What Is It Like To Be A NASA Intern?

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Like sailors of old, the Cassini mission team fondly thinks of the spacecraft as "she."  On April 22, she begins her Grand Finale, a spectacular end game—22 daring dives between the planet's atmosphere and innermost rings. Here are 10 things to know about her Grand Finale.

1. She's Broadcasting Live This Week

On Tuesday, April 4 at 3 p.m. EDT  (noon PDT), At Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Cassini team host a news briefing to discuss the mission's Grand Finale.

Tune in Tuesday: youtube.com/nasajpl/live

2. She's Powered in Part By ... Titan

Cassini left Earth with less than 1/30th of the propellant needed to power all her adventures at Saturn. The navigation team used the gravity of Saturn's giant moon Titan to change course and extend the spacecraft's exploration of Saturn. Titan also provides the gravity assist to push Cassini into its final orbits.

More on Cassini's navigation: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft/navigation/

3. She's a Robot

Cassini is an orbiter that was named for 18th century astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini. She was designed to be captured by Saturn's gravity and then explore it in detail with a suite of 12 powerful science instruments.

More on the Spacecraft: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft/cassini-orbiter/

4. She Brought a Friend to Saturn

Cassini carried the European Space Agency's Huygens Probe, which in 2005 descended through Titan's thick, perpetual clouds and made the most distant landing to date in our solar system.

More on Huygens: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft/huygens-probe/

5. She's a Great Photographer

Your mobile phone likely captures dozens of megapixels in images. Cassini, using 1990s technology closer to one megapixel cameras, has returned some of the most stunning images in the history of solar system exploration.

Cassini Hall of Fame Images: go.nasa.gov/2oec6H2 More on Cassini's Cameras: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/imaging-science-subsystem/

6. She's an Inspiration

Those great images have inspired artist's and amateur image processors to create truly fantastic imagery inspired by the beauty of Saturn. Feeling inspired? There's still time to share your Cassini-inspired art with us.

Cassini Inspires Campaign: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/cassiniinspires/

7. She's Got a Long History

Two decades is a long time to live in the harsh environment of outer space (respect to the fast-approaching 40-year-old twin Voyager spacecraft). Launched in 1997, Cassini logged a lot of milestones over the years.

Explore the Cassini Timeline: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/the-journey/timeline/

8. She Keeps a Diary

And, you can read it. Week after week going back to 1997, Cassini's adventures, discoveries and status have been chronicled in the mission's weekly significant events report.

Read It: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/?topic=121

9. She's Got a Fancy New App

Cassini was the prototype for NASA's Eyes on the Solar System 3-D visualization software, so it's fitting the latest Cassini module in the free, downloadable software is the most detailed, elaborate visualization of any mission to date.

Fly the Mission - Start to Finish: http://eyes.nasa.gov/cassini

10. She's Going Out in a Blaze of Glory

In addition to all the new information from 22 orbits in unexplored space, Cassini's engineers reprogrammed the spacecraft to send back details about Saturn's atmosphere to the very last second before the giant planet swallows her up on Sept. 15, 2017.

More on the Grand Finale: saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/grandfinale

Discover more lists of 10 things to know about our solar system HERE.

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

How visible will the stars be compared to a normal night sky if I'm in the path of totality? (Sun completely covered)

I’m not entirely sure, but you will be able to see some stars that you normally wouldn’t see. https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Eclipse_brochure-bookmark_508.pdf In fact, during the 1919 eclipse, Sir Arthur Eddington and others used our ability to see stars close to the Sun during the eclipse to help confirm Einstines’ theory of general relativity. https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/testing-general-relativity

Keeping an Eye on Hurricane Florence

What do hurricanes look like from space? It depends on how you look! We have satellites, cameras and instruments all working together to give us the big picture of storms like Florence.

As the International Space Station passed over Hurricane Florence, astronauts and cameras on board got a look down into the hurricane’s eye.

Our Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission sees storms all around the planet by measuring rainfall. These measurements come from a constellation of satellites working together, including some from our partner organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

On Sept. 7, our GPM core observatory satellite flew over Florence, capturing a 3D image as the storm’s clouds started to break apart before reforming.

Other NOAA satellites, like GOES, gather high-resolution, detailed views of hurricanes, letting us peek into the eye of the storm.

Zooming out a bit, the Suomi-NPP satellite helps us track Hurricane Florence, and the following tropical storms, as they move closer to landfall or dissipate over the ocean.

From farther away (a million miles from Earth!), the EPIC instrument on NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite captured images of all three of these storms as they moved closer to North America.

We use our space-based and airborne instruments to provide innovative data on hurricanes to advance scientists’ understanding of these storms. You can follow our latest views of Hurricane Florence here and get the latest forecast from NOAA’s National Hurricane Center here.

Solar System: 5 Things to Know This Week

The solar system is huge, so let us break it down for you. Here are 5 things you should know this week:

1. Mini-Moons

This week, the robotic spacecraft Cassini will pass a pair of tiny Saturnian moons. Daphnis, only 5.7 miles (9.2 km) across, orbits within the Keeler Gap in Saturn's outer A ring. Daphnis' slight gravity maintains that gap. Cassini will then swing by Telesto, a small moon that shares its orbit with Tethys. Cassini's cameras should get some good pictures of these tiny worlds.

2. Stardust Memories

Jan. 15 is the 10th anniversary of the day the Stardust capsule returned to Earth, carrying pieces of a comet. The Stardust spacecraft passed right through the gas and dust surrounding the icy nucleus of Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt-2") in January 2004, then sent the samples it collected home for laboratory analysis.

3. Sun Surfing in the 70s

Jan. 15 is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Helios 2, the second of a pair of spacecraft launched by NASA and built by Germany to investigate the sun. Helios 2 flew to within about 27 million miles (44 million km) of the sun's surface in 1976. The spacecraft provided important information on solar plasma, the solar wind, cosmic rays, and cosmic dust, and also performed magnetic field and electrical field experiments. A NASA mission set to launch in 2018 will dare an even closer approach.

4. To Space, to Watch the Seas

Jason 3, an international mission to continue U.S.- European satellite measurements of the topography of the ocean surface, is scheduled to launch on Jan. 17. The mission will make highly detailed measurements of sea-level on Earth to gain insight into ocean circulation and climate change.

5. Getting Serious About Ceres

This is getting good. Over the past few weeks, the Dawn mission has been tantalizing us with ever-closer images of the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt and a small world in its own right. Now, the robotic spacecraft has used its ion engines to ease down into its lowest mapping orbit in order to scrutinize Ceres up close, and already the pictures are spectacular. Odd mountains, deep craters and fissures—not to mention those famous bright spots—will all be coming into sharper focus during the coming days.

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

What Science is Launching to Space?

The tenth SpaceX cargo resupply mission launched to the International Space Station on Feb. 18, and is carrying science ranging from protein crystal growth studies to Earth science payloads. Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights heading to the orbiting laboratory.

The CASIS PCG 5 investigation will crystallize a human monoclonal antibody, developed by Merck Research Labs, that is currently undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of immunological disease. Results from this investigation have the potential to improve the way monoclonal antibody treatments are administered on Earth.

Without proteins, the human body would be unable to repair, regulate or protect itself. Crystallizing proteins provides better views of their structure, which helps scientists to better understand how they function. Often times, proteins crystallized in microgravity are of higher quality than those crystallized on Earth. LMM Biophysics 1 explores that phenomena by examining the movement of single protein molecules in microgravity. Once scientists understand how these proteins function, they can be used to design new drugs that interact with the protein in specific ways and fight disease.

Much like LMM Biophysics 1, LMM Biophysics 3 aims to use crystallography to examine molecules that are too small to be seen under a microscope, in order to best predict what types of drugs will interact best with certain kinds of proteins. LMM Biophysics 3 will look specifically into which types of crystals thrive and benefit from growth in microgravity, where Earth’s gravity won’t interfere with their formation. Currently, the success rate is poor for crystals grown even in the best of laboratories. High quality, space-grown crystals could improve research for a wide range of diseases, as well as microgravity-related problems such as radiation damage, bone loss and muscle atrophy.

Nanobiosym Predictive Pathogen Mutation Study (Nanobiosym Genes) will analyze two strains of bacterial mutations aboard the station, providing data that may be helpful in refining models of drug resistance and support the development of better medicines to counteract the resistant strains.

During the Microgravity Expanded Stem Cells investigation, crew members will observe cell growth and morphological characteristics in microgravity and analyze gene expression profiles of cells grown on the station. This information will provide insight into how human cancers start and spread, which aids in the development of prevention and treatment plans. Results from this investigation could lead to the treatment of disease and injury in space, as well as provide a way to improve stem cell production for human therapy on Earth.

The Lightning Imaging Sensor will measure the amount, rate and energy of lightning as it strikes around the world. Understanding the processes that cause lightning and the connections between lightning and subsequent severe weather events is a key to improving weather predictions and saving life and property. 

From the vantage of the station, the LIS instrument will sample lightning over a wider geographical area than any previous sensor.

Future robotic spacecraft will need advanced autopilot systems to help them safely navigate and rendezvous with other objects, as they will be operating thousands of miles from Earth. 

The Raven (STP-H5 Raven) studies a real-time spacecraft navigation system that provides the eyes and intelligence to see a target and steer toward it safely. Research from Raven can be applied toward unmanned vehicles both on Earth and in space, including potential use for systems in NASA’s future human deep space exploration.

SAGE III will measure stratospheric ozone, aerosols, and other trace gases by locking onto the sun or moon and scanning a thin profile of Earth’s atmosphere.

These measurements will allow national and international leaders to make informed policy decisions regarding the protection and preservation of Earth’s ozone layer. Ozone in the atmosphere protects Earth’s inhabitants, including humans, plants and animals, from harmful radiation from the sun, which can cause long-term problems such as cataracts, cancer and reduced crop yield.

Tissue Regeneration-Bone Defect (Rodent Research-4) a U.S. National Laboratory investigation sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, studies what prevents other vertebrates such as rodents and humans from re-growing lost bone and tissue, and how microgravity conditions impact the process. 

Results will provide a new understanding of the biological reasons behind a human’s inability to grow a lost limb at the wound site, and could lead to new treatment options for the more than 30% of the patient.

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

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

Do you believe in magic? ✨ ⁣ While appearing as a delicate and light veil draped across the sky, this @NASAHubble image reminds us of the power of imagination. What does this look like to you?⁣ ⁣ In reality, it's a small section of a Cygnus supernova blast wave, located around 2,400 light-years away. The original supernova explosion blasted apart a dying star about 20 times more massive than our Sun between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. Since then, the remnant has expanded 60 light-years from its center. ⁣ ⁣ Credit: @ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Blair; acknowledgment: Leo Shatz⁣ ⁣

DYK the bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects? 

Though its wingspan covers over 3 light-years, NGC 6302: The Butterfly Nebula is no exception! With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the dying central star of this particular planetary nebula has become exceptionally hot, shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. This sharp close-up was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. The Hubble image data is reprocessed here, showing off the remarkable details of the complex planetary nebula.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Reprocessing & Copyright: Robert Eder

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

Nora AlMatrooshi

Nora AlMatrooshi, the first Emirati woman astronaut, worked as a piping engineer before becoming an astronaut candidate for the United Arab Emirates. https://mbrsc.ae/team/nora/

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

How did your perspective on Earth & humanity change from space?