NASA
Safety First!
NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station wear eclipse glasses in this image from March 26, 2024. While millions of people on Earth experience the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, the space station crew will have the opportunity to see it from 250 miles above our planet. Except during the brief period when the Moon completely blocks the Sun’s bright face, it is not safe to look directly at the Sun without specialized eye protection for solar viewing. On Earth, you must look through safe solar viewing glasses (“eclipse glasses”) with the ISO 12312-2 international standard or a safe handheld solar viewer at all times. If the crew has the opportunity to directly image the eclipse through space station windows, they will use a handheld camera equipped with a solar filter and will not look at the Sun directly.
Based on current orbital position and ground track predictions for the International Space Station, astronauts aboard the orbiting laboratory will have three opportunities to view the ground shadow (penumbra and umbra) of the Moon as it tracks across the Earth surface during the total solar eclipse. After encountering the eclipse shadow above the Pacific Ocean, then during a pass from the New Zealand area to California and Idaho, the space station is predicted to encounter the eclipse during a time of near-to-full totality while over Maine and New Brunswick around 3:30 p.m. EDT.
For those who won’t be in the path of totality or on the space station, NASA will have live coverage of the eclipse.
Image Credit: NASA/Loral O’Hara
NASA VIPER Robotic Moon Rover Team Raises Its Mighty Mast
NASA’s VIPER – short for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover – now stands taller and more capable than ever. And that’s thanks to its mast.
VIPER’s mast, and the suite of instruments affixed to it, looks a lot like the rover’s “neck” and “head.” The mast instruments are designed to help the team of rover drivers and real-time scientists send commands and receive data while the rover navigates around hazardous crater slopes, boulders, and places that risk communications blackouts. The team will use these instruments, along with four science payloads, to scout the lunar South Pole. During its approximately 100-day mission, VIPER seeks to better understand the origin of water and other resources on the Moon, as well as the extreme environment where NASA plans to send astronauts as part of the Artemis campaign.
The tip of VIPER’s mast stands approximately eight feet (2.5 meters) above its wheel rims and is equipped with a pair of stereo navigation cameras, a pair of powerful LED headlights, as well as a low- and high-gain antenna to transmit data to and receive data from the Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas on Earth.
The stereo navigation cameras – the “eyes” of the rover – are mounted to a part of the mast that gimbals, allowing the team to pan them as much as 400 degrees around and tilt them up and down as much as 75 degrees. The VIPER team will use the navigation cameras to take sweeping panoramas of the rover’s surroundings and images to detect and further study surface features such as rocks and craters as small as four inches (10 cm) in diameter – or about the length of a pencil – from as far as 50 feet (15 meters) away. And because the navigation cameras are mounted up high, it gives the VIPER team a near human-like perspective as the rover explores areas of scientific interest around the Moon’s South Pole.
Due to the extremes of light and darkness found on the Moon, VIPER will be the first planetary rover to have headlights. The headlights will cast a narrow, long-distance beam – much like a car’s high beams – to help the team reveal obstacles or interesting terrain features that would otherwise stay hidden in the shadows. Positioned next to the rover’s two navigation cameras, the lights feature arrays of blue LEDs that the rover navigation team determined would provide the best visibility given the challenging lighting conditions on the Moon.
In order to transmit large amounts of data across the 240,000 miles (384,000 km) that separate Earth and the Moon, VIPER has a gimballing precision-pointed, high-gain antenna that will send information along a very focused, narrow beam. Its low-gain antenna also will send data but using radio waves at a much lower data rate. The ability for the antennas to maintain the correct orientation, even while driving, serves a critical function: without it, the rover cannot receive commands while in motion on the Moon and cannot transmit any of its data back to Earth for scientists to achieve their mission goals. All that data is then transferred from the DSN to the Multi-Mission Operations and Control Center at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, where rover operations are based.
NASA’s VIPER robotic Moon rover stands taller than ever after engineers integrated its mast in a clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.NASA/Josh ValcarcelPrior to installation on the rover, engineers put the mast through a variety of testing. This included time in a thermal vacuum chamber to verify the white coating surrounding the mast insulates as intended. After the mast’s integration in the clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the team also successfully performed check-outs of its components and for the first time sent data through the rover using its antennas.
VIPER is part of the Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program and is managed by the Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. VIPER will launch to the Moon aboard Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. It will reach its destination at Mons Mouton near the Moon’s South Pole.
Citizen Scientists Invited to Collect Data for NASA During Eclipse
4 min read
Citizen Scientists Invited to Collect Data for NASA During Eclipse Argentine students gather cloud observations and temperature data to upload through the GLOBE Eclipse tool during the eclipse that crossed South America on July 2, 2019. Pablo CecchiOn April 8, 2024, as the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, thousands of amateur citizen scientists will measure air temperatures and snap pictures of clouds. The data they collect will aid researchers who are investigating how the Sun influences climates in different environments.
Among those citizen scientists are the fifth- and sixth-grade students at Alpena Elementary in northwest Arkansas. In the weeks leading up to the eclipse, these students are visiting the school’s weather station 10 times a day to collect temperature readings and monitor cloud cover. They will then upload the data to a phone-based app that’s part of a NASA-led program called GLOBE, short for Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment.
The goal, according to Alpena Elementary science and math teacher Roger Rose, is to “make science and math more real” for his students. “It makes them feel like they’re doing something that’s important and worthwhile.”
The GLOBE eclipse tool is a small part of the much broader GLOBE project, through which students and citizen scientists collect data on plants, soil, water, the atmosphere, and even mosquitoes. Contributors to the eclipse project will only need a thermometer and a smart phone with the GLOBE Observer app downloaded. They can access the eclipse tool in the app.
This is not the first time the GLOBE eclipse tool has been deployed in North America. During the 2017 North American eclipse, NASA researchers examined the relationship between clouds and air temperature and found that temperature swings during the eclipse were greatest in areas with less cloud cover, while temperature fluctuations in cloudier regions were more muted. It’s a finding that would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, without the assistance of numerous amateur observers along the eclipse path, said Marilé Colón Robles, a meteorologist based at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and the GLOBE project scientist overseeing the cloud study portion of the project.
GLOBE program volunteers across North America uploaded data coinciding with the July 21, 2017 event to this map. A high concentration of observers make the path of totality in the western part of the U.S. stand out. Globe programThe number of weather stations along this year’s eclipse path is limited, and while satellites give us a global view, they can’t provide the same level of detail as people on the ground, said Ashlee Autore, a NASA Langley data scientist who will be conducting a follow-up to the 2017 study. “The power of citizen science is that people make the observations, and they can move.”
It’s still unclear how temperature fluctuations during a total eclipse compare across different climate regions, Colón Robles said. “This upcoming eclipse is passing through desert regions, mountainous regions, as well as more moist regions near the oceans.” Acquiring observations across these areas, she said, “will help us dig deeper into questions about regional connections between cloud cover and ground-level temperatures.” The studies should give scientists a better handle on the flow of energy from the Sun that’s crucial for understanding climate.
In many areas, citizen scientists are expected to gather en masse. “We’re inviting basically all of El Paso to campus,” said geophysicist and GLOBE partner John Olgin of El Paso Community College in Texas. The area will experience the eclipse in near totality, with about 80% of the Sun covered at the peak. It’s enough to make for an engaging event involving citizen scientists from the U.S. and Juarez, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande.
Just a few minutes of midday darkness will have the long-term benefits of increasing awareness of NASA citizen science programs, Olgin said: “It’s going to inspire people to say, ‘Hey look, you can actually do stuff with NASA.’”
More than 30 million people live along the path of the 2024 eclipse, and hundreds of millions more will see a partial eclipse. It will be another 20 years before so many people in North America experience another total solar eclipse again.
With this in mind, Colón Robles has a piece of advice: As the Moon actively blocks the Sun, set your phone and thermometer aside, and marvel at one of the most extraordinary astronomical events of your lifetime.
Visit NASA’s Citizen Science page to learn how you can help NASA scientists study the Earth during eclipses and all year round. The GLOBE Program page provides connections to communities of GLOBE participants in 127 countries, access to data for retrieval and analysis, a roadmap for new participants, and other resources.
By James Riordon
NASA’s Earth Science News Team
Share
Details Last Updated Apr 01, 2024 Related Terms Explore More 5 min read Total Solar Eclipse 2024: The Moon’s Moment in the SunTo know exactly where and when the solar eclipse will cast its shadow, we study…
Article
3 weeks ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
April’s Night Sky Notes: Participate in Eclipse Science
NASA / Zooniverse
by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
April is NASA’s Citizen Science Month, and there is no shortage of projects available. Here are some citizen science projects that you can participate in on April 8th, on and off the path of totality right from your smartphone!
Eclipse Soundscapes Logo ARISA Lab / NASA Eclipse SoundscapesEclipse Soundscapes will compare data from a 1932 study on how eclipses affect wildlife – in this case, crickets. There are a number of ways you can participate, both on and off the path. NOTE: you must be 13 and older to submit data. Participants 18+ can apply to receive the free Data Collector kit. Learn more at: eclipsesoundscapes.org/
GLOBE EclipseFolks that participated in the GLOBE Eclipse 2017 will be glad to see that their eclipse data portal is now open! With the GLOBE Observer smartphone app, you can measure air temperature and clouds during the eclipse, contributing data to the GLOBE program from anywhere you are. Learn more at: observer.globe.gov/
HamSCI citizen scientists. HamSCI, The University of Scranton / NASA HamSCIHamSCI stands for Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation. HamSCI has been actively engaged in scientific data collection for both the October 14, 2023, annular solar eclipse and the upcoming April 8, 2024, total eclipse. Two major activities that HamSCI will be involved in around the solar events will be the Solar Eclipse QSO Party (SEQP) and the Gladstone Signal Spotting Challenge (GSSC) which are part of the HamSCI Festivals of Eclipse Ionospheric Science. Learn more about these experiments and others at: hamsci.org/eclipse
SunSketcher logo. SunSketcher, Western Kentucky University / NASA SunSketcherIf you’re traveling to totality, help the SunSketcher team measure the oblateness, or shape, of the Sun during the eclipse by timing the flashes of Baily’s Beads. You will need a smartphone with a working camera for this, along with something to hold the phone in place – don’t forget a spare battery! NOTE: The app will need to run from five minutes before the eclipse starts until the end of the eclipse. Any additional phone use will result in Sun Sketcher data loss. Learn more at: sunsketcher.org/
Don’t stop at the eclipse – NASA has citizen science projects you can do all year long – from cloud spotting on Mars to hunting for distant planets! By contributing to these research efforts, you can help NASA make new discoveries and scientific breakthroughs, resulting in a better understanding of the world around us, from the critters on the ground, to the stars in our sky.
We’ll be highlighting other citizen science projects with our mid-month article on the Night Sky Network page, but we want to wish all you eclipse chasers out there a very happy, and safe solar eclipse! For last minute activities, check out Night Sky Network’s Solar Eclipse Resources section!
