Celestial Mechanics Around The Solar System During December 2019

What Happened to Mars?

Billions of years ago, Mars was a very different world. Liquid water flowed in long rivers that emptied into lakes and shallow seas. A thick atmosphere blanketed the planet and kept it warm.

Today, Mars is bitter cold. The Red Planet’s thin and wispy atmosphere provides scant cover for the surface below.

Our MAVEN Mission

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission is part of our Mars Scout program. This spacecraft launched in November 2013, and is exploring the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind.

The purpose of the MAVEN mission is to determine the state of the upper atmosphere of Mars, the processes that control it and the overall atmospheric loss that is currently occurring. Specifically, MAVEN is exploring the processes through which the top of the Martian atmosphere can be lost to space. Scientists think that this loss could be important in explaining the changes in the climate of Mars that have occurred over the last four billion years.

New Findings

Today, Nov. 5, we will share new details of key science findings from our ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT. This event will be broadcast live on NASA Television. Have questions? Use #askNASA during the briefing.

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@danizzzxix: Does being in space take a toll on your body?

Signs You Might Be Ready to Apply to be a NASA Astronaut

Have you heard the news? Astronaut applications are opening soon (March 2), and there’s never been a better time to apply then now. Here are a few signs that might mean you’re ready to take to the stars: 

1. You Don’t Mind Having Roommates

When you’re an astronaut, you have to work and live with your crew mates for extended periods of time. It’s important to the mission and your safety that everyone can collaborate and work together.

2. You LOVE Space

If the Milky Way, planets and space travel doesn’t excite you then this might not be the perfect job for you. But if you love galaxies, space station research and deep space exploration, then maybe you should take a look at our application.

3. Adventure Doesn’t Scare You

Being an astronaut means that you get to take part in adventures that most people will never experience. Imagine: sitting on the launch pad in the Orion spacecraft, atop a rocket that’s getting ready to launch. You’ll travel farther into space than any other humans have been and help push the boundaries of technology in the proving ground of deep space lunar orbits, leading the way for future missions to Mars.

4. You Want to be on the Cutting Edge of Science

Not only do astronauts get to travel to space, but they also get to conduct really cool research in microgravity. Did you know that right now they’re monitoring veggie growth on the International Space Station? This research could help with our future deep space exploration and could teach us a few things about growing plants on Earth. Learn more about all the awesome research on the space station HERE.

5. You’re Not Afraid of Heights

One of the coolest things about being an astronaut, is that you get to go to SPACE! At the very least, you’ll travel to the International Space Station, which is 250 miles above Earth. Or, you could be one of the first astronauts to travel to a distant asteroid or even Mars!

6. You Like Meeting New People

Space is a place where people from all around the world come together to push the boundaries of human exploration. Whether you’re living on the space station with an international crew, or embarking on Artemis missions to the Moon – you’re sure to make new friendships wherever you go. 

7. Pizza is Life  

Meal time is family time aboard the space station, and what better way to bond than pizza night! Getting to know your crew mates AND channelling your inner chef is always a win win.

8. World Traveling is on Your Bucket List

The International Space Station orbits Earth 16 times a day, so get ready to rack up those frequent flyer miles! A favorite past time of many astronauts is Earth watching from the station’s cupola observatory. Get lost in the Pacific Ocean’s blue hue, gaze at the Himalayas or photograph your favorite cities all from a bird’s eye view. Get assigned to an Artemis Moon mission? Even better! Have fun expanding your travels to the solar system. 

9. You’ve Dreamed of Flying 

Perk about the job? Your childhood dreams to fly finally come true. Whether you’re floating around the International Space Station or getting adjusted to our new spaceship, Gateway, your inner superhero will be beaming. 

10. You Like Helping Others 

Astronauts don’t just push the boundaries of human exploration, they also help pave the way for scientific breakthroughs back at home. Thanks to the microgravity environment of space, discoveries not possible on Earth are able to be unlocked. Investigations into Parkinson’s Disease, cancer and more have been conducted on the orbital lab. 

Interested in applying to become an astronaut? You’re in luck, applications are open from March 2- 31! Learn about some common myths about becoming an astronaut HERE.

Get more info on applying to be one of our astronauts HERE.

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

5 Ways the Moon Landing Changed Life on Earth

When Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the Moon 50 years ago, he famously said “that’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” He was referring to the historic milestone of exploring beyond our own planet — but there’s also another way to think about that giant leap: the massive effort to develop technologies to safely reach, walk on the Moon and return home led to countless innovations that have improved life on Earth.

Armstrong took one small step on the lunar surface, but the Moon landing led to a giant leap forward in innovations for humanity.

Here are five examples of technology developed for the Apollo program that we’re still using today:

1. Food Safety Standards

As soon as we started planning to send astronauts into space, we faced the problem of what to feed them — and how to ensure the food was safe to eat. Can you imagine getting food poisoning on a spacecraft, hundreds of thousands of miles from home?

We teamed up with a familiar name in food production: the Pillsbury Company. The company soon realized that existing quality control methods were lacking. There was no way to be certain, without extensive testing that destroyed the sample, that the food was free of bacteria and toxins.

Pillsbury revamped its entire food-safety process, creating what became the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system. Its aim was to prevent food safety problems from occurring, rather than catch them after the fact. They managed this by analyzing and controlling every link in the chain, from the raw materials to the processing equipment to the people handling the food.

Today, this is one of the space program’s most far-reaching spinoffs. Beyond keeping the astronaut food supply safe, the Hazard Analysis and Critical Point system has also been adopted around the world — and likely reduced the risk of bacteria and toxins in your local grocery store. 

2. Digital Controls for Air and Spacecraft

The Apollo spacecraft was revolutionary for many reasons. Did you know it was the first vehicle to be controlled by a digital computer? Instead of pushrods and cables that pilots manually adjusted to manipulate the spacecraft, Apollo’s computer sent signals to actuators at the flick of a switch.

Besides being physically lighter and less cumbersome, the switch to a digital control system enabled storing large quantities of data and programming maneuvers with complex software.

Before Apollo, there were no digital computers to control airplanes either. Working together with the Navy and Draper Laboratory, we adapted the Apollo digital flight computer to work on airplanes. Today, whatever airline you might be flying, the pilot is controlling it digitally, based on the technology first developed for the flight to the Moon.

3. Earthquake-ready Shock Absorbers

A shock absorber descended from Apollo-era dampers and computers saves lives by stabilizing buildings during earthquakes.

Apollo’s Saturn V rockets had to stay connected to the fueling tubes on the launchpad up to the very last second. That presented a challenge: how to safely move those tubes out of the way once liftoff began. Given how fast they were moving, how could we ensure they wouldn’t bounce back and smash into the vehicle?

We contracted with Taylor Devices, Inc. to develop dampers to cushion the shock, forcing the company to push conventional shock isolation technology to the limit.

Shortly after, we went back to the company for a hydraulics-based high-speed computer. For that challenge, the company came up with fluidic dampers—filled with compressible fluid—that worked even better. We later applied the same technology on the Space Shuttle’s launchpad.

The company has since adapted these fluidic dampers for buildings and bridges to help them survive earthquakes. Today, they are successfully protecting structures in some of the most quake-prone areas of the world, including Tokyo, San Francisco and Taiwan.

4. Insulation for Space

We’ve all seen runners draped in silvery “space blankets” at the end of marathons, but did you know the material, called radiant barrier insulation, was actually created for space?

Temperatures outside of Earth’s atmosphere can fluctuate widely, from hundreds of degrees below to hundreds above zero. To better protect our astronauts, during the Apollo program we invented a new kind of effective, lightweight insulation.

We developed a method of coating mylar with a thin layer of vaporized metal particles. The resulting material had the look and weight of thin cellophane packaging, but was extremely reflective—and pound-for-pound, better than anything else available.

Today the material is still used to protect astronauts, as well as sensitive electronics, in nearly all of our missions. But it has also found countless uses on the ground, from space blankets for athletes to energy-saving insulation for buildings. It also protects essential components of MRI machines used in medicine and much, much more.

Image courtesy of the U.S. Marines

5. Healthcare Monitors

Patients in hospitals are hooked up to sensors that send important health data to the nurse’s station and beyond — which means when an alarm goes off, the right people come running to help.

This technology saves lives every day. But before it reached the ICU, it was invented for something even more extraordinary: sending health data from space down to Earth.

When the Apollo astronauts flew to the Moon, they were hooked up to a system of sensors that sent real-time information on their blood pressure, body temperature, heart rate and more to a team on the ground.

The system was developed for us by Spacelabs Healthcare, which quickly adapted it for hospital monitoring. The company now has telemetric monitoring equipment in nearly every hospital around the world, and it is expanding further, so at-risk patients and their doctors can keep track of their health even outside the hospital.

Only a few people have ever walked on the Moon, but the benefits of the Apollo program for the rest of us continue to ripple widely.

In the years since, we have continued to create innovations that have saved lives, helped the environment, and advanced all kinds of technology.

Now we’re going forward to the Moon with the Artemis program and on to Mars — and building ever more cutting-edge technologies to get us there. As with the many spinoffs from the Apollo era, these innovations will transform our lives for generations to come.

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Rocket Fuel in Her Blood: The Story of JoAnn Morgan

As the Apollo 11 mission lifted off on the Saturn V rocket, propelling humanity to the surface of the Moon for the very first time, members of the team inside Launch Control Center watched through a window.

The room was crowded with men in white shirts and dark ties, watching attentively as the rocket thrust into the sky. But among them sat one woman, seated to the left of center in the third row in the image below. In fact, this was the only woman in the launch firing room for the Apollo 11 liftoff.

This is JoAnn Morgan, the instrumentation controller for Apollo 11. Today, this is what Morgan is most known for. But her career at NASA spanned over 45 years, and she continued to break ceiling after ceiling for women involved with the space program.

“It was just meant to be for me to be in the launching business,” she says. “I’ve got rocket fuel in my blood.”

Morgan was inspired to join the human spaceflight program when Explorer 1 was launched into space in 1958, the first satellite to do so from the United States. Explorer 1 was instrumental in discovering what has become known as the Van Allen radiation belt. 

“I thought to myself, this is profound knowledge that concerns everyone on our planet,” she says. “This is an important discovery, and I want to be a part of this team. I was compelled to do it because of the new knowledge, the opportunity for new knowledge.”

The opportunity came when Morgan spotted an advertisement for two open positions with the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. The ad listed two Engineer’s Aide positions available for two students over the summer.

 “Thank God it said ‘students’ and not ‘boys’” says Morgan, “otherwise I wouldn’t have applied.”

After Morgan got the position, the program was quickly rolled into a brand-new space exploration agency called NASA. Dr. Kurt Debus, the first director of Kennedy Space Center (KSC), looked at Morgan’s coursework and provided Morgan with a pathway to certification. She was later certified as a Measurement and Instrumentation Engineer and a Data Systems Engineer.

There was a seemingly infinite amount of obstacles that Morgan was forced to overcome — everything from obscene phone calls at her station to needing a security guard to clear out the men’s only restroom.

“You have to realize that everywhere I went — if I went to a procedure review, if I went to a post-test critique, almost every single part of my daily work — I’d be the only woman in the room,” reflects Morgan. “I had a sense of loneliness in a way, but on the other side of that coin, I wanted to do the best job I could.”

To be the instrumentation controller in the launch room for the Apollo 11 liftoff was as huge as a deal as it sounds. For Morgan, to be present at that pivotal point in history was ground-breaking: “It was very validating. It absolutely made my career.”

Much like the Saturn V rocket, Morgan’s career took off. She was the first NASA woman to win a Sloan Fellowship, which she used to earn a Master of Science degree in management from Stanford University in California. When she returned to NASA, she became a divisions chief of the Computer Systems division.

From there, Morgan excelled in many other roles, including deputy of Expendable Launch Vehicles, director of Payload Projects Management and director of Safety and Mission Assurance. She was one of the last two people who verified the space shuttle was ready to launch and the first woman at KSC to serve in an executive position, associate director of the center.

To this day, Morgan is still one of the most decorated women at KSC. Her numerous awards and recognitions include an achievement award for her work during the activation of Apollo Launch Complex 39, four exceptional service medals and two outstanding leadership medals. In 1995, she was inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame.

After serving as the director of External Relations and Business Development, she retired from NASA in August 2003.

Today, people are reflecting on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, looking back on photos of the only woman in the launch firing room and remembering Morgan as an emblem of inspiration for women in STEM. However, Morgan’s takeaway message is to not look at those photos in admiration, but in determination to see those photos “depart from our culture.”

“I look at that picture of the firing room where I’m the only woman. And I hope all the pictures now that show people working on the missions to the Moon and onto Mars, in rooms like Mission Control or Launch Control or wherever — that there will always be several women. I hope that photos like the ones I’m in don’t exist anymore.”

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The Stellar Buddy System

Our Sun has an entourage of planets, moons, and smaller objects to keep it company as it traverses the galaxy. But it’s still lonely compared to many of the other stars out there, which often come in pairs. These cosmic couples, called binary stars, are very important in astronomy because they can easily reveal things that are much harder to learn from stars that are on their own. And some of them could even host habitable planets!

The birth of a stellar duo

New stars emerge from swirling clouds of gas and dust that are peppered throughout the galaxy. Scientists still aren’t sure about all the details, but turbulence deep within these clouds may give rise to knots that are denser than their surroundings. The knots have stronger gravity, so they can pull in more material and the cloud may begin to collapse.

The material at the center heats up. Known as a protostar, it is this hot core that will one day become a star. Sometimes these spinning clouds of collapsing gas and dust may break up into two, three, or even more blobs that eventually become stars. That would explain why the majority of the stars in the Milky Way are born with at least one sibling.

Seeing stars

We can’t always tell if we’re looking at binary stars using just our eyes. They’re often so close together in the sky that we see them as a single star. For example, Sirius, the brightest star we can see at night, is actually a binary system (see if you can spot both stars in the photo above). But no one knew that until the 1800s.

Precise observations showed that Sirius was swaying back and forth like it was at a middle school dance. In 1862, astronomer Alvan Graham Clark used a telescope to see that Sirius is actually two stars that orbit each other.

But even through our most powerful telescopes, some binary systems still masquerade as a single star. Fortunately there are a couple of tricks we can use to spot these pairs too.

Since binary stars orbit each other, there’s a chance that we’ll see some stars moving toward and away from us as they go around each other. We just need to have an edge-on view of their orbits. Astronomers can detect this movement because it changes the color of the star’s light – a phenomenon known as the Doppler effect.

Stars we can find this way are called spectroscopic binaries because we have to look at their spectra, which are basically charts or graphs that show the intensity of light being emitted over a range of energies. We can spot these star pairs because light travels in waves. When a star moves toward us, the waves of its light arrive closer together, which makes its light bluer. When a star moves away, the waves are lengthened, reddening its light.

Sometimes we can see binary stars when one of the stars moves in front of the other. Astronomers find these systems, called eclipsing binaries, by measuring the amount of light coming from stars over time. We receive less light than usual when the stars pass in front of each other, because the one in front will block some of the farther star’s light.

Sibling rivalry

Twin stars don’t always get along with each other – their relationship may be explosive! Type Ia supernovae happen in some binary systems in which a white dwarf – the small, hot core left over when a Sun-like star runs out of fuel and ejects its outer layers – is stealing material away from its companion star. This results in a runaway reaction that ultimately detonates the thieving star. The same type of explosion may also happen when two white dwarfs spiral toward each other and collide. Yikes!

Scientists know how to determine how bright these explosions should truly be at their peak, making Type Ia supernovae so-called standard candles. That means astronomers can determine how far away they are by seeing how bright they look from Earth. The farther they are, the dimmer they appear. Astronomers can also look at the wavelengths of light coming from the supernovae to find out how fast the dying stars are moving away from us.

Studying these supernovae led to the discovery that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will scan the skies for these exploding stars when it launches in the mid-2020s to help us figure out what’s causing the expansion to accelerate – a mystery known as dark energy.

Spilling stellar secrets

Astronomers like finding binary systems because it’s a lot easier to learn more about stars that are in pairs than ones that are on their own. That’s because the stars affect each other in ways we can measure. For example, by paying attention to how the stars orbit each other, we can determine how massive they are. Since heavier stars burn hotter and use up their fuel more quickly than lighter ones, knowing a star’s mass reveals other interesting things too.

By studying how the light changes in eclipsing binaries when the stars cross in front of each other, we can learn even more! We can figure out their sizes, masses, how fast they’re each spinning, how hot they are, and even how far away they are. All of that helps us understand more about the universe.

Tatooine worlds

Thanks to observatories such as our Kepler Space Telescope, we know that worlds like Luke Skywalker’s home planet Tatooine in “Star Wars” exist in real life. And if a planet orbits at the right distance from the two stars, it could even be habitable (and stay that way for a long time).

In 2019, our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) found a planet, known as TOI-1338 b, orbiting a pair of stars. These worlds are tricker to find than planets with only one host star, but TESS is expected to find several more!

Want to learn more about the relationships between stellar couples? Check out this Tumblr post: https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/190824389279/cosmic-couples-and-devastating-breakups

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Because space is vast and full of mysteries, NASA is developing a new rocket, a new spacecraft for astronauts and new facilities to launch them from. Our Space Launch System will be unlike any other rocket when it takes flight. It will be bigger, bolder and take astronauts and cargo farther than humankind has ever been -- to deep space destinations like the moon, a deep space gateway or even Mars. 

The Gravity-Slayer

When you plan to get to space, you use ice and fire. NASA’s Space Launch System uses four rocket engines in the center of the rocket and a pair of solid rocket boosters on opposite sides. All this power will propel the Space Launch System to gravity-slaying speeds of more than 17,000 miles per hour! These are the things we do for space exploration, the greatest adventure that ever was or will be.

It is Known

It is known that according to Newton’s third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That’s how rocket propulsion works. Fuel burned in combustion chambers causes hot gases to shoot out the bottom of the engine nozzles. This propels the rocket upward. 

Steammaker

It is also known that when you combine hydrogen and oxygen you get: water. To help SLS get to space, the rocket’s four RS-25 engines shoot hydrogen and oxygen together at high speeds, making billowing clouds of steaming hot water vapor. The steam, funneled through the engine nozzles, expands with tremendous force and helps lift the rocket from the launchpad. 

RS-25: Ice King

It takes a lot of fuel (hydrogen) and a lot of oxygen to make a chemical reaction powerful enough to propel a rocket the size of a skyscraper off the launch pad. To fit more hydrogen and oxygen into the tanks in the center of the rocket where they’re stored, the hydrogen and oxygen are chilled to as low as -400 degrees Fahrenheit. At those temperatures, the gases become icy liquids. 

The Fire that Burns Against the Cold

The hydrogen-oxygen reaction inside the nozzles can reach temperatures up to 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit (alas, only Valyrian steel could withstand those temperatures)! To protect the nozzle from this heat, the icy hydrogen is pumped through more than a thousand small pipes on the outside of the nozzle to cool it. After the icy liquid protects the metal nozzles, it becomes fuel for the engines. 

Where is my FIRE?

The Space Launch System solid rocket boosters are the fire and the breakers of gravity’s chains. The solid rocket boosters’ fiery flight lasts for two minutes. They burn solid fuel that’s a potent mixture of chemicals the consistency of a rubber eraser. When the boosters light, hot gases and fire are unleashed at speeds up to three times the speed of sound, propelling the vehicle to gravity-slaying speed in seconds. 

Testing is Here

To make sure everything works on a rocket this big, it takes a lot of testing before the first flight. Rocket hardware is rolling off production lines all over the United States and being shipped to testing locations nationwide. Some of that test hardware includes replicas of the giant tanks that will hold the icy hydrogen and oxygen.

As Rare as Dragonglass

Other tests include firing the motor for the solid rocket boosters. The five-segment motor is the largest ever made for spaceflight and the part that contains the propellant that burns for two fiery, spectacular minutes. It’s common during ground test firings for the fiery exhaust to turn the sand in the Utah desert to glass.

Hold the Door

When all the hardware, software and avionics for SLS are ready, they will be shipped to Kennedy Space Center where the parts will be assembled to make the biggest rocket since the Saturn V. Then, technicians will stack Orion, NASA’s new spacecraft for taking astronauts to deep space, on top of SLS. All this work to assemble America’s new heavy-lift rocket and spacecraft will be done in the Vehicle Assembly Building -- one of the largest buildings in the world. Hold the door to the Vehicle Assembly Building open, because SLS and Orion are coming!

Learn more about our Journey to Mars here: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/journeytomars/index.html

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Zoom to the Moon! Astronauts will blast off to the Moon in the Orion spacecraft with NASA’s Space Launch System, the world’s most powerful rocket ever built. Help #AstronautSnoopy launch into deep space, farther than any human or bird has ever gone before. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/peanuts-toys-and-books-commemorate-50th-anniversary-of-apollo/

What’s Up for March 2017?

What’s Up for March? The moon hides red star Aldebaran and crescents dazzle after dusk.

On March 4 the first quarter moon passes between Earth and the star Aldebaran, temporarily blocking our view of the star. This is called an occultation. 

The occultation begins and concludes at different times, depending on where you are when you view it.

The event should be easy to see from most of the U.S., Mexico, most of Central America, the Western Caribbean and Bermuda. 

Observers along a narrow path from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Hartford, Connecticut, will see the moon “graze” the star. The star will disappear and reappear repeatedly as hills and valleys on the moon alternately obscure and reveal it.

As seen from Earth, both Mercury and Venus have phases like our moon. That’s because they circle the sun inside Earth’s orbit. 

Planets that orbit between Earth and the sun are known as inner or inferior planets.

Inferior planets can never be at “opposition,” which is when the planet and the sun are on opposite sides of Earth.

But inferior planets can be at “conjunction,” which is when a planet, the sun and Earth are all in a straight line. 

Conjunction can happen once when the planet is on the opposite side of the sun from Earth and again when it’s on the same side of the sun as Earth. 

When a planet is on the opposite side of the sun from Earth, we say it is at “superior conjunction.” As the planet moves out from behind the sun and gets closer to Earth, we see less and less of the lit side. We see phases, similar to our moon’s phases. 

Mercury is at superior conjunction on March 6. 

A few weeks later, the planet emerges from behind the sun and we can once again observe it. By the end of March we’ll see a last-quarter Mercury.

 On April 20 Mercury reaches “inferior conjunction.”

Brilliant Venus is also racing toward its own inferior conjunction on March 25. Watch its crescent get thinner and thinner as the planet’s size appears larger and larger, because it is getting closer to Earth.

Finally, look for Jupiter to rise in the East. It will be visible all month long from late evening until dawn.

You can catch up on solar system missions and all of our missions at www.nasa.gov

Watch the full “What’s Up for March 2017″ video here: 

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