What’s Up - April 2018

Voyager: The Spacecraft

The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing their more-than-40-year journey since their 1977 launches, they each are much farther away from Earth and the Sun than Pluto.

The primary mission was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. After making a string of discoveries there – such as active volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io and intricacies of Saturn’s rings – the mission was extended. 

Voyager 2 went on to explore Uranus and Neptune, and is still the only spacecraft to have visited those outer planets. The adventurers’ current mission, the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM), will explore the outermost edge of the Sun’s domain. And beyond.

Spacecraft Instruments

‘BUS’ Housing Electronics

The basic structure of the spacecraft is called the “bus,” which carries the various engineering subsystems and scientific instruments. It is like a large ten-sided box. Each of the ten sides of the bus contains a compartment (a bay) that houses various electronic assemblies.

Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS)

The Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS) looks only for very energetic particles in plasma, and has the highest sensitivity of the three particle detectors on the spacecraft. Very energetic particles can often be found in the intense radiation fields surrounding some planets (like Jupiter). Particles with the highest-known energies come from other stars. The CRS looks for both.

High-Gain Antenna (HGA)

The High-Gain Antenna (HGA) transmits data to Earth on two frequency channels (the downlink). One at about 8.4 gigahertz, is the X-band channel and contains science and engineering data. For comparison, the FM radio band is centered around 100 megahertz.

Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)

The Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) is a modified version of the slow scan vidicon camera designed that were used in the earlier Mariner flights. The ISS consists of two television-type cameras, each with eight filters in a commandable Filter Wheel mounted in front of the vidicons. One has a low resolution 200 mm wide-angle lens, while the other uses a higher resolution 1500 mm narrow-angle lens.

Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer and Radiometer (IRIS)

The Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer and Radiometer (IRIS) actually acts as three separate instruments. First, it is a very sophisticated thermometer. It can determine the distribution of heat energy a body is emitting, allowing scientists to determine the temperature of that body or substance.

Second, the IRIS is a device that can determine when certain types of elements or compounds are present in an atmosphere or on a surface.

Third, it uses a separate radiometer to measure the total amount of sunlight reflected by a body at ultraviolet, visible and infrared frequencies.

Low-Energy Charged Particles (LECP)

The Low-Energy Charged Particles (LECP) looks for particles of higher energy than the Plasma Science instrument, and it overlaps with the Cosmic Ray Subsystem (CRS). It has the broadest energy range of the three sets of particle sensors. 

The LECP can be imagined as a piece of wood, with the particles of interest playing the role of the bullets. The faster a bullet moves, the deeper it will penetrate the wood. Thus, the depth of penetration measures the speed of the particles. The number of “bullet holes” over time indicates how many particles there are in various places in the solar wind, and at the various outer planets. The orientation of the wood indicates the direction from which the particles came.

Magnetometer (MAG)

Although the Magnetometer (MAG) can detect some of the effects of the solar wind on the outer planets and moons, its primary job is to measure changes in the Sun’s magnetic field with distance and time, to determine if each of the outer planets has a magnetic field, and how the moons and rings of the outer planets interact with those magnetic fields.

Optical Calibration Target The target plate is a flat rectangle of known color and brightness, fixed to the spacecraft so the instruments on the movable scan platform (cameras, infrared instrument, etc.) can point to a predictable target for calibration purposes.

Photopolarimeter Subsystem (PPS)

The Photopolarimeter Subsystem (PPS) uses a 0.2 m telescope fitted with filters and polarization analyzers. The experiment is designed to determine the physical properties of particulate matter in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn and the rings of Saturn by measuring the intensity and linear polarization of scattered sunlight at eight wavelengths. 

The experiment also provided information on the texture and probable composition of the surfaces of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.

Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA) and Plasma Wave Subsystem (PWS)

Two separate experiments, The Plasma Wave Subsystem and the Planetary Radio Astronomy experiment, share the two long antennas which stretch at right-angles to one another, forming a “V”.

Plasma Science (PLS)

The Plasma Science (PLS) instrument looks for the lowest-energy particles in plasma. It also has the ability to look for particles moving at particular speeds and, to a limited extent, to determine the direction from which they come. 

The Plasma Subsystem studies the properties of very hot ionized gases that exist in interplanetary regions. One plasma detector points in the direction of the Earth and the other points at a right angle to the first.

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG)

Three RTG units, electrically parallel-connected, are the central power sources for the mission module. The RTGs are mounted in tandem (end-to-end) on a deployable boom. The heat source radioisotopic fuel is Plutonium-238 in the form of the oxide Pu02. In the isotopic decay process, alpha particles are released which bombard the inner surface of the container. The energy released is converted to heat and is the source of heat to the thermoelectric converter.

Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS)

The Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) is a very specialized type of light meter that is sensitive to ultraviolet light. It determines when certain atoms or ions are present, or when certain physical processes are going on. 

The instrument looks for specific colors of ultraviolet light that certain elements and compounds are known to emit.

Learn more about the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft HERE.

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River Bends Through 1,000-Foot Canyons

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station shot this photograph of the Green River flowing through deep, red rock canyons in eastern Utah. A main tributary of the Colorado River, the Green flows 730 miles (1,175 kilometers) through Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. The portion of the Green River in this image is just north of Canyonlands National Park.

Bowknot Bend was named for the way the river loops back on itself. Located in Labyrinth Canyon about 25 miles west of Moab, Utah, this river bend runs 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) in a circular loop and ends up 1,200 feet (360 meters) from where it first started. When the two sides of the river merge someday, Bowknot Bend will break off from the main channel and form a lake.

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

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Experience How Microgravity Affects the Human Body

Now is your chance to experience what it’s like to live and work on the International Space Station! The new NASA Science: Humans in Space app will let you explore the station while virtually experiencing what it does to your body.

Life in space is no float in the park. Astronauts contend with everything from motion sickness to face swelling to loss of bone density. That’s why many research investigations on the space station study how humans can better adapt to microgravity both in Earth's orbit as well as on longer missions to the Moon and Mars. 

Deal with these challenges and perform crucial daily workouts as you explore the orbiting laboratory and ensure the H-II Transfer Vehicle successfully berths to the station. 

You can even collect mission patches along the way for completing tasks, counteracting the effects of microgravity and making discoveries. 

Download the application for Android here and iPhone here. Find more NASA apps here.

Want to learn about more investigations heading to the space station (or even ones currently under way)? Make sure to follow @ISS_Research on Twitter and Space Station Research and Technology News on Facebook.

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Will Perseverance be near any other Rovers?

The magnetic field lines between a pair of active regions formed a beautiful set of swaying arches, seen in this footage captured by our Solar Dynamics Observatory on April 24-26, 2017. 

These arches, which form a connection between regions of opposite magnetic polarity, are visible in exquisite detail in this wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. Extreme ultraviolet light is typically invisible to our eyes, but is colorized here in gold. 

Take a closer look: https://go.nasa.gov/2pGgYZt

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That’s a wrap! Thanks for all the great questions.

Follow Serena on Twitter at @AstroSerena and follow the International Space Station on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to keep up with all the cool stuff happening on our orbital laboratory.

Name the Artemis Moonikin!

Choose your player!

As we gear up for our Artemis I mission to the Moon — the mission that will prepare us to send the first woman and the first person of color to the lunar surface — we have an important task for you (yes, you!). Artemis I will be the first integrated test flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule. Although there won’t be any humans aboard Orion, there will be a very important crewmember: the Moonikin!

The Moonikin is a manikin, or anatomical human model, that will be used to gather data on the vibrations that human crewmembers will experience during future Artemis missions. But the Moonikin is currently missing something incredibly important — a name!

There are eight names in the running, and each one reflects an important piece of NASA’s past or a reference to the Artemis program:

1. ACE

ACE stands for Artemis Crew Explorer. This is a very practical name, as the Moonikin will be a member of the first official “crew” aboard Artemis I.

The Moonikin will occupy the commander’s seat inside Orion, be equipped with two radiation sensors, and wear a first-generation Orion Crew Survival System suit—a spacesuit astronauts will wear during launch, entry, and other dynamic phases of their missions. The Moonikin will also be accompanied by phantoms, which are manikins without arms or legs: Zohar from the Israel Space Agency and Helga from the German Aerospace Center. Zohar and Helga will be participating in an investigation called the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment, which will provide valuable data on radiation levels experienced during missions to the Moon.

2. Campos

Campos is a reference to Arturo Campos, an electrical engineer at NASA who was instrumental to bringing the Apollo 13 crew safely back home.

Apollo 13 was on its way to attempt the third Moon landing when an oxygen tank exploded and forced the mission to abort. With hundreds of thousands of miles left in the journey, mission control teams at Johnson Space Center were forced to quickly develop procedures to bring the astronauts back home while simultaneously conserving power, water, and heat. Apollo 13 is considered a “successful failure,” because of the experience gained in rescuing the crew. In addition to being a key player in these efforts, Campos also established and served as the first president of the League of United Latin American Citizens Council 660, which was composed of Mexican-American engineers at NASA.

3. Delos

On June 26, 2017, our Terra satellite captured this image of the thousands of islands scattered across the Aegean Sea. One notable group, the Cyclades, sits in the central region of the Aegean. They encircle the tiny, sacred island of Delos.

According to Greek mythology, Delos was the island where the twin gods Apollo and Artemis were born.

The name is a recognition of the lessons learned during the Apollo program. Dr. Abe Silverstein, former director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center, said that he chose the name “Apollo” for the NASA's first Moon landing program because image of "Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program." Between 1969 and 1972, we successfully landed 12 humans on the lunar surface — providing us with invaluable information as the Artemis program gears up to send the first woman and the first person of color to the Moon.

4. Duhart

Duhart is a reference to Dr. Irene Duhart Long, the first African American woman to serve in the Senior Executive Service at Kennedy Space Center. As chief medical officer at the Florida spaceport, she was the first woman and the first person of color to hold that position. Her NASA career spanned 31 years.

Working in a male-dominated field, Long confronted — and overcame — many obstacles and challenges during her decorated career. She helped create the Spaceflight and Life Sciences Training Program at Kennedy, in partnership with Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a program that encouraged more women and people of color to explore careers in science.

5. Montgomery

Montgomery is a reference to Julius Montgomery, the first African American ever hired at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to work as a technical professional. After earning a bachelor's degree at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Montgomery served in the U.S. Air Force, where he earned a first class radio-telescope operator's license. Montgomery began his Cape Canaveral career in 1956 as a member of the “Range Rats,” technicians who repaired malfunctioning ballistic missiles.

Montgomery was also the first African American to desegregate and graduate from Brevard Engineering College, now the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida.

6. Rigel

Rigel is one of the 10 brightest stars in Earth's sky and forms part of the familiar constellation Orion. The blue supergiant is about 860 light-years from Earth.

The reference to Rigel is a nod toward the Orion spacecraft, which the Moonikin (and future Artemis astronauts!) will be riding aboard. Built to take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before, the Orion spacecraft will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry crew into space and provide safe re-entry back to Earth.

7. Shackleton

Shackleton Crater is a crater on the Moon named after the Antarctic explorer, Ernest Shackleton. The interior of the crater receives almost no direct sunlight, which makes it very cold — the perfect place to find ice. Our Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft (LRO) returned data that ice may make up as much as 22% of the surface material in Shackleton!

Shackleton Crater is unique because even though most of it is permanently shadowed, three points on the rim remain collectively sunlit for more than 90% of the year. The crater is a prominent feature at the Moon’s South Pole, a region where NASA plans to send Artemis astronauts on future missions.

8. Wargo

Wargo is a reference to Michael Wargo, who represented NASA as the first Chief Exploration Scientist for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. He was a leading contributor to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which launched together on to the Moon and confirmed water existed there in 2009.

Throughout his time as an instructor at MIT and his 20-year career at NASA, Wargo was known as a science ambassador to the public, and for his ability to explain complex scientific challenges and discoveries to less technical audiences. Following his sudden death in 2013, the International Astronomical Union posthumously named a crater on the far side of the Moon in his honor.

Want to participate in the naming contest? Make sure you are following @NASAArtemis on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to get notified about the bracket challenges between June 16 and June 28! Learn more about the Name the Artemis Moonikin Challenge here.

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Glittering Frisbee Galaxy: This image from Hubble's shows a section of a spiral galaxy located about 50 million light-years from Earth. We tend to think of spiral galaxies as massive and roughly circular celestial bodies, so this glittering oval does not immediately appear to fit the visual bill. What's going on? Imagine a spiral galaxy as a circular frisbee spinning gently in space. When we see it face on, our observations reveal a spectacular amount of detail and structure. However, the galaxy frisbee is very nearly edge-on with respect to Earth, giving it an appearance that is more oval than circular. The spiral arms, which curve out from the galaxy's dense core, can just about be seen. Although spiral galaxies might appear static with their picturesque shapes frozen in space, this is very far from the truth. The stars in these dramatic spiral configurations are constantly moving as they orbit around the galaxy's core, with those on the inside making the orbit faster than those sitting further out. This makes the formation and continued existence of a spiral galaxy's arms something of a cosmic puzzle, because the arms wrapped around the spinning core should become wound tighter and tighter as time goes on - but this is not what we see. This is known as the winding problem. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA For more information on this image, visit: https://go.nasa.gov/2niODGL

What’s Up for July 2016?

What's Up for July? Use Saturn as your guide to a tour of the summer Milky Way.

Saturn continues to dazzle this month. Its wide rings and golden color provide a nice contrast to nearby Mars and Antares. Below Saturn lies the constellation Scorpius, which really does look like a scorpion! 

Through binoculars or telescopes you'll be able to spot two pretty star clusters: a compact (or globular) cluster, M-4, and an open cluster, M-7. M-7 is known as Ptolemy's cluster. It was observed and cataloged by Greek-Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy in the first century.

Climbing north, you'll be able to spot the teapot shape which forms part of the constellation Sagittarius. The center of the Milky Way is easy to see. It looks like bright steam rising from the teapot's spout. 

With difficulty, a good star chart and a medium-sized telescope you can locate faint Pluto in the "teaspoon" adjacent to the teapot.

A binocular tour of this center core of the Milky Way reveals many beautiful summer sky objects. We first encounter the Eagle Nebula, M-16. Part of this nebula is featured in the famous and beautiful "Pillars of Creation" images taken by our Hubble Space Telescope.

You'll have to stay up later to see the northern Milky Way constellations, which are better placed for viewing later in the summer and fall. Cygnus the swan features the prettiest supernova remnant in the entire sky, the Veil Nebula. It's too big to fit in one eyepiece view, but luckily there are three sections of it. 

Look between Aquila and Cygnus to find three tiny constellations: Delphinus the dolphin, Vulpecula the fox and Lyra the lyre (or harp). M-57, the Ring Nebula, is the remains from a shell of ionized gas expelled by a red giant star into the surrounding interstellar medium. It's pretty, too! Look in Vulpecula for the Dumbbell, another planetary nebula.

We'll end our summer tour with Lacerta the lizard and Draco the Dragon. Lacerta is home to a star with an extrasolar planet in its orbit, and Draco, facing away from the center of our Milky Way, is a treasure trove of distant galaxies to catch in your telescope.

Watch the full What’s Up for July 2016 video HERE.

You can catch up on current missions and space telescopes studying our Milky Way and beyond at www.nasa.gov.

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How Well Do You Know Venus?

Similar in structure and size to Earth, Venus’ thick, toxic atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect. A permanent layer of clouds traps heat, creating surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead.

How did Venus get its name? It is named for the ancient Roman goddess of love and beauty. It is believed that Venus was named for the most beautiful of the ancient gods because it shone the brightest of the five planets known to ancient astronomers.

Here are a few fun facts that you might not know:

One day on Venus lasts as long as 243 Earth days (aka the time it takes for Venus to rotate or spin once)

Venus is a rocky planet, also known as a terrestrial planet

Venus’ thick and toxic atmosphere is made up mostly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets

Venus has no moons or rings

More than 40 spacecraft have explored the planet

No evidence of life has been found on Venus. The planet’s extreme high temperatures of almost 480 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit) makes it seem an unlikely place for life as we know it

Venus spins backwards when compared to the other planets. This means that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east

Night Light

Did you know that Venus is the brightest planet in Earth’s dark skies? Only the moon — which is not a planet — is brighter. Venus outshines the other planets because it is closer and its thick cloud cover is excellent at reflecting sunlight.

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