NASA

NASA Releases Video Capturing 5 Years of the Sun’s Surface

February 15, 2015 By Lilian Nwa 7 Comments

NASA releases a video showing 5 years of the sun's surface

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a research program designed to better understand the causes of solar variability and its effect on Earth and near-Earth space. According to Wikipedia, major research goals also include investigating the formation and structure of the Sun’s magnetic field and how this stored magnetic energy is released into space to effect various changes.

First launched on February 11, 2010, the SDO spacecraft recently celebrated its fifth year in space, and to mark the occasion, NASA scientists released two videos with images from the spacecraft highlighting the Observatory’s scientific accomplishments.

The data collected by the SDO spacecraft is made possible by three instruments: the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE), which measures the Sun’s extreme ultraviolet rays, the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI), which studies various components of the Sun’s magnetic activity, and finally, the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), which provides images of solar chromosphere and corona in seven extreme ultraviolet channels. Together, these instruments are able to capture wondrous views of the Sun.

But the SDO spacecraft does more than produce beautiful images. According to SDO project scientist Dean Pesnell, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, “There have now been more than 2,000 scientific papers published based on SNO data…SDO has also led to wonderful international collaborations, with the data being shared and used all over the world.”

Of the two videos, the first condenses five years of SDO observations into a three-minute, time-lapse video. With engaging music accompanying the video, viewers can see the spinning Sun and its sunspots, first as a golden orb, then as a red ball of fire, later as a cool blue, solid grays and other colors and luminosities. Altogether, the SDO has captured over 2,600 terabytes of data or approximately 1.5 terabytes of each day since its launch five years ago.

In the second video, the viewer is brought closer and closer to the Sun, which is again shown as a golden orb with dark sunspots. But as the viewer nears the Sun’s surface in the video, he sees a surface seemingly teeming with active fires as what looks like a minuscule planet orbits around this gigantic mass. As strands of solar material are hurled from the Sun’s surface into space, one cannot help but be amazed and captivated by both the beauty of nature and the power of those scientific instruments that enable researchers to capture these moments.

As SDO program scientist Lika Guhathakurta of NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. told Space.com, “This mission has touched us on many levels; it evokes a sense of wonder…It stokes our curiosity and it connects us personally to the deepest mysteries.” That the same object that provides the “warmth we feel on our skin” is also the powerful, mysterious ball of fire and gold visualized in the two videos is nothing short of incredible and truly underscores how much of the world remains a mystery to many of us.

NASA Warns US Southwest Facing a Long Term MegaDrought

February 14, 2015 By Lilian Nwa 18 Comments

NASA study says the US southwest faces a megadrought

There are those who strongly believe that man-made climate change will destroy the earth — and others who just as strongly deny such claims. Regardless of your own views about this debate, it is clear that places in the United States (think the American West, from California to Texas and Oklahoma) have been experiencing severe drought conditions for 11 of the past 14 years and a new study conducted by NASA, Columbia University and Cornell University scientists suggests that this situation will likely get much worse.

The authors of the study used climate models and soil moisture to predict the “likelihood of dryness” over the next century under various scenarios (e.g. continued increase in greenhouse gas emissions). The 17 computer models used showed a high degree of correlation and so the authors then used data from tree rings to determine weather patterns from the present-day back to the year 1000 AD. One of the study co-authors said in a statement that even the worst megadrought from the past would pale in comparison to 21st-century projections. In particular, the authors used their collected data to determine that continued increases in global temperature would increase the chances of a 35-year of longer “megadrought,” which would affect the Southwest and central Great Plains area of the United States by 2100.

What is the likelihood that such a drought occurs? The scientists believe the chances are above 80 percent if the world continues its “current trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions.” However, the likelihood of such an occurrence does depend on future levels of gas emissions. For example, the chance of a megadrought might drop to between 60 and 70 percent in the Great Plains if countries reduce their emissions to “middle of the road” targets, as described by National Geographic. Unfortunately, even such reductions would not reduce the chance that a megadrought would arrive in the Southwest. As the study’s lead author, Benjamin Cook, said in a statement, “Even at the middle-of-the-road scenario, we see enough warming and drying to push us past the worst droughts experienced in the region since the medieval era.”

Sadly, the effects of such a prolonged dry spell would be catastrophic, affecting everything from agriculture, the economy, ecosystems, health and city water supplies. Already, California has been impacted by many changes in its agriculture and water supply, for example, as it suffers through an ongoing drought that’s the worst in the state’s recorded history. In conditions of severe drought, as clean water becomes scarce, public sanitation and personal hygiene would also decrease, whereas wildfires would become more prevalent, leading to extensive property damages; these are only some potential consequences. The cost to both the economy and individuals could be huge.

According to National Geographic, this present study is only the most recent in a group of studies that has predicted significant challenges for those who make their homes in the American West. As Cook continued in his statement, “The real challenge is whether we can take strategies we have now and apply them to the more severe droughts that are likely in the future.”

(Photo courtesy of Kecko)

SpaceX Has Successful Falcon 9 Launch, but Boosters Fail to Land on Barge

January 11, 2015 By Lilian Nwa 2 Comments

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster fails to land on barge

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX as it is commonly known, is a “space transport services company” founded in 2002 by former PayPal entrepreneur and current Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk. In founding the company, Musk hoped to reduce the costs of space transportation in order to facilitate the colonization of Mars.

SpaceX has already experienced a number of successes, including impressive contracts with NASA. One is valued at $278 million, to develop the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, and another is valued at $1.6 billion to carry out 12 millions transporting supplies and cargo between the International Space Station (ISS) and Earth. On Sept. 16, 2014, SpaceX (along with Boeing) was again chosen by NASA to develop systems that would transport U.S. crewmembers between the ISS and space.

Recently, however, the storied company experienced a minor setback when its rocket failed to successfully land on a barge or “autonomous spaceport drone ship” as described as SpaceX, floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

According to National Geographic, the company hoped to land the rocket on the barge to “recover the rocket’s expensive engines and reuse them.” Launch rockets, or carrier rockets, are vehicles that obtain thrust from a rocket engine and are used to carry a payload from the Earth’s surface into space.

Typically, after the spacecraft is launched, rocket engines burn up upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere or “plummet into the ocean” and the engine is recovered later. The barge’s landing site (300 feet by 170 feet) was supposed to act as “the outfielder’s glove” to catch the Falcon 9 launch rocket. The company’s expectation was if the barge landing proved successful, this might decrease the costs of rocket launches (since the engines could be reused), though Henry Hertzfeld of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. cautioned against this thinking. In an article about the launch, Hertzfeld told National Geographic that “rocket engines are responsible for only about a third of launch costs and refurbishment might eat up any price savings from reusable ones.”

Still, all was not lost. The launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 proved successful. The cargo-filled capsule (nicknamed Dragon) successfully separated from the first-stage booster rocket without incident and continued toward the ISS with 5,000 pounds of supplies. But though the booster did make it to the barge, equipment was damaged by the impact. As Musk tweeted, “Rocket made it to the drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future though.”

Musk later tweeted that the company would again try the barge landing after a scheduled launch in February.

(Photo courtesy of rblood)

NASA’s Inflatable Heat Shield May Allow Travel to Mars in the Not So Distant Future

January 4, 2015 By Lilian Nwa 20 Comments

NASA inflatable shield may make Mars trip possible

For years, a human-manned mission to Mars has been the stuff of dreams for science fiction writers and enthusiasts. The 21st century, however, might see the realization of these dreams as technological and engineering innovations promise to revolutionize our conceptualizations of space and travel. In fact, according to a panel of space experts representing the government, industry, academia and other organizations, a NASA-led manned mission to Mars could occur as soon as the 2030s and is expected to be affordable if the agency’s budget is restored to “pre-sequestration levels”. And it’s not just NASA interested in this idea. A number of public and private organizations, such as Mars Direct, Mars One and Inspiration Mars, as well as the efforts of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, are attempting to break the ‘Mars-code’ first.

Currently, NASA is working hard to develop an important component for realizing human travel to the Red Planet. (They also want you to send your name to Mars). The organization is working on an inflatable heat shield for spacecraft heading to Mars at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

Scientists have known that the atmosphere on Mars is much thinner than the Earth’s, making it difficult to safely land large payloads on the planet’s surface. One might think that parachutes attached to rockets could be used to slow large vehicles such as spacecraft; however, current technologies can not slow spacecraft enough to land safety on the surface of Mars.

And then comes an infant’s toy you may have played with or purchased for a child: a series of multicolored, donut-shaped rings of varying diameters stacked on top of each other in the shape of a pyramid. NASA scientists are now developing an inflatable heat shield that resembles this toy. The shield’s segments will be covered in a thermal blanket. These will inflate with nitrogen during entry into the Martian atmosphere allowing for a safe landing. In this way, engineers could avoid using propulsion on Mars to slow spacecraft and subsequently, would not need to carry as much fuel on the way from Earth to Mars, making the trip significantly cheaper. Scientists expect to test this design on the next flight of the Antares rocket, scheduled for 2016.

Recently, the Orion spacecraft, which is expected to take astronauts to Mars, successfully passed its first flight test. The next components of the Mars mission (successful entry, descent and landing) would then largely depend on the success of this new design. Inflatable heat shields have already been used to land spacecraft and instruments on Venus and Titan. In July 2012, the IRVE-3 inflatable heat shield underwent a successful inflation system test in the Transonic Dynamics Tunnel of NASA’s Langley Research Center.

You might be wondering, why Mars? Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, Neil deGrasse Tyson, writes that in the 1960s, scientists discovered that Mars may have once had water. And given how fundamental water is to life on Earth, it’s possible that Mars may have also harbored life at one point–or may still shelter life. As he writes, “So much of what drives cosmic exploration involves the quest to learn whether or not we’re alone in the Universe.” Mars, being so close to Earth compared to the rest of our solar system, is then a great place to start, and NASA’s newest invention might bring us that much closer to uncovering important answers, while developing newer questions.

(Photo courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

SMAP May Revolutionize Farming and Save Consumers Money

January 4, 2015 By Lilian Nwa 14 Comments

It’s not surprising that NASA has found a way to create technology previously unheard of. The robotic rovers Opportunity and Spirit were created to traverse Mars, while other sophisticated equipment and materials were previously developed in order to send astronauts to the Moon. Now, the space organization has developed the Soil Moisture Active Passive, or SMAP, a satellite that can measure the planet’s moisture level from space. Currently, the satellite is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Jan. 29, 2015 at 9:20 am ET.

According to a press release from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, SMAP contains three main parts: a radar, radiometer and the “largest rotating mesh antenna every deployed in space.” Based on convention, sensing instruments are considered “active” when they produce signals and “passive” when they record existing signals. The SMAP satellite thus uses both passive and active instrumentation to provide the “highest-resolution, most accurate” measurements of soil moisture. And one of the greatest innovations that will allow the satellite to produce such accurate measurements is its final component, a rotating antenna (the largest of its kind), also known to NASA scientists as “the spinning lasso.”

The rotating antenna is “attached on one side to an arm with a crook in its elbow” and spins approximately 14 revolutions per minute as demonstrated in a recently published YouTube video. Attached near the top of the arm is a dish made of mesh that is 19.7 feet (6 meters) in diameter.

Of course, the other components of SMAP are also important for measuring the Earth’s moisture. The attached radar will use the antenna to send microwaves toward the Earth and record the backscatter. Differences between the microwaves emitted by the radar and the properties of the backscattered waves that return to the radar, will indicate changes in the Earth’s soil moisture. A technique known as synthetic aperture radar processing will subsequently allow the radar to create sharp images of these changes. SMAP’s radiometer will then work passively to detect the Earth’s natural emissions of microwaves produced by water in the soil.

As stated in a YouTube video by NASA describing the new technology, SMAP should thus gather data that will improve weather forecasting and the prediction of floods, drought, crop yields and landslides — all from the ‘comfort’ of space. According to CNN News, this information will prove essential for farmers who might be able to change irrigation patterns or delay planting if they are aware of an upcoming drought. Currently, most farmers make such predictions based on experience; however, SMAP should greatly improve the accuracy and timing of their assessments of soil moisture.

This ultimately could be good news for consumers. Better weather prediction will help farmers plant more effectively, which in turn will mean less food price hikes for consumers. If SMAP works as hoped, it could mean millions of dollars of savings to consumers by avoiding crop failures, which could not have been predicted in a timely manner the past.

(Photo courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

What Does a Comet Smell Like? Rotten Eggs and Horse Urine

October 26, 2014 By Kendra Smith Leave a Comment

Rosetta spacecraft tell us comets smell really awful

The latest in scientific discoveries – the scent of a comet! Reports of scientists’ first sniff of a meteor have surfaced over the past few days, and the news is they don’t smell all that great. In fact, they’re downright stinky. This scent breakthrough comes from the European Space Agency’s craft, Rosetta. Rosetta has been orbiting comet 67P, AKA Churyumov Gerasimenko. The instrument which received the first whiff of the comet is called Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis or ROSINA for short.

So, what does a comet smell like? To find out for yourself, all you would have to do is mix together bitter almonds, rotten eggs, a horse stable, formaldehyde and alcohol in a bowl, and it will give you the pungent odor of the floating rock.

“It seems like comet Churyumov was indeed attracted by comet Gerasimenko to form Churyumov-Gerasmenko even though its perfume may not be Chanel No. 5,” said Kathrin Altwegg from the Center of Space and Habitability of the University of Bern in Switzerland.

While this combination does make a horrible idea for perfume, it may make one wonder if all of space smells this bad?

Why take a sniff of a comet?

“This all makes a scientifically enormously interesting mixture in order to study the origin of our solar system material, the formation of our Earth, and the origin of life. The smell comes from a mix of chemicals that include: ammonia, hydrogen sulphide, formaldehyde, and methanol just to name a few. If you would like a full list, it is posted on the European Space Agency’s website,” Kathrin Altwegg adds.

These chemicals, while quite dense on Earth, are relatively sparse on the comet. This is a great and unexpected discovery as scientists assumed they would find the icy center of the comet, known as the coma, to emit only carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

Why didn’t we know what a comet smelled like before?

There is a specific reason why we didn’t know the smell of a comet before this. In order to smell it, you have to get close enough to one to test the smell. Rosetta is within five miles of the surface of the comet which enabled it to get a whiff of the scent coming from the comet .

While the new smell from space will change some aspects of researching space, ROSINA is gearing up for another whiff of the comet. It is fast approaching its loop around the sun, and the spacecraft aims to smell it again. Anyone knows that something left in the sun too long will start to smell and in this case, the smell will only get worse. As Kathrin Altwegg says, “It’s a little smelly, but at the moment it’s a lot of fun to come to work every morning.”

(Photo courtesy of NASA)