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Chinese space junk falls to Earth over Southern California, creating spectacular fireball (photos, video)
Showing AI just 1000 extra images reduced AI-generated stereotypes
Showing AI just 1000 extra images reduced AI-generated stereotypes
ISS astronauts ready to watch the solar eclipse from space on April 8
NASA Aeronautics Monthly STEM Newsletter
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)2024
NASA Aeronautics Monthly STEM Newsletter: Issue 35
NASA Aeronautics Monthly STEM Newsletter: Issue 34
Facebook logo @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es Instagram logo @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es Linkedin logo @NASA Explore More 31 min read Interview with Alex Borlaff Article 1 day ago 4 min read NASA VIPER Robotic Moon Rover Team Raises Its Mighty Mast Article 1 day ago 4 min read NASA Names Finalists to Help Deal with Dust in Human Lander Challenge Article 4 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASAMissions
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Share Details Last Updated Apr 02, 2024 EditorLillian GipsonContactJim Bankejim.banke@nasa.gov Related TermsChickadees Use Brain-Cell ‘Barcodes’ to Remember Where They Stashed Their Snacks
Unique patterns of neuron activation help tiny birds catalog thousands of scattered food caches
A Home for Astronauts around the Moon
A Home for Astronauts around the Moon
The Gateway space station’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) module, one of two of Gateway’s habitation elements where astronauts will live, conduct science, and prepare for lunar surface missions, is one step closer to launch following welding completion in Turin, Italy.
HALO, shown in this image from Oct. 23, 2023, will next undergo a series of stress tests to ensure its safety. Upon successful completion, the future home for astronauts will travel to Gilbert, Arizona where Northrop Grumman will complete final outfitting ahead of launch to lunar orbit.
Gateway will be humanity’s first space station in lunar orbit as an essential element of the Artemis missions to return humans to the Moon for scientific discovery and chart a path for the first human missions to Mars.
Image Credit: Northrop Grumman/Thales Alenia Space
Veronica T. Pinnick Put NASA’s PACE Mission through Its Paces
To achieve the impossible, Veronica T. Pinnick, who put NASA’s PACE mission through its prelaunch paces, says you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Name: Dr. Veronica T. Pinnick
Title: Plankton Aerosol, Cloud and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) Integration and Test (I&T) manager
Formal Job Classification: Chemist
Organization: Integration and Test Branch, Electrical Engineering Division (Code 568)
Veronica Pinnick is an integration and test manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.Credit: NASA/Dennis HenryWhat do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard?
As the PACE I&T manager, I managed the build-up of the entire observatory. Integration means we put the spacecraft together. Testing means we make sure it works within itself and that it will also work in space.
Why did you become a chemist? What is your educational background?
In third grade, we did a science experiment that involved pulling out the colors of a black maker, which turned out to be a mixture of many colors. It was the first time my little science brain exploded! I learned that maybe not everything was as it first appeared, it was so cool. Years later, I now do that same experiment (chromatography) on Mars, looking at dirt and pulling it apart to see what it is made of.
I have a B.A. in chemistry from Minot State University in North Dakota. I have a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Texas A&M University. I did a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Maryland.
How did you come to Goddard?
My post-doctoral fellowship involved a Goddard project, designing an instrument to look for life on Mars. I thought that was an interesting application of my specialty! After my fellowship, I joined Goddard in 2010 working on that same project for 10 more years.
Towards the end of that project, I became the I&T manager responsible for building, testing, and delivery of that instrument to an ESA (European Space Agency) Mars rover. During those years, I realized that I wanted to change my career path more towards engineering.
Why did you merge science and engineering in your career?
Branching out to try new things can be scary. I think what I enjoy most about working at Goddard is that there are endless opportunities for people who are comfortable being uncomfortable. I really like both science and engineering. I think skills from my scientific background really help in building and testing instruments for other scientists.
When I started in college, I did not really understand the difference between science and engineering. When I arrived at Goddard, I learned the important difference between these two different roles. The scientist asks, “What do I want to measure?” The engineer asks, “How can I build an instrument to measure that?” Blending the two disciplines, you end up with an instrument that measures something in space!
We work at our best when we are cross-disciplinary, when scientists think like engineers and engineers think like scientists, when we can understand where each other is coming from. My passion is to try to return Goddard to my original mindset, that there should be full understanding of the goals of science and engineering by both disciplines.
Courtesy of Veronica PinnickAs a mentor, how do you encourage your people to be cross-disciplinary?
I encourage my mentees to think about their skill sets with an open mind and an open imagination. Sometimes people can get pigeon-holed in their skills and think they can only do one specific job. With the right mentorship and the right vision of what Goddard can do, and what gaps exist, we can fill the gaps with different skill sets.
So many times, junior scientists and engineers tell themselves they cannot do something because they lack the background or education. But in practice, what you really need are creative thinkers, creative problem solvers – your background does not matter. You must believe in your own potential. I try to show my mentees that I believe in them and their potential to branch out from their comfort zone. I tell them to push themselves to evolve. Again, you progress by being uncomfortable.
Goddard has the top minds in science and engineering. Everyone is always learning from their peers. Likewise, our mentees have so much to offer. The most junior people come at problems with a fresh perspective. Diverse perspectives always help bring new ideas to the table.
What is Goddard’s greatest challenge for new scientists and engineers?
When you are at a university, you do not always have a big budget, but you are unlimited in terms of the size or power of an instrument you want to build. When you send an instrument to space, the engineering challenges are to make it small, lightweight, and power efficient.
This is one of the hardest changes coming out of a university and joining Goddard. This is an adjustment that every person new to space has to think about and make.
What has made you proudest in your career?
I am proud of what I have built for space, but I am proudest of the people I have positively impacted along the way. I really think it is important to learn lessons from those who came before me and I am very grateful to them. I also want to help teach those coming up. We prepare lessons learned after each mission. I feel very strongly that it is important to pass these along to the next generation.
In addition to technical information, I focus a lot on people skills. To build a good team culture, you have to listen to and respect all the voices on your team. I hope to pass on the importance of teamwork and also having fun while doing our very important, very difficult work.
How does being comfortable being uncomfortable motivate you?
I have been drawn to a lot of flight missions and technology developments that are really, really challenging. That is what Goddard does best. It is unbelievable to do science on other planets! Each planet has its own unique challenges.
I started by working on ExoMars, the ESA Mars rover. I learned all about Mars and what makes doing science on Mars hard.
Then I worked on the proposal for Dragonfly, which is a flying drone that will explore Saturn’s moon Titan. I had to learn about why Titan is hard.
Now, I’ve finished building and launching a whole satellite for observing Earth, which included performing all the testing needed to make sure it will work on orbit.
Engineering instruments for different locations in the solar system requires a whole new set of engineering solutions. That is really fun, it allows me to be so creative. There are very few tried and true methods for some of these environments.
At Goddard, I am constantly challenged which makes me constantly uncomfortable but that is what I like. At first, it is intimidating. Then it is exciting!
Be comfortable being uncomfortable!
Why is working at Goddard like solving a puzzle?
At Goddard we work with some of the smartest people around. We are open to brainstorming together and coming up with solutions together.
Working on flight missions at Goddard, we work in teams which are inherently cross-disciplinary. When problems happen, it is not always easy to figure out what went wrong or how to fix the problem. Some of my most invigorating professional moments have been when things don’t go according to plan and I feel like a detective trying to figure out what exactly went wrong and how to fix it. That is where I have seen some of Goddard’s absolute best work.
Troubleshooting is like looking at 850 pieces of a 1,000 piece puzzle that you have to put together. You will never get all the pieces, but will have a pretty good idea of the big picture. It initially makes me frustrated, but I love it. It is so satisfying when your team solves the puzzle.
Why are education and outreach so important to you?
Being a good scientist means that a portion of your job is to communicate to the public what you are studying, why it is important, and what you found out. As a civil servant, the public is paying me to do this job, so I feel extremely responsible for bringing NASA’s mission to the public.
I have done education and public outreach with people of all ages. I really enjoy doing Mars rover activities with preschoolers. Three- and 4-year-olds helped me design the next Mars rover. Honestly, their ideas had great potential. I told them Mars was cold, so some of the kids put a blanket on the Rover model, which is almost exactly what we do. They were so excited to find out their solution really works in space!
People respond to knowing they can be a part of what we do. The public is so excited about what we do and want to know more. I feel inspired by their curiosity. Their excitement is infectious. They reinvigorate the joy in what we do and why we are doing what we do. I truly consider being an ambassador for NASA to the public a privilege, not a responsibility.
What do you do for fun?
I really like escape rooms; they involve all sorts of puzzles. I love the challenge of trying to figure something out under pressure. I play acoustic guitar and ukelele. We have a family band, but we only perform at home. I also like to travel and learn new languages. I am a total foodie and very much enjoy new creations made by my husband.
Who would you like to thank for encouraging you?
I absolutely thank my family, especially my husband and my son. Many of the missions we do at Goddard require a lot of personal sacrifice at times. Our missions often require long hours and extreme focus and concentration. We do it because we truly believe in and are inspired by Goddard’s mission. We are driven to build things and send them to space. That requires dedication not just from the people who work at Goddard, but also from their families. Their unending support means the world to me.
What is your “six-word memoir”? A six-word memoir describes something in just six words.
Always learning, giving back, being challenged.
By Elizabeth M. Jarrell
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.
Share Details Last Updated Apr 02, 2024 Related TermsNASA Partnerships Bring 2024 Total Solar Eclipse to Everyone
Eclipses are an important contribution to NASA’s research into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, and the part of Earth’s atmosphere where space weather happens. They’re also an inspirational opportunity for the public to get involved, learn, and connect with our place in the universe.
Read More: 2024 Total Solar EclipseOn Monday, April 8, NASA and its partners will celebrate the wonders of the total solar eclipse as it passes over North America, with the path of totality in the United States, from Kerrville, Texas, to Houlton, Maine.
Our partners bring their creativity in sharing the excitement of the upcoming eclipse and help encourage everyone to safely enjoy this celestial event.Maureen O'Brien
Strategic alliances and partnerships manager for NASA's Office of Communications
Here are just some ways NASA is working with partners to engage the public in the upcoming total solar eclipse.
- NASA and the Major League Baseball Players Association are collaborating on the development of video and social content to emphasize eclipse awareness and safe viewing. NASA representatives also will throw out the first pitch in several games leading up to the eclipse.
- Indianapolis Motor Speedway is hosting an eclipse viewing event and live broadcast that will feature NASA exhibits, astronauts, INDY drivers, and STEM engagement talks and activities for visitors.
- Peanuts Worldwide is supporting educators with the release of new eclipse learning resources for elementary and middle school students and Snoopy is participating in events in Cleveland.
- Krispy Kreme introduced a new doughnut in honor of the eclipse and will share information about the eclipse and safe viewing.
- NASA is working with Google on new eclipse content on the Arts & Culture and other Google pages.
- Third Rock Radio (TRR) is sharing NASA podcast content and expert interviews, educational and safety messages, and a message from the International Space Station. TRR also will feature a Solar Songs listener request weekend leading up to eclipse day and live NASA TV audio coverage during the eclipse.
- Nasdaq will carry coverage of part of the NASA TV broadcast on its screen in Times Square.
Rob Lasalvia
Partnership manager for NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement
- Crayola Education released an eclipse-themed how-to video about the eclipse with a creative exercise for students.
- LEGO Education launched an eclipse education challenge to engage students and the public in learning more about the Sun and the eclipse.
- Microsoft will launch a quiz on eclipse safety with links to NASA resources.
- Discovery Education will get classrooms excited about space with eclipse resources on its PreK–12 learning platform.
- Canva released a series of free interactive eclipse courses and LabXchange released a new eclipse learning pathway for students.
- The Achievery will feature a collection of eclipse videos, share NASA’s live eclipse coverage, and host student events at AT&T locations across the country.
- NASA experts participated in a Game Jam hosted by the National Esports Association in February in which university students were challenged to create a game simulation of the Eclipse. The student-developed games will be featured during an online eclipse gaming event April 8.
- Jack and Jill of America, Inc. will host eclipse watch parties across the country for which NASA will provide viewing eclipse resources and educational materials.
- Girl Scouts of the USA is sharing NASA eclipse information and encouraging its chapters and troops to host watch parties or connect to local NASA events.
- NASA partnered with the National Park Service and Earth to Sky on activities, including the “Interpreting Eclipses” webinar series, to prepare interpreters and informal educators for the total eclipse and Heliophysics Big Year. Through this partnership, national parks hosting eclipse events also will provide elements designed especially for the blind and low vision, neurodivergent children, the physically impaired, and those with hearing impairments.
- NASA is providing eclipse resources and educational materials to local 4-H clubs along the path of totality through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Anita Dey
Partnerships manager for outreach and engagement for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
Learn more about NASA’s strategic partnerships and STEM engagement partnerships online. To learn more about where and how to safely view this year’s total solar eclipse, visit: https://go.nasa.gov/Eclipse2024.
Author: Gina Anderson, NASA Office of Communications
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That Starry Night Sky? It’s Full of Eclipses
5 min read
That Starry Night Sky? It’s Full of Eclipses An artist’s concept shows the TRAPPIST-1 planets as they might be seen from Earth using an extremely powerful – and fictional – telescope. NASA/JPL-CaltechOur star, the Sun, on occasion joins forces with the Moon to offer us Earthlings a spectacular solar eclipse – like the one that will be visible to parts of the United States, Mexico, and Canada on April 8.
But out there, among the other stars, how often can we see similar eclipses? The answer depends on your point of view. Literally.
On Earth, a total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon blocks the Sun’s disk as seen from part of Earth’s surface. In this case, the “path of totality” will be a strip cutting across the country, from Texas to Maine.
We also can see “eclipses” involving Mercury and Venus, the two planets in our solar system that orbit the Sun more closely than Earth, as they pass between our telescopes and the Sun (though only by using telescopes with protective filters to avoid eye damage). In these rare events, the planets are tiny dots crossing the Sun’s much larger disk.
A composite of images of the Venus transit taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on June 5, 2012. The image shows a timelapse of Venus’ path across the Sun. NASA/Goddard/SDOAnd astronomers can, in a sense, “see” eclipses among other systems of planets orbiting their parent stars. In this case, the eclipse is a tiny drop in starlight as a planet, from our point of view, crosses the face of its star. That crossing, called a transit, can register on sensitive light sensors attached to telescopes on Earth and those in space, such as NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, or TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). It’s how the bulk of the more than 5,500 confirmed exoplanets – planets around other stars – have been detected so far, although other methods also are used to detect exoplanets.
“A solar eclipse is a huge transit,” said Allison Youngblood, the deputy project scientist for TESS at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
And both types of “transits” – whether they involve solar eclipses or exoplanets – can yield world-changing science. Solar eclipse observations in 1919 helped prove Einstein’s theory of general relativity, when the bending of a star’s light by the Sun’s gravity caused the star’s apparent position to shift – showing that gravity causes space and time to curve around it.
Exoplanet transits also provide far more than just detections of distant planets, Youngblood said.
“The planet passes in front of the star, and blocks a certain amount of the star’s light,” she said. “The dip [in starlight] tells us about the size of the planet. It gives us a measurement of the radius of the planet.”
Careful measurements of multiple transits also can reveal how long a year is on an exoplanet, and provide insights into its formation and history. Careful measurements of multiple transits also can provide insights into exoplanet formation and history.
And the starlight shining through the exoplanet’s atmosphere during its transit, if measured using an instrument called a spectrograph, can reveal deeper characteristics of the planet itself. The light is split into a rainbow-like spectrum, and slices missing from the spectrum can indicate gases in the planet’s atmosphere that absorbed that “color” – or wavelength.
“Measuring the planet at many wavelengths tells us what chemicals and what molecules are in that planet’s atmosphere,” Youngblood said.
Eclipses are such a handy way to capture information about distant worlds that scientists have learned how to create their own. Instead of waiting for eclipses to occur in nature, they can engineer them right inside their telescopes. Instruments called coronagraphs, first used on Earth to study the Sun’s outer atmosphere (the corona), are now carried aboard several space telescopes. And when NASA’s next flagship space telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launches by May 2027, it will demonstrate new coronagraph technologies that have never been flown in space before. Coronagraphs use a system of masks and filters to block the light from a central star, revealing the far fainter light of planets in orbit around it.
Of course, that isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. Whether searching for transits, or for direct images of exoplanets using a coronagraph, astronomers must contend with the overwhelming light from stars – an immense technological challenge.
“An Earth-like transit in front of stars is equivalent to a mosquito walking in front of a headlight,” said David Ciardi, chief scientist at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech. “That’s how little light is blocked.”
We don’t have this problem when viewing solar eclipses – “our very first coronagraphs,” Ciardi says. By pure happenstance, the Moon covers the Sun completely during an eclipse.
“A solar eclipse is like a human walking in front of a headlight,” he said.
We would have no such luck on other planets in our solar system.
Mars’ oddly shaped moons are too small to fully block the Sun during their transits; and while eclipses might be spectacular among the outer planets – for instance, Jupiter and its many moons – they wouldn’t match the total coverage of a solar eclipse.
We happen to be living at a fortunate time for eclipse viewing. Billions of years ago, the Moon was far closer to Earth, and would have appeared to dwarf the Sun during an eclipse. And in about 700 million years, the Moon will be so much farther away that it will no longer be able to make total solar eclipses.
“A solar eclipse is the pinnacle of being lucky,” Tripathi said. “The Moon’s size and distance allow it to completely block out the Sun’s light. We’re at this perfect time and place in the universe to be able to witness such a perfect phenomenon.”
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Scientists Use NASA Data to Predict Solar Corona Before Eclipse
4 min read
Scientists Use NASA Data to Predict Solar Corona Before EclipseOur Sun, like many stars, is adorned with a crown. It’s called a corona (Latin for “crown” or “wreath”) and consists of long, thread-like strands of plasma billowing out from the Sun’s surface. The powerful magnetic field of the Sun defines these strands, causing them to ripple and evolve their structures constantly. The strands are faint, however, so the only way to observe the corona with the naked eye is during a total solar eclipse.
In anticipation of the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, scientists at Predictive Science are using data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to predict what our Sun’s crown may look like on that day. What’s more, their model uses the computational efforts of NASA’s Pleiades Supercomputer to update its predictions in near real-time. This means that the model continuously updates its predictions as it ingests data beamed down from SDO, providing information as close to real-time as possible.
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The solar corona is our star’s outer atmosphere. It “extends out into interplanetary space as the solar wind,” said Predictive Science president Jon Linker. Driven by heat and magnetic turbulence in the Sun, this wind blows out to the edges of the solar system. “It envelopes the planets,” Linker said, “including Earth.”
As Earth and other planets bathe in coronal outflow, their atmospheres react to the energetic particles and magnetic fields found within the solar wind. This reaction, called space weather, can range from mild to severe, just like terrestrial weather. Extreme space weather events, such as large solar eruptions called coronal mass ejections, can disrupt important communications technology, affect astronauts in orbit, or even harm the electric grids we all rely on.
Modern society depends on a variety of technologies that are susceptible to the extremes of space weather. This graphic shows some of the technology and infrastructure affected by space weather events. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterSpace weather is one of the most tangible effects of the Sun’s dynamic exterior, and creating accurate forecasts is something scientists are striving toward. According to Linker, refining these solar models helps build the foundation for forecasting. “If you’re going to predict the path of a coronal mass ejection, just like for a hurricane, to have this more accurate background is really important,” he said.
SDO and other solar observatories provide detailed insights about the corona, but scientists are still missing some vital information about the forces that drive its activity, which is needed to predict the corona’s appearance with precision. “We don’t have a way of measuring the magnetic field accurately in the corona,” said Emily Mason, a research scientist at Predictive Science. “That’s one of the things that makes this so challenging.”
To build their model, researchers at Predictive Science use measurements of the Sun’s changing magnetic field at the solar surface to drive their model in near real-time. A key to this innovation was creating an automated process that converts raw data from SDO to show how magnetic flux and energy are injected into the corona over time. Adding this dynamic into the model allows the corona to evolve over time, leading to solar eruptions. “We developed a software pipeline that took in the magnetic field maps, picked out all of the areas that should be energized, and then fine-tuned the amount of energy to add to those areas,” Mason said. Building this automatic pipeline was a huge step forward for the team. In past predictions, the model used a static snapshot of the surface magnetic field – not ideal for keeping up with the ever-changing Sun, especially during our current heightened period of solar activity. Similarly, in iterations from 2017 and 2021, Mason explained that a teammate used to “literally hand-draw which areas on the Sun needed to be energized” by analyzing extreme ultraviolet activity in certain regions. Continuously updating the magnetic field is central to all of the changes with this year’s model, and the team has high hopes for the results.
Image Before/AfterThe recurrence of total solar eclipses provides opportunities to test the accuracy of their models against real-life conditions and update them accordingly. “We’ve used the eclipse predictions every time to do something new with the model,” said Cooper Downs, a research scientist at Predictive Science who orchestrated the automated modeling pipeline. “I’m really excited to see over the next two weeks how this prediction keeps improving. I think it will be a really drastic difference from what we used to be able to do.”
Mason shares his enthusiasm. “The eclipse is just such a fantastic chance to go, ‘Look at this! This is what we think it’s gonna look like! Don’t you want to learn more about this?” she said with a grin. “It’s a really exciting opportunity for us to share the things that excite us all year round with everybody else.”
By Rachel Lense
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Want to Leave the Solar System? Here’s a Route to Take
The edge of the Solar System is defined by the heliosphere and its heliopause. The heliopause marks the region where the interstellar medium stops the outgoing solar wind. But only two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, have ever travelled to the heliopause. As a result, scientists are uncertain about the heliopause’s extent and its other properties.
Some scientists are keen to learn more about this region and are developing a mission concept to explore it.
The heliosphere plays a critical role in the Solar System. The Sun’s heliosphere is a shield against incoming galactic cosmic radiation, like that from powerful supernovae. The heliopause marks the extent of the heliosphere’s protective power. Beyond it, galactic cosmic radiation is unimpeded.
“We want to know how the heliosphere protects astronauts and life in general from harmful galactic radiation, but that is difficult to do when we still don’t even know the shape of our shield.”
Marc Kornbleuth, Boston UniversityThere’s no overall understanding of the shape and extent of the heliosphere and heliopause. A new study wants to address that by designing a probe that would travel beyond this region to find the necessary answers.
The study is “Complementary Interstellar Detections from the Heliotail,” published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences. The lead author is Sarah Spitzer, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan.
“Without such a mission, we are like goldfish trying to understand the fishbowl from the inside,” said Spitzer.
The heliopause protects everything inside it from galactic cosmic radiation, including our astronauts who leave the Earth’s protective magnetosphere. “We want to know how the heliosphere protects astronauts and life in general from harmful galactic radiation, but that is difficult to do when we still don’t even know the shape of our shield,” said Marc Kornbleuth, a research scientist at Boston University and co-author of the study.
According to simulations, this image shows three models of what the heliosphere could look like. Left: a comet-like shape. Middle: The Croissant model. Right: A different, more streamlined comet-like shape. Image Credits are listed in the image.The heliosphere’s shape comes from the interaction between the Sun’s solar wind and the local interstellar medium (LISM.) The LISM is made of plasma, dust, and neutral particles. Two clouds in the LISM dominate our region of space: the Local Interstellar Cloud and the G-Cloud, home of the Alpha Centauri system. Two other clouds, the AQL Cloud and the Blue Cloud, are nearby. The clouds are regions where the LISM is denser.
The problem scientists face is that we can’t learn much more about the heliosphere’s shape and its relation to the LISM and its clouds without getting outside the heliosphere. While Voyager 1 and 2 have wildly exceeded the most feverish expectations by lasting this long and leaving the heliosphere, they’re near the end. Their instruments don’t function as they used to, and even then, those spacecraft were built in the 1970s. It goes without saying that technology has advanced since then.
What we need is a purpose-built spacecraft that can leave the heliosphere when and where we want it to. Of course, that’s an extremely long journey, and it would fulfill other scientific objectives along the way. But unlike the Voyager probes, which were sent to study the planets and only reached the LISM through sheer stubbornness, this probe would primarily be designed to explore the heliopause.
This illustration shows the position of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes outside of the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the Sun that extends well past the orbit of Pluto. Voyager 1 exited the heliosphere in August 2012. Voyager 2 exited at a different location in November 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech“A future interstellar probe mission will be our first opportunity to really see our heliosphere, our home, from the outside, and to better understand its place in the local interstellar medium,” said lead author Spitzer.
The idea has been around for a while. In 2021, scientists developed a mission concept for such a probe. They called it the Interstellar Probe and said it would embark on a 50-year-long journey into the LISM. They said it would “… provide the first real vantage point of our life-bearing system from the outside.” It could launch in 2036 and travel at a peak speed of 7 AU per year. That’s about one billion km per year.
The cover page from the 2021 proposal for a mission to leave the heliosphere. Image Credit: Interstellar Probe/JHUAPLThe exit point is a critical difference between the 2021 proposal and this one. The 2021 proposal stated that the probe should “Capture a side view of the heliopause to characterize shape, preferably near 45° off of the heliopause nose direction at (7°N, 252°E) in Earth ecliptic coordinates.”
The authors of this new paper say that the Interstellar Probe team got the exit point wrong. “However, this report assumes that a probe trajectory near 45 degrees off the nose of the heliotail, or the front of the Sun’s directional motion, is optimal,” they write. Spitzer and her colleagues examined the issue and came to a different conclusion. They investigated six different trajectories for a probe, from noseward to tailward. They concluded that a side view is best.
“If you want to find out how far back your house extends, walking out the front door and taking a picture from the front sidewalk is likely not your best option. The best way is to go out the side door so you can see how long it is from front to back,” said co-author Kornbleuth. This vantage point will give the best scientific results and view of the heliosphere’s shape.
“Understanding the shape of the heliosphere requires an understanding of the heliotail, as the shape is highly dependent upon the heliotail and its LISM interactions,” the authors write in their paper. “The Interstellar Probe mission is an ideal opportunity for measurement either along a trajectory passing through the heliotail, via the flank…”
There’s another compelling reason to follow this trajectory. Researchers think that plasma from the LISM might enter the heliosphere through its tail because of magnetic reconnection. If that’s true, the probe could sample the LISM twice: once inside the heliosphere and once outside of it.
The team also proposed that two probes be sent beyond the heliosphere. One would have a noseward trajectory, and the other would have a heliotailward trajectory. That would “… yield a more complete picture of the shape of the heliosphere and to help us better understand its interactions with the LISM,” they explain in their paper.
Recent research suggests that the Solar System is on a path that will take it out of the Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC.) It may already be in contact with four different clouds with different properties. Image Credit: Interstellar Probe/JHUAPL“This analysis took a lot of persistence. It started small and grew into a great resource for the community,” said study co-author Susan Lepri.
The team behind the proposal says the Interstellar Probe will be a 50-year mission travelling 400 astronomical units. It could potentially travel much further, up to 1,000 astronomical units. According to the researchers, this would give us an unprecedented view of the heliosphere and the LISM.
The post Want to Leave the Solar System? Here’s a Route to Take appeared first on Universe Today.
Bird Flu Detected in a Person in Texas: What We Know So Far
A person tested positive for avian influenza after being exposed to cows thought to be infected with the virus. It's the second time a human has been infected with H5N1 in the U.S.
NASA Sets Coverage for Astronaut Loral O’Hara, Crewmates Return
Three crew members are scheduled to begin their return to Earth on Friday, April 5, from the International Space Station. NASA will provide live coverage of their departure from the orbital complex and landing.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus will depart from the station’s Rassvet module in the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft at 11:55 p.m. EDT April 5, and will head for a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, at 3:18 a.m. Saturday, April 6 (12:18 p.m. Kazakhstan time).
Coverage will begin at 8 p.m. on April 5 with farewells and the Soyuz hatch closure on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.
O’Hara is completing a mission spanning 204 days in space that covered 3,264 orbits of the Earth and 86.5 million miles. Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya launched with NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson to the station aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft on March 23. Dyson will remain aboard the station for a six-month research mission.
After landing, the three crew members will fly on a helicopter from the landing site to the recovery staging city of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. O’Hara then will depart back to Houston.
Friday, April 5
8 p.m.: NASA coverage of farewells and hatch closure of the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft begins
11:30 p.m.: NASA coverage for undocking continues
11:55 p.m.: Undocking
Saturday, April 6
2 a.m.: NASA coverage of deorbit burn and landing begins.
2:24 a.m.: Deorbit burn
3:18 a.m.: Landing
NASA’s coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
-end-
Julian Coltre / Josh Finch
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
julian.n.coltre@nasa.gov / joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov