What Are The Moments When You Think To Yourself "yes. THIS Is Why I Love My Job"..? ✨

For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars. Our Voyager 2 probe now has exited the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun.

Comparing data from different instruments aboard the trailblazing spacecraft, mission scientists determined the probe crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere on Nov. 5. This boundary, called the heliopause, is where the tenuous, hot solar wind meets the cold, dense interstellar medium. Its twin, Voyager 1, crossed this boundary in 2012, but Voyager 2 carries a working instrument that will provide first-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway into interstellar space.

Voyager 2 now is slightly more than 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from Earth. Mission operators still can communicate with Voyager 2 as it enters this new phase of its journey, but information – moving at the speed of light – takes about 16.5 hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth. By comparison, light traveling from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach Earth.

Read more at https://go.nasa.gov/2QG2s16 or follow along with the mission @NASAVoyager on Twitter.

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What are we doing at the Winter Olympics?

This Winter Olympics, our researchers are hoping for what a lot of Olympic athletes want in PyeongChang: precipitation and perfection. 

Our researchers are measuring the quantity and type of snow falling on the slopes, tracks and halfpipes at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and Paralympic games.

We are using ground instruments, satellite data and weather models to deliver detailed reports of current snow conditions and are testing experimental forecast models at 16 different points near Olympic event venues (shown below). The information is relayed every six hours to Olympic officials to help them account for approaching weather.

We are performing this research in collaboration with the Korea Meteorological Administration, as one of 20 agencies from about a dozen countries and the World Meteorological Organization’s World Weather Research Programme in a project called the International Collaborative Experiments for PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, or ICE-POP. The international team will make measurements from the start of the Olympics on Feb. 9 through the end of the Paralympics on March 18.

Image Credit: Republic of Korea

South Korea's diverse terrain makes this project an exciting, albeit challenging, endeavor for scientists to study snow events. Ground instruments provide accurate snow observations in easily accessible surfaces, but not on uneven and in hard to reach mountainous terrain. A satellite in space has the ideal vantage point, but space measurements are difficult because snow varies in size, shape and water content. Those variables mean the snowflakes won't fall at the same speed, making it hard to estimate the rates of snowfall. Snowflakes also have angles and planar "surfaces" that make it difficult for satellite radars to read.

The solution is to gather data from space and the ground and compare the measurements. We will track snowstorms and precipitation rates from space using the Global Precipitation Measurement mission, or GPM. The GPM Core Observatory is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and coordinates with twelve other U.S. and international satellites to provide global maps of precipitation every 30 minutes (shown below).

We will complement the space data with 11 of our instruments observing weather from the ground in PyeongChang. These instruments are contributing to a larger international pool of measurements taken by instruments from the other ICE-POP participants: a total of 70 instruments deployed at the Olympics. We deployed the Dual-frequency, Dual-polarized, Doppler Radar system, usually housed at our Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, to PyeongChang (shown below) that measures the quantity and types of falling snow.

The data will help inform Olympic officials about the current weather conditions, and will also be incorporated into the second leg of our research: improving weather forecast models. Our Marshall Space Flight Center's Short-term Prediction Research and Transition Center (SPoRT) is teaming up with our Goddard Space Flight Center to use an advanced weather prediction model to provide weather forecasts in six-hour intervals over specific points on the Olympic grounds.

The above animation is our Unified Weather Research Forecast model (NU-WRF) based at Goddard. The model output shows a snow event on Jan. 14, 2018 in South Korea. The left animation labeled "precipitation type" shows where rain, snow, ice, and freezing rain are predicted to occur at each forecast time. The right labeled "surface visibility" is a measure of the distance that people can see ahead of them.

The SPoRT team will be providing four forecasts per day to the Korea Meteorological Administration, who will look at this model in conjunction with all the real-time forecast models in the ICE-POP campaign before relaying information to Olympic officials. The NU-WRF is one of five real-time forecast models running in the ICE-POP campaign.

For more information, watch the video below or read the entire story HERE.

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Every day is Asteroid Day at NASA

It’s International Asteroid Day, and today we’re talking about everything asteroids! Although there are no known threats for the next 100 years, our Planetary Defense experts are constantly finding, tracking, and monitoring near-Earth objects to protect our home planet.

Asteroids are rocky remnants from the beginning of our solar system, and as of today, 26,110 near-Earth asteroids have been discovered!

So how do we spot these near-Earth objects? Let’s watch and see:

In addition to tracking and monitoring asteroids, we are also launching several missions to study these rocky relics. By studying asteroids, we can better understand the formation of our solar system. Here are some exciting missions you can look forward to:

OSIRIS-REx: Returning a Sample from Asteroid Bennu

Last year, our OSIRIS-REx mission successfully captured a sample of asteroid Bennu, a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid the size of the empire state building.

Currently, OSISRIS-REx is making its long journey home carrying this sample as it returns to Earth in 2023.

Psyche: A Journey to a Metal World

Our Psyche mission will journey to a unique metal asteroid orbiting the Sun between Jupiter and Mars.

What makes the asteroid Psyche unique is that it appears to be the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet, one of the building blocks of our solar system. Deep within rocky, terrestrial planets - including Earth - scientists infer the presence of metallic cores, but these lie unreachably far below the planets' rocky mantles and crusts. Because we cannot see or measure Earth's core directly, Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets.

Lucy: Studying the Trojan Asteroids

Launching this year, our Lucy mission will be the first mission to study the Trojans, a group of asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun. Time capsules from the birth of our Solar System more than 4 billion years ago, the swarms of Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter are thought to be remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets.

The mission takes its name from the fossilized human ancestor (called “Lucy” by her discoverers) whose skeleton provided unique insight into humanity's evolution. Likewise, the Lucy mission will revolutionize our knowledge of planetary origins and the formation of the solar system.

DART: Double Asteroid Redirection Test

Launching this year, our DART mission is a planetary defense driven test of technologies and will be the first demonstration of a technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space.

The destination of this mission is the small asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits slowly around its larger companion Didymos. Dimorphos is referred to as a moonlet since it orbits a larger asteroid.

The DART spacecraft will achieve the kinetic impact deflection by deliberately crashing itself into the moonlet. The collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one percent, but this will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes - enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth.

At NASA, every day is asteroid day, as we have missions exploring these time capsules of our solar system and surveying the sky daily to find potential hazards. We, along with our partners are watching the skies 24/7/365, so rest assured! We're always looking up.

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Constellations and the Calendar

Did you recently hear that NASA changed the zodiac signs? Nope, we definitely didn’t…

…Here at NASA, we study astronomy, not astrology. We didn’t change any zodiac signs, we just did the math. Here are the details:

First Things First: Astrology is not Astronomy…

Astronomy is the scientific study of everything in outer space. Astronomers and other scientists know that stars many light-years away have no effect on the ordinary activities of humans on Earth.

Astrology, meanwhile, is something else. It’s the belief that the positions of stars and planets can influence human events. It’s not considered a science.

Some curious symbols ring the outside of the Star Finder. These symbols stand for some of the constellations in the zodiac. What is the zodiac and what is special about these constellations?

Imagine a straight line drawn from Earth though the sun and out into space way beyond our solar system where the stars are. Then, picture Earth following its orbit around the sun. This imaginary line would rotate, pointing to different stars throughout one complete trip around the sun – or, one year. All the stars that lie close to the imaginary flat disk swept out by this imaginary line are said to be in the zodiac.

The constellations in the zodiac are simply the constellations that this imaginary straight line points to in its year-long journey.

What are Constellations?

A constellation is group of stars like a dot-to-dot puzzle. If you join the dots—stars, that is—and use lots of imagination, the picture would look like an object, animal, or person. For example, Orion is a group of stars that the Greeks thought looked like a giant hunter with a sword attached to his belt. Other than making a pattern in Earth’s sky, these stars may not be related at all.

Even the closest star is almost unimaginably far away. Because they are so far away, the shapes and positions of the constellations in Earth’s sky change very, very slowly. During one human lifetime, they change hardly at all.

A Long History of Looking to the Stars

The Babylonians lived over 3,000 years ago. They divided the zodiac into 12 equal parts – like cutting a pizza into 12 equal slices. They picked 12 constellations in the zodiac, one for each of the 12 “slices.” So, as Earth orbits the sun, the sun would appear to pass through each of the 12 parts of the zodiac. Since the Babylonians already had a 12-month calendar (based on the phases of the moon), each month got a slice of the zodiac all to itself.

But even according to the Babylonians’ own ancient stories, there were 13 constellations in the zodiac. So they picked one, Ophiuchus, to leave out. Even then, some of the chosen 12 didn’t fit neatly into their assigned slice of the pie and crossed over into the next one.

When the Babylonians first invented the 12 signs of zodiac, a birthday between about July 23 and August 22 meant being born under the constellation Leo. Now, 3,000 years later, the sky has shifted because Earth’s axis (North Pole) doesn’t point in quite the same direction.

The constellations are different sizes and shapes, so the sun spends different lengths of time lined up with each one. The line from Earth through the sun points to Virgo for 45 days, but it points to Scorpius for only 7 days.  To make a tidy match with their 12-month calendar, the Babylonians ignored the fact that the sun actually moves through 13 constellations, not 12. Then they assigned each of those 12 constellations equal amounts of time.

So, we didn’t change any zodiac signs…we just did the math.

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Kirk vs. Spock: NASA Trivia Time!

Star Trek has inspired generations of NASA employees to boldly go exploring strange new worlds and develop the technologies for making science fiction become science reality. We recently caught up with Star Trek Beyond actors Chris Pine (Kirk) and Zachary Quinto (Spock) and quizzed them on some NASA trivia. Before you take a look at their answers (video at bottom of post), take a stab at answering them yourself! See how well you do: 

1. What does the first “A” in NASA stand for?  A) Adventure B) Aeronautics

2. On July 4 this year, we sent a spacecraft into orbit around what planet? A) Jupiter B) Pluto

3. What do scientists call a planet that orbits a star outside our solar system? A) Exoplanet B) Nebula

4. Although it never flew in space, what was the name of the first space shuttle? A) Discovery B) Enterprise

5. What is a light-year a measurement of? A) Time B) Distance

6. When looking for habitable worlds around other stars, we want to find planets that are what? A) Goldilocks zone planets B) Class M Planets

7. Olympus Mons is the largest known volcano in our solar system. What planet is it on? A) Mars B) Earth

8. Which NASA satellite made an appearance in Star Trek the Motion Picture? A) Voyager B) Galileo

9. Who was the first American woman in space? A) Sally Ride B) Janice Lester

10. While developing life support for Mars missions, what NASA Spinoff was developed? A) Enriched baby food B) Anti-gravity boots

11. What technology makes replication of spare parts a reality on the International Space Station? A) Closed-Loop System B) 3-D Printer

12. What two companies are contracted by NASA to carry astronauts to and from the space station? A) Boeing and SpaceX B) Amazon and Virgin Galactic

ANSWERS: 1:B, 2:A, 3:A, 4:B, 5:B, 6:A, 7:A, 8:A, 9:A, 10:A, 11:B, 12:A

Now that you’ve tested your own space knowledge, find out how Zachary and Chris did at NASA Trivia: 

Learn more about NASA + Star Trek at: http://www.nasa.gov/startrek

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Solar System: Things to Know This Week

1. See Shadows on Jupiter

Jupiter dominates the evening sky this month, rising at sunset and setting at dawn. On the nights of March 14 and 15, Jovian moons Io and Europa will cross the planet's disk. When the planet is at opposition and the sun shines on Jupiter's moons, we can see the moons' shadows crossing the planet. There are actually 11 of these double shadow transits in March.

2. One Year of Dawn at Ceres

NASA's Dawn spacecraft gently slid into orbit around Ceres just over one year ago, becoming the first spacecraft to reach a dwarf planet. Since then, the spacecraft has delivered a wealth of images and other data that open an exciting new window to this previously unexplored body in the asteroid belt.

3. The Latest from Saturn

Days ago, on Mar. 11, 2016, Cassini's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) watched as the plume of gas and icy particles from the moon Enceladus passed in front of the central star in Orion's Belt. Such observations, known as stellar occultations, provide information about the density and composition of the plume.

4. The Equinox is Upon Us

March 20 is the vernal equinox--the start of spring in the northern hemisphere, and the start of fall in the southern hemisphere. During the two equinoxes each year, the line between day and night is vertical, so all over the planet, the length of the day and night are nearly equal. For the rest of the year, the Earth's tilt angles the line between day and night, culminating with the solstices, in which the poles receive weeks of unending sunshine or darkness depending on the time of year.

5. Up Close with a Comet

Before Rosetta crash lands into comet Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in September, 2016, it will continue taking pictures and detailed measurements of this mysterious comet to study the origin of comets and how they relate to the origin of the solar system.

Want to learn more? Read our full list of the 10 things to know this week about the solar system HERE.

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Labor Day reflections: the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s primary mirror reflects an American flag hanging overhead.⁣ ⁣ The mirror, which will collect and focus light from cosmic objects near and far, has been completed. Renamed after our first chief astronomer and "Mother of Hubble," the Roman Space Telescope will capture stunning space vistas with a field of view 100 times greater than Hubble Space Telescope images. The spacecraft will study the universe using infrared light, which human eyes can’t detect without assistance. ⁣ ⁣ This Labor Day, we thank all the people who work to advance the future for humanity.⁣ ⁣ Credit: L3Harris Technologies⁣ Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com ⁣

Demo-1: What’s the Deal?

Whether or not you caught the SpaceX Crew Dragon launch this past weekend, here’s your chance to learn why this mission, known as Demo-1, is such a big deal.

The First of its Kind

Demo-1 is the first flight test of an American spacecraft designed for humans built and operated by a commercial company. 

Liftoff

The SpaceX Crew Dragon lifted off at 2:49 a.m. EST Saturday, March 2, on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center. 

This was the first time in history a commercially-built American crew spacecraft and rocket launched from American soil. 

A New Era in Human Spaceflight

Upon seeing the arriving spacecraft, NASA astronaut Anne McClain snapped a photo from the International Space Station: “Welcome to a new era in human spaceflight.” 

Docking the Dragon

After making 18 orbits of Earth, the Crew Dragon spacecraft successfully attached to the International Space Station’s Harmony module at 5:51 a.m. EST Sunday, March 3. The Crew Dragon used the station’s new international docking adapter for the first time since astronauts installed it in August 2016. 

The docking phase, in addition to the return and recovery of Crew Dragon, are critical to understanding the system’s ability to support crew flights.

Opening the Hatch

After opening the hatch between the two spacecraft, the crewmates configured Crew Dragon for its stay. 

They installed a ventilation system that cycles air from Crew Dragon to the station, installed window covers and checked valves. After that, the crew was all set for a welcoming ceremony for the visiting vehicle. 

Ripley and Little Earth

Although the test is uncrewed, that doesn’t mean the Crew Dragon is empty. Along for the ride was Ripley, a lifelike test device outfitted with sensors to provide data about potential effects on future astronauts. (There is also a plush Earth doll included inside that can float in the microgravity!)

Inside the Dragon

For future operational missions, Crew Dragon will be able to launch as many as four crew members and carry more than 220 pounds of cargo. This will increase the number of astronauts who are able to live onboard the station, which will create more time for research in the unique microgravity environment.

Integration

Since the arrival of SpaceX Crew Dragon, the three Expedition 58 crew members have returned to normal operations (with some new additions to the team!) 

Undocking

The Crew Dragon is designed to stay docked to station for up to 210 days, although the spacecraft used for this flight test will remain docked to the space station for only five days, departing Friday, March 8. (We will be providing live coverage — don’t miss it!)

SpaceX and NASA

Elon Musk, CEO and lead designer at SpaceX, expressed appreciation for NASA’s support: “SpaceX would not be here without NASA, without the incredible work that was done before SpaceX even started and without the support after SpaceX did start.”

Preparation for Demo-2

NASA and SpaceX will use data from Demo-1 to further prepare for Demo-2, the crewed flight test that will carry NASA astronauts and Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station. NASA will validate the performance of SpaceX’s systems before putting crew on board for the Demo-2 flight, currently targeted for July 2019.

Demo-1: So What?

Demo-1 is a big deal because it demonstrates NASA and commercial companies working together to advance future space exploration! With Demo-1’s success, NASA and SpaceX will begin to prepare to safely fly astronauts to the orbital laboratory.

Follow along with mission updates with the Space Station blog.

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Largest Collection of Planets EVER Discovered!

Guess what!? Our Kepler mission has verified 1,284 new planets, which is the single largest finding of planets to date. This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can possibly one day discover another Earth-like planet.

But what exactly does that mean? These planets were previously seen by our spacecraft, but have now been verified. Kepler’s candidates require verification to determine if they are actual planets, and not another object, such as a small star, mimicking a planet. This announcement more than doubles the number of verified planets from Kepler.

Since the discovery of the first planets outside our solar system more than two decades ago, researchers have resorted to a laborious, one-by-one process of verifying suspected planets. These follow-up observations are often time and resource intensive. This latest announcement, however, is based on a statistical analysis method that can be applied to many planet candidates simultaneously.

They employed a technique to assign each Kepler candidate a planet-hood probability percentage – the first such automated computation on this scale, as previous statistical techniques focused only on sub-groups within the greater list of planet candidates identified by Kepler. 

What that means in English: Planet candidates can be thought of like bread crumbs. If you drop a few large crumbs on the floor, you can pick them up one by one. But, if you spill a whole bag of tiny crumbs, you're going to need a broom. This statistical analysis is our broom.

The Basics: Our Kepler space telescope measures the brightness of stars. The data will look like an EKG showing the heart beat. Whenever a planet passes in front of its parent star a viewed from the spacecraft, a tiny pulse or beat is produced. From the repeated beats, we can detect and verify the existence of Earth-size planets and learn about their orbits and sizes. This planet-hunting technique is also known as the Transit Method.

The number of planets by size for all known exoplanets, planets that orbit a sun-like star, can be seen in the above graph. The blue bars represent all previously verified exoplanets by size, while the orange bars represent Kepler’s 1,284 newly validated planets announced on May 10.

While our original Kepler mission has concluded, we have more than 4 years of science collected that produced a remarkable data set that will be used by scientists for decades. The spacecraft itself has been re-purposed for a new mission, called K2 -- an extended version of the original Kepler mission to new parts of the sky and new fields of study.

The above visual shows all the missions we’re currently using, and plan to use, in order to continue searching for signs of life beyond Earth.

Following Kepler, we will be launching future missions to continue planet-hunting , such as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and the James Webb Space Telescope. We hope to continue searching for other worlds out there and maybe even signs of life-as-we-know-it beyond Earth.

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55 Cancri e: Where Skies Sparkle Above a Never-ending Ocean of Lava

We’ve discovered thousands of exoplanets – planets beyond our solar system – so far. These worlds are mysterious, but observations from telescopes on the ground and in space help us understand what they might look like.

Take the planet 55 Cancri e, for instance. It’s relatively close, galactically speaking, at 41 light-years away. It’s a rocky planet, nearly two times bigger than Earth, that whips around its star every 18 hours (as opposed to the 365 days it takes our planet to orbit the Sun. Slacker).

The planet’s star, 55 Cancri, is slightly smaller than our Sun, but it’s 65 times closer than the Sun is to Earth. Imagine a massive sun on the horizon! Because 55 Cancri e is so close to its star, it’s tidally locked just like our Moon is to the Earth. One side is always bathed in daylight, the other is in perpetual darkness. It’s also hot. Really hot. So hot that silicate rocks would melt into a molten ocean of melted rock. IT’S COVERED IN AN OCEAN OF LAVA. So, it’s that hot (between 3,140 degrees and 2,420 degrees F).

Scientists think 55 Cancri e also may harbor a thick atmosphere that circulates heat from the dayside to the nightside. Silicate vapor in the atmosphere could condense into sparkling clouds on the cooler, darker nightside that would reflect the lava below. It’s also possible that it would rain sand on the nightside, but … sparkling skies!

Check out our Exoplanet Travel Bureau's latest 360-degree visualization of 55 Cancri e and download the travel poster at https://go.nasa.gov/2HOyfF3.

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