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What are the most important skills an astronaut should have m?

First of all, the basic requirement is a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field, and 3 years of experience (which can also be substituted for by an advanced degree). Other than that, operational experience (things with a technical/active/hands on nature like flying airplanes, SCUBA diving, taking things apart and putting them back together, basic fix-it skills, etc. etc.) is very important, as this is an integral aspect of every day of a space mission.  What we call “expeditionary skills” are also essential, basically the types of things you try to instill in your children, like how to play nicely with others, self care, team care, etc.  I like to think about this on the lines of a camping trip and who you would like to have along with you . . .someone that is competent and can take good care of themselves and their equipment, someone that contributes to the team and helps with group tasks, someone that is good natured and pleasant to be around, etc., someone fun!  These things are increasingly important now that we are regularly doing long duration missions (typical International Space Station mission is 6 months).  Experience living in extreme/remote/isolated environments with small teams is also useful, as it is similar to what we experience as astronauts.     

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

The Quadrantid meteor shower peaked this morning. Here are some fun facts:

1. Where Is Quadrans Muralis?

The radiant of the Quadrantids lies in the demoted constellation Quadrans Muralis.

2. What Is a Mural Quadrant? 

The Mural Quadrant is an angle measuring device mounted on or built into a wall. Quadrans Muralis appears on some 19th-century star atlases between Hercules, Boötes and Draco, and different astronomers changed the stars from time to time.

3. New Constellations

In the early 1920's, the International Astronomical Union divided up the sky into official constellations for consistency in star naming. 88 constellations remained, but over 30 historical constellations, including Quadrans Muralis, didn't make the cut.

4. Where Is It Now?

Most of the Quadrans Muralis stars are now within the boundaries of the official constellation Boötes, but the name of the meteor shower did not change.

5. Where Do Meteor Showers Come From?

Meteor showers are usually the residue that collects in the orbits of comets. Unlike most meteor showers' parent bodies, the Quadrantids are associated with an asteroid—2003 EH1.

Discover the full list of 10 things to know about our solar system this week HERE.

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

Participate in the 50th anniversary of Earth Day by asking our experts anything about NASA’s role in Earth Science! 

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and to commemorate the big day we’re bringing you exclusive access our Acting Director of Earth Sciences, Sandra Cauffman, and Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen! They will be teaming up to take your questions in an Answer Time session on Earth Day, April 22, from 12-1pm EDT here on NASA’s Tumblr! Make sure to ask your question now by visiting http://nasa.tumblr.com/ask!

Our investment in space – both the unique Earth science we conduct from orbit and the technology we’ve developed by living in space and exploring our solar system and universe – is returning benefits every day to people around the world, particularly those who are working on environmental issues. From documenting Earth’s changing climate to creating green technologies to save energy and natural resources, we’re working to help us all live more sustainably on our home planet and adapt to natural and human-caused changes. 

NASA Earth Science Fun Facts!

From space we study: dust storms, volcanoes, flooding, coral reefs, night lights, wildfires, urban growth, food production, mosquito tracking and other human health issues, precipitation across the world, hurricanes and typhoons, soil moisture, land and sea ice, and changes to the land and sea surfaces.

From airborne research planes we track: changes in polar ice, glaciers, sea level rise, cloud formation, storms, sea level rise and Earth’s changing landscape. 

Our Earth science focus areas include: Atmospheric Composition, Weather and Atmospheric Dynamics, Climate Variability and Change, Water and Energy Cycle, Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems, Earth Surface and Interior

Keep up to date with all our Earth Science missions and research by following NASA Earth on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

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

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.  —Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Let’s launch some science to space!

The day has finally arrived. After years of work, a team of scientists is at Kennedy Space Center in the hopes of seeing their research liftoff to the International Space Station.

Join #NASAExplorers for the countdown, the emotion and, hopefully, the launch! 

Watch episode 5 here:

Follow NASA Explorers on Facebook to catch new episodes of season 4 every Wednesday!

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

Does an ecplispe cause any unusual effects on the Earth?

Yes, and this is one of the things we’re hoping to study more with this eclipse! If you are in totality, you’ll notice a significant temperature drop. We are also expecting to see changes in the Earth’s atmosphere and ionosphere. You can help us document these changes using the GLOBE Observer app https://www.globe.gov/globe-data/data-entry/globe-observer ! There are lots of great citizen science going on during this eclipse, and we’d love to have everyone here helping out! https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/citizen-explorers

In Roman mythology, the god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief. It was only Jupiter's wife, the goddess Juno, who could peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature. ⁣ ⁣ Our @NASAJuno spacecraft is looking beneath the clouds of the massive gas giant, not seeking signs of misbehavior, but helping us to understand the planet's structure and history...⁣ ⁣ Now, @NASAJuno just published its first findings on the amount of water in the gas giant’s atmosphere. The Juno results estimate that at the equator, water makes up about 0.25% of the molecules in Jupiter's atmosphere — almost three times that of the Sun. An accurate total estimate of this water is critical to solving the mystery of how our solar system formed. 

The JunoCam imager aboard Juno captured this image of Jupiter's southern equatorial region on Sept. 1, 2017. The bottom image is oriented so Jupiter's poles (not visible) run left-to-right of frame.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill ⁣ ⁣

🏊‍♂️ Down for a dip in the Cosmic Reef?

Nicknamed the Cosmic Reef because it resembles an undersea world, this is a vast star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

Released in April 2020 to celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope’s 30th anniversary, the reef showcases the beauty and mystery of space in this complex image of starbirth. Throughout its decades of discoveries, Hubble has yielded over 1.5 million observations, providing data that astronomers around the world have used to write more than 18,000 peer-reviewed scientific publications, making it the most prolific space observatory in history.

Learn more about Hubble’s celebration of Nebula November and see new nebula images, here.

You can also keep up with Hubble on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Flickr!

Image credits: NASA, ESA, and STScI

Visual 'Autocorrect' for NASA Space Telescope

Telescopes located both on the ground and in space continue to dazzle us with incredible images of the universe. We owe these sharp vistas to a series of brilliant astronomers, including Andrea Ghez – an astrophysicist and professor at UCLA – and the “Mother of Hubble,” Nancy Grace Roman.

Did you know that stars don’t actually twinkle? They only look like they do because their light has to travel through our turbulent atmosphere to reach our eyes. As the atmosphere shifts and swirls around, the light from distant stars is slightly refracted, or bent, in different directions. Sometimes it’s directed right at us, but sometimes it’s directed a bit to the side.

It's like someone’s shining a flashlight toward you but moving it around slightly. Sometimes the beam is pointed right at you and appears very bright, and sometimes it's pointed a bit to either side of you and it appears dimmer. The amount of light isn't really changing, but it looks like it is.

This effect creates a problem for ground-based telescopes. Instead of seeing sharp images, astronomers get fuzzy pictures. Special tech known as adaptive optics helps resolve pictures of space so astronomers can see things more clearly. It’s even useful for telescopes that are in space, above Earth’s atmosphere, because tiny imperfections in their optics can blur images, too.

In 2020, Andrea Ghez was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics for devising an experiment that proved there’s a supermassive black hole embedded in the heart of our galaxy – something Hubble has shown is true of almost every galaxy in the universe! She used the W. M. Keck Observatory’s adaptive optics to track stars orbiting the unseen black hole.

A woman named Nancy Grace Roman, who was NASA’s first chief astronomer, paved the way for telescopes that study the universe from space. An upcoming observatory named in her honor, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, will use a special kind of adaptive optics in its Coronagraph Instrument, which is a technology demonstration designed to block the glare from host stars and reveal dimmer orbiting planets.

Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument will come equipped with deformable mirrors that will serve as a form of visual "autocorrect" by measuring and subtracting starlight in real time. The mirrors will bend and flex to help counteract effects like temperature changes, which can slightly alter the shape of the optics.

Other telescopes have taken pictures of enormous, young, bright planets orbiting far away from their host stars because they’re usually the easiest ones to see. Taking tech that’s worked well on ground-based telescopes to space will help Roman photograph dimmer, older, colder planets than any other observatory has been able to so far. The mission could even snap the first real photograph of a planet like Jupiter orbiting a Sun-like star!

Find out more about the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Twitter and Facebook, and learn about the person from which the mission draws its name.

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

Sea Level Rise

For thousands of years, sea level has remained relatively stable. But now, Earth’s seas are rising. Since the beginning of the 20th century, they have risen about eight inches, and more than two inches in the last 20 years alone!

As water warms, it expands and takes up more space. That means that when oceans warm, the sea level rises. This summer, we’ve been researching exactly how global warming has impacted Greenland’s ice sheet. Our ICESat-2 mission will use a laser to measure the height of the planet’s surface. Over time, we will be able to provide a record of elevation change, and estimate how much water has melted into the ocean from land ice change.

So how much ice are we actually losing? Great question, but the answer might shock you. In Greenland alone, 303 gigatons of ice was lost in 2014!

Since we know that ice is melting, we’re working to gain a better understanding of how much and how fast. We’re using everything from planes, probes and boats, to satellites and lasers to determine the impact of global warming on the Earth’s ice.

Follow along for updates and information: http://climate.nasa.gov/