10 Space & Football Facts You Probably Didn’t Know

Meet Fermi: Our Eyes on the Gamma-Ray Sky

Black holes, cosmic rays, neutron stars and even new kinds of physics — for 10 years, data from our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have helped unravel some of the biggest mysteries of the cosmos. And Fermi is far from finished!

On June 11, 2008, at Cape Canaveral in Florida, the countdown started for Fermi, which was called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) at the time. 

The telescope was renamed after launch to honor Enrico Fermi, an Italian-American pioneer in high-energy physics who also helped develop the first nuclear reactor. 

Fermi has had many other things named after him, like Fermi’s Paradox, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the synthetic element fermium.

Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory

The Fermi telescope measures some of the highest energy bursts of light in the universe; watching the sky to help scientists answer all sorts of questions about some of the most powerful objects in the universe. 

Its main instrument is the Large Area Telescope (LAT), which can view 20% of the sky at a time and makes a new image of the whole gamma-ray sky every three hours. Fermi’s other instrument is the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor. It sees even more of the sky at lower energies and is designed to detect brief flashes of gamma-rays from the cosmos and Earth.

This sky map below is from 2013 and shows all of the high energy gamma rays observed by the LAT during Fermi’s first five years in space.  The bright glowing band along the map’s center is our own Milky Way galaxy!

So what are gamma rays? 

Well, they’re a form of light. But light with so much energy and with such short wavelengths that we can’t see them with the naked eye. Gamma rays require a ton of energy to produce — from things like subatomic particles (such as protons) smashing into each other. 

Here on Earth, you can get them in nuclear reactors and lightning strikes. Here’s a glimpse of the Seattle skyline if you could pop on a pair of gamma-ray goggles. That purple streak? That’s still the Milky Way, which is consistently the brightest source of gamma rays in our sky.

In space, you find that kind of energy in places like black holes and neutron stars. The raindrop-looking animation below shows a big flare of gamma rays that Fermi spotted coming from something called a blazar, which is a kind of quasar, which is different from a pulsar... actually, let’s back this up a little bit.

One of the sources of gamma rays that Fermi spots are pulsars. Pulsars are a kind of neutron star, which is a kind of star that used to be a lot bigger, but collapsed into something that’s smaller and a lot denser. Pulsars send out beams of gamma rays. But the thing about pulsars is that they rotate. 

So Fermi only sees a beam of gamma rays from a pulsar when it’s pointed towards Earth. Kind of like how you only periodically see the beam from a lighthouse. These flashes of light are very regular. You could almost set your watch by them!

Quasars are supermassive black holes surrounded by disks of gas. As the gas falls into the black hole, it releases massive amount of energy, including — you guessed it — gamma rays. Blazars are quasars that send out beams of gamma rays and other forms of light — right in our direction. 

When Fermi sees them, it’s basically looking straight down this tunnel of light, almost all the way back to the black hole. This means we can learn about the kinds of conditions in that environment when the rays were emitted. Fermi has found about 5,500 individual sources of gamma rays, and the bulk of them have been blazars, which is pretty nifty.

But gamma rays also have many other sources. We’ve seen them coming from supernovas where stars die and from star factories where stars are born. They’re created in lightning storms here on Earth, and our own Sun can toss them out in solar flares. 

Gamma rays were in the news last year because of something Fermi spotted at almost the same time as the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and European Gravitational Observatory’s Virgo on August 17, 2017. Fermi, LIGO, Virgo, and numerous other observatories spotted the merger of two neutron stars. It was the first time that gravitational waves and light were confirmed to come from the same source.

Fermi has been looking at the sky for almost 10 years now, and it’s helped scientists advance our understanding of the universe in many ways. And the longer it looks, the more we’ll learn. Discover more about how we’ll be celebrating Fermi’s achievements all year.

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Why Bennu? 10 Reasons

After traveling for two years and billions of kilometers from Earth, the OSIRIS-REx probe is only a few months away from its destination: the intriguing asteroid Bennu. When it arrives in December, OSIRIS-REx will embark on a nearly two-year investigation of this clump of rock, mapping its terrain and finding a safe and fruitful site from which to collect a sample.

The spacecraft will briefly touch Bennu’s surface around July 2020 to collect at least 60 grams (equal to about 30 sugar packets) of dirt and rocks. It might collect as much as 2,000 grams, which would be the largest sample by far gathered from a space object since the Apollo Moon landings. The spacecraft will then pack the sample into a capsule and travel back to Earth, dropping the capsule into Utah's west desert in 2023, where scientists will be waiting to collect it.

This years-long quest for knowledge thrusts Bennu into the center of one of the most ambitious space missions ever attempted. But the humble rock is but one of about 780,000 known asteroids in our solar system. So why did scientists pick Bennu for this momentous investigation? Here are 10 reasons:

1. It's close to Earth

Unlike most other asteroids that circle the Sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Bennu’s orbit is close in proximity to Earth's, even crossing it. The asteroid makes its closest approach to Earth every 6 years. It also circles the Sun nearly in the same plane as Earth, which made it somewhat easier to achieve the high-energy task of launching the spacecraft out of Earth's plane and into Bennu's. Still, the launch required considerable power, so OSIRIS-REx used Earth’s gravity to boost itself into Bennu’s orbital plane when it passed our planet in September 2017.

2. It's the right size

Asteroids spin on their axes just like Earth does. Small ones, with diameters of 200 meters or less, often spin very fast, up to a few revolutions per minute. This rapid spinning makes it difficult for a spacecraft to match an asteroid's velocity in order to touch down and collect samples. Even worse, the quick spinning has flung loose rocks and soil, material known as "regolith" — the stuff OSIRIS-REx is looking to collect — off the surfaces of small asteroids. Bennu’s size, in contrast, makes it approachable and rich in regolith. It has a diameter of 492 meters, which is a bit larger than the height of the Empire State Building in New York City, and rotating once every 4.3 hours.

3. It's really old

Bennu is a leftover fragment from the tumultuous formation of the solar system. Some of the mineral fragments inside Bennu could be older than the solar system. These microscopic grains of dust could be the same ones that spewed from dying stars and eventually coalesced to make the Sun and its planets nearly 4.6 billion years ago. But pieces of asteroids, called meteorites, have been falling to Earth's surface since the planet formed. So why don't scientists just study those old space rocks? Because astronomers can't tell (with very few exceptions) what kind of objects these meteorites came from, which is important context. Furthermore, these stones, that survive the violent, fiery decent to our planet's surface, get contaminated when they land in the dirt, sand, or snow. Some even get hammered by the elements, like rain and snow, for hundreds or thousands of years. Such events change the chemistry of meteorites, obscuring their ancient records.

4. It's well preserved

Bennu, on the other hand, is a time capsule from the early solar system, having been preserved in the vacuum of space. Although scientists think it broke off a larger asteroid in the asteroid belt in a catastrophic collision between about 1 and 2 billion years ago, and hurtled through space until it got locked into an orbit near Earth's, they don’t expect that these events significantly altered it.

5. It might contain clues to the origin of life

Analyzing a sample from Bennu will help planetary scientists better understand the role asteroids may have played in delivering life-forming compounds to Earth. We know from having studied Bennu through Earth- and space-based telescopes that it is a carbonaceous, or carbon-rich, asteroid. Carbon is the hinge upon which organic molecules hang. Bennu is likely rich in organic molecules, which are made of chains of carbon bonded with atoms of oxygen, hydrogen, and other elements in a chemical recipe that makes all known living things. Besides carbon, Bennu also might have another component important to life: water, which is trapped in the minerals that make up the asteroid.

6. It contains valuable materials

Besides teaching us about our cosmic past, exploring Bennu close-up will help humans plan for the future. Asteroids are rich in natural resources, such as iron and aluminum, and precious metals, such as platinum. For this reason, some companies, and even countries, are building technologies that will one day allow us to extract those materials. More importantly, asteroids like Bennu are key to future, deep-space travel. If humans can learn how to extract the abundant hydrogen and oxygen from the water locked up in an asteroid’s minerals, they could make rocket fuel. Thus, asteroids could one day serve as fuel stations for robotic or human missions to Mars and beyond. Learning how to maneuver around an object like Bennu, and about its chemical and physical properties, will help future prospectors.

7. It will help us better understand other asteroids

Astronomers have studied Bennu from Earth since it was discovered in 1999. As a result, they think they know a lot about the asteroid's physical and chemical properties. Their knowledge is based not only on looking at the asteroid, but also studying meteorites found on Earth, and filling in gaps in observable knowledge with predictions derived from theoretical models. Thanks to the detailed information that will be gleaned from OSIRIS-REx, scientists now will be able to check whether their predictions about Bennu are correct. This work will help verify or refine telescopic observations and models that attempt to reveal the nature of other asteroids in our solar system.

8. It will help us better understand a quirky solar force ...

Astronomers have calculated that Bennu’s orbit has drifted about 280 meters (0.18 miles) per year toward the Sun since it was discovered. This could be because of a phenomenon called the Yarkovsky effect, a process whereby sunlight warms one side of a small, dark asteroid and then radiates as heat off the asteroid as it rotates. The heat energy thrusts an asteroid either away from the Sun, if it has a prograde spin like Earth, which means it spins in the same direction as its orbit, or toward the Sun in the case of Bennu, which spins in the opposite direction of its orbit. OSIRIS-REx will measure the Yarkovsky effect from close-up to help scientists predict the movement of Bennu and other asteroids. Already, measurements of how this force impacted Bennu over time have revealed that it likely pushed it to our corner of the solar system from the asteroid belt.

9. ... and to keep asteroids at bay

One reason scientists are eager to predict the directions asteroids are drifting is to know when they're coming too-close-for-comfort to Earth. By taking the Yarkovsky effect into account, they’ve estimated that Bennu could pass closer to Earth than the Moon is in 2135, and possibly even closer between 2175 and 2195. Although Bennu is unlikely to hit Earth at that time, our descendants can use the data from OSIRIS-REx to determine how best to deflect any threatening asteroids that are found, perhaps even by using the Yarkovsky effect to their advantage.

10. It's a gift that will keep on giving

Samples of Bennu will return to Earth on September 24, 2023. OSIRIS-REx scientists will study a quarter of the regolith. The rest will be made available to scientists around the globe, and also saved for those not yet born, using techniques not yet invented, to answer questions not yet asked.

Read the web version of this week’s “Solar System: 10 Things to Know” article HERE.

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Who Was Mary W. Jackson?

On June 24, 2020, NASA announced the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., was to be named after Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA.

Jackson’s story — along with those of her colleagues Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Christine Darden — was popularized with the release of the “Hidden Figures” movie, based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s book by the same name.

Today, as the accomplishments of these women are brought to light, we celebrate them as Modern Figures — hidden no longer. Despite their recent recognition, we cannot forget the challenges that women and BIPOC faced and continue to face in the STEM fields.

Background

Jackson showed talent for math and science at an early age. She was born in 1921 in Hampton, Virginia, and attended the all-Black George P. Phenix Training School where she graduated with honors. She graduated from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in 1942 with a bachelor of science degree in both mathematics and physical sciences.

Jackson worked several jobs before arriving at the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), the precursor organization to NASA. She was a teacher, a receptionist, and a bookkeeper — in addition to becoming a mother — before accepting a position with the NACA Langley Aeronautical Laboratory’s segregated West Area Computers in 1951, where her supervisor was Dorothy Vaughan.

Accomplishments 

After two years in West Computing, Jackson was offered a computing position to work in the 4-foot by 4-foot Supersonic Pressure Tunnel. She was also encouraged to enter a training program that would put her on track to become an engineer — however, she needed special permission from the City of Hampton to take classes in math and physics at then-segregated Hampton High School.

She completed the courses, earned the promotion, and in 1958 became NASA’s first African-American female engineer. That same year, she co-authored her first report, “Effects of Nose Angle and Mach Number on Transition on Cones at Supersonic Speeds.” By 1975, she had authored or co-authored 12 NACA and NASA technical publications — most focused on the behavior of the boundary layer of air around an airplane.

Legacy

Jackson eventually became frustrated with the lack of management opportunities for women in her field. In 1979, she left engineering to become NASA Langley’s Federal Women’s Program Manager to increase the hiring and promotion of NASA’s female mathematicians, engineers, and scientists.

Not only was she devoted to her career, Jackson was also committed to the advancement of her community. In the 1970s, she helped the students in the Hampton King Street Community Center build their own wind tunnel and run experiments. She and her husband Levi took in young professionals in need of guidance. She was also a Girl Scout troop leader for more than three decades.  

Jackson retired from Langley in 1985. Never accepting the status quo, she dedicated her life to breaking barriers for minorities in her field. Her legacy reminds us that inclusion and diversity are needed to live up to NASA’s core values of teamwork and excellence.

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I want to start an Astronomy club at my high school, and I was wondering if there were any opportunities within NASA that I can take advantage of for my club? Thanks!

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

It’s the time of year for summer break, swimming, and oh, yes storms. June 1 marks the beginning of hurricane season on the Atlantic coast, but we’re not alone. Our neighboring planets have seen their fair share of volatile weather, too (like the Cassini spacecraft’s view of the unique six-sided jet stream at Saturn’s north pole known as “the hexagon”). 

This week, we present 10 of the solar system’s greatest storms.

1. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

With tumultuous winds peaking at 400 mph, the Great Red Spot has been swirling wildly over Jupiter’s skies for at least 150 years and possibly much longer. People saw a big spot on Jupiter as early as the 1600s when they started stargazing through telescopes, though it’s unclear whether they were looking at a different storm. Today, scientists know the Great Red Spot has been there for a while, but what causes its swirl of reddish hues remains to be discovered. More >

2. Jupiter’s Little Red Spot

Despite its unofficial name, the Little Red Spot is about as wide as Earth. The storm reached its current size when three smaller spots collided and merged in the year 2000. More >

3. Saturn’s Hexagon

The planet’s rings might get most of the glory, but another shape’s been competing for attention: the hexagon. This jet stream is home to a massive hurricane tightly centered on the north pole, with an eye about 50 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth. Numerous small vortices spin clockwise while the hexagon and hurricane spin counterclockwise. The biggest of these vortices, seen near the lower right corner of the hexagon and appearing whitish, spans about 2,200 miles, approximately twice the size of the largest hurricane on Earth. More>

4. Monster Storm on Saturn 

A tempest erupted in 2010, extending approximately 9,000 miles north-south large enough to eventually eat its own tail before petering out. The storm raged for 200 days, making it the longest-lasting, planet-encircling storm ever seen on Saturn. More >

5. Mars’ Dust Storm 

Better cover your eyes. Dust storms are a frequent guest on the Red Planet, but one dust storm in 2001 larger by far than any seen on Earth raised a cloud of dust that engulfed the entire planet for three months. As the Sun warmed the airborne dust, the upper atmospheric temperature rose by about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. More >

6. Neptune’s Great Dark Spot

Several large, dark spots on Neptune are similar to Jupiter’s hurricane-like storms. The largest spot, named the “Great Dark Spot” by its discoverers, contains a storm big enough for Earth to fit neatly inside. And, it looks to be an anticyclone similar to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. More >

7. Sun Twister 

Not to be confused with Earth’s tornadoes, a stalk-like prominence rose up above the Sun, then split into about four strands that twisted themselves into a knot and dispersed over a two-hour period. This close-up shows the effect is one of airy gracefulness. More >

8. Titan’s Arrow-shaped Storm 

The storm blew across the equatorial region of Titan, creating large effects in the form of dark and likely “wet” from liquid hydrocarbons areas on the surface of the moon. The part of the storm visible here measures 750 miles in length east-to-west. The wings of the storm that trail off to the northwest and southwest from the easternmost point of the storm are each 930 miles long. More >

9. Geomagnetic Storms

On March 9, 1989, a huge cloud of solar material exploded from the sun, twisting toward Earth. When this cloud of magnetized solar material called a coronal mass ejection reached our planet, it set off a chain of events in near-Earth space that ultimately knocked out an entire power grid area to the Canadian province Quebec for nine hours. More >

10. Super Typhoon Tip

Back on Earth, Typhoon Tip of 1979 remains the biggest storm to ever hit our planet, making landfall in Japan. The tropical cyclone saw sustained winds peak at 190 mph and the diameter of circulation spanned approximately 1,380 miles. Fortunately, we now have plans to better predict future storms on Earth. NASA recently launched a new fleet of hurricane-tracking satellites, known as the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), which will use the same GPS technology you and I use in our cars to measure wind speed and ultimately improve how to track and forecast hurricanes. More >

Discover more lists of 10 things to know about our solar system HERE.

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It’s May the 4th: Are Star Wars Planets Real?

Look at what we’ve found so far.

Is your favorite Star Wars planet a desert world or an ice planet or a jungle moon?

It’s possible that your favorite planet exists right here in our galaxy. Astronomers have found over 3,700 planets around other stars, called “exoplanets.”

Some of these alien worlds could be very similar to arid Tatooine, watery Scarif and even frozen Hoth, according to our scientists.

Find out if your planet exists in a galaxy far, far away or all around you. And May the Fourth be with you!

Planets With Two Suns

From Luke Skywalker’s home world Tatooine, you can stand in the orange glow of a double sunset. The same could said for Kepler-16b, a cold gas giant roughly the size of Saturn, that orbits two stars. Kepler-16b was the Kepler telescope’s first discovery of a planet in a “circumbinary” orbit (that is, circling both stars, as opposed to just one, in a double star system). 

The best part is that Tatooine aka Kepler-16b was just the first. It has family. A LOT of family. Half the stars in our galaxy are pairs, rather than single stars like our sun. If every star has at least one planet, that’s billions of worlds with two suns. Billions! Maybe waiting for life to be found on them.

Desert Worlds

Mars is a cold desert planet in our solar system, and we have plenty of examples of scorching hot planets in our galaxy (like Kepler-10b), which orbits its star in less than a day)! Scientists think that if there are other habitable planets in the galaxy, they’re more likely to be desert planets than ocean worlds. That’s because ocean worlds freeze when they’re too far from their star, or boil off their water if they’re too close, potentially making them unlivable. Perhaps, it’s not so weird that both Luke Skywalker and Rey grew up on planets that look a lot alike.

Ice Planets

An icy super-Earth named OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb reminded scientists so much of the frozen Rebel base they nicknamed it “Hoth,” after its frozen temperature of minus 364 degrees Fahrenheit. Another Hoth-like planet was discovered in April 2017; an Earth-mass icy world orbiting its star at the same distance as Earth orbits the sun. But its star is so faint, the surface of OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb is probably colder than Pluto.

Forest worlds

Both the forest moon of Endor and Takodana, the home of Han Solo’s favorite cantina in “Force Awakens,” are green like our home planet. But astrobiologists think that plant life on other worlds could be red, black, or even rainbow-colored!

In February 2017, the Spitzer Space Telescope discovered seven Earth-sized planets in the same system, orbiting the tiny red star TRAPPIST-1.

The light from a red star, also known as an M dwarf, is dim and mostly in the infrared spectrum (as opposed to the visible spectrum we see with our sun). And that could mean plants with wildly different colors than what we’re used to seeing on Earth. Or, it could mean animals that see in the near-infrared.

What About Moons?

In Star Wars, Endor, the planet with the cute Ewoks, is actually a habitable moon of a gas giant. Now, we’re looking for life on the moons of our own gas giants. Saturn’s moon Enceladus or Jupiter’s moon Europa are ocean worlds that may well support life. Our Cassini spacecraft explored the Saturn system and its moons, before the mission ended in 2017. Watch the video and learn more about the missions’s findings.

And Beyond

The next few years will see the launch of a new generation of spacecraft to search for planets around other stars. Our TESS spacecraft launched in April 2018, and will discover new exoplanets by the end of the year. The James Webb Space Telescope is slated to launch in 2020. That’s one step closer to finding life.

You might want to take our ‘Star Wars: Fact or Fiction?’ quiz. Try it! Based on your score you may obtain the title of Padawan, Jedi Knight, or even Jedi Master! 

You don’t need to visit a galaxy far, far away to find wondrous worlds. Just visit this one ... there’s plenty to see.

Discover more about exoplanets here: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/

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Solar System: 5 Things to Know This Week

The solar system is huge, so let us break it down for you. Here are 5 things you should know this week:

1. Mini-Moons

This week, the robotic spacecraft Cassini will pass a pair of tiny Saturnian moons. Daphnis, only 5.7 miles (9.2 km) across, orbits within the Keeler Gap in Saturn's outer A ring. Daphnis' slight gravity maintains that gap. Cassini will then swing by Telesto, a small moon that shares its orbit with Tethys. Cassini's cameras should get some good pictures of these tiny worlds.

2. Stardust Memories

Jan. 15 is the 10th anniversary of the day the Stardust capsule returned to Earth, carrying pieces of a comet. The Stardust spacecraft passed right through the gas and dust surrounding the icy nucleus of Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt-2") in January 2004, then sent the samples it collected home for laboratory analysis.

3. Sun Surfing in the 70s

Jan. 15 is the 40th anniversary of the launch of Helios 2, the second of a pair of spacecraft launched by NASA and built by Germany to investigate the sun. Helios 2 flew to within about 27 million miles (44 million km) of the sun's surface in 1976. The spacecraft provided important information on solar plasma, the solar wind, cosmic rays, and cosmic dust, and also performed magnetic field and electrical field experiments. A NASA mission set to launch in 2018 will dare an even closer approach.

4. To Space, to Watch the Seas

Jason 3, an international mission to continue U.S.- European satellite measurements of the topography of the ocean surface, is scheduled to launch on Jan. 17. The mission will make highly detailed measurements of sea-level on Earth to gain insight into ocean circulation and climate change.

5. Getting Serious About Ceres

This is getting good. Over the past few weeks, the Dawn mission has been tantalizing us with ever-closer images of the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt and a small world in its own right. Now, the robotic spacecraft has used its ion engines to ease down into its lowest mapping orbit in order to scrutinize Ceres up close, and already the pictures are spectacular. Odd mountains, deep craters and fissures—not to mention those famous bright spots—will all be coming into sharper focus during the coming days.

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A Dusty Fingerprint in Space

A new image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals a remarkable cosmic sight: at least 17 concentric dust rings emanating from a pair of stars. Just 5,300 light-years from Earth, the star duo are collectively known as Wolf-Rayet 140. Each ring was created when the two stars came close together and their stellar winds (streams of gas they blow into space) collided so forcefully that some of the gas was compressed into dust. The stars' orbits bring them together about once every eight years, and forms a half-shell of dust that looks like a ring from our perspective. Like a cosmic fingerprint, the 17 rings reveal more than a century of stellar interactions—and the "fingerprint" belonging to Wolf-Rayet 140 may be equally unique. Other Wolf-Rayet stars produce dust, but no other pair are known to produce rings quite like Wolf-Rayet 140.

Learn more about Wolf-Rayet 140.

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How will Cygnus Spacecraft Dock to Space Station?

Orbital ATK’s Cygnus CRS-6 spacecraft launched to the International Space Station on March 22. 

Cygnus will carry almost 7,500 pounds of science and research, crew supplies and vehicle hardware to the orbiting laboratory.

After launch in Florida, the spacecraft will arrive to the station on Saturday, March 26. Upon arrival, NASA astronaut and Expedition 46 Commander Tim Kopra will capture Cygnus at about 6:40 a.m. using the space station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to take hold of the spacecraft. Astronaut Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency) will support Kopra in a backup position. 

Installation (when Cygnus is connected to space station) is expected to begin at 9:25 a.m. NASA TV coverage for installation resumes at 9:15 a.m.

After the Cygnus spacecraft is berthed (connected) to the space station, the contents will be emptied and brought inside for use. Any trash that is on the space station, can be put inside the empty Cygnus before it is undocked from station and sent to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Watch Capture

You can watch the capture of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft online. Stream live coverage starting at 5:30 a.m. EDT on Saturday, March 26. Capture is scheduled for 6:40 a.m. 

Tune in again at 9:15 a.m. to watch #Cygnus installation to the station. 

Watch online: nasa.gov/nasatv

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In a Warming World, NASA’s Eyes Offer Crucial Views of Hurricanes

June 1 marks the start of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean. Last year’s hurricane season saw a record-setting 30 named storms. Twelve made landfall in the United States, also a record. From space, NASA has unique views of hurricanes and works with other government agencies -- like the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) -- to better understand individual storms and entire hurricane seasons.

Here, five ways NASA is changing hurricane science:

1. We can see storms from space

From space, we can see so much more than what’s visible to the naked eye. Among our missions, NASA and NOAA have joint satellite missions monitoring storms in natural color -- basically, what our eyes see -- as well as in other wavelengths of light, which can help identify features our eyes can’t on their own. For instance, images taken in infrared can show the temperatures of clouds, as well as allow us to track the movement of storms at night.

2. We can see inside hurricanes in 3D

If you’ve ever had a CT scan or X-ray done, you know how important 3D imagery can be to understanding what’s happening on the inside. The same concept applies to hurricanes. Our Global Precipitation Measurement mission’s radar and microwave instruments can see through storm clouds to see the precipitation structure of the storm and measure how much total rain is falling as a result of the storm. This information helps scientists understand how the storm may change over time and understand the risk of severe flooding.

We can even virtually fly through hurricanes!

3. We’re looking at how climate change affects hurricane behavior

Climate change is likely causing storms to behave differently. One change is in how storms intensify: More storms are increasing in strength quickly, a process called rapid intensification, where hurricane wind speeds increase by 35 mph (or more) in just 24 hours.

In 2020, a record-tying nine storms rapidly intensified. These quick changes in storm strength can leave communities in their path without time to properly prepare.

Researchers developed a machine learning model that could more accurately detect rapidly intensifying storms.

It’s not just about how quickly hurricanes gain strength. We’re also looking at how climate change may be causing storms to move more slowly, which makes them more destructive. These “stalled” storms can slow to just a few miles an hour, dumping rain and damaging winds on one location at a time. Hurricane Dorian, for example, stalled over Grand Bahama and left catastrophic damage in its wake. Hurricanes Harvey and Florence experienced stalling as well, both causing major flooding.

4. We can monitor damage done by hurricanes

Hurricane Maria reshaped Puerto Rico’s forests. The storm destroyed so many large trees that the overall height of the island’s forests was shortened by one-third. Measurements from the ground, the air, and space gave researchers insights into which trees were more susceptible to wind damage.

Months after Hurricane Maria, parts of Puerto Rico still didn’t have power. Using satellite data, researchers mapped which neighborhoods were still dark and analyzed demographics and physical attributes of the areas with the longest wait for power.

5. We help communities prepare for storms and respond to their aftermath

The data we collect is available for free to the public. We also partner with other federal agencies, like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and regional and local governments to help prepare for and understand the impacts of disasters like hurricanes.

In 2020, our Disasters Program provided data to groups in Alabama, Louisiana, and Central America to identify regions significantly affected by hurricanes. This helps identify vulnerable communities and make informed decisions about where to send resources.

The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season starts today, June 1. Our colleagues at NOAA are predicting another active season, with an above average number of named storms. At NASA, we’re developing new technology to study how storms form and behave, including ways to understand Earth as a system. Working together with our partners at NOAA, FEMA and elsewhere, we’re ready to help communities weather another year of storms.

Bonus: We see storms on other planets, too!

Earth isn’t the only planet with storms. From dust storms on Mars to rains made of glass, we study storms and severe weather on planets in our solar system and beyond. Even the Sun has storms. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, for instance, is a hurricane-like storm larger than the entire Earth.

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