What Will Scientists Do If Perseverance Does Find Signs Of Life On Mars?

Seven Years of Tracking the Solar Cycle

Our sun is ever-changing, and a satellite called the Solar Dynamics Observatory has a front-row seat. 

On February 11, 2010, we launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory, also known as SDO. SDO keeps a constant eye on the sun, helping us track everything from sunspots to solar flares to other types of space weather that can have an impact on Earth.

After seven years in space, SDO has had a chance to do what few other satellites have been able to do – watch the sun for the majority of a solar cycle in 11 types of light.

The sun’s activity rises and falls in a pattern that lasts about 11 years on average. This is called the solar cycle.

Solar activity can influence Earth. For instance, it’s behind one of Earth’s most dazzling natural events – the aurora.

One of the most common triggers of the aurora is a type of space weather called a coronal mass ejection, which is a billion-ton cloud of magnetic solar material expelled into space at around a million miles an hour. 

When these clouds collide with Earth’s magnetic field, they can rattle it, sending particles down into the atmosphere and triggering the auroras. These events can also cause satellite damage and power grid strain in extreme cases. 

The sun is in a declining activity phase, so coronal mass ejections will be less common over the next few years, as will another one of the main indicators of solar activity – sunspots.

Sunspots are created by twisted knots of magnetic field. Solar material in these tangled regions is slightly cooler than the surrounding areas, making them appear dark in visible light.

The tangled magnetic field that creates sunspots also causes most solar activity, so more sunspots means more solar activity, and vice versa. Humans have been able to track the solar cycle by counting sunspots since the 17th century.  

Image: Houghton Library, Harvard University, *IC6.G1333.613ia

The peak of the sun’s activity for this cycle, called solar maximum, was in 2014. 

Now, we’re heading towards the lowest solar activity for this solar cycle, also known as solar minimum. As solar activity declines, the number of sunspots decreases. We sometimes go several days without a single visible sunspot.

But there’s much more to the story than sunspots – SDO also watches the sun in a type of light called extreme ultraviolet. This type of light is invisible to human eyes and is blocked by our atmosphere, so we can only see the sun this way with satellites.

Extreme ultraviolet light reveals different layers of the sun’s atmosphere, helping scientists connect the dots between the sunspots that appear in visible light and the space weather that impacts us here on Earth.

SDO keeps an eye on the sun 24/7, and you can see near real-time images of the sun in 11 types of light at sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data.

NASA Does Hurricanes

When you think of NASA, you probably think of space. Which makes sense, because space is a huge part of what we do. That being said, here at NASA we are also involved in many other research areas, and even play a role in hurricane weather forecasting.

Our satellites, computer modeling, instruments, aircraft and field missions all contribute to a mix of information used by scientists to get a better understanding of these storms. Aspects of storms from rainfall rates to surface wind speed are all analyzed to help identify the potential for storm formation or intensification.

Currently, our satellites are passing overhead as Hurricane Joaquin (above) travels through the Atlantic Ocean. Our Global Precipitation Measurement, or GPM Core satellite captured images and rainfall rates of the storm. GPM showed a large area of very intense rain, which indicates that large amounts of heat are being released into the storm’s center. This fuels the circulation and provides the means for its intensification.

Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 80 mph and additional strengthening is expected. Joaquin could become a major hurricane during the next few days.

In 2016, we’re launching the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), which is a constellation of eight small satellites. With this launch, we will be able to better understand the rapid intensification of hurricanes, and improve hurricane intensity forecasts.

In addition to our satellite technology, we also conduct field missions to study hurricanes. In our most recent field mission, we investigated the process that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin.

Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week

Rockets We Love-Saturn V

Fifty years ago, with President Kennedy’s Moon landing deadline looming, the powerful Saturn V had to perform. And perform it did—hurling 24 humans to the Moon.

The race to land astronauts on the Moon was getting tense 50 years ago this week. Apollo 6, the final uncrewed test flight of America’s powerful Moon rocket, launched on April 4, 1968. Several technical issues made for a less-than-perfect launch, but the test flight nonetheless convinced NASA managers that the rocket was up to the task of carrying humans. Less than two years remained to achieve President John F. Kennedy’s goal to put humans on the Moon before the decade was out, meaning the Saturn V rocket had to perform.

1—“The only chance to get to the Moon before the end of 1969.”

After the April 1968 Apollo 6 test flight (pictured above), the words of Deke Slayton (one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts) and intense competition with a rival team in the Soviet Union propelled a 12-member panel to unanimously vote for a Christmas 1968 crewed mission to orbit the Moon.

2—Four Hundred Elephants...

The Saturn V rocket stood about the height of a 36-story-tall building, and 60 feet (18 meters) taller than the Statue of Liberty. Fully fueled for liftoff, the Saturn V weighed 6.2 million pounds (2.8 million kilograms), or the weight of about 400 elephants.

3—...and Busloads of Thrust

Stand back, Ms. Frizzle. The Saturn V generated 7.6 million pounds (34.5 million newtons) of thrust at launch, creating more power than 85 Hoover Dams. It could launch about 130 tons (118,000 kilograms) into Earth orbit. That's about as much weight as 10 school buses. The Saturn V could launch about 50 tons (43,500 kilograms) to the Moon. That's about the same as four school buses.

4—Christmas at the Moon

On Christmas Eve 1968, the Saturn V delivered on engineers’ promises by hurling Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders into lunar orbit. The trio became the first human beings to orbit another world. The Apollo 8 crew broadcast a special holiday greeting from lunar orbit and also snapped the iconic earthrise image of our home planet rising over the lunar landscape.

5—Gumdrop and Spider

The crew of Apollo 9 proved that they could pull the lunar module out of the top of the Saturn V’s third stage and maneuver it in space (in this case high above Earth). The crew named their command module “Gumdrop.” The Lunar Module was named “Spider.”

6—The Whole Enchilada

Saturn-V AS-505 provided the ride for the second dry run to the Moon in 1969. Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan and John Young rode Command Module “Charlie Brown” to lunar orbit and then took Lunar Module “Snoopy” on a test run in lunar orbit. Apollo 10 did everything but land on the Moon, setting the stage for the main event a few months later. Young and Cernan returned to walk on the Moon aboard Apollo 16 and 17 respectively. Cernan, who died in 2017, was the last human being (so far) to set foot on the Moon.

7—The Main Event

The launch of Apollo 11—the first mission to land humans on the Moon—provided another iconic visual as Saturn-V AS-506 roared to life on Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Three days later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first of many bootprints in the lunar dust (supported from orbit by Michael Collins).

8—Moon Men

Saturn V rockets carried 24 humans to the Moon, and 12 of them walked on its surface between 1969 and 1972. Thirteen are still alive today. The youngest, all in their early 80s, are moonwalkers Charles Duke (Apollo 16) and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17) and Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly (Apollo 16, and also one of the heroes who helped rescue Apollo 13). There is no single image of all the humans who have visited the Moon.

9—The Flexible Saturn V

The Saturn V’s swan song was to lay the groundwork for establishing a permanent human presence in space. Skylab, launched into Earth orbit in 1973, was America’s first space station, a precursor to the current International Space Station. Skylab’s ride to orbit was a Saturn IV-B 3rd stage, launched by a Saturn 1-C and SII Saturn V stages.

This was the last launch of a Saturn V, but you can still see the three remaining giant rockets at the visitor centers at Johnson Space Center in Texas and Kennedy Space Center in Florida and at the United States Space and Rocket Center in Alabama (near Marshall Space Flight Center, one of the birthplaces of the Saturn V).

10—The Next Generation

The Saturn V was retired in 1973. Work is now underway on a fleet of rockets. We are planning an uncrewed flight test of Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to travel beyond the Moon called Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1). “This is a mission that truly will do what hasn’t been done and learn what isn’t known,” said Mike Sarafin, EM-1 mission manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Read the web version of this 10 Things to Know article HERE. 

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The Lagoon Nebula 

This colorful image, taken by our Hubble Space Telescope between Feb. 12 and Feb. 18, 2018 , celebrated the Earth-orbiting observatory’s 28th anniversary of viewing the heavens, giving us a window seat to the universe’s extraordinary tapestry of stellar birth and destruction.

At the center of the photo, a monster young star 200,000 times brighter than our Sun is blasting powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds, carving out a fantasy landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust.

This region epitomizes a typical, raucous stellar nursery full of birth and destruction. The clouds may look majestic and peaceful, but they are in a constant state of flux from the star’s torrent of searing radiation and high-speed particles from stellar winds. As the monster star throws off its natal cocoon of material with its powerful energy, it is suppressing star formation around it.

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

Hi, I'm a curious Malaysian 😁 can you explain to us about your career and how do one get to the point where you are now? Thanks! Oh, and could you comment on the recent climate crises like the Australian fires and Indonesia flooding? Thank you!

7 Things That Happen When You Go To Space

Told Through Astronaut Scott Kelly’s Tweets

Astronaut Scott Kelly is currently spending a year in space. Most expeditions to the space station last four to six months. By doubling the length of this mission, researchers hope to better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to long-duration spaceflight. During this one-year mission, Kelly is also participating in the Twins Study. While Kelly is in space, his identical twin brother, retired NASA Astronaut Mark Kelly, will participate in a number of comparative genetic studies.

Here are a few things that happen when astronauts go to the space station:

1. Your personal hygiene takes on a different form:

2. Sleeping arrangements might take some getting used to:

3. Internet services will remind you of the 90s:

4. You never have to do laundry:

5. You get to become immersed in a range of different cultures:

6. All of your water is recycled…yes…that means urine too:

7. You get to see the Earth like never before:

Follow Astronaut Scott Kelly’s Year in Space mission on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

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

Things You Might Not Know About Our Sun

The sun is a star, a hot ball of glowing gases at the heart of our solar system. Its influence extends far beyond the orbits of distant Neptune and Pluto. Without the sun’s intense energy and heat, there would be no life on Earth. And though it is special to us, there are billions of stars like our sun scattered across the Milky Way galaxy.

Impress Your Friends with These Sun Facts:

If the sun were as tall as a typical front door, the Earth would be the size of a U.S. nickel

The temperature at the sun’s core is about 27 million degrees Fahrenheit

Our sun is more massive than the average star in its neighborhood. Nearly 90% of stars are less massive, making them cooler and dimmer

The sun contains 99.9% of all matter in our solar system

During a single second, the sun converts 4 million tons of matter to pure energy

It would take about 1 million Earths to fill the sun if it were a hollow ball

The sun rotates on its axis approximately once every 27 days

The sun is 93 million miles away from Earth and is almost 5 billion years old

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

Tour NASA with One Direction

You might have heard, One Direction filmed their ‘Drag Me Down’ music video at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and we know you’re dying to take a tour of everything they saw. So, here we go…

1) Space Exploration Vehicle (SEV)

Even though Louis is roving around Johnson Space Center in our Space Exploration Vehicle, its intended destination is quite different. The SEV will be used for in-space missions and for surface explorations of planetary bodies, including near-Earth asteroids and Mars!

2) Robonaut

Harry and Robonaut bonded during their visit to Johnson Space Center for the filming of their music video. This robot will help humans work and explore in space. Working side by side with humans, or going where the risks are too great for people, robots will make it so we never get ‘dragged down’!

3) Partial Gravity Simulator & Space Station Mockup Bike

You can find Niall floating around in our Partial Gravity Simulator, aka POGO, in the new music video. This tool is used to provide accurate simulations of reduced gravity. Astronauts use this for training and to learn how to perform tasks in space.

While Niall floats with POGO, Liam is training on the International Space Station Mockup Bike, aka CEVIS. This bike provides aerobic exercise and is used to countermeasure the harmful effects of exposure to microgravity while on the space station.

4) Orion Spacecraft

The Orion spacecraft will be the first of its kind that will carry humans to deep space and to Mars! It will be the safest, most advanced spacecraft ever built, and Harry, Niall, Louis and Liam all got to check it out.

5) T-38 Jets

Flying these T-38 jet trainers are an important part of preparing to be an astronaut. Flying and landing them acts as a real-life simulation for practicing spacecraft operations. They can even fly at supersonic up to Mach 1.6, and can put their pilots through more than seven Gs! 

Celestial Valentine’s Day Cards

Looking for a last minute Valentine’s Day card? Here are some out-of-this-world options for you:

From our solar system…

To distant galaxies…

And worlds far, far away…

Share your Valentine’s Day love with these celestial cards.

To find even more options, visit:

XO Travel Bureau: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/galleries/exoplanet-travel-bureau/ Mars Valentine’s: http://mars.nasa.gov/free-holiday-ecard/love-valentine/ Space Place Valentine’s: http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/valentines/en/ OSIRIS-REx Valentine’s: http://www.asteroidmission.org/galleries/#collectables

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

sorry, i don't know much about earth science (though it sounds very intriguing), but - what exactly is it that you do? does it take a lot of time? is it fun but challenging? was it hard to get your job? have you always wanted to work with earth science?