Will Ordinary Sunglasses Suffice?

Unveiling the Center of Our Milky Way Galaxy

We captured an extremely crisp infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Spanning more than 600 light-years, this panorama reveals details within the dense swirls of gas and dust in high resolution, opening the door to future research into how massive stars are forming and what’s feeding the supermassive black hole at our galaxy’s core.

Among the features coming into focus are the jutting curves of the Arches Cluster containing the densest concentration of stars in our galaxy, as well as the Quintuplet Cluster with stars a million times brighter than our Sun. Our galaxy’s black hole takes shape with a glimpse of the fiery-looking ring of gas surrounding it.

The new view was made by the world’s largest airborne telescope, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA.

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What’s Up for August 2017

The total solar eclipse on August 21 will trace a narrow path across the nation, although most of the U.S. will see a partial eclipse. Here's what to do before, during and after the eclipse, plus how you can become a citizen scientist helping us with eclipse observations.

Not everyone can travel to the path of totality, so here are some things you can do whether you see totality or a partial eclipse. 

Collecting Citizen Science

Want to be a citizen scientist? 

Before the eclipse, make and pack your very own eclipse toolkit, containing a notebook, pen, a clock, a stopwatch, the front page of a newspaper, a thermometer, and a stick with a piece of crepe paper tied to it. Don’t forget your assistant, who will help conduct science observations. 

Practice using a citizen scientist phone app, like our GLOBE app to study clouds, air and surface temperatures and other observations. Go to the location where you plan to observe the eclipse and check for any obstructions. You may want to focus on only one activity as the eclipse will last less than 3 minutes ... or just really experience the eclipse. 

Cell phones don’t take eclipse video! And plan to have your safe eclipse-viewing glasses within reach for before and after totality. Just before totality, if you have a good view of the horizon, look west to see the approaching shadow. After totality, look east low on the horizon for the departing shadow.

During totality, look for stars. You should be able to see the star Regulus in the solar corona or the stars of Orion.

During totality, we may see moving bands of shadows, like on the bottom of a swimming pool.

How dark does it get at totality? Look at the newspaper you brought with you. What is the smallest print you can read?

How much does the temperature drop? Does the wind stop or change direction?

Use your hands, a sheet of paper with a hole in it, a kitchen colander or any other object with one or more holes to use as a pinhole projector. You’ll be able to see the crescent shape of the sun projected through the holes.

Find out more about the eclipse, including eclipse safety, at https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov

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Record-Shattering Global Warm Temperatures in 2015

Earth’s 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Globally-averaged temperatures in 2015 shattered the previous mark set in 2014 by 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit (0.13 Celsius). Only once before, in 1998, has the new record been greater than the old record by this much.

The 2015 temperatures continue a long-term warming trend, according to analyses by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. NOAA scientists concur with the finding that 2015 was the warmest year on record based on separate, independent analyses of the data.

Since the late-19th century, the planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. This change is largely driven by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.

An important thing to remember when reading this information is that it reflects global temperature average. That means that specific regions or areas could have experienced colder weather than usual, but overall the global temperature has risen.

How do we know? Our analyses incorporate surface temperature measurements from 6,300 weather stations, ship-and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures, and temperature measurements from Antarctic research stations.

What about El Niño? Phenomena such as El Niño or La Niña, which warm or cool the tropical Pacific Ocean, can contribute to short-term variations in global average temperature. Last year’s temperatures had an assist from a warming El Niño, but it is the cumulative effect of the long-term trend that has resulted in the record warming that we’re seeing.

The full 2015 surface temperature data set and the complete methodology used to make the temperature calculation are available HERE.

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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.

Bend Your Mind With Special Relativity

Ever dreamed of traveling nearly as fast as light? Zipping across the universe to check out the sights seems like it could be fun. But, not so fast. There are a few things you should know before you jump into your rocket. At near the speed of light, the day-to-day physics we know on Earth need a few modifications. And if you’re thinking Albert Einstein will be entering this equation, you’re right!

We live our daily lives using what scientists call Newtonian physics, as in Isaac Newton, the guy who had the proverbial apple fall on his head. Imagine that you are on a sidewalk, watching your friend walk toward the front of a bus as it drives away. The bus is moving at 30 mph. Your friend walks at 3 mph. To you, your friend is moving at 33 mph — you simply add the two speeds together. (The 30 mph the bus is moving plus 3 mph that your friend is moving inside the bus.) This is a simple example of Newtonian physics.

However, imagine that your friend on the bus turns on a flashlight, and you both measure the speed of its light. You would both measure it to be moving at 670 million mph (or 1 billion kilometers per hour) — this is the speed of light. Even though the flashlight is with your friend on the moving bus, you still both measure the speed of light to be exactly the same. Suddenly you see how Einstein’s physics is different from Newton’s.

This prediction was a key part of Einstein’s special theory of relativity: The speed of light is the same for any observer, no matter their relative speed. This leads to many seemingly weird effects.  

Before talking about those surprising effects, it’s good to take a moment to talk about point of view. For the rest of this discussion, we’ll assume that you’re at rest — sitting in one spot in space, not moving. And your friend is on a rocket ship that you measure to be traveling at 90% the speed of light. Neither of you is changing speed or direction. Scientists give this a fancy name — an “inertial frame of reference.”

With the stage set, now we can talk about a couple of super-weird effects of traveling near the speed of light. Relativity messes with simple things like distance and time, doing stuff that might blow your mind!

Let’s say you have a stick that is 36 inches long (91 centimeters). Your friend on the rocket doesn’t know the stick’s length, so they measure it by comparing it to a ruler they have as they zoom past you. They find your stick is just 16 inches (40 centimeters) long — less than half the length you measured! This effect is called length contraction. And if they were moving even faster, your friend would measure your stick to be even shorter. The cool thing about relativity is that both of those measurements are right! We see these effects in particle physics with fast-moving particles.

If your friend was traveling to our nearest neighbor star, Proxima Centauri, how far would they think it was? From Earth, we measure Proxima Centauri to be 4.2 light-years away (where one light-year is the distance light travels in a year, or about 5.8 trillion miles). However, your friend, who is traveling at 90% the speed of light in the rocket, would measure the distance between Earth and Proxima Centauri to be just over 1.8 light-years.

That’s just length … let’s talk about time!

Now let’s say you and your friend on the rocket have identical synchronized clocks. When your friend reaches Proxima Centauri, they send you a signal, telling you how long their trip took them. Their clock says the trip took just over two years. Remember, they measure the distance to be 1.8 light-years. However, you would see that your clock, which stayed at rest with you, says the trip took 4.7 years — more than twice as long!

This effect is called time dilation — time on moving clocks appears to tick slower.

None of this accounts for your friend accelerating their rocket or stopping at Proxima Centauri. All of this math gets more complicated if you and your friend were speeding up, slowing down, or changing directions. For instance, if your friend slowed down to stop at Proxima Centauri, they would have aged less than you on their trip!

Now you’re ready for a few tips on near-light-speed travel! Watch the video below for more.

Now, if you need to relax a bit after this whirlwind, near-light-speed trip, you can grab our coloring pages of scenes from the video. And if you enjoyed the trip, download a postcard to send to a friend. Finally, if you want to explore more of the wonders of the universe, follow NASA Universe on Facebook and Twitter.

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Weird and Wonderful Irregular Galaxies

Spiral and elliptical galaxies seem neatly put together, but what happened to irregular galaxies? Irregular galaxies have one-of-a-kind shapes and many look like blobs! Why do they look the way they do? Astronomers think the uniqueness of these galaxies results from their interactions with other galaxies — like when they pass close to one another or even collide!

Looking back at the early universe with the help of our Hubble Space Telescope’s “deep field” observations, astronomers can peek at galaxies millions and billions of light-years away. They noticed that these far-away galaxies appear unusually messy, showing more star formation and mergers than galaxies closer to the Milky Way.

We also see irregular galaxies closer to home, though. Some may form when two galaxies pass close together in a near-miss. When this happens, their gravity pulls stars out of place in both galaxies, messing up the neat structure they originally had as spiral or elliptical galaxies. Think of it like this: you happen to have a pile of papers sitting at the edge of a table and when someone passes close by the papers become ruffled and may scatter everywhere! Even though the two galaxies never touched, gravity's effects leave them looking smeared or distorted.

Some irregular galaxies result from the collision between two galaxies. And while some of these look like a blob of stars and dust, others form dazzling ring galaxies! Scientists think these may be a product of collisions between small and large galaxies. These collisions cause ripples that disturb both galaxies, throwing dust, gas, and stars outward. When this happens, it pushes out a ring of material, causing gas clouds to collide and spark the birth of new stars. After just a few million years, stars larger than our Sun explode as supernovae, leaving neutron stars and black holes throughout the ring!

Not all galaxy collisions create irregular galaxies — our Milky Way spiral galaxy has gone through many mergers but has stayed intact! And for some interacting galaxies, being an irregular galaxy may just be a phase in their transformation. We’re observing them at a snapshot in time where things are messy, but they may eventually become neat and structured spirals and ellipticals.

Irregular galaxies are similar to each other, but unique and beautiful because of their different interactions, whether they’re just passing another galaxy or taking part in a dramatic collision. Keep up with NASA Universe on Facebook and Twitter where we post regularly about galaxies.

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Space Telescope Gets to Work

Our latest space telescope, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), launched in April. This week, planet hunters worldwide received all the data from the first two months of its planet search. This view, from four cameras on TESS, shows just one region of Earth’s southern sky.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) captured this strip of stars and galaxies in the southern sky during one 30-minute period in August. Created by combining the view from all four of its cameras, TESS images will be used to discover new exoplanets. Notable features in this swath include the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds and a globular cluster called NGC 104. The brightest stars, Beta Gruis and R Doradus, saturated an entire column of camera detector pixels on the satellite’s second and fourth cameras.

Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS

The data in the images from TESS will soon lead to discoveries of planets beyond our solar system – exoplanets. (We’re at 3,848 so far!)

But first, all that data (about 27 gigabytes a day) needs to be processed. And where do space telescopes like TESS get their data cleaned up? At the Star Wash, of course!

TESS sends about 10 billion pixels of data to Earth at a time. A supercomputer at NASA Ames in Silicon Valley processes the raw data, turning those pixels into measures of a star’s brightness.

And that brightness? THAT’S HOW WE FIND PLANETS! A dip in a star’s brightness can reveal an orbiting exoplanet in transit.

TESS will spend a year studying our southern sky, then will turn and survey our northern sky for another year. Eventually, the space telescope will observe 85 percent of Earth’s sky, including 200,000 of the brightest and closest stars to Earth.

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Spacewalk complete and new astronaut record set! Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson of NASA successfully reconnected cables and electrical connections on an adapter-3 that will provide the pressurized interface between the station and the second of two international docking adapters to be delivered to the complex to support the dockings of U.S. commercial crew spacecraft in the future. The duo were also tasked with installing four thermal protection shields on the Tranquility module of the International Space Station.

 Having completed her eighth spacewalk, Whitson now holds the record for the most spacewalks and accumulated time spacewalking by a female astronaut. Spacewalkers have now spent a total of 1,243 hours and 42 minutes outside the station during 199 spacewalks in support of assembly and maintenance of the orbiting laboratory.

 Astronaut Thomas Pesquet of ESA posted this image and wrote, ' Shane and Peggy on their way to their first #spacewalk tasks.'

 Credit: ESA/NASA

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

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Much of the western United States began the morning with the view of a super blue blood moon total lunar eclipse. In this silent time lapse video, the complete eclipse is seen over NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, located at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, California.  This Jan. 31 full moon was special for three reasons: it was the third in a series of “supermoons,” when the Moon is closer to Earth in its orbit -- known as perigee -- and about 14 percent brighter than usual. It was also the second full moon of the month, commonly known as a “blue moon.” The super blue moon will pass through Earth’s shadow to give viewers in the right location a total lunar eclipse. While the Moon is in the Earth’s shadow it will take on a reddish tint, known as a “blood moon.”

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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