Falling Into Jupiter

Eight Small Satellites Will Give Us a New Look Inside Hurricanes

The same GPS technology that helps people get where they’re going in a car will soon be used in space in an effort to improve hurricane forecasting. The technology is a key capability in a NASA mission called the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS).

The CYGNSS mission, led by the University of Michigan, will use eight micro-satellite observatories to measure wind speeds over Earth’s oceans, increasing the ability of scientists to understand and predict hurricanes. Each microsatellite observatory will make observations based on the signals from four GPS satellites.

The CYGNSS microsatellite observatories will only receive signals broadcast directly to them from GPS satellites already orbiting the Earth and the reflection of the same satellite’s signal reflected from the Earth’s surface. The CYGNSS satellites themselves will not broadcast.

The use of eight microsatellite observatories will decrease the revisit time as compared with current individual weather satellites. The spacecraft will be deployed separately around the planet, with successive satellites passing over the same region every 12 minutes.

This will be the first time that satellites can peer through heavy tropical rainfall into the middle of hurricanes and predict how intense they are before and during landfall.

As the CYGNSS and GPS constellations orbit around the Earth, the interaction of the two systems will result in a new image of wind speed over the entire tropics every few hours, compared to every few days for a single satellite.

Another advantage of CYGNSS is that its orbit is designed to measure only in the tropics…where hurricanes develop and are most often located. The focus on tropical activity means that the instruments will be able to gather much more useful data on weather systems exclusively found in the tropics. This data will ultimately be used to help forecasters and emergency managers make lifesaving decisions.

Launch!

CYGNSS launched at 8:37 a.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 15, from our Kennedy Space Center in Florida. CYGNSS launched aboard an Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket, deployed from Orbital’s “Stargazer” L-1011 carrier aircraft. 

Pegasus is a winged, three-stage solid propellant rocket that can launch a satellite into low Earth orbit. How does it work? Great question! 

After takeoff, the aircraft (which looks like a commercial airplane..but with some special quirks) flies to about 39,000 feet over the ocean and releases the rocket. 

After a five-second free fall in a horizontal position, the Pegasus first stage ignites. The aerodynamic lift, generated by the rocket’s triangle-shaped wing, delivers the payload into orbit in about 10 minutes. 

Pegasus is used to deploy small satellites weighing up to 1,000 pounds into low Earth orbit. 

And success! The eight CYGNSS satellites were successfully deployed into orbit! 

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

This week, we celebrate the fifth anniversary of the moment our Mars Science Laboratory mission landed the Curiosity rover in Gale Crater. 

In fact, this summer brings several red letter days in Red Planet exploration. Here are 10 things to know about the anniversary of the Curiosity landing—plus some other arrivals at Mars you may not know about.

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at a drilled sample site called "Okoruso," on the "Naukluft Plateau" of lower Mount Sharp. The scene combines multiple images taken with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on May 11, 2016. Credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS

1. Seven Minutes of Terror 

For Curiosity, landing on Mars meant slowing from about 13,000 MPH (21,000 KPH) to a full stop in just seven minutes. Engineers came up with an innovative--and bold--plan to make this happen, but no one could be 100% certain it would work. In this video, some of the Curiosity engineers who designed the entry, descent and landing system for the mission talk candidly about the challenges of Curiosity's final moments before touchdown in August 2012.

2. Sweet Success 

Relive the tension, and the celebration, of the night Curiosity landed on Mars. You can also simulate the entire landing process in 3-D on your own computer using NASA's free Eyes on the Solar System app.

3. Echoes of Ancient Waters 

What has Curiosity discovered during its roving so far? The key takeaway: the stark deserts of Gale Crater were once home to lakes and streams of liquid water, a place where life could potentially have thrived. Learn more about the mission's scientific findings.

4. Pretty as a Postcard

Sometimes science can be beautiful, as pictures from Mars prove. You can peruse some of Curiosity's best shots. What's more, you can see the very latest images—often on the same day they're downlinked from Mars.

5. Take It for a Spin

Have you ever wanted to try driving a Mars rover yourself? You can (virtually anyway). Try the Experience Curiosity app right in your web browser.

6. Mars Trekking 

Maybe someday you'll be able to take a day hike across the Martian landscape. You can at least plan your route right now, using NASA's Mars Trek site. This interactive mapping tool lets you explore important Red Planet locations using actual terrain imagery from orbiting satellites. You can even retrace the real locations on Mars where the fictional astronaut Mark Watney traveled in "The Martian."

7. A First Time for Everything

Curiosity stands (well, rolls) on the shoulders of giants. Several NASA missions blazed the trail for the current crop of robotic explorers. The first was Mariner 4, which is also celebrating an anniversary this summer. Mariner 4 was the first spacecraft to return photos of another planet from deep space when it flew by Mars on July 15, 1965. Mariner engineers were so impatient to see the first pictures it sent back, that they hand-colored a printout of raw numeric data sent by the spacecraft, in order to construct one of the first color images of Mars.

8. Pathfinders and Panoramas 

Another important pathfinder on Mars was...Mars Pathfinder. This mission just marked its 20th anniversary. To commemorate the first successful Mars rover, NASA created a new 360-degree VR panorama of its landing site you can view right in your browser.

9. One Small Step for a Robot

The first spacecraft to make a successful landing on Mars was Viking 1, which touched down in the Chryse Planitia region on July 20, 1976. It worked for more than six years, performing the first Martian soil analysis using its robotic arm and an onbaord biological laboratory. While it found no conclusive evidence of life, Viking 1 did help us understand Mars as a planet with volcanic soil, a thin, dry carbon dioxide atmosphere and striking evidence for ancient river beds and vast flooding.

10. Mars Explorers Needed 

There is much more to come. The next Mars lander, InSight, is slated for launch next year. Ride along with NASA's ongoing adventures on the Red Planet at: mars.nasa.gov/mars-exploration/

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Hello. I'm curious what new feature the james webb brings to the table, like its ability to detect in infrared, that you are most excited about? What are you most interested to look into with this new telescope?

In case you missed it earlier in July, here’s a look at how our view of Pluto has changed over the course of several decades. The first frame is a digital zoom-in on Pluto as it appeared upon its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 (image courtesy Lowell Observatory Archives). The other images show various views of Pluto as seen by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope beginning in the 1990s and NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. The final sequence zooms in to a close-up frame of Pluto released on July 15, 2015.

This amazing view of details on Pluto came via New Horizons, which launched on Jan. 19, 2006. New Horizons swung past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February 2007, and conducted a reconnaissance flyby study of Pluto and its moons in summer 2015. Pluto closest approach occurred on July 14, 2015. As part of an extended mission, the spacecraft is expected to head farther into the Kuiper Belt to examine one or two of the ancient, icy mini-worlds in that vast region, at least a billion miles beyond Neptune’s orbit.

Image credits available here.

What’s On Board the Next SpaceX Cargo Launch?

Cargo and supplies are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on Monday, July 18 at 12:45 a.m. EDT. The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft will liftoff from our Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Among the arriving cargo is the first of two international docking adapters, which will allow commercial spacecraft to dock to the station when transporting astronauts in the near future as part of our Commercial Crew Program.

This metallic ring, big enough for astronauts and cargo to fit through represents the first on-orbit element built to the docking measurements that are standardized for all the spacecraft builders across the world.

Its first users are expected to be the Boeing Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which are both now in development.

What About the Science?!

Experiments launching to the station range from research into the effects of microgravity on the human body, to regulating temperature on spacecraft. Take a look at a few:

A Space-based DNA Sequencer

DNA testing aboard the space station typically requires collecting samples and sending them back to Earth to be analyzed. Our Biomolecule Sequencer Investigation will test a new device that will allow DNA sequencing in space for the first time! The samples in this first test will be DNA from a virus, a bacteria and a mouse.

How big is it? Picture your smartphone…then cut it in half. This miniature device has the potential to identify microbes, diagnose diseases and evaluate crew member health, and even help detect DNA-based life elsewhere in the solar system.

OsteoOmics

OsteoOmics is an experiment that will investigate the molecular mechanisms that dictate bone loss in microgravity. It does this by examining osteoblasts, which form bone; and osteoclasts, which dissolves bone. New ground-based studies are using magnetic levitation equipment to simulate gravity-related changes. This experiment hopes to validate whether this method accurately simulates the free-fall conditions of microgravity.

Results from this study could lead to better preventative care or therapeutic treatments for people suffering bone loss, both on Earth and in space!

Heart Cells Experiment

The goals of the Effects of Microgravity on Stem Cell-Derived Heart Cells (Heart Cells) investigation include increasing the understanding of the effects of microgravity on heart function, the improvement of heart disease modeling capabilities and the development of appropriate methods for cell therapy for people with heart disease on Earth.

Phase Change Material Heat Exchanger (PCM HX)

The goal of the Phase Change Material Heat Exchanger (PCM HX) project is to regulate internal spacecraft temperatures. Inside this device, we're testing the freezing and thawing of material in an attempt to regulate temperature on a spacecraft. This phase-changing material (PCM) can be melted and solidified at certain high heat temperatures to store and release large amounts of energy.

Watch Launch!

Live coverage of the SpaceX launch will be available starting at 11:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 17 via NASA Television. 

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Going the Distance... In Space

On April 17, NASA's New Horizons crossed a rare deep-space milestone – 50 astronomical units from the Sun, or 50 times farther from the Sun than Earth is. New Horizons is just the fifth spacecraft to reach this great distance, following the legendary Voyagers 1 and 2 and Pioneers 10 and 11. It’s almost 5 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) away; a remote region where a signal radioed from NASA's largest antennas on Earth, even traveling at the speed of light, needs seven hours to reach the far-flung spacecraft.

To celebrate reaching 50 AU, the New Horizons team compiled a list of 50 facts about the mission. Here are just a few of them; you'll find the full collection at: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Fifty-Facts.php.

New Horizons is the first – and so far, only – spacecraft to visit Pluto. New Horizons sped through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015, providing a history-making close-up view of the dwarf planet and its family of five moons.

New Horizons is carrying some of the ashes of Pluto’s discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh. In 1930, the amateur astronomer spotted Pluto in a series of telescope images at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, making him the first American to discover a planet.

The “Pluto Not Yet Explored” U.S. stamp that New Horizons carries holds the Guinness World Record for the farthest traveled postage stamp. The stamp was part of a series created in 1991, when Pluto was the last unexplored planet in the solar system.

Dispatched at 36,400 miles per hour (58, 500 kilometers per hour) on January 19, 2006, New Horizons is still the fastest human-made object ever launched from Earth.

As the spacecraft flew by Jupiter’s moon Io, in February 2007, New Horizons captured the first detailed movie of a volcano erupting anywhere in the solar system except Earth.

New Horizons’ radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) – its nuclear battery – will provide enough power to keep the spacecraft operating until the late-2030s.

Measurements of the universe’s darkness using New Horizons data found that the universe is twice as bright as predicted – a major extragalactic astronomy discovery!

New Horizons’ Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter is the first student-built instrument on any NASA planetary mission – and is providing unprecedented insight into the dust environment in the outer solar system.

New Horizons is so far away, that even the positons of the stars look different than what we see from Earth. This view of an "alien sky" allowed scientists to make stereo images of the nearest stars against the background of the galaxy.

Arrokoth – the official name the mission team proposed for the Kuiper Belt object New Horizons explored in January 2019 – is a Native American term that means “sky” in the Powhatan/Algonquin language.

Stay tuned in to the latest New Horizons updates on the mission website and follow NASA Solar System on Twitter and Facebook.

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A Tour of Storms Across the Solar System

Earth is a dynamic and stormy planet with everything from brief, rumbling thunderstorms to enormous, raging hurricanes, which are some of the most powerful and destructive storms on our world. But other planets also have storm clouds, lightning — even rain, of sorts. Let’s take a tour of some of the unusual storms in our solar system and beyond.

Tune in May 22 at 3 p.m. for more solar system forecasting with NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green during the latest installment of NASA Science Live: https://www.nasa.gov/nasasciencelive.

1. At Mercury: A Chance of Morning Micrometeoroid Showers and Magnetic ‘Tornadoes’

Mercury, the planet nearest the Sun, is scorching hot, with daytime temperatures of more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (about 450 degrees Celsius). It also has weak gravity — only about 38% of Earth's — making it hard for Mercury to hold on to an atmosphere.

Its barely there atmosphere means Mercury doesn’t have dramatic storms, but it does have a strange "weather" pattern of sorts: it’s blasted with micrometeoroids, or tiny dust particles, usually in the morning. It also has magnetic “tornadoes” — twisted bundles of magnetic fields that connect the planet’s magnetic field to space.

2. At Venus: Earth’s ‘Almost’ Twin is a Hot Mess

Venus is often called Earth's twin because the two planets are similar in size and structure. But Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system, roasting at more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius) under a suffocating blanket of sulfuric acid clouds and a crushing atmosphere. Add to that the fact that Venus has lightning, maybe even more than Earth. 

In visible light, Venus appears bright yellowish-white because of its clouds. Earlier this year, Japanese researchers found a giant streak-like structure in the clouds based on observations by the Akatsuki spacecraft orbiting Venus.

3. At Earth: Multiple Storm Hazards Likely

Earth has lots of storms, including thunderstorms, blizzards and tornadoes. Tornadoes can pack winds over 300 miles per hour (480 kilometers per hour) and can cause intense localized damage.

But no storms match hurricanes in size and scale of devastation. Hurricanes, also called typhoons or cyclones, can last for days and have strong winds extending outward for 675 miles (1,100 kilometers). They can annihilate coastal areas and cause damage far inland.

4. At Mars: Hazy with a Chance of Dust Storms

Mars is infamous for intense dust storms, including some that grow to encircle the planet. In 2018, a global dust storm blanketed NASA's record-setting Opportunity rover, ending the mission after 15 years on the surface.

Mars has a thin atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide. To the human eye, the sky would appear hazy and reddish or butterscotch colored because of all the dust suspended in the air. 

5. At Jupiter: A Shrinking Icon

It’s one of the best-known storms in the solar system: Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. It’s raged for at least 300 years and was once big enough to swallow Earth with room to spare. But it’s been shrinking for a century and a half. Nobody knows for sure, but it's possible the Great Red Spot could eventually disappear.

6. At Saturn: A Storm Chasers Paradise

Saturn has one of the most extraordinary atmospheric features in the solar system: a hexagon-shaped cloud pattern at its north pole. The hexagon is a six-sided jet stream with 200-mile-per-hour winds (about 322 kilometers per hour). Each side is a bit wider than Earth and multiple Earths could fit inside. In the middle of the hexagon is what looks like a cosmic belly button, but it’s actually a huge vortex that looks like a hurricane.

Storm chasers would have a field day on Saturn. Part of the southern hemisphere was dubbed "Storm Alley" by scientists on NASA's Cassini mission because of the frequent storm activity the spacecraft observed there. 

7. At Titan: Methane Rain and Dust Storms

Earth isn’t the only world in our solar system with bodies of liquid on its surface. Saturn’s moon Titan has rivers, lakes and large seas. It’s the only other world with a cycle of liquids like Earth’s water cycle, with rain falling from clouds, flowing across the surface, filling lakes and seas and evaporating back into the sky. But on Titan, the rain, rivers and seas are made of methane instead of water.

Data from the Cassini spacecraft also revealed what appear to be giant dust storms in Titan’s equatorial regions, making Titan the third solar system body, in addition to Earth and Mars, where dust storms have been observed.

8. At Uranus: A Polar Storm

Scientists were trying to solve a puzzle about clouds on the ice giant planet: What were they made of? When Voyager 2 flew by in 1986, it spotted few clouds. (This was due in part to the thick haze that envelops the planet, as well as Voyager's cameras not being designed to peer through the haze in infrared light.) But in 2018, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope snapped an image showing a vast, bright, stormy cloud cap across the north pole of Uranus.

9. At Neptune: Methane Clouds

Neptune is our solar system's windiest world. Winds whip clouds of frozen methane across the ice giant planet at speeds of more than 1,200 miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per hour) — about nine times faster than winds on Earth.

Neptune also has huge storm systems. In 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 spotted two giant storms on Neptune as the spacecraft zipped by the planet. Scientists named the storms “The Great Dark Spot” and “Dark Spot 2.”

10. It’s Not Just Us: Extreme Weather in Another Solar System

Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope made a global map of the glow from a turbulent planet outside our solar system. The observations show the exoplanet, called WASP-43b, is a world of extremes. It has winds that howl at the speed of sound, from a 3,000-degree-Fahrenheit (1,600-degree-Celsius) day side, to a pitch-black night side where temperatures plunge below 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius).

Discovered in 2011, WASP-43b is located 260 light-years away. The planet is too distant to be photographed, but astronomers detected it by observing dips in the light of its parent star as the planet passes in front of it.

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Hubble Space Telescope: Exploring the Cosmos and Making Life Better on Earth

In the 35 years since its launch aboard space shuttle Discovery, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided stunning views of galaxies millions of light years away. But the leaps in technology needed for its look into space has also provided benefits on the ground. Here are some of the technologies developed for Hubble that have improved life on Earth.

Image Sensors Find Cancer

Charge-coupled device (CCD) sensors have been used in digital photography for decades, but Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph required a far more sensitive CCD. This development resulted in improved image sensors for mammogram machines, helping doctors find and treat breast cancer.

Laser Vision Gives Insights

In preparation for a repair mission to fix Hubble’s misshapen mirror, Goddard Space Flight Center required a way to accurately measure replacement parts. This resulted in a tool to detect mirror defects, which has since been used to develop a commercial 3D imaging system and a package detection device now used by all major shipping companies.

Optimized Hospital Scheduling

A computer scientist who helped design software for scheduling Hubble’s observations adapted it to assist with scheduling medical procedures. This software helps hospitals optimize constantly changing schedules for medical imaging and keep the high pace of emergency rooms going.

Optical Filters Match Wavelengths and Paint Swatches

For Hubble’s main cameras to capture high-quality images of stars and galaxies, each of its filters had to block all but a specific range of wavelengths of light. The filters needed to capture the best data possible but also fit on one optical element. A company contracted to construct these filters used its experience on this project to create filters used in paint-matching devices for hardware stores, with multiple wavelengths evaluated by a single lens.

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We’re On a Mission to Study The Zone Where Earth Meets Space!

We’re launching ICON — short for Ionospheric Connection Explorer — a mission to explore the dynamic region where Earth meets space: the ionosphere!

Earth’s ionosphere stretches from 50 to 400 miles above the ground, overlapping the top of our atmosphere and the very beginning of space. The Sun cooks gases there until they lose an electron (or two or three), creating a sea of electrically charged particles. But, the ionosphere also responds to weather patterns from Earth rippling up. These changes are complex and tricky to understand.

That’s why we’re launching ICON! Changes in the ionosphere can affect astronauts, satellites and communications signals we use every day, like radio or GPS. Understanding these changes could help us eventually predict them — and better protect our technology and explorers in space.

ICON will track changes in the ionosphere by surveying airglow. It’s a natural feature of Earth’s that causes our atmosphere to constantly glow. The Sun excites gases in the upper atmosphere, so they emit light. From 360 miles above Earth, ICON will photograph airglow to measure the ionosphere’s winds, composition and temperature. ICON also carries an instrument that will capture and measure the particles directly around the spacecraft.

ICON is scheduled to launch on Oct. 10, on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket. The night of launch, the rocket is flown up to the sky by Northrop Grumman’s L-1011 Stargazer airplane, which takes off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. From 40,000 feet above the open ocean, the Pegasus XL rocket drops from the plane and free-falls for about five seconds before igniting and carrying ICON into orbit.   

NASA TV coverage of the launch starts at 9:15 p.m. EDT on Oct. 10 at nasa.gov/live. You can also follow along on Twitter, Facebook or at nasa.gov/icon.

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The Legacy of Viking

On this day in 1976, we landed an ambitious mission on Mars –– the Viking 2 mission.

One of a pair of identical spacecraft, Viking found a place in history when it became the first U.S. mission to successfully land on Mars and return images of the surface.

Viking imaged and collected different types of data on the Martian surface. It also conducted experiments specifically designed to look for possible signs of life.

These experiments discovered unexpected chemical activity in the Martian soil but provided no clear evidence for the presence of living microorganisms.

Viking didn’t find unambiguous signs of life on Mars, but it made astrobiologists wonder if we devised the right tests. To this day, the results from Viking are helping to shape the development of life detection strategies at NASA.

So, what’s next in our search for life?

Our Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is the first mission designed to seek possible signs of past Martian life. For astrobiologists, the answers to questions about Mars’ habitability are in Perseverance’s “hands.” The robot astrobiologist and geologist launched earlier this year on July 30 and will touch down on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021.

Discover more about Viking and the history of exploration at Mars with our “Missions To Mars” graphic history novel here.

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