Solar System: OSIRIS-REx And Bennu

What’s Up - January 2018

What’s Up For January? 

Quadrantid meteors, a West Coast-favoring total lunar eclipse and time to start watching Mars!

This month the new year's first meteor shower fizzles, Mars meets Jupiter in the morning sky and the U.S. will enjoy a total lunar eclipse!

Most meteor showers radiate from recognizable constellations. Like the Leonids, Geminids and Orionids.

But the Quadrantids are meteors that appear to radiate from the location of the former Quadrans Muralis constellation, an area that's now part of the constellation Bootes.

The Quadrantids' peak lasts for just a few hours, and sadly, this year their timing coincides with a very bright, nearly full moon that will wash out most of the meteors.

You can look in any direction to see all the meteor showers. When you see one of these meteors, hold a shoestring along the path it followed. The shoestring will lead you back to the constellation containing the meteor’s origin.

On the morning of January 6th, look in the south-southeast sky 45 minutes before sunrise to see Jupiter and fainter Mars almost as close as last month's Jupiter and Venus close pairing.

Mars is only one-sixth the apparent diameter of Jupiter, but the two offer a great binocular and telescopic view with a pretty color contrast. They remain in each other's neighborhood from January 5th through the 8th.

Finally, to end the month, a great total lunar eclipse favors the western U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii and British Columbia on January 31st. Australia and the Pacific Ocean are well placed to see a major portion of the eclipse--if not all of it.

Watch the full What’s Up for January Video: 

There are so many sights to see in the sky. To stay informed, subscribe to our What’s Up video series on Facebook. Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.   

Solar System: Top 5 Things to Know This Week

Here are five things you need to know about our amazing solar system this week: 

1. Perpetual Pluto-palooza

The New Horizons spacecraft continues its ongoing download of data and images from the July 14 flyby of the Pluto system. In the latest weekly release, the new images don’t disappoint, showing fine details in an exotic landscape. The New Horizons team has also described a wide range of findings about the dwarf planet’s system in its first science paper. Learn more HERE.

2. Encounter at Enceladus

The Cassini spacecraft has returned the closest images ever showing the north polar region of Saturn’s intriguing ice moon Enceladus. Scientists expected the area to be heavily cratered, but the new high-resolution Cassini images also show a landscape of stark contrasts, crisscrossed by a spidery network of gossamer-thin cracks that slice through the craters. The robotic spacecraft buzzed by the moon during the first of what will be three close encounters this year -- the last of the long mission. Next up: on Oct. 28 Cassini will deep dive right through Enceladus’ famous ice geyser plume! Learn more HERE.

3. We’re Giving You the Whole World, Every Day

We have worked with NOAA to launch a new website that shows the full, sunlit side of the Earth on a daily basis. The images come from our camera a million miles away aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). Each daily sequence of images shows the Earth as it rotates, revealing the entire planet over the course of a day. Take a look HERE.

4. Going Big at Jupiter

We have large, new maps of Jupiter, thanks to data from the Wide Field Camera 3 on our Hubble Space Telescope. The big images provide a detailed look at how the giant planet’s features change over time. In fact, the maps are just the first in a planned series of yearly portraits of the solar system’s four outer planets. The views come as we prepare for the Juno mission to arrive at Jupiter in little less than a year. 

5. Catch a Falling Star

Meteors aren’t really falling stars, just dust and rock from deep space meeting a fiery end in Earth’s atmosphere -- but they’re a sight to behold if you can catch a glimpse. The Orionid meteors appear every year around this time, when Earth travels through an area of space littered with debris from Halley’s Comet. This year the peak will occur on the night of Wednesday, Oct. 21, into the morning of Thursday, Oct. 22. Find out how to watch HERE. 

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Hello everyone.  This is NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson ready to answer your questions about being an astronaut, mission training, and what it’s like to live in space.

Have a question for me? Ask it here, then watch the answers here.

Global Temperature by the Numbers

The Year

4th Hottest

2018 was the fourth hottest year since modern recordkeeping began. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration work together to track temperatures around the world and study how they change from year to year. For decades, the overall global temperature has been increasing.

Over the long term, world temperatures are warming, but each individual year is affected by things like El Niño ocean patterns and specific weather events.

1.5 degrees

Globally, Earth’s temperature was more than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average from 1951 to 1980.

The Record

139 years

Since 1880, we can put together a consistent record of temperatures around the planet and see that it was much colder in the late-19th century. Before 1880, uncertainties in tracking global temperatures were too large. Temperatures have increased even faster since the 1970s, the result of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Five Hottest

The last five years have been the hottest in the modern record.

6,300 Individual Observations

Scientists from NASA use data from 6,300 weather stations and Antarctic research stations, together with ship- and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures to track global temperatures.

The Consequences

605,830 swimming pools

As the planet warms, polar ice is melting at an accelerated rate. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lost about 605,830 Olympic swimming pools (400 billion gallons) of water between 1993 and 2016.

8 inches

Melting ice raises sea levels around the world. While ice melts into the ocean, heat also causes the water to expand. Since 1880, sea levels around the world have risen approximately 8 inches.

71,189 acres burned

One symptom of the warmer climate is that fire seasons burn hotter and longer. In 2018, wildfires burned more than 71,189 acres in the U.S. alone.

46% increase in CO2 levels

CO2 levels have increased 46 percent since the late 19th Century, which is a dominant factor causing global warming.

What’s Up for February 2016?

Five morning planets, Comet Catalina passes Polaris and icy Uranus and icy Vesta meet near Valentine’s Day.

February mornings (until Feb. 20) feature Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. The last time this five-planet dawn lineup happened was in 2005. The planets are easy to distinguish when you use the moon as your guide. Details on viewing HERE.

If you miss all five planets this month, you’ll be able to see them again in August’s sunset sky.

Last month, Comet Catalina’s curved dust tail and straight ion tail were visible in binoculars and telescopes near two galaxies that are close to the handle of the Big Dipper. Early this month, the comet nears Polaris, the North Star. It should be visible all month long for northern hemisphere observers.

There will be more opportunities to photograph Comet Catalina paired with other objects this month. It passes the faint spiral galaxy IC 342 and a pretty planetary nebula named NGC 1501 between Feb. 10 – 29. For binocular viewers, the magnitude 6 comet pairs up with a pretty string of stars, known as Kemble’s Cascade, on Feb. 24.

Finally, through binoculars, you should be able to pick out Vesta and Uranus near one another this month. You can use the moon as a guide on Feb. 12, and the cornerstone and the corner stars of Pegasus all month long.

For more information about What’s Up in the February sky, watch our monthly video HERE. 

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20 Years of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO for short, has captured the imagination of scientists and the public alike for two decades now. We teamed up with the European Space Agency (ESA) on SOHO, which observes the sun from space. It was launched 20 years ago this week, on Dec. 2, 1995, with the mission to study the internal structure of our neighborhood star, its atmosphere and the origin of the solar wind. SOHO sends spectacular data daily, and has led scientists to a wealth of understanding.

Here are the top 5 things you need to know about SOHO, the sun and other solar observation missions:

1. SOHO Set Out for Space with an Ambitious Mission

SOHO was designed to answer three fundamental scientific questions about the sun: What are the structure and dynamics of the solar interior? Why does the solar corona exist and how is it heated to such an extremely high temperature? Where is the solar wind produced and how is it accelerated? Clues about the solar interior come from studying seismic waves that appear as ripples on the sun's surface, a technique called helioseismology.

2. SOHO Enjoys a Great View

SOHO commands an uninterrupted view of the sun, while always staying within easy communication range of controllers at home. The space-based observatory moves around the sun in step with the Earth, by slowly orbiting around a unique point in space called the First Lagrangian Point (L1). There, the combined gravity of the Earth and sun keep SOHO in a position that's always between the sun and the Earth. The L1 point is about 1 million miles (about 1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth (about four times the distance to the Moon).

3. Bonus Discoveries: Lots of Comets

Besides watching the sun, SOHO has become the most prolific discoverer of comets in astronomical history. In September 2015, SOHO found its 3000th comet. Sometimes the spacecraft's instruments capture comets plunging to their death as they collide with the sun.

4. Extra Innings

SOHO was meant to operate until 1998, but it was so successful that ESA and NASA decided to prolong its life several times and endorsed several mission extensions. Because of this, the mission has been able to observe an entire 11-year solar cycle and much of the next.

5. Keep Your Eye (Safely) on the Sun

You can see what SOHO sees, almost in real time. The latest images from the spacecraft, updated several times daily, are available online. Take a look HERE. 

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

Athletes Go for the Gold with NASA Spinoffs

NASA technology tends to find its way into the sporting world more often than you’d expect. Fitness is important to the space program because astronauts must undergo the extreme g-forces of getting into space and endure the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body. The agency’s engineering expertise also means that items like shoes and swimsuits can be improved with NASA know-how.

As the 2024 Olympics are in full swing in Paris, here are some of the many NASA-derived technologies that have helped competitive athletes train for the games and made sure they’re properly equipped to win.

The LZR Racer reduces skin friction drag by covering more skin than traditional swimsuits. Multiple pieces of the water-resistant and extremely lightweight LZR Pulse fabric connect at ultrasonically welded seams and incorporate extremely low-profile zippers to keep viscous drag to a minimum.

Swimsuits That Don’t Drag

When the swimsuit manufacturer Speedo wanted its LZR Racer suit to have as little drag as possible, the company turned to the experts at Langley Research Center to test its materials and design. The end result was that the new suit reduced drag by 24 percent compared to the prior generation of Speedo racing suit and broke 13 world records in 2008. While the original LZR Racer is no longer used in competition due to the advantage it gave wearers, its legacy lives on in derivatives still produced to this day.

Trilion Quality Systems worked with NASA’s Glenn Research Center to adapt existing stereo photogrammetry software to work with high-speed cameras. Now the company sells the package widely, and it is used to analyze stress and strain in everything from knee implants to running shoes and more.

High-Speed Cameras for High-Speed Shoes

After space shuttle Columbia, investigators needed to see how materials reacted during recreation tests with high-speed cameras, which involved working with industry to create a system that could analyze footage filmed at 30,000 frames per second. Engineers at Adidas used this system to analyze the behavior of Olympic marathoners' feet as they hit the ground and adjusted the design of the company’s high-performance footwear based on these observations.

Martial artist Barry French holds an Impax Body Shield while former European middle-weight kickboxing champion Daryl Tyler delivers an explosive jump side kick; the force of the impact is registered precisely and shown on the display panel of the electronic box French is wearing on his belt.

One-Thousandth-of-an-Inch Punch

In the 1980s, Olympic martial artists needed a way to measure the impact of their strikes to improve training for competition. Impulse Technology reached out to Glenn Research Center to create the Impax sensor, an ultra-thin film sensor which creates a small amount of voltage when struck. The more force applied, the more voltage it generates, enabling a computerized display to show how powerful a punch or kick was.

Astronaut Sunita Williams poses while using the Interim Resistive Exercise Device on the ISS. The cylinders at the base of each side house the SpiraFlex FlexPacks that inventor Paul Francis honed under NASA contracts. They would go on to power the Bowflex Revolution and other commercial exercise equipment.

Weight Training Without the Weight

Astronauts spending long periods of time in space needed a way to maintain muscle mass without the effect of gravity, but lifting free weights doesn’t work when you’re practically weightless. An exercise machine that uses elastic resistance to provide the same benefits as weightlifting went to the space station in the year 2000. That resistance technology was commercialized into the Bowflex Revolution home exercise equipment shortly afterwards.

Want to learn more about technologies made for space and used on Earth? Check out NASA Spinoff to find products and services that wouldn’t exist without space exploration.   

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Cassini Mission: What’s Next?

It’s Friday, Sept. 15 and our Cassini mission has officially come to a spectacular end. The final signal from the spacecraft was received here on Earth at 7:55 a.m. EDT after a fateful plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere.

After losing contact with Earth, the spacecraft burned up like a meteor, becoming part of the planet itself.

Although bittersweet, Cassini’s triumphant end is the culmination of a nearly 20-year mission that overflowed with discoveries.

But, what happens now?

Mission Team and Data

Now that the spacecraft is gone, most of the team’s engineers are migrating to other planetary missions, where they will continue to contribute to the work we’re doing to explore our solar system and beyond.

Mission scientists will keep working for the coming years to ensure that we fully understand all of the data acquired during the mission’s Grand Finale. They will carefully calibrate and study all of this data so that it can be entered into the Planetary Data System. From there, it will be accessible to future scientists for years to come.

Even beyond that, the science data will continue to be worked on for decades, possibly more, depending on the research grants that are acquired.

Other team members, some who have spent most of their career working on the Cassini mission, will use this as an opportunity to retire.

Future Missions

In revealing that Enceladus has essentially all the ingredients needed for life, the mission energized a pivot to the exploration of “ocean worlds” that has been sweeping planetary science over the past couple of decades.

Jupiter’s moon Europa has been a prime target for future exploration, and many lessons during Cassini’s mission are being applied in planning our Europa Clipper mission, planned for launch in the 2020s.

The mission will orbit the giant planet, Jupiter, using gravitational assists from large moons to maneuver the spacecraft into repeated close encounters, much as Cassini has used the gravity of Titan to continually shape the spacecraft’s course.

In addition, many engineers and scientists from Cassini are serving on the new Europa Clipper mission and helping to shape its science investigations. For example, several members of the Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer team are developing an extremely sensitive, next-generation version of their instrument for flight on Europa Clipper. What Cassini has learned about flying through the plume of material spraying from Enceladus will be invaluable to Europa Clipper, should plume activity be confirmed on Europa.

In the decades following Cassini, scientists hope to return to the Saturn system to follow up on the mission's many discoveries. Mission concepts under consideration include robotic explorers to drift on the methane seas of Titan and fly through the Enceladus plume to collect and analyze samples for signs of biology.

Atmospheric probes to all four of the outer planets have long been a priority for the science community, and the most recent recommendations from a group of planetary scientists shows interest in sending such a mission to Saturn. By directly sampling Saturn's upper atmosphere during its last orbits and final plunge, Cassini is laying the groundwork for an potential Saturn atmospheric probe.

A variety of potential mission concepts are discussed in a recently completed study — including orbiters, flybys and probes that would dive into Uranus' atmosphere to study its composition. Future missions to the ice giants might explore those worlds using an approach similar to Cassini's mission.

Learn more about the Cassini mission and its Grand Finale HERE.

Follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates.

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What type of planning goes into ensuring a successful launch, and how easily is it decided?

Jupiter in infrared light, as seen by NASA’s InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF). The observations were obtained in support of NASA’s Juno mission by a team headed by Juno scientist Glenn Orton.