.  

Small Satellite Technology

Our latest generation of small satellite technology represents a new way of advancing scientific research and reducing costs. These small sats are part of a technology demonstration that were deployed from the International Space Station in December 2016.   

Technology Development Organization

In 2013, we created a standalone technology development organization at NASA. Why? This new organization was an outgrowth of President Obama’s recognition of the critical role that space technology and innovation will play in enabling both future space missions and bettering life on Earth. The President’s most recent budget request included $4 million per year for our Centennial Challenges prizes. This program seeks innovations from diverse and non-traditional sources and competitors are not supported by government funding. Awards are only made to successful teams when the challenges are met. Throughout this administration (2009 – 2016), more than $6.5 million has been awarded to winners. 

Spinoffs

Did you know that many technologies originally designed for space exploration are now being used by the general public? Yes, there’s space in your life! We have a long history of transferring technology to the private sector, things we like to call NASA Spinoffs. From enriched baby formula, to digital camera sensors…you may be surprised where this technology came from. 

 Space Station Extended to 2024

In 2014, the Obama Administration announced that the United States would support the extension of the International Space Station to at least 2024. This gave the station a decade to continue its already fruitful microgravity research mission. This offered scientists and engineers the time they need to ensure the future of exploration, scientific discoveries and economic development.  

Year in Space Mission

Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko spent a year in space to help us understand the impacts of long-duration spaceflight on the human body. The studies performed throughout their stay will yield beneficial knowledge on the medical, psychological and biomedical challenges faced by astronauts that will one day travel to Mars. Scott Kelly was a particularly interesting candidate for the job, as he has a twin brother. While Scott spent a year on the International Space Station, his brother Mark spent the year on Earth. Comparing test results from both subjects will provide an even deeper understanding of the human body and how it reacts to the space environment.  

EPIC Earth Images

From one MILLION miles away, our EPIC camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite returned its first view of the entire sunlit side of Earth in 2015. Because of this spacecraft, you can now see a daily series of images of our home planet! These images are available 12 to 36 hours after they are acquired. 

James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope represents a giant leap forward in our quest to understand the universe and our origins.  The successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, JWST is designed to examine every phase of cosmic history: from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets to the evolution of our own solar system. More: 

Green Aviation

Our commitment to advancing aeronautics has led to developments in today’s aviation that have made air travel safer than ever. In fact, every U.S. aircraft flying today and every U.S. air traffic control tower uses NASA-developed technology in some way. Streamlined aircraft bodies, quieter jet engines, techniques for preventing icing, drag-reducing winglets, lightweight composite structures, software tools to improve the flow of tens of thousands of aircraft through the sky, and so much more are an everyday part of flying thanks to our research that traces its origins back to the earliest days of aviation. Our green aviation technologies are dramatically reducing the environmental impact of aviation and improving its efficiency while maintaining safety in more crowded skies, and paving the way for revolutionary aircraft shapes and propulsion. 

X-Planes

History is about to repeat itself as the Quiet Supersonic Technology, or QueSST, concept  begins its design phase to become one of the newest generation of X-planes. Over the past seven decades, our nation’s best minds in aviation designed, built and flew a series of experimental airplanes to test the latest fanciful and practical ideas related to flight. Known as X-planes, we are again are preparing to put in the sky an array of new experimental aircraft, each intended to carry on the legacy of demonstrating advanced technologies that will push back the frontiers of aviation.  

Drones

Blazing the trail for safely integrating drones into the national airspace, we have been testing and researching uncrewed aircraft. The most recent “out of sight” tests are helping us solve the challenge of drones flying beyond the visual line of sight of their human operators without endangering other aircraft. 

Solar Dynamics Observatory

Our Solar Dynamics Observatory, which launched in 2010, observes the sun in unparalleled detail and is yet another mission designed to understand the space in which we live. In this image, the sun, our system’s only star seems to be sending us a message. A pair of giant filaments on the face of the sun form what appears to be an enormous arrow pointing to the right. If straightened out, each filament would be about as long as the sun’s diameter—1 million miles long. Such filaments are cooler clouds of solar material suspended above the sun's surface by powerful magnetic forces. Filaments can float for days without much change, though they can also erupt, releasing solar material in a shower that either rains back down or escapes out into space, becoming a moving cloud known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME.  

Curiosity Launch and Landing

There are selfies and there are selfies—from a world more than 33 million miles away. When the Curiosity Rover launched on Nov. 6, 2011, to begin a 10-month journey to the Red Planet, who knew it would be so photogenic. Not only has Curiosity sent back beauty shots of itself, its imagery has increased our knowledge of Mars manyfold. But it’s not just a camera; onboard are an array of scientific instruments designed to analyze the Red Planet’s soil, rocks and chemical composition. 

Astronaut Applications

On Dec. 14, 2015, we announced that astronaut applications were open on USAJOBS. The window for applications closed on Feb. 18 with a record turnout! We received more than 18,300 applications from excited individuals from around the country, all hoping to join the 2017 astronaut class. This surpassed the more than 6,100 received in 2012, and the previous record of 8,000 applicants in 1978.  

OSIRIS-REx

Asteroids are a part of our solar system and in our quest to learn more about their origins, we sent the OSIRIS-Rex, the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, to rendezvous with comet Bennu and return a sample of the comet to scientists here on Earth. Along the way, the mission will be multitasking during its two-year outbound cruise to search for elusive “Trojan” asteroids. Trojans are asteroids that are constant companions to planets in our solar system as they orbit the sun, remaining near a stable point 60 degrees in front of or behind the planet. 

 Habitable Zone Planets

In December 1995, the first exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system) was found. Since then, our Kepler mission has surveyed the Milky Way to verify 2,000+ exoplanets. On July 23, 2015, the Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of the first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone. Not only that, but the planet orbits a sun very much like our own. 

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Over a 22-hour period (May 2-3, 2017), strands of plasma at the sun’s edge shifted and twisted back and forth. In this close-up, the strands are being manipulated by strong magnetic forces associated with active regions on the sun. 

To give a sense of scale, the strands hover above the sun more than several times the size of Earth! The images were taken in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. 

Learn more: http://go.nasa.gov/2qT2C4B

Credits: NASA/SDO

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