Hi! When Did You Know That You Wanted To Become An Astronaut?

Why are we studying them? What’s purpose of this field for us on earth?

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Learn the latest on Cassini’s Grand Finale, Pluto, Hubble Space Telescope and the Red Planet.

1. Cassini’s Grand Finale

After more than 12 years at Saturn, our Cassini mission has entered the final year of its epic voyage to the giant planet and its family of moons. But the journey isn't over. The upcoming months will be like a whole new mission, with lots of new science and a truly thrilling ride in the unexplored space near the rings. Later this year, the spacecraft will fly repeatedly just outside the rings, capturing the closest views ever. Then, it will actually orbit inside the gap between the rings and the planet's cloud tops.

Get details on Cassini’s final mission

The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2016

2. Chandra X-Rays Pluto

As the New Horizon’s mission headed to Pluto, our Chandra X-Ray Observatory made the first detection of the planet in X-rays. Chandra’s observations offer new insight into the space environment surrounding the largest and best-known object in the solar system’s outermost regions.

See Pluto’s X-Ray

3. ... And Then Pluto Painted the Town Red

When the cameras on our approaching New Horizons spacecraft first spotted the large reddish polar region on Pluto's largest moon, Charon, mission scientists knew two things: they'd never seen anything like it before, and they couldn't wait to get the story behind it. After analyzing the images and other data that New Horizons has sent back from its July 2015 flight through the Pluto system, scientists think they've solved the mystery. Charon's polar coloring comes from Pluto itself—as methane gas that escapes from Pluto's atmosphere and becomes trapped by the moon's gravity and freezes to the cold, icy surface at Charon's pole.

Get the details

4. Pretty as a Postcard

The famed red-rock deserts of the American Southwest and recent images of Mars bear a striking similarity. New color images returned by our Curiosity Mars rover reveal the layered geologic past of the Red Planet in stunning detail. 

More images

5. Things Fall Apart

Our Hubble Space Telescope recently observed a comet breaking apart. In a series of images taken over a three-day span in January 2016, Hubble captured images of 25 building-size blocks made of a mixture of ice and dust drifting away from the comet. The resulting debris is now scattered along a 3,000-mile-long trail, larger than the width of the continental U.S.

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 is the best and worst thing about being in a zero gravity environment?

A magnetic power struggle of galactic proportions - new research highlights the role of the Sun’s magnetic landscape in the development of solar eruptions that can trigger space weather events around Earth.

Using data from our Solar Dynamics Observatory, scientists examined an October 2014 Jupiter-sized sunspot group, an area of complex magnetic fields, often the site of solar activity. This was the biggest group in the past two solar cycles and a highly active region. Though conditions seemed ripe for an eruption, the region never produced a major coronal mass ejection (CME) - a massive, bubble-shaped eruption of solar material and magnetic field - on its journey across the Sun. It did, however, emit a powerful X-class flare, the most intense class of flares. What determines, the scientists wondered, whether a flare is associated with a CME?

The scientists found that a magnetic cage physically prevented a CME from erupting that day. Just hours before the flare, the sunspot’s natural rotation contorted the magnetic rope and it grew increasingly twisted and unstable, like a tightly coiled rubber band.

Credits: Tahar Amari et al./Center for Theoretical Physics/École Polytechnique/NASA Goddard/Joy Ng

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

September 2017 Was 🔥 on the Sun

The Sun started September 2017 with flair, emitting 31 sizable solar flares and releasing several powerful coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, between Sept. 6-10.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. 

CMEs are massive clouds of solar material and magnetic fields that erupt from the Sun at incredible speeds. Depending on the direction they’re traveling in, CMEs can spark powerful geomagnetic storms in Earth’s magnetic field.

As always, we and our partners had many missions observing the Sun from both Earth and space, enabling scientists to study these events from multiple perspectives. With this integrated picture of solar activity, scientists can better track the evolution of solar eruptions and work toward improving our understanding of space weather.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16, or GOES-16, watches the Sun’s upper atmosphere — called the corona — at six different wavelengths, allowing it to observe a wide range of solar phenomena. GOES-16 caught this footage of an X9.3 flare on Sept. 6, 2017. 

This was the most intense flare recorded during the current 11-year solar cycle. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, and so on. GOES also detected solar energetic particles associated with this activity.

Our Solar Dynamics Observatory captured these images of X2.2 and X9.3 flares on Sept. 6, 2017, in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light that shows solar material heated to over one million degrees Fahrenheit.

JAXA/NASA’s Hinode caught this video of an X8.2 flare on Sept. 10, 2017, the second largest flare of this solar cycle, with its X-ray Telescope. The instrument captures X-ray images of the corona to help scientists link changes in the Sun’s magnetic field to explosive solar events like this flare.

Key instruments aboard our Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, include a pair of coronagraphs — instruments that use a metal disk called an occulting disk to study the corona. The occulting disk blocks the Sun’s bright light, making it possible to discern the detailed features of the Sun’s outer atmosphere and track coronal mass ejections as they erupt from the Sun.

On Sept. 9, 2017, STEREO watched a CME erupt from the Sun. The next day, STEREO observed an even bigger CME. The Sept. 10 CME traveled away from the Sun at calculated speeds as high as 7 million mph, and was one of the fastest CMEs ever recorded. The CME was not Earth-directed: It side-swiped Earth’s magnetic field, and therefore did not cause significant geomagnetic activity. Mercury is in view as the bright white dot moving leftwards in the frame.

Like STEREO, ESA/NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, uses a coronagraph to track solar storms. SOHO also observed the CMEs that occurred during Sept. 9-10, 2017; multiple views provide more information for space weather models. As the CME expands beyond SOHO’s field of view, a flurry of what looks like snow floods the frame. These are high-energy particles flung out ahead of the CME at near-light speeds that struck SOHO’s imager.

Our Interface Region Imaging Spectrometer, or IRIS, captured this video on Sept. 10, 2017, showing jets of solar material swimming down toward the Sun’s surface. These structures are sometimes observed in the corona during solar flares, and this particular set was associated with the X8.2 flare of the same day.  

Our Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment, or SORCE, collected the above data on total solar irradiance, the total amount of the Sun’s radiant energy, throughout Sept. 2017. While the Sun produced high levels of extreme ultraviolet light, SORCE actually detected a dip in total irradiance during the month’s intense solar activity. 

A possible explanation for this observation is that over the active regions — where solar flares originate — the darkening effect of sunspots is greater than the brightening effect of the flare’s extreme ultraviolet emissions. As a result, the total solar irradiance suddenly dropped during the flare events. 

Scientists gather long-term solar irradiance data in order to understand not only our dynamic star, but also its relationship to Earth’s environment and climate. We are ready to launch the Total Spectral solar Irradiance Sensor-1, or TSIS-1, this December to continue making total solar irradiance measurements.

The intense solar activity also sparked global aurora on Mars more than 25 times brighter than any previously seen by NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, mission. MAVEN studies the Martian atmosphere’s interaction with the solar wind, the constant flow of charged particles from the Sun. These images from MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph show the appearance of bright aurora on Mars during the September solar storm. The purple-white colors show the intensity of ultraviolet light on Mars’ night side before (left) and during (right) the event.

For all the latest on solar and space weather research, follow us on Twitter @NASASun or Facebook.

GOES images are courtesy of NOAA. Hinode images are courtesy of JAXA and NASA. SOHO images are courtesy of ESA and NASA. 

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

Tornado Recovery Underway at Michoud Assembly Facility

Teams at our Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans worked overnight and are continuing Wednesday with assessment and recovery efforts following a tornado strike at the facility Tuesday at 11:25 a.m. CST. All 3,500 employees at the facility have been accounted for, with five sustaining minor injuries.

Teams worked through the night on temporary repairs to secure the perimeter fencing and provide access for the essential personnel through the main gate. Approximately 40 to 50 percent of the buildings at Michoud have some kind of damage; about five buildings have some form of severe damage.

Approximately 200 parked cars were damaged, and there was damage to roads and other areas near Michoud.

“The entire NASA family pulls together during good times and bad, and the teams at the Michoud Assembly Facility are working diligently to recover from the severe weather that swept through New Orleans Tuesday and damaged the facility,” said acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot. “We are thankful for the safety of all the NASA employees and workers of onsite tenant organizations, and we are inspired by the resilience of Michoud as we continue to assess the facility’s status.”

Teams will reassess the condition of the Vertical Assembly Center (VAC), as the initial examination revealed some electrical damage to its substation. The VAC is used to weld all major pieces of hardware for the core stage of the Space Launch System. The most recently welded part was removed from the facility last week.

The team has prioritized completing the assessment at the site’s main manufacturing building for the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft flight hardware so power can be restored in phases and temporary protection put in place to shield hardware from any further inclement weather.

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

I've been very curious about the basis on which the landing site is decided! I read that it will land in the Jerezo crater, so is there a particular reason behind choosing that place for the landing?

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.

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

Flooding Along the Mississippi

Rain, snowmelt, and soil moisture—those three factors might push portions of the Upper Mississippi River into major flooding this spring. Meanwhile, the middle and lower reaches of the river are already well out of their banks.

Intense storms over February 22-24, 2019, caused major flooding along the Middle Mississippi River. On February 25, 2019, the Landsat 8 satellite acquired images of swollen portions of the Mississippi River. The video above shows a false-color view of flooding near Memphis, Tennessee comparing February 2019 to February 2014. Flood waters appear blue; vegetation is green; and bare ground is brown. Notice how the Ohio River and Mississippi River have swelled near Cairo, the southernmost city in Illinois.

National Weather Service forecasters noted that higher-than-average precipitation in autumn 2018 saturated soils in the region, so additional rain or snowmelt from this winter will likely result in excessive runoff and increased flooding threats.

Rapid snowmelt will also play a role in flooding this spring in the Midwest. Parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin have built up snowpack of nearly 25 inches, so melting snow alone could propel many areas into major flooding.

Read the full story here.

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

After 20 years in space, the Cassini spacecraft is running out of fuel. In 2010, Cassini began a seven-year mission extension in which the plan was to expend all of the spacecraft’s propellant exploring Saturn and its moons. This led to the Grand Finale and ends with a plunge into the planet’s atmosphere at 6:32 a.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 15.

The spacecraft will ram through Saturn’s atmosphere at four times the speed of a re-entry vehicle entering Earth’s atmosphere, and Cassini has no heat shield. So temperatures around the spacecraft will increase by 30-to-100 times per minute, and every component of the spacecraft will disintegrate over the next couple of minutes…

Cassini’s gold-colored multi-layer insulation blankets will char and break apart, and then the spacecraft's carbon fiber epoxy structures, such as the 11-foot (3-meter) wide high-gain antenna and the 30-foot (11-meter) long magnetometer boom, will weaken and break apart. Components mounted on the outside of the central body of the spacecraft will then break apart, followed by the leading face of the spacecraft itself.

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