How Airglow Can Help Us Understand The Sun’s Influence On Earth

Gravity, Hazard of Alteration

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.

The variance of gravity fields that astronauts will encounter on a mission to Mars is the fourth hazard.

On Mars, astronauts would need to live and work in three-eighths of Earth’s gravitational pull for up to two years. Additionally, on the six-month trek between the planets, explorers will experience total weightlessness. 

Besides Mars and deep space there is a third gravity field that must be considered. When astronauts finally return home they will need to readapt many of the systems in their bodies to Earth’s gravity.

To further complicate the problem, when astronauts transition from one gravity field to another, it’s usually quite an intense experience. Blasting off from the surface of a planet or a hurdling descent through an atmosphere is many times the force of gravity.

Research is being conducted to ensure that astronauts stay healthy before, during and after their mission. Specifically researchers study astronauts’ vision, fine motor skills, fluid distribution, exercise protocols and response to pharmaceuticals.

Exploration to the Moon and Mars will expose astronauts to five known hazards of spaceflight, including gravity. 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 gravity with Peter Norsk, Senior Research Director/ Element Scientist at the Johnson Space Center.

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Take a deep breath. Even if the air looks clear, it is nearly certain that you will inhale millions of solid particles and liquid droplets. These ubiquitous specks of matter are known as aerosols, and they can be found in the air over oceans, deserts, mountains, forests, ice, and every ecosystem in between.

If you have ever watched smoke billowing from a wildfire, ash erupting from a volcano, or dust blowing in the wind, you have seen aerosols. Satellites like Terra, Aqua, Aura, and Suomi NPP “see” them as well, though they offer a completely different perspective from hundreds of kilometers above Earth’s surface. A version of one of our models called the Goddard Earth Observing System Forward Processing (GEOS FP) offers a similarly expansive view of the mishmash of particles that dance and swirl through the atmosphere.

The visualization above highlights GEOS FP model output for aerosols on August 23, 2018. On that day, huge plumes of smoke drifted over North America and Africa, three different tropical cyclones churned in the Pacific Ocean, and large clouds of dust blew over deserts in Africa and Asia. The storms are visible within giant swirls of sea salt aerosol(blue), which winds loft into the air as part of sea spray. Black carbon particles (red) are among the particles emitted by fires; vehicle and factory emissions are another common source. Particles the model classified as dust are shown in purple. The visualization includes a layer of night light data collected by the day-night band of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on Suomi NPP that shows the locations of towns and cities.

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What is the weirdest thing you had to account for when building the perseverance rover?

Did you have an innate talent for math? Or did you struggle and practiced until you understood it? I wanted to become an aerospace engineer but after taking a class I decided psychology was more suited for me because I struggled with equations but thrived with the psychological terms

Anything you don’t know is hard until you learn it. There are a few geniuses in the world, but most people study and work hard to learn what they love. Even the smartest amongst you actually put in a lot of time to learn the things that they want, and no one is an exception. You have to put in the time.

Water on Mars!

Did you hear? New findings from our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.

Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, we found hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on Mars. One thing that researchers noticed was that the darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time. During warm seasons, they darken and then fade in cooler seasons.

When discovered in 2010, these downhill flows known as recurring slope lineae (RSL) were thought to be related to liquid water. With the recent spectral detection of molecular water, we’re able to say it’s likely a shallow subsurface flow explains the darkening.

Mars is so cold, how could liquid water flow there? Great question! Since this liquid water is briny, the freezing point would be lower than that of pure water. Also, these saline slopes appear on Mars when temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius).

The dark, narrow streaks flowing downhill in the below image are roughly the length of a football field.

So there’s water, but how much? Currently we think this area has a very small amount of water, probably just enough to wet the top layer of the surface of Mars. The streaks are around four to five meters wide and 200 to 300 meters long.

Could humans drink this water? The salts in the water appear to be perchlorates, so you probably wouldn’t want to drink the water. It would most likely be very salty and would need to be purified before human consumption.

Perchlorate...What is that? A perchlorate is a salt that absorbs water from the air. Learn more about how it’s helping us unlock the mysteries of Mars in this video:

What’s next? We want to look for more locations where brine flows may occur. We have only covered 3% of Mars at resolutions high enough to see these features.

For more information on the Mars announcement, visit our Journey to Mars landing page. There is also a full recap of the press conference HERE, and a short recap below.

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What ways were used to determine all of the inner workings under our planet Earth’s surface?

Next stop: Mars! Watch NASA's Perseverance Rover Attempt the Most Dangerous Landing to Date on Feb. 18

Tomorrow, Feb. 18, 2021, our most advanced rover named Perseverance will attempt a precision landing in Mars' Jezero Crater. Her mission is to search for signs of ancient life in the planet's geology and test technology that will pave the way for future human missions to the Moon and Mars. Excited yet? Get this:

Perseverance is ferrying 25 cameras to the Red Planet — the most ever flown in the history of deep-space exploration — so get ready to see Mars like never before! For more mission quick facts, click here.

When to watch:

Date: Feb. 18

Time: Live coverage starts at 2:15 p.m. EST (19:15 UTC)

SET A REMINDER & WATCH LIVE HERE

Want to join the #CountdownToMars? We created a virtual Mars photo booth, have sounds of Mars to listen to and more for all you Earthlings to channel your inner Martian. Check out ways to participate HERE.

If you want to follow Perseverance's journey on the Red Planet, be sure to follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

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How Humans Change Space Itself

It’s no surprise that humans influence the surface of our planet, but our reach can go farther than that. Humans affect space, too.

We know storms from the sun can naturally change the space environment around Earth, which can have an impact on satellites and power grids.

Scientists now know that Cold War era nuclear tests in the 1950s caused similar effects.

Particles around Earth are organized into layers known as radiation belts. These 1950s tests created a temporary extra layer of radiation closer to Earth. 

The effects of this could be seen all around the world. Aurora appeared at the equator instead of the poles, utility grids in Hawaii were strained, and in some cases, satellites above test sites were affected. 

Some types of communications signals can also affect Earth’s radiation belts. 

Very low-frequency waves, or VLFs, are used for radio communications. They are often used to communicate with submarines, because these waves can penetrate deep into the ocean. 

The waves can also travel far into the space environment around Earth. When these waves are in space, they affect how high-energy particles move, creating a barrier against natural radiation.

The outer edge of this radio-wave barrier corresponds almost exactly the inner edge of Earth’s natural radiation belts – meaning it could be human activity that at least partly shapes this natural radiation around Earth.  

For more NASA sun and space research, visit www.nasa.gov/sunearth and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Going for GOLD

On Jan. 25, we’re going for GOLD!

We’re launching an instrument called Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk, GOLD for short. It’s a new mission that will study a complicated — and not yet fully understood — region of near-Earth space, called the ionosphere.

Space is not completely empty: It’s teeming with fast-moving energized particles and electric and magnetic fields that guide their motion. At the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space, these particles and fields — the ionosphere — co-exist with the upper reaches of the neutral atmosphere.

That makes this a complicated place. Big events in the lower atmosphere, like hurricanes or tsunamis, can create waves that travel all the way up to that interface to space, changing the wind patterns and causing disruptions.

It’s also affected by space weather. The Sun is a dynamic star, and it releases spurts of energized particles and blasts of solar material carrying electric and magnetic fields that travel out through the solar system. Depending on their direction, these bursts have the potential to disrupt space near Earth.

This combination of factors makes it hard to predict changes in the ionosphere — and that can have a big impact. Communications signals, like radio waves and signals that make our GPS systems work, travel through this region, and sudden changes can distort them or even cut them off completely.

Low-Earth orbiting satellites — including the International Space Station — also fly through the ionosphere, so understanding how it fluctuates is important for protecting these satellites and astronauts.  

GOLD is a spectrograph, an instrument that breaks light down into its component wavelengths, measuring their intensities. Breaking light up like this helps scientists see the behavior of individual chemical elements — for instance, separating the amount of oxygen versus nitrogen. GOLD sees in far ultraviolet light, a type of light that’s invisible to our eyes.

GOLD is a hosted payload. The instrument is hitching a ride aboard SES-14, a commercial communications satellite built by Airbus for SES Government Solutions, which owns and operates the satellite.

Also launching this year is the Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, which will also study the ionosphere and neutral upper atmosphere. But while GOLD will fly in geostationary orbit some 22,000 miles above the Western Hemisphere, ICON will fly just 350 miles above Earth, able to gather close up images of this region.

Together, these missions give us an unprecedented look at the ionosphere and upper atmosphere, helping us understand the very nature of how our planet interacts with space.

To learn more about this region of space and the GOLD mission, visit: nasa.gov/gold.

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Solar System: 2015 Year in Review

Two mysterious worlds explored for the first time. Liquid water seen flowing on Mars. A global ocean discovered hiding inside a moon of Saturn. Even during our Era of audacious solar system exploration, 2015 stands out. Here are a few highlights:

1. New Horizons Reveals the Face of Pluto

Whether or not you call it a planet, Pluto entranced the people of Earth when it sent a love note from three billion miles away via our New Horizons spacecraft.

2. Dawn Comes to Ceres

The dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt, teased explorers with its bizarre bright spots before finally giving up some of its secrets to the Dawn spacecraft. HERE are the latest findings.

3. Cassini Marks Discoveries and Milestones at Enceladus

When the Cassini spacecraft performs its final close flyby of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus on Dec. 19, it will be a true milestone. Scientists using data from Cassini’s instruments have uncovered astounding secrets about this small moon, including (confirmed this year) the fact that its underground ocean of liquid water is global, and is home to hydrothermal vents.

4. We Confirmed Evidence that Liquid Water Flows on Today’s Mars

Findings from our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provided the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently — on present-day Mars.

5. Rosetta Passes Perihelion

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission had a remarkable year, re-establishing contact with the Philae lander and following comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it swung near the sun.

6. Mars Explorers Confirm Lakes Once Dotted Mars

A study from the team behind our Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover confirmed that Mars was once, billions of years ago, capable of storing water in lakes over an extended period of time.

7. MAVEN Finds a Culprit in the Loss of Mars’ Atmosphere

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission identified the process that appears to have played a key role in the transition of the Martian climate from an early, warm and wet environment that might have supported surface life to the cold, arid planet that Mars is today.

8. Akatsuki Gets a Second Chance at Venus

Five years after a mishap sent the spacecraft off course, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully inserted the Venus Climate Orbiter “Akatsuki” into orbit around Venus. While the mission is not funded by NASA, an agency partnership with JAXA provides an opportunity for eight of our scientists to work with the Akatsuki team and study data from the spacecraft over the next year or so.

9. A Trailblazing Mission Sends Its Final Message from Mercury

After a flight of nearly 11 years, the highly successful MESSENGER mission ended when, as planned, the spacecraft slammed into the surface of Mercury.

10. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Completes 40,000 Orbits

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, at Mars since 2006, has orbited the Red Planet more than 40,000 times. The mission, which studies the whole planet from space, has shown that Mars is diverse and dynamic by way of many thousands of spectacular images and other kinds of data.

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