A Tiny Satellite Studies Stormy Layers

Vote While You float: An Astronaut Voting Story

With the excitement of getting to the polls on Election Day many people will have a hard time keeping their feet on the ground, but astronauts who vote literally have to strap themselves down so they don’t float away.

Astronauts orbit the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour, but thanks to a bill passed by Texas legislatures in 1997 that put in place technical voting procedure for astronauts – nearly all of whom live in Texas – they also have the ability to vote from space!

Image Kjell Lindgren released on social media of the US flag floating in the Cupola module (11/12/2015) 

For astronauts, the voting process starts a year before launch, when astronauts are able to select which elections (local/state/federal) that they want to participate in while in space. Then, six months before the election, astronauts are provided with a standard form: the “Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Request – Federal Post Card Application.”

 ‘Space voting’ was first used the same year it was implemented in 1997. NASA astronaut David Wolf became the first American to vote in space while on the Russian Mir Space Station. 

STS-86 crewmember David Wolf, the first American to vote in space, relaxes in the Spacehab module while Space Shuttle Atlantis was docked to Mir (10/16/1997) 

While astronauts don’t have to wait in line for his ballot like the rest of us, there is one disadvantage to voting in space: they miss out on the highly coveted “I Voted” sticker.

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Why Sequencing DNA in Space is a Big Deal

... And How You Can Talk to the Scientists Who Made It Happen

Less than one month ago, DNA had never been sequenced in space. As of today, more than one billion base pairs of DNA have been sequenced aboard the International Space Station, Earth’s only orbiting laboratory. The ability to sequence the DNA of living organisms in space opens a whole new world of scientific and medical possibilities. Scientists consider it a game changer. 

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who has a background in genomics, conducted the sequencing on the space station as part of the Biomolecule Sequencer investigation. A small, commercial, off-the-shelf device called MinION (min-EYE-ON), manufactured by Oxford Nanopore Technologies in the UK, was used to sequence the DNA of bacteria, a virus and rodents. Human DNA was not sequenced, and there are no immediate plans to sequence human DNA in space. 

(Image Credit: Oxford Nanopore Technologies)

The MinION is about the size of a candy bar, and plugs into a laptop or tablet via USB connection, which also provides power to the device. The tiny, plug and play sequencer is diminutive compared to the large microwave-sized sequencers used on Earth, and uses much less power. Unlike other terrestrial instruments whose sequencing run times can take days, this device’s data is available in near real time; analysis can begin within 10-15 minutes from the application of the sample.

Having real-time analysis capabilities aboard the space station could allow crews to identify microbes, diagnose infectious disease and collect genomic and genetic data concerning crew health, without having to wait long periods of time to return samples to Earth and await ground-based analysis.

The first DNA sequencing was conducted on Aug. 26, and on Sept. 14, Rubins and the team of scientists back at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston hit the one-billionth-base-pairs-of-DNA-sequenced mark.

Have more questions about how the Biomolecule Sequencer works, or how it could benefit Earth or further space exploration? Ask the team of scientists behind the investigation, who will be  available for questions during a Reddit Ask Me Anything on /r/science on Wednesday, Sept. 28 at 2 p.m. EDT. 

The participants are:

Dr. Aaron Burton, NASA Johnson Space Center, Planetary Scientist and Principal Investigator

Dr. Sarah Castro-Wallace, NASA Johnson Space Center, Microbiologist and Project Manager

Dr. David J. Smith, NASA Ames Research Center, Microbiologist

Dr. Mark Lupisella, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Systems Engineer

Dr. Jason P. Dworkin, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Astrobiologist

Dr. Christopher E. Mason, Weill Cornell Medicine Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics, Associate Professor

Why Do Some Galactic Unions Lead to Doom?

Three images from our Spitzer Space Telescope show pairs of galaxies on the cusp of cosmic consolidations. Though the galaxies appear separate now, gravity is pulling them together, and soon they will combine to form new, merged galaxies. Some merged galaxies will experience billions of years of growth. For others, however, the merger will kick off processes that eventually halt star formation, dooming the galaxies.

Only a few percent of galaxies in the nearby universe are merging, but galaxy mergers were more common between 6 billion and 10 billion years ago, and these processes profoundly shaped our modern galactic landscape. Scientists study nearby galaxy mergers and use them as local laboratories for that earlier period in the universe's history. The survey has focused on 200 nearby objects, including many galaxies in various stages of merging.

Merging galaxies in the nearby universe appear especially bright to infrared observatories like Spitzer. In these images, different colors correspond to different wavelengths of infrared light, which are not visible to the human eye. Blue corresponds to 3.6 microns, and green corresponds to 4.5 microns - both strongly emitted by stars. Red corresponds to 8.0 microns, a wavelength mostly emitted by dust.

Read more: https://go.nasa.gov/2VioFB0.

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Strap in for a Tour of the Milky Way

The night sky isn’t flat. If you traveled deep into this part of the sky at the speed of the radio waves leaving this tower, here are some places you could reach.

Jupiter: Travel time – 35 minutes, 49 seconds.

The closest object in this view is the planet Jupiter, brilliant now in the evening sky…and gorgeous when seen up close by our Juno spacecraft. Distance on the night this picture was taken: 400 million miles (644 million kilometers). 

Saturn: Travel time – one hour and 15 minutes.

The next closest is Saturn, another bright “star” in this summer’s sky. On the right, one of the Cassini spacecraft’s last looks. Distance: 843 million miles (1.3 billion kilometers).

Pluto: Light-speed travel time from the radio tower – four hours, 33 minutes.

It’s not visible to the unaided eye, but Pluto is currently found roughly in this direction. Our New Horizons space mission was the first to show us what it looks like. Distance: more than 3 billion miles.

F-type star, HD 169830: Light-speed travel time from the radio tower – 123 years.

Within this patch of sky, there’s an F-type star called HD 169830. At this speed, it would take you 123 years to get there. We now know it has at least two planets (one of which is imagined here) — just two of more than 4,000 we've found…so far.

The Lagoon Nebula: Light-speed travel time from the radio tower – 4,000 years.

If you look closely, you’ll see a fuzzy patch of light and color here. If you look *really* closely, as our Hubble Space Telescope did, you’ll see the Lagoon Nebula, churning with stellar winds from newborn stars.

Black hole, Sagittarius A*: Light-speed travel time from the radio tower – 26,000 years.

In 26,000 years, after passing millions of stars, you could reach the center of our galaxy. Hidden there behind clouds of dust is a massive black hole. It’s hidden, that is, unless you use our Chandra X-ray Observatory which captured the x-ray flare seen here.

The next time you’re under a deep, dark sky, don’t forget to look up…and wonder what else might be out there.

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SpaceX Dragon breathes Astronomical Amounts of Science to Space Station

SpaceX is helping the crew members aboard the International Space Station get down and nerdy as they launch their Dragon cargo spacecraft into orbit for the 13th commercial resupply mission, targeted for Dec. 15 from our Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

This super science-heavy flight will deliver experiments and equipment that will study phenomena on the Sun, materials in microgravity, space junk and more. 

Here are some highlights of research that will be delivered to the station:

ZBLAN Fiber Optics Tested in Space!

The Optical Fiber Production in Microgravity (Made in Space Fiber Optics) experiment demonstrates the benefits of manufacturing fiber optic filaments in a microgravity environment. This investigation will attempt to pull fiber optic wire from ZBLAN, a heavy metal fluoride glass commonly used to make fiber optic glass.

When ZBLAN is solidified on Earth, its atomic structure tends to form into crystals. Research indicates that ZBLAN fiber pulled in microgravity may not crystalize as much, giving it better optical qualities than the silica used in most fiber optic wire. 

Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor is Totally Teaching us About Earth’s Climate

The Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor, or TSIS, monitors both total solar irradiance and solar spectral irradiance, measurements that represent one of the longest space-observed climate records. Solar irradiance is the output of light energy from the entire disk of the Sun, measured at the Earth. This means looking at the Sun in ways very similar to how we observe stars rather than as an image with details that our eye can resolve.

Understanding the variability and magnitude of solar irradiance is essential to understanding Earth’s climate.  

Sensor Monitors Space Station Environment for Space Junk

The Space Debris Sensor (SDS) will directly measure the orbital debris environment around the space station for two to three years.

Above, see documentation of a Micro Meteor Orbital Debris strike on one of the window’s within the space station’s Cupola. 

Research from this investigation could help lower the risk to human life and critical hardware by orbital debris.

Self-Assembling and Self-Replicating Materials in Space!

Future space exploration may utilize self-assembly and self-replication to make materials and devices that can repair themselves on long duration missions. 

The Advanced Colloids Experiment- Temperature-7 (ACE-T-7) investigation involves the design and assembly of 3D structures from small particles suspended in a fluid medium. 

Melting Plastics in Microgravity

The Transparent Alloys project seeks to improve the understanding of the melting and solidification processes in plastics in microgravity. Five investigations will be conducted as a part of the Transparent Alloys project.

These European Space Agency (ESA) investigations will allow researchers to study this phenomena in the microgravity environment, where natural convection will not impact the results.  

Studying Slime (or…Algae, at Least) on the Space Station

Arthrospira B, an ESA investigation, will examine the form, structure and physiology of the Arthrospira sp. algae in order to determine the reliability of the organism for future spacecraft biological life support systems.

The development of these kinds of regenerative life support systems for spaceflight could also be applied to remote locations on Earth where sustainability of materials is important. 

Follow @ISS_Research on Twitter for more space science and watch the launch live on Dec. 15 at 10:36 a.m. EDT HERE!

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How Well Do You Know Mercury?

Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system and is only slightly larger than Earth’s moon. To give you some perspective, if the sun were as tall as a typical front door, Earth would be the size of a nickel and Mercury would be about as big as a green pea.

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. Daytime temperatures can reach 430 degrees Celsius (800 degrees Fahrenheit) and drop to –180 degrees Celsius (-290 degrees Fahrenheit) at night.

Here are a few fun facts about Mercury:

Mercury takes only 88 Earth days to orbit the sun

If we could stand on Mercury’s surface when it is at its closest point to the sun, the sun would appear more than three times larger than it does here on Earth

Mercury is home to one of the largest impact basins in the solar system: the Caloris Basin. The diameter of this impact basin is the length of 16,404 football fields (minus the end zones) placed end to end!

Mercury is one of only two planets in our solar system that do not have moons (Venus is the other one)

Mercury completes three rotations for every two orbits around the sun. That means that if you wanted to stay up from sunrise to sunrise on Mercury, you’d be up for 176 Earth days…you’d need a LOT of coffee! 

Two missions have visited Mercury:

Mariner 10 was the first mission to Mercury, and 30 years later, our MESSENGER mission was the second to visit the planet. Mariner 10 was also the first spacecraft to reach one planet by using the gravity of another planet (in this case, Venus) to alter its speed and trajectory.

MESSENGER was the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, The spacecraft had its own shades to protect it from the light of the sun. This is important since sunlight on Mercury can be as much as 11 times brighter than it is here on Earth. The spacecraft was originally planned to orbit Mercury for one year, but exceeded expectations and worked for over four years capturing extensive data. On April 30, 2015, the spacecraft succumbed to the pull of solar gravity and impacted Mercury’s surface.

Water Ice?

The MESSENGER spacecraft observed compelling support for the long-held hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant water ice and other frozen volatile materials in its permanently shadowed polar craters.

This radar image of Mercury’s north polar region. The areas shown in red were captured by MESSENGER, compared to the yellow deposits imaged by Earth-based radar. These areas are believed to consist of water ice.

Mercury Transit of the Sun

For more than seven hours on Monday, May 9, Mercury will be visible as a tiny black dot crossing the face of the sun. This rare event – which happens only slightly more than once a decade – is called a transit.

Where: Skywatchers in Western Europe, South America and eastern North America will be able to see the entirety of the transit. The entire 7.5-hour path across the sun will be visible across the Eastern U.S. – with magnification and proper solar filters – while those in the West can observe the transit in progress at sunrise.

Watch: We will stream a live program on NASA TV and the agency’s Facebook page from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. – an informal roundtable during which experts representing planetary, heliophysics and astrophysics will discuss the science behind the Mercury transit. Viewers can ask questions via Facebook and Twitter using #AskNASA. Unlike the 2012 Venus transit of the sun, Mercury is too small to be visible without magnification from a telescope or high-powered binoculars. Both must have safe solar filters made of specially-coated glass or Mylar; you can never look directly at the sun.

To learn more about our solar system and the planets, visit: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/

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Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week

The solar system is huge, so let us break it down for you. Here are the top 10 things you should know this week:

1. Big “Wows” from Small Worlds

Our robotic explorers continue to send truly spectacular pictures and data from deep space. Our New Horizons mission to Pluto and Dawn mission to dwarf planet Ceres are revealing never-before-seen landscapes on a regular basis. If you missed it, check out the most recent images from Pluto and Ceres.

2. Deep Waters

Saturn’s moon Enceladus has intrigued many with its geysers that erupt continuously in spectacular plumes. Our Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists with data that is allowing them to determine the source of those plumes. New evidence points to a global ocean of liquid water hidden beneath the moon’s icy shell!

3. A Super Eclipse

This weekend a “supermoon” lunar eclipse will be visible in the night sky. Supermoons  occur when the moon is at its closest point to the Earth in its orbit, making it appear slightly larger. This one is extra special because it will also undergo a lunar eclipse! Beginning at 9:07 p.m. EDT on Sept. 27, make sure you get outside and look up! For more information visit: What’s Up for September.

4. All Things Equal

Sept. 23 marks the autumnal equinox, which is the official beginning of the Fall season in the northern hemisphere. The word “equinox” comes from the Latin for “equal night,” meaning day and night will be of equal length on that day.

5. Explore Goddard Space Flight Center

This weekend, Goddard Space Flight Center will be offering tours, presentations and other activities for children and adults. The theme this year is “Celebrating Hubble and the Spirit of Exploration”. This event is free and open to the public, and will be held on Saturday, Sept. 26 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Join in HERE.

6. Titan’s Haze

This week, our Cassini spacecraft will observe Saturn’s hazy, planet-sized moon Titan. Scientists will use these images to look for clouds across Titan’s exotic regions. Explore HERE.

7. New Horizons Team on Pluto

Ever wondered what it was like to be part of the team that explored Pluto for the first time? If you’ll be near the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC on Sept. 22 you’re invited to a free lecture and Q&A to find out! Get the details HERE.

8. Martian Weather Report

Every day, our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter delivers a global view of the planet and its atmospheric activity. The most recent report included lots of water-ice clouds in the afternoon, with dust storms developing along the south polar region. Get the latest HERE.

9. Imagine: The View from Pluto

If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like to stand on the icy terrain of Pluto, you’re not alone. Artist Karl Kofoed created a series of digital paintings that render scenes from the dwarf planet based on data from the New Horizons July 14 Pluto flyby. View them HERE.

10. What’s the Big Idea?

We’re giving university students a chance to help us come up with solutions for our journey to Mars. This Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge will look for creative solutions for generating lift using inflatable spacecraft heat shields on Mars. Enter your BIG Idea.

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Blowing Bubbles in the Gamma-ray Sky

Did you know our Milky Way galaxy is blowing bubbles? Two of them, each 25,000 light-years tall! They extend above and below the disk of the galaxy, like the two halves of an hourglass. We can’t see them with our own eyes because they’re only apparent in gamma-ray light, the highest-energy light in the universe.

We didn’t even know these humongous structures were smack in the middle of our galaxy until 2010. Scientists found them when they analyzed the first two years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. They dubbed them the “Fermi bubbles” and found that in addition to being really big and spread out, they seem to have well-defined edges. The bubbles’ shape and the light they give off led scientists to think they were created by a rapid release of energy. But by what? And when?

One possible explanation is that they could be leftovers from the last big meal eaten by the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. This monster is more than 4 million times the mass of our own Sun. Scientists think it may have slurped up a big cloud of hydrogen between 6 and 9 million years ago and then burped jets of hot gas that we see in gamma rays and X-rays.

Another possible explanation is that the bubbles could be the remains of star formation. There are massive clusters of stars at very the center of the Milky Way — sometimes the stars are so closely packed they’re a million times more dense than in the outer suburb of the galaxy where we live. If there was a burst of star formation in this area a few million years ago, it could have created the surge of gas needed to in turn create the Fermi bubbles.

It took us until 2010 to see these Fermi bubbles because the sky is filled with a fog of other gamma rays that can obscure our view. This fog is created when particles moving near light speed bump into gas, dust, and light in the Milky Way. These collisions produce gamma rays, and scientists had to factor out the fog to unveil the bubbles.

Scientists continue to study the possible causes of these massive bubbles using the 10 years of data Fermi has collected so far. Fermi has also made many other exciting discoveries — like the the collision of superdense neutron stars and the nature of space-time. Learn more about Fermi and how we’ve been celebrating its first decade in space.

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Follow our Juno craft during a close flyby of Jupiter, learn about Cassini’s final mission during a Facebook live event (in case you missed it) and more!

1. Jupiter, Up Close

Our Juno mission completed a close flyby of Jupiter on Thursday, February 2, its latest science orbit of the mission. All of Juno's science instruments and the spacecraft's JunoCam were operating during the flyby to collect data that is now being returned to Earth. 

Want to know more? Using NASA's Eyes on the Solar System and simulated data from the Juno flight team you can ride onboard the Juno spacecraft in real-time at any moment during the entire mission.

2. In Case You Missed It--Cassini Facebook Live

Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker and mission planner Molly Bittner take questions about the mission's "Ring-Grazing" orbits during Facebook Live. Watch it now: www.facebook.com/NASA/videos/10154861046561772/

3. Cassini Scientist for a Day Essay Contest 

The deadline is Friday, February 24 for U.S. student in grades 5 to 12. For international students, visit the page for more info! 

More: solarsystem.nasa.gov/educ/Scientist-For-a-Day/2016-17/videos/intro

4. Cassini Spies Dione

Dione's lit hemisphere faces away from Cassini's camera, yet the moon's darkened surface are dimly illuminated in this image, due to the phenomenon of Saturnshine. Although direct sunlight provides the best illumination for imaging, light reflected off of Saturn can do the job as well. In this image, Dione (698 miles or 1,123 kilometers across) is above Saturn's day side, and the moon's night side is faintly illuminated by sunlight reflected off the planet's disk.

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

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OMG! Ice is Melting from Below

Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) scientists are heading into the field this week to better understand how seawater is melting Greenland’s ice from below. (Yes, those black specks are people next to an iceberg.) While NASA is studying ocean properties (things like temperature, salinity and currents), other researchers are eager to incorporate our data into their work. In fact, University of Washington scientists are using OMG data to study narwhals – smallish whales with long tusks – otherwise known as the “unicorns of the sea.”

 Our researchers are also in the field right now studying how Alaska’s ice is changing. Operation IceBridge, our longest airborne campaign, is using science instruments on airplanes to study and measure the ice below.

What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic (or the Antarctic, really). In a warming world, the greatest changes are seen in the coldest places. Earth’s cryosphere – its ice sheets, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost and snow cover – acts as our planet’s thermostat and deep freeze, regulating temperatures and storing most of our freshwater. Next month, we’re launching ICESat-2, our latest satellite to study Earth’s ice!

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