Satellite Data In Ag-tion: From Space To Your Plate

Crab Nebula in technicolor! This new composite view combines data from five different telescopes, showing the celestial object in multiple kinds of light.

The video starts with a composite image of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant that was assembled by combining data from five telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum: the Very Large Array, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, the XMM-Newton Observatory, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. 

It then dissolves to the red-colored radio-light view that shows how a neutron star’s fierce “wind” of charged particles from the central neutron star energized the nebula, causing it to emit the radio waves. 

The yellow-colored infrared image includes the glow of dust particles absorbing ultraviolet and visible light. 

The green-colored Hubble visible-light image offers a very sharp view of hot filamentary structures that permeate this nebula. 

The blue-colored ultraviolet image and the purple-colored X-ray image shows the effect of an energetic cloud of electrons driven by a rapidly rotating neutron star at the center of the nebula.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Hello there 👋

Welcome back to the third week of Mindful Mondays. It’s very good to see you 🧘

Here is another installment of mindfulness to get the first day of your week well underway, and underway well. Experience the phases of the Moon as you turn on, tune in, and space out to relaxing music and stunning ultra-high-definition visuals of our cosmic neighborhood… 🌌

Sounds good, right? Of course it does. Mysterious, even. You can watch even more Space Out episodes on NASA+, a new no-cost, ad-free streaming service.

Why not give it a try? There is nothing to lose, everything to gain. Because just a few minutes this Monday morning can make all the difference to your entire week, as @nasa helps to bring mindfulness from the stars and straight to you. 

🧘WATCH: Space Out with NASA: Moon Phase 12/11 at 1pm EST🧘

All aboard for the International Space Station!

Before research can get on a rocket to head to space, it is carefully prepared at Kennedy Space Center.

Scientists sometimes spend days, or even weeks, doing all of the last-minute preparations to get their investigation ready for microgravity.

This week on NASA Explorers, we follow a team of researchers in the final days before their experiment gets loaded into a SpaceX Dragon capsule that will carry their research to the space station.

Watch episode 4 here! 

Follow NASA Explorers on Facebook to catch new episodes of season 4 every Wednesday!

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Landslides in Japan

On Sept. 6, 2018, shortly after the remnants of Typhoon Jebi drenched southern Hokkaido, a powerful earthquake rattled the Japanese island. The 6.6-magnitude quake shook the surface enough to unleash hundreds of landslides.

The Landsat 8 satellite acquired imagery of the widespread damage. An image acquired on Sept. 15, 2018, shows mud and debris in a hilly area east of Abira. For comparison, the previous image shows the same area on July 26, 2017.

Read more about this

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Five Ways Your Holidays Might Be Similar to the Crew on the Space Station

The holiday season is here! You might think that your celebrations are WAY different than what is done on the International Space Station, but you might be surprised…Here are a few ways your holidays might be similar to the crew on the space station:

1. You’re Instagramming All Your Decorations

Yep! Just like on Earth, the space station crew has the capability to use social media while on orbit. If you don’t follow them, you should check it out and get an out of this world perspective of what life is like on the International Space Station. (Expedition 34 crew members assemble in the Unity node of the space station for a brief celebration of the Christmas holiday on Dec. 24, 2012.)

2. You Have to Make Sure to Call Your Relatives

You don’t want to forget to wish Aunt Sue “Happy Holidays”, she might not send you a gift next year! The crew on the space station have the ability to talk to their loved ones every day. (Cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, and astronauts Michael E. Lopez-Alegria and Sunita L. Williams conduct a teleconference on Dec. 25, 2006.)

3. The Family Photos Never Seem to End

The crew on the station might not be related by blood, or even country of birth, but they share living space, meals and time together just like a family on Earth. And when it comes to the holidays, you bet they’ll be snapping pictures to capture the moments. (The six Expedition 30 crew members assemble in the U.S. Lab aboard the space station for a brief celebration of the Christmas holiday on Dec. 25, 2011.)

4. Meal Prep is a Task Shared by All

When you’re making food for multiple people, everyone needs to pitch in and help…the crew on the space station included! (Astronauts Michael Fincke, Sandra Magnus and cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov, pose for a photo as they prepare to share a Christmas meal on the space station on Dec. 25, 2008.)

5. Eating Cookies is a Must

What would the holidays be like without eating cookies? They even have the chance to eat them in space…pretty cool! (Astronauts Michael Fincke and Sandra Magnus hold Christmas cookies while posing for a photo near the galley on the space station on Dec. 25, 2008.)

For more pictures from the holidays on the International Space Station, check out our Flickr album: HERE. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Solar System: Be in the Know This Week

Our solar system is huge, let us break it down for you. Here are a few things to know this week:

1. Say Farewell to a Comet Rider

After a successful and eventful adventure landing on a comet, no more signals will be received from the Rosetta mission's comet lander, Philae.

Send your goodbyes to Philae

2. Target Shooting

Using new software our very own Mars rover Curiosity can even choose its own rock targets for its laser spectrometer. 

Find out how Curiosity selects its own targets

3. Flares for the Dramatic

Our sun recently emitted three mid-size solar flares, and the Solar Dynamics Observatory captured it all.  

Watch the Show!

4. Bring the Heat

Jupiter's Great Red Spot may be the mysterious heat source behind the planet’s surprisingly high upper atmospheric temperatures. When Juno begins its science orbits, the Great Red Spot will be among its top targets.

Learn More

5. Cut and Dried

The gullies on today’s Red Planet were not cut by flowing liquid water, as previously thought, but rather by processes such as the freeze and thaw of carbon dioxide frost. New findings using data from our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provide a new picture of the cause,

Learn More

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

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

What’s Up for December?

View Mars right now, and prepare for 2016, the best Mars viewing year since 2005! Last month early risers watched small, reddish Mars dance with brighter Jupiter and Venus just before sunrise. 

This month Mars rises earlier-by about 2 a.m. local time. Its reddish color is unmistakable, even without a telescope. It's easy to see below the Moon and Jupiter on December 4. You won't see many features this month, because the planet is almost 10 times smaller than nearby Jupiter appears and 350 times smaller than the Moon appears to us on Earth.

You should also be able to see Mars' north polar region this month, because it's currently tilted towards Earth. 

You'll be amazed at the changes you'll see during 2016. January through December are all prime Mars observing months. Between January and May next year, Mars triples in apparent diameter as its orbit around the sun brings it closer to Earth. You'll even be able to see the areas on Mars where NASA's Mars landers are located.

By October, Mars shrinks in apparent size to less than half its May diameter as it speeds away from Earth. Mars shrinks even further from October through December, returning to the same size we saw in January 2016 by year's end.

So put Mars viewing on your calendar for 2016. You won't see Mars this size again until 2018, when Mars will put on an even better show.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Sharpening Our View of Climate Change with the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Satellite

As our planet warms, Earth’s ocean and atmosphere are changing.

Climate change has a lot of impact on the ocean, from sea level rise to marine heat waves to a loss of biodiversity. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide continue to warm our atmosphere.

NASA’s upcoming satellite, PACE, is soon to be on the case!

Set to launch on Feb. 6, 2024, the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help us better understand the complex systems driving the global changes that come with a warming climate.

Earth’s ocean is becoming greener due to climate change. PACE will see the ocean in more hues than ever before.

While a single phytoplankton typically can’t be seen with the naked eye, communities of trillions of phytoplankton, called blooms, can be seen from space. Blooms often take on a greenish tinge due to the pigments that phytoplankton (similar to plants on land) use to make energy through photosynthesis.

In a 2023 study, scientists found that portions of the ocean had turned greener because there were more chlorophyll-carrying phytoplankton. PACE has a hyperspectral sensor, the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), that will be able to discern subtle shifts in hue. This will allow scientists to monitor changes in phytoplankton communities and ocean health overall due to climate change.

Phytoplankton play a key role in helping the ocean absorb carbon from the atmosphere. PACE will identify different phytoplankton species from space.

With PACE, scientists will be able to tell what phytoplankton communities are present – from space! Before, this could only be done by analyzing a sample of seawater.

Telling “who’s who” in a phytoplankton bloom is key because different phytoplankton play vastly different roles in aquatic ecosystems. They can fuel the food chain and draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to photosynthesize. Some phytoplankton populations capture carbon as they die and sink to the deep ocean; others release the gas back into the atmosphere as they decay near the surface.

Studying these teeny tiny critters from space will help scientists learn how and where phytoplankton are affected by climate change, and how changes in these communities may affect other creatures and ocean ecosystems.

Climate models are one of our most powerful tools to understand how Earth is changing. PACE data will improve the data these models rely on.

The PACE mission will offer important insights on airborne particles of sea salt, smoke, human-made pollutants, and dust – collectively called aerosols – by observing how they interact with light.

With two instruments called polarimeters, SPEXone and HARP2, PACE will allow scientists to measure the size, composition, and abundance of these microscopic particles in our atmosphere. This information is crucial to figuring out how climate and air quality are changing.

PACE data will help scientists answer key climate questions, like how aerosols affect cloud formation or how ice clouds and liquid clouds differ.

It will also enable scientists to examine one of the trickiest components of climate change to model: how clouds and aerosols interact. Once PACE is operational, scientists can replace the estimates currently used to fill data gaps in climate models with measurements from the new satellite.

With a view of the whole planet every two days, PACE will track both microscopic organisms in the ocean and microscopic particles in the atmosphere. PACE’s unique view will help us learn more about the ways climate change is impacting our planet’s ocean and atmosphere.

Stay up to date on the NASA PACE blog, and make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of sPACE!

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.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

In Roman mythology, the god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief. It was only Jupiter's wife, the goddess Juno, who could peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature. ⁣ ⁣ Our @NASAJuno spacecraft is looking beneath the clouds of the massive gas giant, not seeking signs of misbehavior, but helping us to understand the planet's structure and history...⁣ ⁣ Now, @NASAJuno just published its first findings on the amount of water in the gas giant’s atmosphere. The Juno results estimate that at the equator, water makes up about 0.25% of the molecules in Jupiter's atmosphere — almost three times that of the Sun. An accurate total estimate of this water is critical to solving the mystery of how our solar system formed. 

The JunoCam imager aboard Juno captured this image of Jupiter's southern equatorial region on Sept. 1, 2017. The bottom image is oriented so Jupiter's poles (not visible) run left-to-right of frame.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill ⁣ ⁣