I’m Sure You’re Trained So That Nothing In Space Is Really A Surprise, But: Was There Anything About

Happy New Year From NASA! The year 2021 was one for the books, so what will 2022 bring? No matter what, remember: You are made of star stuff. Sparkly, glorious star stuff.

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Meteorites Help Answer Questions About Solar System Evolution

A team of eight scientists including our own Astromaterials Curation Chief Cindy Evans spent two-months in the frozen landscape of Antarctica as part of the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET), a 40-year program that has helped reveal information about asteroids, other bodies of our solar system and the red planet which will assist us on our Journey to Mars.

The team recovered nearly 570 new meteorite samples from the Miller Range of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains during the expedition.

After a several-month journey from Antarctica, these samples arrived at our Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on April 14 to become part of the U.S. Antarctic meteorite collection housed at Johnson and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Samples recovered from recent seasons include rare and scientifically valuable pieces of Mars and Moon, as well as rocks formed very early during the formation and evolution of the solar system that hold clues to the origin of volatiles, planets and the organic compounds essential to life.

Meteorites are currently the only way to acquire samples from Mars as well as new samples of the moon that are different from – and originated far from – the Apollo landing sites, as well as a variety of asteroid bodies.

Samples from this collection (representing nearly 40 individual collection seasons) are available to researchers worldwide, and hundreds are distributed every year by the Astromaterials Curation Office.

The meteorites collected give us important clues about the early solar system, but even the thousands of meteorites recovered over the years represent a tiny part of the larger puzzle, including a find in the 1990s that produced evidence that sparked a vigorous debate about whether life could have existed on Mars more than 3.6 billion years ago.

As engineers and scientists around the country work hard to develop the technologies astronauts will use to one day live and work on Mars, and safely return home from the next giant leap for humanity, the meteorites provide critical data that enable engineers to build the right technologies.

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Great Scott, it’s Back to the Future Day – Oct. 21, 2015

What would a time traveler from 1985 discover about   NASA today?

It’s Back to the Future Day, the date in the second film that Marty and Doc traveled to in the future. When they arrived in 2015, it looked much different than today’s reality. Although we may not have self-drying jackets or flying cars, we do have some amazing spacecraft and technologies that were not around back when the film was made.

For example, in 1985 we did not have the capability to capture an image like this of our Earth. This full-Earth view captured Monday (10/19/15) by our camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVER, was not previously possible. The DSCOVR mission captures a daily sequence of images that show the Earth as it rotates, revealing the whole globe over the course of a day. These images will allow scientists to study daily variations over the entire globe in such features as vegetation, ozone, aerosols and cloud height and reflectivity.

So, we might not be cruising down the street on hover boards, but the movies didn’t get it all wrong in terms of how advanced we’d be in 2015.

When you were a kid, what technologies did you dream we’d have in the future that we may or may not have today? Here’s what two astronauts said:

NASA is much different than it was in 1985. Could we have dreamed these amazing accomplishments that have changed our world and understanding of the universe?

1. “There will be an orbiting laboratory where astronauts from around the world will live and work together.”

When Back to the Future II was set, the International Space Station didn’t exist yet. The first piece of the space station was launched in 1998, and the first crew arrived in 2000. Since November 2000, the station has been continuously occupied by humans. 

2. "We will find planets orbiting in the habitable zone of a star, and possibly suited for life."

The first exoplanet, or planet orbiting around a star, was found in 1995. Since then, we’ve discovered around a dozen habitable zone planets in the Earth-size range. While we aren’t able to zoom in to these planets that are light-years away, we’re still closer to finding another Earth-like planet in 2015 than we were in 1985. 

3. “Mars will become more populated.”

No, not by humans...yet. But, since the release of Back to the Future II, Mars has become a bit more populated with rovers and orbiters. These scientific spacecraft have played an important role in learning about the Red Planet. We currently have six missions at Mars. With the most recent news of liquid water on the surface of Mars, we can look forward to future missions returning even more data and images. The historical log of all Mars missions, both domestic and international can be found HERE. 

4. “We will launch a telescope into orbit that’s capable of looking at locations more than 13.4 billion light years from Earth.”

When Back to the Future II was released, our Hubble Space Telescope had not yet launched into orbit -- something that wouldn’t happen until April 1990. Since then, Hubble has made more than 1.2 million observations, and has traveled more than 3 billion miles along a circular low Earth orbit. For updates on Hubble’s findings, check HERE.

For more information about the technology that we’re developing at NASA, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology

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6 Ways NASA is Involved in Climate Science

When it comes to climate change, we play a unique role in observing and understanding changes to the planet. Thanks to NASA’s Earth observations and related research, we know our planet and its climate are changing profoundly. We also know human activities, like releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, are driving this change.

Not only do we make these observations, we help people and groups use this knowledge to benefit society. The work we do at NASA is critical to helping us understand the ways our planet is responding to increased temperatures.

Here are 6 ways that we are involved in climate science and informing decisions:

1. Monitoring Earth’s vital signs

Just like a doctor checks your vitals when you go in for a visit, here at NASA we are constantly monitoring Earth’s vital signs - carbon dioxide levels, global temperature, Arctic sea ice minimum, the ice sheets and sea level, and more.

We use satellites in space, observations from airplanes and ships, and data collected on the ground to understand our planet and its changing climate. Scientists also use computers to model and understand what's happening now and what might happen in the future.

People who study Earth see that the planet’s climate is getting warmer. Earth's temperature has gone up more than 1 degree Celsius (~2 degrees Fahrenheit) in the last 100 years. This may not seem like much, but small changes in Earth's temperature can have big effects. The current warming trend is of particular significance, because it is predominantly the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and is proceeding at an unprecedented rate.

People drive cars. People heat and cool their houses. People cook food. All those things take energy. Human-produced greenhouse gas emissions are largely responsible for warming our planet. Burning fossil fuels -- which includes coal, oil, and natural gas -- releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where they act like an insulating blanket and trap heat near Earth’s surface.

At NASA, we use satellites and instruments on board the International Space Station to confirm measurements of atmospheric carbon levels. They’ve been increasing much faster than any other time in history.

2. Tracking global land use and its impacts 

We also monitor and track global land use. Currently, half the world's population lives in urban areas, and by 2025, the United Nations projects that number will rise to 60%. 

With so many people living and moving to metropolitan areas, the scientific world recognizes the need to study and understand the impacts of urban growth both locally and globally. 

The International Space Station helps with this effort to monitor Earth. Its position in low-Earth orbit provides variable views and lighting over more than 90% of the inhabited surface of Earth, a useful complement to sensor systems on satellites in higher-altitude polar orbits. This high-resolution imaging of land and sea allows tracking of urban and forest growth, monitoring of hurricanes and volcanic eruptions, documenting of melting glaciers and deforestation, understanding how agriculture may be impacted by water stress, and measuring carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere.

3. Research into the causes of climate change

Being able to monitor Earth’s climate from space also allows us to understand what’s driving these changes.

With the CERES instruments, which fly on multiple Earth satellites, our scientists measure the Earth’s planetary energy balance – the amount of energy Earth receives from the Sun and how much it radiates back to space. Over time, less energy being radiated back to space is evidence of an increase in Earth’s greenhouse effect. Human emissions of greenhouse gases are trapping more and more heat.

NASA scientists also use computer models to simulate changes in Earth’s climate as a result of  human and natural drivers of temperature change.

These simulations show that human activities such as greenhouse gas emissions, along with natural factors, are necessary to simulate the changes in Earth’s climate that we have observed; natural forces alone can’t do so.

4. Research into the effects of climate change

Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers and ice sheets have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted, and trees are flowering sooner.

The effects of global climate change that scientists predicted are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.

Climate modelers have predicted that, as the planet warms, Earth will experience more severe heat waves and droughts, larger and more extreme wildfires, and longer and more intense hurricane seasons on average. The events of 2020 are consistent with what models have predicted: extreme climate events are more likely because of greenhouse gas emissions.

Plants are also struggling to keep up with rising carbon dioxide levels. Plants play a key role in mitigating climate change. The more carbon dioxide they absorb during photosynthesis, the less carbon dioxide  remains trapped in the atmosphere where it can cause temperatures to rise. But scientists have identified an unsettling trend – 86% of land ecosystems globally are becoming progressively less efficient at absorbing the increasing levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Helping organizations to use all the data and knowledge NASA generates is another part of our job. We’ve helped South Dakota fight West Nile Virus, helped managers across the Western U.S. handle water, helped The Nature Conservancy protect land for shorebirds, and others. We also support developing countries as they work to address climate and other challenges through a 15-year partnership with the United States Agency for International Development.

5. Action on sustainability

Sustainability involves taking action now to enable a future where the environment and living conditions are protected and enhanced. We work with many government, nonprofit, and business partners to use our data and modeling to inform their decisions and actions. We are also working to advance technologies for more efficient flight, including hybrid-electric propulsion, advanced materials, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. 

These advances in research and technology will not only bring about positive changes to the climate and the world in which we live, but they will also drive the economic engine of America and our partners in industry, to remain the world-wide leader in flight development.  

We partner with the private sector to facilitate the transfer of our research and NASA-developed technologies. Many innovations originally developed for use in the skies above help make life more sustainable on Earth. For example:

Our Earth-observing satellites help farmers produce more with less water.

Expertise in rocket engineering led to a technique that lessens the environmental impact of burning coal.

A fuel cell that runs equipment at oil wells reduces the need to vent greenhouse gases.

6. Applying climate research to preserve NASA centers in coastal areas

Sea level rise in the two-thirds of Earth covered by water may jeopardize up to two-thirds of NASA's infrastructure built within mere feet of sea level.

Some NASA centers and facilities are located in coastal real estate because the shoreline is a safer, less inhabited surrounding for launching rockets. But now these launch pads, laboratories, airfields, and testing facilities are potentially at risk because of sea level rise. We’ve worked internally at NASA to identify climate risks and support planning at our centers.

NASA Climate Science

Climate change is one of the most complex issues facing us today. It involves many dimensions – science, economics, society, politics, and moral and ethical questions – and is a global problem, felt on local scales, that will be around for decades and centuries to come. With our Eyes on the Earth and wealth of knowledge on the Earth’s climate system and its components, we are one of the world’s experts in climate science.

Visit our Climate site to explore and learn more.

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Learn all about the end of the Rosetta Mission and more about the weather on Mars, the Moon’s colorful palette.

1. Rosetta’s Last Dance

The Rosetta mission was one of firsts: the first to orbit a comet and the first to dispatch a lander to a comet's surface. Rosetta transformed our understanding of these ancient wanderers, and this week, mission controllers will command the spacecraft to execute a series of maneuvers to bring it out of orbit around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Watch live on Sept. 30 from 6:15-8 a.m. EDT, the Rosetta mission's 12-year odyssey in space reaches its conclusion. Rosetta will descend to make a planned impact on the comet’s surface with its instruments recording science data during descent.

+Watch live as Rosetta crash lands on NASA TV, recording data along the way

+More on the mission’s final descent

+Mission highlights

2.  Hubble Spots Possible Water Plumes Erupting on Jupiter's Moon Europa

On Monday, Sept. 26, our scientists announced what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope. This finding bolsters other Hubble observations suggesting the icy moon erupts with high altitude water vapor plumes.

+Learn the latest on Europa

3. Not So Impossible After All

Scientists have found an "impossible" ice cloud on Saturn's moon Titan. The puzzling appearance of an ice cloud prompted our researchers to suggest that a different process than previously thought could be forming clouds on Titan. The process may be similar to one seen over Earth's poles. Today, the Cassini spacecraft will perform a targeted Titan flyby, skimming just 1,079 miles (1,736 kilometers) above its hazy surface. Several of Cassini's instruments will be watching for clouds and other phenomena in the atmosphere, as well as taking measurements of the surface.

+Learn more about Titan’s clouds

4. Lunar Intrigue

Earth's moon is a colorless world of grays and whites, right? Not really. As seen in these images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, some landscapes on the moon reveal a whole range of color. One such place is the mountainous complex of ancient lava flows known as the Lassell Massif, one of the moon's so-called "red spots."

+Take a look

5. Weather Report: Mars

A camera aboard our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter monitors global weather patterns daily. The most recent report includes the remains of a large dust storm in the Noachis region, and smaller tempests spotted along the edge of the south polar ice cap and water-ice clouds over the volcano Arsia Mons.

+ Learn more and see Mars weather videos

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

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We Found the Perfect Spot to Land our Moon Rover

After an extensive selection process, we chose the mountainous area west of Nobile Crater at the Moon’s South Pole as the landing site for our first-ever robotic Moon rover. The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, will explore the Moon’s surface and subsurface in search of water and other resources beginning in late 2023. Thanks to past missions, such as satellites orbiting the Moon or impacting its surface, we know there is ice at the Moon’s poles. But how much? And where did it come from? VIPER aims to answer these questions and more by venturing into shadowed craters and visiting other areas of scientific interest over its 100-day mission. The findings will inform future landing sites under the Artemis program and help pave the way toward establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon. Here are five things to know:

The landing site is located just outside the western rim of Nobile Crater at the Moon’s South Pole.

The region has suitable lighting and terrain for our solar-powered rover to navigate.

VIPER will travel up to 15 miles in search of water and other resources.

Its traverse will change depending on what it finds, but it could look like this.

Drivers on Earth will tell the rover where to explore during its 100-day mission.

The VIPER mission is managed by our Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. The approximately 1,000-pound rover will be delivered to the Moon by a commercial vendor as part of our Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, delivering science and technology payloads to and near the Moon.

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@tinyscoop: What's the strangest experiment you've ever had to carry out up there?

Neutron Stars Are Weird!

There, we came right out and said it. They can’t help it; it’s just what happens when you have a star that’s heavier than our sun but as small as a city. Neutron stars give us access to crazy conditions that we can’t study directly on Earth.

Here are five facts about neutron stars that show sometimes they are stranger than science fiction!

1. Neutron stars start their lives with a bang

When a star bigger and more massive than our sun runs out of fuel at the end of its life, its core collapses while the outer layers are blown off in a supernova explosion. What is left behind depends on the mass of the original star. If it’s roughly 7 to 19 times the mass of our sun, we are left with a neutron star. If it started with more than 20 times the mass of our sun, it becomes a black hole.

2. Neutron stars contain the densest material that we can directly observe

While neutron stars’ dark cousins, black holes, might get all the attention, neutron stars are actually the densest material that we can directly observe. Black holes are hidden by their event horizon, so we can’t see what’s going on inside. However, neutron stars don’t have such shielding. To get an idea of how dense they are, one sugar cube of neutron star material would weigh about 1 trillion kilograms (or 1 billion tons) on Earth—about as much as a mountain. That is what happens when you cram a star with up to twice the mass of our sun into a sphere the diameter of a city.

3. Neutron stars can spin as fast as blender blades

Some neutron stars, called pulsars, emit streams of light that we see as flashes because the beams of light sweep in and out of our vision as the star rotates. The fastest known pulsar, named PSR J1748-2446ad, spins 43,000 times every minute. That’s twice as fast as the typical household blender! Over weeks, months or longer, pulsars pulse with more accuracy than an atomic clock, which excites astronomers about the possible applications of measuring the timing of these pulses.

4. Neutron stars are the strongest known magnets

Like many objects in space, including Earth, neutron stars have a magnetic field. While all known neutron stars have magnetic fields billions and trillions of times stronger than Earth’s, a type of neutron star known as a magnetar can have a magnetic field another thousand times stronger. These intense magnetic forces can cause starquakes on the surface of a magnetar, rupturing the star’s crust and producing brilliant flashes of gamma rays so powerful that they have been known to travel thousands of light-years across our Milky Way galaxy, causing measurable changes to Earth’s upper atmosphere.

5. Neutron stars’ pulses were originally thought to be possible alien signals

Beep. Beep. Beep. The discovery of pulsars began with a mystery in 1967 when astronomers picked up very regular radio flashes but couldn’t figure out what was causing them. The early researchers toyed briefly with the idea that it could be a signal from an alien civilization, an explanation that was discarded but lingered in their nickname for the original object—LGM-1, a nod to the “little green men” (it was later renamed PSR B1919+21). Of course, now scientists understand that pulsars are spinning neutron stars sending out light across a broad range of wavelengths that we detect as very regular pulses – but the first detections threw observers for a loop.

The Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) payload that is soon heading to the International Space Station will give astronomers more insight into neutron stars—helping us determine what is under the surface. Also, onboard NICER, the Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology (SEXTANT) experiment will test the use of pulsars as navigation beacons in space.

Want to learn even more about Neutron Stars? Watch this...

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Largest Batch of Earth-size, Habitable Zone Planets

Our Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in an area called the habitable zone, where liquid water is most likely to exist on a rocky planet.

This exoplanet system is called TRAPPIST-1, named for The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile. In May 2016, researchers using TRAPPIST announced they had discovered three planets in the system.

Assisted by several ground-based telescopes, Spitzer confirmed the existence of two of these planets and discovered five additional ones, increasing the number of known planets in the system to seven.

This is the FIRST time three terrestrial planets have been found in the habitable zone of a star, and this is the FIRST time we have been able to measure both the masses and the radius for habitable zone Earth-sized planets.

All of these seven planets could have liquid water, key to life as we know it, under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.

At about 40 light-years (235 trillion miles) from Earth, the system of planets is relatively close to us, in the constellation Aquarius. Because they are located outside of our solar system, these planets are scientifically known as exoplanets. To clarify, exoplanets are planets outside our solar system that orbit a sun-like star.

In this animation, you can see the planets orbiting the star, with the green area representing the famous habitable zone, defined as the range of distance to the star for which an Earth-like planet is the most likely to harbor abundant liquid water on its surface. Planets e, f and g fall in the habitable zone of the star.

Using Spitzer data, the team precisely measured the sizes of the seven planets and developed first estimates of the masses of six of them. The mass of the seventh and farthest exoplanet has not yet been estimated.

For comparison…if our sun was the size of a basketball, the TRAPPIST-1 star would be the size of a golf ball.

Based on their densities, all of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely to be rocky. Further observations will not only help determine whether they are rich in water, but also possibly reveal whether any could have liquid water on their surfaces.

The sun at the center of this system is classified as an ultra-cool dwarf and is so cool that liquid water could survive on planets orbiting very close to it, closer than is possible on planets in our solar system. All seven of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary orbits are closer to their host star than Mercury is to our sun.

 The planets also are very close to each other. How close? Well, if a person was standing on one of the planet’s surface, they could gaze up and potentially see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would sometimes appear larger than the moon in Earth’s sky.

The planets may also be tidally-locked to their star, which means the same side of the planet is always facing the star, therefore each side is either perpetual day or night. This could mean they have weather patterns totally unlike those on Earth, such as strong wind blowing from the day side to the night side, and extreme temperature changes.

Because most TRAPPIST-1 planets are likely to be rocky, and they are very close to one another, scientists view the Galilean moons of Jupiter – lo, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede – as good comparisons in our solar system. All of these moons are also tidally locked to Jupiter. The TRAPPIST-1 star is only slightly wider than Jupiter, yet much warmer. 

How Did the Spitzer Space Telescope Detect this System?

Spitzer, an infrared telescope that trails Earth as it orbits the sun, was well-suited for studying TRAPPIST-1 because the star glows brightest in infrared light, whose wavelengths are longer than the eye can see. Spitzer is uniquely positioned in its orbit to observe enough crossing (aka transits) of the planets in front of the host star to reveal the complex architecture of the system. 

Every time a planet passes by, or transits, a star, it blocks out some light. Spitzer measured the dips in light and based on how big the dip, you can determine the size of the planet. The timing of the transits tells you how long it takes for the planet to orbit the star.

The TRAPPIST-1 system provides one of the best opportunities in the next decade to study the atmospheres around Earth-size planets. Spitzer, Hubble and Kepler will help astronomers plan for follow-up studies using our upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, launching in 2018. With much greater sensitivity, Webb will be able to detect the chemical fingerprints of water, methane, oxygen, ozone and other components of a planet’s atmosphere.

At 40 light-years away, humans won’t be visiting this system in person anytime soon...that said...this poster can help us imagine what it would be like: 

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More Than Just Drawings

Artist and graphic designer Mike Okuda may not be a household name, but you’re more familiar with his work than you know. Okuda’s artistic vision has left a mark here at NASA and on Star Trek. The series debuted 50 years ago in September 1966 and the distinctive lines and shapes of logos and ships that he created have etched their way into the minds of fans and inspired many.  

Flight Ops

The Flight Operations patch has a lengthy history, the original version of which dates to the early 1970s. Having designed a version of the patch, Okuda had some insights about the evolution of the design.

“The original version of that emblem was designed around 1972 by Robert McCall and represented Mission Control. It later changed to Mission Operations. I did the 2004 version, incorporating the space station, and reflecting the long-term goals of returning to the Moon, then on to Mars and beyond. I later did a version intended to reflect the new generation of spacecraft that are succeeding the shuttle, and most recently the 2014 version reflecting the merger of Mission Operations with the Astronaut Office under the new banner Flight Operations.”

“The NASA logos and patches are an important part of NASA culture,” Okuda said. “They create a team identity and they focus pride on a mission.”

In July 2009, Okuda received the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal, which is awarded to those who are not government employees, but have made exceptional contributions to NASA’s mission. Above, Okuda holds one of the mission patches he designed, this one for STS-125, the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Orion

Among the other patches that Okuda has designed for us, it one for the Orion crew exploration vehicle. Orion is an integral of our Journey to Mars and is an advanced spacecraft that will take our astronauts deeper into the solar system than ever before. 

Okuda’s vision of space can be seen in the Star Trek series through his futuristic set designs, a vision that came from his childhood fascination with the space program. 

Learn more about Star Trek and NASA.

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