What’s Up For February 2016?

What You Didn’t Know About Scott Kelly and Living in Space (Floating Urine is Involved)

First Ever NASA Reddit AMA from Space Recap

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly hosted a Reddit Ask Me Anything on Jan. 23 where people, well, asked him anything.

Kelly answered a range of questions from whether the crew members play space pranks on one another ("Occasionally…" Kelly said without elaboration.) to whether Kelly's recovery plan will be different than normal ("I think my rehab plan is the same as if I were here for 6 months, but I'm not positive.").

To start off, here are a few quick facts we learned about Kelly during the AMA:

The advice he would've given himself before going into space on day 1 would be to pack lighter.

His favorite David Bowie song is "Modern Love," and his favorite non-space related movie is "The Godfather." 

He uses a Nikon D4 when taking pictures (camera settings and lenses vary).

He thought it was cool to watch the movie "Gravity" while he was on the space station, because that's where the movie took place.

Once he lands, Kelly will miss the challenge of being aboard the space station the most.

Here are a few fun questions that astronaut Scott Kelly answered:

What’s the creepiest thing you’ve encountered while on the job?

Could a rogue spaceship sneak up on the space station?

We finally got an answer for one thing so many of you have been curious about…why does Scott Kelly always fold his arms?

When astronauts go up to space, they experience something very few others have and see Earth from a very unique perspective. What’s one thing Kelly will do differently once he returns home?

Kelly also told one user something unusual about being in space that people normally don’t think about: feet calluses.

Another user wanted to know what the largest societal misconception about space/space travel is. According to Kelly, it has nothing to do with science.

To read the entire Reddit AMA with Kelly, visit his IAmA thread.

Kelly's #YearInSpace ends Mar. 2. Follow him until the end of the journey (and beyond) on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

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Hostile and Closed Environments, Hazards at Close Quarters

A human journey to Mars, at first glance, offers an inexhaustible amount of complexities. To bring a mission to the Red Planet from fiction to fact, NASA’s Human Research Program has organized some of the hazards astronauts will encounter on a continual basis into five classifications.

A spacecraft is not only a home, it’s also a machine. NASA understands that the ecosystem inside a vehicle plays a big role in everyday astronaut life.

Important habitability factors include temperature, pressure, lighting, noise, and quantity of space. It’s essential that astronauts are getting the requisite food, sleep and exercise needed to stay healthy and happy. The space environment introduces challenges not faced on Earth.

Technology, as often is the case with out-of-this-world exploration, comes to the rescue! Technology plays a big role in creating a habitable home in a harsh environment and monitoring some of the environmental conditions.

Astronauts are also asked to provide feedback about their living environment, including physical impressions and sensations so that the evolution of spacecraft can continue addressing the needs of humans in space.

Exploration to the Moon and Mars will expose astronauts to five known hazards of spaceflight, including hostile and closed environments, like the closed environment of the vehicle itself. To learn more, and find out what NASA’s Human Research Program is doing to protect humans in space, check out the "Hazards of Human Spaceflight" website. Or, check out this week’s episode of “Houston We Have a Podcast,” in which host Gary Jordan further dives into the threat of hostile and closed environments with Brian Crucian, NASA immunologist at the Johnson Space Center.

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Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week

Planets Outside Our Solar System

Let the planet-hunting begin!

Our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which will scan the skies to look for planets beyond our solar system—known as exoplanets—is now in Florida to begin preparations for launch in April. Below, 10 Things to know about the many, many unknown planets out there awaiting our discovery.

1—Exo-what?

We call planets in our solar system, well, planets, but the many planets we’re starting to discover outside of our solar system are called exoplanets. Basically, they’re planets that orbit another star.

2—All eyes on TRAPPIST-1.

Remember the major 2016 announcement that we had discovered seven planets 40 light-years away, orbiting a star called TRAPPIST-1? Those are all exoplanets. (Here’s a refresher.)

3—Add 95 new ones to that.

Just last month, our Kepler telescope discovered 95 new exoplanets beyond our solar system (on top of the thousands of exoplanets Kepler has discovered so far). The total known planet count beyond our solar system is now more than 3,700. The planets range in size from mostly rocky super-Earths and fluffy mini-Neptunes, to Jupiter-like giants. They include a new planet orbiting a very bright star—the brightest star ever discovered by Kepler to have a transiting planet.

4—Here comes TESS.

How many more exoplanets are out there waiting to be discovered? TESS will monitor more than 200,000 of the nearest and brightest stars in search of transit events—periodic dips in a star’s brightness caused by planets passing in front—and is expected to find thousands of exoplanets.

5—With a sidekick, too.

Our upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, will provide important follow-up observations of some of the most promising TESS-discovered exoplanets. It will also allow scientists to study their atmospheres and, in some special cases, search for signs that these planets could support life.

6—Prepped for launch.

TESS is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station nearby our Kennedy Space Center in Florida, no earlier than April 16, pending range approval.

7—A groundbreaking find.

In 1995, 51 Pegasi b (also called "Dimidium") was the first exoplanet discovered orbiting a star like our Sun. This find confirmed that planets like the ones in our solar system could exist elsewhere in the universe.

8—Trillions await.

A recent statistical estimate places, on average, at least one planet around every star in the galaxy. That means there could be a trillion planets in our galaxy alone, many of them in the range of Earth’s size.

9—Signs of life.

Of course, our ultimate science goal is to find unmistakable signs of current life. How soon can that happen? It depends on two unknowns: the prevalence of life in the galaxy and a bit of luck. Read more about the search for life.

10—Want to explore the galaxy?

No need to be an astronaut. Take a trip outside our solar system with help from our Exoplanet Travel Bureau.

Read the full version of this week’s ‘10 Things to Know’ article HERE. 

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Why Isn’t Every Year the Warmest Year on Record?

This just in: 2022 effectively tied for the fifth warmest year since 1880, when our record starts. Here at NASA, we work with our partners at NOAA to track temperatures across Earth’s entire surface, to keep a global record of how our planet is changing.

Overall, Earth is getting hotter.

The warming comes directly from human activities – specifically, the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. We started burning fossil fuels in earnest during the Industrial Revolution. Activities like driving cars and operating factories continue to release greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, where they trap heat in the atmosphere.

So…if we’re causing Earth to warm, why isn’t every year the hottest year on record?

As 2022 shows, the current global warming isn’t uniform. Every single year isn’t necessarily warmer than every previous year, but it is generally warmer than most of the preceding years. There’s a warming trend.

Earth is a really complex system, with various climate patterns, solar activity, and events like volcanic eruptions that can tip things slightly warmer or cooler.

Climate Patterns

While 2021 and 2022 continued a global trend of warming, they were both a little cooler than 2020, largely because of a natural phenomenon known as La Niña.

La Niña is one third of a climate phenomenon called El Niño Southern Oscillation, also known as ENSO, which can have significant effects around the globe. During La Niña years, ocean temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean cool off slightly. La Niña’s twin, El Niño brings warmer temperatures to the central and eastern Pacific. Neutral years bring ocean temperatures in the region closer to the average.

El Niño and La Niña affect more than ocean temperatures – they can bring changes to rainfall patterns, hurricane frequency, and global average temperature.

We’ve been in a La Niña mode the last three, which has slightly cooled global temperatures. That’s one big reason 2021 and 2022 were cooler than 2020 – which was an El Niño year.

Overall warming is still happening. Current El Niño years are warmer than previous El Niño years, and the same goes for La Niña years. In fact, enough overall warming has occurred that most current La Niña years are warmer than most previous El Niño years. This year was the warmest La Niña year on record.

Solar Activity

Our Sun cycles through periods of more and less activity, on a schedule of about every 11 years. Here on Earth, we might receive slightly less energy — heat — from the Sun during quieter periods and slightly more during active periods.

At NASA, we work with NOAA to track the solar cycle. We kicked off a new one – Solar Cycle 25 – after solar minimum in December 2019. Since then, solar activity has been slightly ramping up.

Because we closely track solar activity, we know that over the past several decades, solar activity hasn't been on the rise, while greenhouse gases have. More importantly, the "fingerprints" we see on the climate, including temperature changes in the upper atmosphere, don't fit the what we'd expect from solar-caused warming. Rather they look like what we expect from increased greenhouse warming, verifying a prediction made decades ago by NASA.

Volcanic Eruptions

Throughout history, volcanoes have driven major shifts in Earth’s climate. Large eruptions can release water vapor — a greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide — which traps additional warmth within our atmosphere.

On the flip side, eruptions that loft lots of ash and soot into the atmosphere can temporarily cool the climate slightly, by reflecting some sunlight back into space.

Like solar activity, we can monitor volcanic eruptions and tease out their effect on variations in our global temperature.

At the End of the Day, It’s Us

Our satellites, airborne missions, and measurements from the ground give us a comprehensive picture of what’s happening on Earth every day. We also have computer models that can skillfully recreate Earth’s climate.

By combining the two, we can see what would happen to global temperature if all the changes were caused by natural forces, like volcanic eruptions or ENSO. By looking at the fingerprints each of these climate drivers leave in our models, it’s perfectly clear: The current global warming we’re experiencing is caused by humans.

For more information about climate change, visit climate.nasa.gov.

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How had your background in the US Air Force as a flight test engineer prepare you for the challenges and demands of being an astronaut?

Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week

Real-life space travel across the solar system’s vast expanse is not for the impatient – it can take many years to reach a destination. The positive side is that our hardy robots are well engineered to take the abuse that the harsh space environment dishes out. This means they can return good science over the course of many years, sometimes for decades.

This week, we take a look at a few of our longest-lived planetary missions. All of them have been returning deep space dispatches to Earth for more than five years. Combined, their flight time adds up to more than a century and a half. The legacy of their exploration is likely to endure even longer.

1. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) - Launched June 18, 2009

LRO captures crystal-clear views of the lunar landscape on almost a daily basis – and has been doing it for years. Thanks to LRO, we’ve nearly mapped the entire surface now at very high resolution. Learn more about LRO HERE.

2. Dawn – Launched Sept. 27, 2007

The Dawn mission has been exploring the dwarf planet Ceres for just over a year now — but the Dawn spacecraft’s journey began long before that. After a trek from Earth to the asteroid belt, it made a stop at the giant asteroid Vesta before moving on to Ceres.

3. New Horizons – Launched Jan. 19, 2006

With its ongoing discoveries based on the July 2015 Pluto flyby, the New Horizons mission is in the news all the time. It’s easy to forget the mission is not new — the spacecraft has been traversing the dark of space for more than a decade. New Horizons is now more than 3 billion miles (5 billion km) from Earth as it delves deeper into the outer solar system.

4. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) – Launched Aug. 12, 2005

MRO recently marked a decade of returning spectacular images from Mars, in many more colors than just red. Peruse 10 years of MRO discoveries at Mars HERE.

5. Cassini – Launched Oct. 15, 1997

As it circles through the Saturn system, the Cassini spacecraft is currently about 975 million miles (1.57 billion km) from Earth, but its total odometer reads much more than that. This long, spectacular mission is slated to end next year. In the meantime, it’s about to enter the “Grande Finale” stage.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

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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.

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Hi do you guys really say Houston when responding to each other !?!🤪

Questions coming up from….

@monicagellar: Is it open for international students?

@Anonymous: How should high school students get involved?

@Anonymous: Can I apply if my subjects are physics and chemistry in college

@unsuspicious-nobody: Do you have plans to repeat this/do something similar for students in the future?

Retro. Modern. Iconic. That’s the worm. 

#TheWormIsBack

Our beloved symbol of exploration will fly once again, just in time to mark the return of human spaceflight on American rockets from American soil. The retired logo is making its comeback on on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket that will take flight later this year when we #LaunchAmerica once again.

The NASA insignia, or "meatball," seen in our profile image, was quite difficult to reproduce with 1970s technology. In 1975, enter the sleek, simple design you see above! The world knew it as “the worm.” For a period of time we were able to thrive with both the worm and the meatball. However, in 1992, the 1970s brand was retired - except on clothing and other souvenir items - in favor of the original late 1950s graphic.

Image Credit: NASA/SpaceX

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