One Year Of Leadership

6 Ways NASA Technology Makes You Healthier

An important part of our mission is keeping astronauts strong and healthy during stays in space, but did you know that our technology also helps keep you healthy? And the origins of these space innovations aren’t always what you’d expect.

As we release the latest edition of NASA Spinoff, our yearly publication that celebrates all the ways NASA technology benefits us here on Earth, let’s look at some ways NASA is improving wellness for astronauts—and everyone else.

1.      Weightless weight-lifting

Without gravity to work against, astronauts lose bone and muscle mass in space. To fight it, they work out regularly. But to get them a good burn, we had to get creative. After all, pumping iron doesn’t do much good when the weights float.

The solution? Elastic resistance. Inventor Paul Francis was already working on a portable home gym that relied on spiral-shaped springs made of an elastic material. He thought the same idea would work on the space station and after additional development and extensive testing, we agreed.

Our Interim Resistive Exercise Device launched in 2000 to help keep astronauts fit. And Francis’ original plan took off too. The technology perfected for NASA is at the heart of the Bowflex Revolution as well as a new line of handheld devices called OYO DoubleFlex, both of which enable an intensive—and extensive—workout, right at home.

2.      Polymer coating keeps hearts beating

A key ingredient in a lifesaving treatment for many patients with congestive heart failure is made from a material a NASA researcher stumbled upon while working on a supersonic jet in the 1990s.

Today, a special kind of pacemaker that helps synchronize the left and right sides of the heart utilizes the unique substance known as LaRC-SI. The strong material can be cast extremely thin, which makes it easier to insert in the tightly twisted veins of the heart, and because it insulates so well, the pacemaker’s electric pulses go exactly where they should.

Since it was approved by the FDA in 2009, the device has been implanted hundreds of thousands of times.

 3.  Sutures strong enough for interplanetary transport

Many people mistakenly think we created Teflon. Not true: DuPont invented the unique polymer in 1938. But an innovative new way to use the material was developed to help us transport samples back from Mars and now aids in stitching up surgery patients.

Our scientists would love to get pristine Martian samples into our labs for more advanced testing. One complicating factor? The red dust makes it hard to get a clean seal on the sample container. That means the sample could get contaminated on its way back to Earth.

The team building the cannister had an idea, but they needed a material with very specific properties to make it work. They decided to use Polytetrafluoroethylene (that’s the scientific name for Teflon), which works really well in space.

The material we commonly recognize as Teflon starts as a powder, and to transform it into a nonstick coating, the powder gets processed a certain way. But process it differently, and you can get all kinds of different results.

For our Mars sample return cannister prototype, the powder was compressed at high pressures into a block, which was then forced through an extruder. (Imagine pressing playdough through a mold). It had never been done before, but the end result was durable, flexible and extremely thin: exactly what we needed.

And since the material can be implanted safely in the human body—it was also perfect as super strong sutures for after surgery.

4.      Plant pots that clean the air

It may surprise you, but the most polluted air you breathe is likely the air inside your home and office. That’s especially true these days with energy-efficient insulation: the hot air gets sealed in, but so do any toxins coming off the paint, furniture, cooking gas, etc.

This was a problem NASA began worrying about decades ago, when we started planning for long duration space missions. After all, there’s no environment more insulated than a spaceship flying through the vacuum of space.

On Earth, plants are a big part of the “life support” system cleaning our air, so we wondered if they could do the same indoors or in space.

The results from extensive research surprised us: we learned the most important air scrubbing happens not through a plant’s leaves, but around its roots. And now you can get the cleanest air out of your houseplants by using a special plant pot, available online, developed with that finding in mind: it maximizes air flow through the soil, multiplying the plant’s ability to clean your air.

5.      Gas sensor detects pollution from overhead

Although this next innovation wasn’t created with pollution in mind, it’s now helping keep an eye on one of the biggest greenhouse gasses: methane.

We created this tiny methane “sniffer” to help us look for signs of life on Mars. On Earth, the biggest source of methane is actually bacteria, so when one of our telescopes on the ground caught a glimpse of the gas on Mars, we knew we needed to take a closer look.

We sent this new, extremely sensitive sensor on the Curiosity Rover, but we knew it could also be put to good use here on our home planet.  We adapted it, and today it gets mounted on drones and cars to quickly and accurately detect gas leaks and methane emissions from pipelines, oil wells and more.

The sensor can also be used to better study emissions from swamps and other natural sources, to better understand and perhaps mitigate their effects on climate change.

6.      DNA “paint” highlights cellular damage

There’s been a lot of news lately about DNA editing: can genes be changed safely to make people healthier? Should they be?

As scientists and ethicists tackle these big questions, they need to be sure they know exactly what’s changing in the genome when they use the editing tools that already exist.

Well, thanks to a tool NASA helped create, we can actually highlight any abnormalities in the genetic code with special fluorescent “paint.”

But that’s not all the “paint” can do. We actually created it to better understand any genetic damage our astronauts incurred during their time in space, where radiation levels are far higher than on Earth. Down here, it could help do the same. For example, it can help doctors select the right cancer treatment by identifying the exact mutation in cancer cells.

You can learn more about all these innovations, and dozens more, in the 2019 edition of NASA Spinoff. Read it online or request a limited quantity print copy and we’ll mail it to you!

Let’s launch some science to space!

The day has finally arrived. After years of work, a team of scientists is at Kennedy Space Center in the hopes of seeing their research liftoff to the International Space Station.

Join #NASAExplorers for the countdown, the emotion and, hopefully, the launch! 

Watch episode 5 here:

Follow NASA Explorers on Facebook to catch new episodes of season 4 every Wednesday!

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Warm yourself by the fire, NASA style!

Look no further than this cozy and relaxing fireplace – complete with four RS-25 rocket engines to fill your hearth with light. (And 8.8 million pounds of thrust to power your party to the Moon.)

Happy 4th of July… From Space!

In Hollywood blockbusters, explosions and eruptions are often among the stars of the show. In space, explosions, eruptions and twinkling of actual stars are a focus for scientists who hope to better understand their births, lives, deaths and how they interact with their surroundings. Spend some of your Fourth of July taking a look at these celestial phenomenon:

Credit: NASA/Chandra X-ray Observatory

An Astral Exhibition

This object became a sensation in the astronomical community when a team of researchers pointed at it with our Chandra X-ray Observatory telescope in 1901, noting that it suddenly appeared as one of the brightest stars in the sky for a few days, before gradually fading away in brightness. Today, astronomers cite it as an example of a “classical nova,” an outburst produced by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of a white dwarf star, the dense remnant of a Sun-like star.

Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

A Twinkling Tapestry

The brilliant tapestry of young stars flaring to life resemble a glittering fireworks display. The sparkling centerpiece is a giant cluster of about 3,000 stars called Westerlund 2, named for Swedish astronomer Bengt Westerlund who discovered the grouping in the 1960s. The cluster resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina.

Credit: NASA/THEMIS/Sebastian Saarloos

An Illuminating Aurora

Sometimes during solar magnetic events, solar explosions hurl clouds of magnetized particles into space. Traveling more than a million miles per hour, these coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, made up of hot material called plasma take up to three days to reach Earth. Spacecraft and satellites in the path of CMEs can experience glitches as these plasma clouds pass by. In near-Earth space, magnetic reconnection incites explosions of energy driving charged solar particles to collide with atoms in Earth’s upper atmosphere. We see these collisions near Earth’s polar regions as the aurora. Three spacecraft from our Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission, observed these outbursts known as substorms.

Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope//ESA/STScI

A Shining Supermassive Merger

Every galaxy has a black hole at its center. Usually they are quiet, without gas accretions, like the one in our Milky Way. But if a star creeps too close to the black hole, the gravitational tides can rip away the star’s gaseous matter. Like water spinning around a drain, the gas swirls into a disk around the black hole at such speeds that it heats to millions of degrees. As an inner ring of gas spins into the black hole, gas particles shoot outward from the black hole’s polar regions. Like bullets shot from a rifle, they zoom through the jets at velocities close to the speed of light. Astronomers using our Hubble Space Telescope observed correlations between supermassive black holes and an event similar to tidal disruption, pictured above in the Centaurus A galaxy. 

Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope/ESA

A Stellar Explosion

Supernovae can occur one of two ways. The first occurs when a white dwarf—the remains of a dead star—passes so close to a living star that its matter leaks into the white dwarf. This causes a catastrophic explosion. However most people understand supernovae as the death of a massive star. When the star runs out of fuel toward the end of its life, the gravity at its heart sucks the surrounding mass into its center. At the turn of the 19th century, the binary star system Eta Carinae was faint and undistinguished. Our Hubble Telescope captured this image of Eta Carinae, binary star system. The larger of the two stars in the Eta Carinae system is a huge and unstable star that is nearing the end of its life, and the event that the 19th century astronomers observed was a stellar near-death experience. Scientists call these outbursts supernova impostor events, because they appear similar to supernovae but stop just short of destroying their star.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

An Eye-Catching Eruption

Extremely energetic objects permeate the universe. But close to home, the Sun produces its own dazzling lightshow, producing the largest explosions in our solar system and driving powerful solar storms.. When solar activity contorts and realigns the Sun’s magnetic fields, vast amounts of energy can be driven into space. This phenomenon can create a sudden flash of light—a solar flare.The above picture features a filament eruption on the Sun, accompanied by solar flares captured by our Solar Dynamics Observatory.

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NASA Spotlight: Earth Climate Scientist Dr. Yolanda Shea

Dr. Yolanda Shea is a climate scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center. She’s the project scientist for the CLARREO Pathfinder (CPF) mission, which is an instrument that will launch to the International Space Station to measure sunlight reflected from Earth. It will help us understand how much heat is being trapped by our planet’s atmosphere. Her mission is designed to help us get a clearer picture than we currently have of the Earth’s system and how it is changing

Yolanda took time from studying our home planet to answer questions about her life and career! Get to know this Earth scientist:

What inspired you to study climate science?

Starting in early middle school I became interested in the explanations behind the weather maps and satellite images shown on TV. I liked how the meteorologists talked about the temperature, moisture, and winds at different heights in the atmosphere, and then put that together to form the story of our weather forecasts. This made me want to learn more about Earth science, so I went to college to explore this interest more.

The summer after my junior year of college, I had an internship during which my first assignment was to work with a program that estimated ocean currents from satellite measurements. I was fascinated in the fact that scientists had discovered a way to map ocean currents from space!

Although I had learned about Earth remote sensing in my classes, this was my first taste of working with, and understanding the details of, how we could learn more about different aspects of the physical world from satellite measurements.

This led to my learning about other ways we can learn about Earth from space, and that includes rigorous climate monitoring, which is the area I work in now.

What does a day in your life look like?

Before I start my workday, I like to take a few minutes to eat breakfast, knit (I’m loving sock knitting right now!), and listen to a podcast or audio book. Each workday really looks different for me, but regardless, most days are a combination of quieter moments that I can use for individual work and more interactive times when I’m interfacing with colleagues and talking about project or science issues. Both types of work are fun in different ways, but I’m glad I have a mixture because all researchers need that combination of deep thinking to wrap our minds around complex problems and also time to tackle those problems with others and work on solving them together.

When do you feel most connected to Earth?

I’ve always loved sunsets. I find them peaceful and beautiful, and I love how each one is unique. They are also a beautiful reminder of the versatility of reflected light, which I study. Sitting for a moment to appreciate the beauty and calm I feel during a sunset helps me feel connected to Earth.

What will your mission – CLARREO Pathfinder – tell us about Earth?

CLARREO Pathfinder (CPF) includes an instrument that will take measurements from the International Space Station and will measure reflected sunlight from Earth. One of its goals is to demonstrate that it can take measurements with high enough accuracy so that, if we have such measurements over long periods of time, like several decades, we could detect changes in Earth’s climate system. The CPF instrument will do this with higher accuracy than previous satellite instruments we’ve designed, and these measurements can be used to improve the accuracy of other satellite instruments.

How, if at all, has your worldview changed as a result of your work in climate science?

The longer I work in climate science and learn from the data about how humans have impacted our planet, the more I appreciate the fragility of our one and only home, and the more I want to take care of it.

What advice would you give your younger self?

It’s ok to not have everything figured out at every step of your career journey. Work hard, do your best, and enjoy the journey as it unfolds. You’ll inevitably have some surprises along the way, and regardless of whether they are welcome or not, you’re guaranteed to learn something.

Do you have a favorite metaphor or analogy that you use to describe what you do, and its impact, to those outside of the scientific community?

I see jigsaw puzzles as a good illustration of how different members of a science community play a diverse set of roles to work through different problems. Each member is often working on their own image within the greater puzzle, and although it might take them years of work to see their part of the picture come together, each image in the greater puzzle is essential to completing the whole thing. During my career, I’ll work on a section of the puzzle, and I hope to connect my section to others nearby, but we may not finish the whole puzzle. That’s ok, however, because we’ll hand over the work that we’ve accomplished to the next generation of scientists, and they will keep working to bring the picture to light. This is how I try to think about my role in climate science – I hope to contribute to the field in some way; the best thing about what I have done and what I will do, is that someone else will be able to build on my work and keep helping humanity come to a better understanding of our Earth system.

What is a course that you think should be part of required school curriculum?

Time and project management skills – I think students tend to learn these skills more organically from their parents and teachers, but in my experience I stumbled along and learned these skills through trial and error. To successfully balance all the different projects that I support now, I have to be organized and disciplined, and I need to have clear plans mapped out, so I have some idea of what’s coming and where my attention needs to be focused.

Another course not specifically related to my field is personal financial management. I was interested in personal finance, and that helped me to seek out information (mainly through various blogs) about how to be responsible with my home finances. There is a lot of information out there, but making sure that students have a solid foundation and know what questions to ask early on will set them to for success (and hopefully fewer mistakes) later on.

What’s the most unexpected time or place that your expertise in climate science and/or algorithms came in handy?

I think an interesting part of being an atmospheric scientist and a known sky-watcher is that I get to notice beautiful moments in the sky. I remember being on a trip with friends and I looked up (as I usually do), and I was gifted with a gorgeous sundog and halo arc. It was such a beautiful moment, and because I noticed it, my friends got to enjoy it too.

Can you share a photo or image from a memorable NASA project you’ve worked on, and tell us a little bit about why the project stood out to you?

I absolutely loved being on the PBS Kids TV Show, SciGirls for their episode SkyGirls! This featured a NASA program called Students’ Clouds Observations On-Line (S’COOL). It was a citizen science program where students from around the globe could take observations of clouds from the ground that coincided with satellite overpasses, and the intention was to help scientists validate (or check) the accuracy of the code they use to detect clouds from satellite measurements. I grew up watching educational programming from PBS, so it was an honor to be a science mentor on a TV show that I knew would reach children across the nation who might be interested in different STEM fields. In this photo, the three young women I worked with on the show and I are talking about the different types of clouds.

To stay up to date on Yolanda's mission and everything going on in NASA Earth science, be sure to follow NASA Earth on Twitter and Facebook.

🌎 If you're looking for Earth Day plans, we have live events, Q&As, scavenger hunts and more going on through April 24. Get the details and register for our events HERE.

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NASA Technology in Your Life

How does NASA technology benefit life on Earth? It probably has an impact in more ways than you think! Since 1976, our Spinoff program has profiled nearly 2,000 space technologies that have transformed into commercial products and services. In celebration of Spinoff’s 40th year of publication, we’ve assembled a collection of spinoffs that have had the greatest impact on Earth. 

Take a look and see how many you utilize on a regular basis:

Digital Image Sensors

Whether you take pictures and videos with a DSLR camera or a cell phone, or even capture action on the go with a device like a GoPro Hero, you’re using NASA technology. The CMOS active pixel sensor in most digital image- capturing devices was invented when we needed to miniaturize cameras for interplanetary missions. This technology is also widely used in medical imaging and dental X-ray devices.

Enriched Baby Formula

While developing life support for Mars missions, NASA-funded researchers discovered a natural source for an omega-3 fatty acid previously found primarily in breast milk that plays a key role in infant development. The ingredient has since been added to more than 90% of infant formula on the market and is helping babies worldwide develop healthy brains, eyes and hearts.

NASTRAN Software

NASTRAN is a software developed by our engineers that performs structural analysis in the 1960s. Still popular today, it’s been used to help design everything from airplanes and cars to nuclear reactors and even Disney’s Space Mountain roller coaster.

Food Safety Standards

Looking to ensure the absolute safety of prepackaged foods for spaceflight, we partnered with the Pillsbury Company to create a new, systematic approach to quality control. Now known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), the method has become an industry standard that benefits consumers worldwide by keeping food free from a wide range of potential chemical, physical and biological hazards.

Neutral Body Posture Specifications

What form does the human body naturally assume when all physical influences, including the pull of gravity, stop affecting it? We conducted research to find out using Skylab, America’s first space station, and later published specifications for what it called neutral body posture. The study has informed seat designs in everything from airplanes and office chairs to several models of Nissan automobiles.

Advanced Water Filtration

We recently discovered unexpected sources of water on the moon and Mars, but even so, space remains a desert for human explorers, and every drop must be recycled and reused. A nano filter devised to purify water in orbit is currently at work on Earth, in devices that supply water to remote villages as well as in a water bottle that lets hikers and adventurers stay hydrated using streams and lakes.

Swimsuit Designs

Wind-tunnel testing at our Langley Research Center played a key role in the development of Speedo’s LZR Racer swimsuit, proving which materials and seams best reduced drag as a swimmer cuts through the water. The swimsuit made a splash during its Olympic debut in 2008, as nearly every medal winner and world-record breaker wore the suit.

Air Purifier

When plants grow, they release a gas called ethylene that accelerates decay, hastening the wilting of flowers and the ripening of fruits and vegetables. Air circulation on Earth keeps the fumes from building up, but in the hermetically sealed environment of a spacecraft, ethylene poses a real challenge to the would-be space farmers. We funded the development of an ethylene scrubber for the International Space Station that has subsequently proved capable of purifying air on Earth from all kinds of pathogens and particulates. Grocery stores use it to keep produce fresh longer. It’s also been marketed for home use and has even been embraced by winemakers, who employ the scrubber to keep aging wine in barrels free from mold, mildew and musty odors.

Scratch-Resistant, UV-Reflective Lenses

Some of the earliest research into effective scratch-resistant coatings for prescription and sunglass lenses drew from work done at Ames Research Center on coatings for astronaut helmet visors and plastic membranes used in water purification systems. In the 1980s, we developed sunlight-filtering lenses to provide eye protection and enhance colors, and these lenses have found their way into sunglasses, ski goggles and safety masks for welders.

Dustbuster

An Apollo-era partnership with Black & Decker to build battery-operated tools for moon exploration and sample collection led to the development of a line of consumer, medical and industrial hand-held cordless tools. This includes the popular Dustbuster cordless vacuum.

To see even more of our spinoff technologies, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/40-years-of-nasa-spinoff

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Five Things You Need to Know About the Deep Space Atomic Clock

We are set to send a new technology to space that will change the way we navigate spacecraft — even how we’ll send astronauts to Mars and beyond. Built by our Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the Deep Space Atomic Clock is a technology demonstration that will help spacecraft navigate autonomously. No larger than a toaster oven, the instrument will be tested in Earth orbit for one year, with the goal of being ready for future missions to other worlds.

Here are five key facts to know about our Deep Space Atomic Clock:

1) It works a lot like GPS

The Deep Space Atomic Clock is a sibling of the atomic clocks you interact with every day on your smart phone. Atomic clocks aboard satellites enable your phone's GPS application to get you from point A to point B by calculating where you are on Earth, based on the time it takes the signal to travel from the satellite to your phone.

But spacecraft don't have GPS to help them find their way in deep space; instead, navigation teams rely on atomic clocks on Earth to determine location data. The farther we travel from Earth, the longer this communication takes. The Deep Space Atomic Clock is the first atomic clock designed to fly onboard a spacecraft that goes beyond Earth's orbit, dramatically improving the process.

2) It will help our spacecraft navigate autonomously

Today, we navigate in deep space by using giant antennas on Earth to send signals to spacecraft, which then send those signals back to Earth. Atomic clocks on Earth measure the time it takes a signal to make this two-way journey. Only then can human navigators on Earth use large antennas to tell the spacecraft where it is and where to go.

If we want humans to explore the solar system, we need a better, faster way for the astronauts aboard a spacecraft to know where they are, ideally without needing to send signals back to Earth. A Deep Space Atomic Clock on a spacecraft would allow it to receive a signal from Earth and determine its location immediately using an onboard navigation system.

3) It loses only 1 second in 9 million years

Any atomic clock has to be incredibly precise to be used for this kind of navigation: A clock that is off by even a single second could mean the difference between landing on Mars and missing it by miles. In ground tests, the Deep Space Atomic Clock proved to be up to 50 times more stable than the atomic clocks on GPS satellites. If the mission can prove this stability in space, it will be one of the most precise clocks in the universe.

4) It keeps accurate time using mercury ions

Your wristwatch and atomic clocks keep time in similar ways: by measuring the vibrations of a quartz crystal. An electrical pulse is sent through the quartz so that it vibrates steadily. This continuous vibration acts like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, ticking off how much time has passed. But a wristwatch can easily drift off track by seconds to minutes over a given period.

An atomic clock uses atoms to help maintain high precision in its measurements of the quartz vibrations. The length of a second is measured by the frequency of light released by specific atoms, which is same throughout the universe. But atoms in current clocks can be sensitive to external magnetic fields and temperature changes. The Deep Space Atomic Clock uses mercury ions - fewer than the amount typically found in two cans of tuna fish - that are contained in electromagnetic traps. Using an internal device to control the ions makes them less vulnerable to external forces.

5) It will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket

The Deep Space Atomic Clock will fly on the Orbital Test Bed satellite, which launches on the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with around two dozen other satellites from government, military and research institutions. The launch is targeted for June 24, 2019 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will be live-streamed here: https://www.nasa.gov/live

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Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week

The Living Planet Edition

Whether it's crops, forests or phytoplankton blooms in the ocean, our scientists are tracking life on Earth. Just as satellites help researchers study the atmosphere, rainfall and other physical characteristics of the planet, the ever-improving view from above allows them to study Earth's interconnected life.

1. Life on Earth, From Space

While we (NASA) began monitoring life on land in the 1970s with the Landsat satellites, this fall marks 20 years since we've continuously observed all the plant life at the surface of both the land and ocean. The above animation captures the entirety of two decades of observations.

2. Watching the World Breathe

With the right tools, we can see Earth breathe. With early weather satellite data in the 1970s and '80s, NASA Goddard scientist Compton Tucker was able to see plants' greening and die-back from space. He developed a way of comparing satellite data in two wavelengths.

When healthy plants are stocked with chlorophyll and ready to photosynthesize to make food (and absorb carbon dioxide), leaves absorb red light but reflect infrared light back into space. By comparing the ratio of red to infrared light, Tucker and his colleagues could quantify vegetation covering the land.

Expanding the study to the rest of the globe, the scientists could track rainy and dry seasons in Africa, see the springtime blooms in North America, and wildfires scorching forests worldwide.

3. Like Breathing? Thank Earth's Ocean

But land is only part of the story. The ocean is home to 95 percent of Earth's living space, covering 70 percent of the planet and stretching miles deep. At the base of the ocean's food web is phytoplankton - tiny plants that also undergo photosynthesis to turn nutrients and carbon dioxide into sugar and oxygen. Phytoplankton not only feed the rest of ocean life, they absorb carbon dioxide - and produce about half the oxygen we breathe.

In the Arctic Ocean, an explosion of phytoplankton indicates change. As seasonal sea ice melts, warming waters and more sunlight will trigger a sudden, massive phytoplankton bloom that feeds birds, sea lions and newly-hatched fish. But with warming atmospheric temperatures, that bloom is now happening several weeks earlier - before the animals are in place to take advantage of it.

4. Keeping an Eye on Crops

The "greenness" measurement that scientists use to measure forests and grasslands can also be used to monitor the health of agricultural fields. By the 1980s, food security analysts were approaching NASA to see how satellite images could help with the Famine Early Warning System to identify regions at risk - a partnership that continues today.

With rainfall estimates, vegetation measurements, as well as the recent addition of soil moisture information, our scientists can help organizations like USAID direct emergency help.

The view from space can also help improve agricultural practices. A winery in California, for example, uses individual pixels of Landsat data to determine when to irrigate and how much water to use.

5. Coming Soon to the International Space Station

A laser-based instrument being developed for the International Space Station will provide a unique 3-D view of Earth's forests. The instrument, called GEDI, will be the first to systematically probe the depths of the forests from space.

Another ISS instrument in development, ECOSTRESS, will study how effectively plants use water. That knowledge provided on a global scale from space will tell us "which plants are going to live or die in a future world of greater droughts," said Josh Fisher, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and science lead for ECOSTRESS.

6. Seeing Life, From the Microscopic to Multicellular

Scientists have used our vantage from space to study changes in animal habitats, track disease outbreaks, monitor forests and even help discover a new species. Bacteria, plants, land animals, sea creatures and birds reveal a changing world.

Our Black Marble image provides a unique view of human activity. Looking at trends in our lights at night, scientists can study how cities develop over time, how lighting and activity changes during certain seasons and holidays, and even aid emergency responders during power outages caused by natural disasters.

7. Earth as Analog and Proving Ground

Just as our Mars rovers were tested in Earth's deserts, the search for life on ocean moons in our solar system is being refined by experiments here. JPL research scientist Morgan Cable looks for life on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. She cites satellite observations of Arctic and Antarctic ice fields that are informing the planning for a future mission to Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter.

The Earth observations help researchers find ways to date the origin of jumbled, chaotic ice. "When we visit Europa, we want to go to very young places, where material from that ocean is being expressed on the surface," she explained. "Anywhere like that, the chances of finding biomarkers goes up - if they're there."

8. Only One Living Planet

Today, we know of only one living planet: our own. The knowledge and tools NASA developed to study life here are among our greatest assets as we begin the search for life beyond Earth.

There are two main questions: With so many places to look, how can we home in on the places most likely to harbor life? What are the unmistakable signs of life - even if it comes in a form we don't fully understand? In this early phase of the search, "We have to go with the only kind of life we know," said Tony del Genio, co-lead of a new NASA interdisciplinary initiative to search for life on other worlds.

So, the focus is on liquid water. Even bacteria around deep-sea vents that don't need sunlight to live need water. That one necessity rules out many planets that are too close or too far from their stars for water to exist, or too far from us to tell. Our Galileo and Cassini missions revealed that some moons of Jupiter and Saturn are not the dead rocks astronomers had assumed, but appear to have some conditions needed for life beneath icy surfaces.

9. Looking for Life Beyond Our Solar System

In the exoplanet (planets outside our solar system that orbit another star) world, it's possible to calculate the range of distances for any star where orbiting planets could have liquid water. This is called the star's habitable zone. Astronomers have already located some habitable-zone planets, and research scientist Andrew Rushby of NASA Ames Research Center is researching ways to refine the search. "An alien would spot three planets in our solar system in the habitable zone [Earth, Mars and Venus]," Rushby said, "but we know that 67 percent of those planets are not inhabited."

He recently developed a model of Earth's carbon cycle and combined it with other tools to study which planets in habitable zones would be the best targets to look for life, considering probable tectonic activity and water cycles. He found that larger planets are more likely than smaller ones to have surface temperatures conducive to liquid water. Other exoplanet researchers are looking for rocky worlds, and biosignatures, the chemical signs of life.

10. You Can Learn a Lot from a Dot

When humans start collecting direct images of exoplanets, even the closest ones will appear as only a handful of pixels in the detector - something like the famous "blue dot" image of Earth from Saturn. What can we learn about life on these planets from a single dot?

Stephen Kane of the University of California, Riverside, has come up with a way to answer that question by using our EPIC camera on NOAA's DSCOVR satellite. "I'm taking these glorious pictures and collapsing them down to a single pixel or handful of pixels," Kane explained. He runs the light through a noise filter that attempts to simulate the interference expected from an exoplanet mission. By observing how the brightness of Earth changes when mostly land is in view compared with mostly water, Kane reverse-engineers Earth's rotation rate - something that has yet to be measured directly for exoplanets.

The most universal, most profound question about any unknown world is whether it harbors life. The quest to find life beyond Earth is just beginning, but it will be informed by the study of our own living planet.

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@flood123789: What does it feel like to drink a lot of water in zero gravity

Will ordinary sunglasses suffice?

Unfortunately not. Sunglasses are not sufficient to ever look directly at the Sun. You can find glasses and filters that are safe here https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/safety And if you can’t find any that will get to you in time for the eclipse on Monday (you can always use them to look at the Sun at a later time to see sunspots), you can make a pin hole projector! https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/projection I think those are fantastic fun!