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Garter snakes may recognise their own scent and react differently when it is altered, hinting at self-awareness in reptiles

Garter snakes may recognise their own scent and react differently when it is altered, hinting at self-awareness in reptiles

On Nov. 5, 1958, NASA, newly established to lead America’s civilian space program, formally established the Space Task Group (STG) at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, to implement one of the nation’s top priorities – to develop a spacecraft capable of sending humans into space and returning them safely to Earth. In January 1959, the STG selected a contractor to build the spacecraft for Project Mercury and began the process of choosing who would fly the spacecraft. President Dwight D. Eisenhower directed NASA to choose its first astronauts from among the ranks of military pilots. The three-month rigorous process led to the selection on April 2, 1959, of seven men from among America’s military branches. The agency presented them to the world on April 9 as America’s Mercury 7 astronauts.

Left: The headquarters building for the Space Task Group at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Right: An early cutaway representation of the Mercury capsule.

President Eisenhower decided that military test pilots would make the most suitable astronauts. Choosing from among armed forces personnel would expedite the selection process since the government had access to their records and all had received prior security clearances and medical screening. On Jan. 5, 1959, NASA established the qualifications for the astronauts: less than 40 years of age; less than 5 feet 11 inches tall; excellent physical condition; bachelor’s degree or equivalent; graduate of test pilot school; and 1,500 hours of jet flight time. A screening in late January of the files of 508 graduates of the Navy and Air Force test pilot schools who met the basic age and flying requirements resulted in 110 qualified candidates. The selection committee ranked these candidates and divided them into three groups of about 35 each. The first two groups, comprising 69 candidates, received classified briefings at the Pentagon about the Mercury spacecraft and their potential participation. From this group, 53 volunteered for further evaluation and NASA decided not to call in the third group of candidates. Following an initial medical screening, 32 from this group advanced to undergo thorough medical evaluations at the Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research, commonly known as the Lovelace Clinic, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Beginning on Feb. 7, the candidates in six groups of five or six spent one week at Lovelace undergoing comprehensive medical examinations. From there, 31 of the 32 (one candidate failed a blood test at Lovelace) advanced to the Aero Medical Laboratory (AML) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where weeklong testing of the six groups took place between Feb. 15 and March 28. Rather than simply examining them physically, testing at AML consisted of stressing the candidates in centrifuges, altitude chambers, and other devices to evaluate their reactions. The selection committee met at Langley in late March and based on all the available data selected seven candidates for Project Mercury. The 24 unsuccessful candidates received notification by telephone on April 1 with a follow up letter from Assistant STG Manager Charles J. Donlan on April 3, also advising them to apply for any possible future astronaut selections. Four of them did apply to the second selection in 1962, and NASA selected two of them. The seven chosen as Mercury astronauts received telephone calls from Donlan on April 2.

Group photo of the Mercury 7 astronauts at their first public appearance in April 1959: Walter M. Schirra, left, Alan B. Shepard, Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Donald K. “Deke” Slayton, John H. Glenn, M. Scott Carpenter, and L. Gordon Cooper.

On April 9, 1959, NASA formally introduced the men to the nation and the world. The event took place in the ballroom of the Dolley Madison House on Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., the new space agency’s first headquarters. The astronauts took their seats at a long table on a makeshift stage, and NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan introduced them in alphabetical order: “Malcolm S. Carpenter, Leroy G. Cooper, John H. Glenn, Virgil I. Grissom, Walter M. Schirra, Alan B. Shepard, and Donald K. Slayton … the nation’s Mercury astronauts!” After a brief photo session, for the next 90 minutes the new astronauts responded to numerous questions from the reporters gathered in the ballroom. For most of the men, meeting the press represented a new experience as they had little prior exposure to the media in their previous jobs as test pilots. By the time the event concluded, they clearly sensed that their lives had changed forever, with public attention as much a part of their jobs as training for and flying in space. They reported for work at Langley on April 27.

Mercury 7 astronauts M. Scott Carpenter, left, L. Gordon Cooper, John H. Glenn, and Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom.

Carpenter flew America’s second orbital flight, Mercury 7, in May 1962, after serving as backup to Glenn for his historic first orbital flight. He named his capsule Aurora 7. Due to late firing of his retrorockets for the deorbit burn, Carpenter landed 250 miles from the target, and he waited hours for rescue forces to recover him. Cooper served as Schirra’s backup before getting his flight assignment on Mercury 9. He spent 34 hours aboard his Faith 7 capsule, at the time the longest American spaceflight. He served as command pilot of the eight-day Gemini V mission in August 1965, setting another American record. As his last assignment, he served as backup commander for Apollo 10 in 1969. Glenn made history in February 1962 as the first American to orbit the Earth aboard Friendship 7. Although he retired from NASA in 1964 to pursue a career in politics, he flew again as a U.S. Senator in 1998 aboard STS-95 at age 77, still the record as the oldest person to orbit the Earth. Grissom flew the second suborbital mission, Mercury 4, aboard his Liberty Bell 7 capsule, in August 1961. Following splashdown, his spacecraft’s hatch accidentally blew off and seawater rapidly filled it, a recovery helicopter pulling him to safety at the last moment. As the first American to travel to space a second time, he commanded the first two-man spacecraft, Gemini 3, in March 1965. He received a third spaceflight assignment as the commander of Apollo 1, the first flight of the three-person spacecraft. He died tragically during a ground test fire of the spacecraft on Jan. 27, 1967.

Mercury 7 astronauts Walter M. Schirra, left, Alan B. Shepard, and Donald K. “Deke” Slayton.

Schirra served as Carpenter’s backup before flying six orbits aboard his Sigma 7 spacecraft during the Mercury 8 mission in October 1962. He served as Grissom’s backup for Gemini 3 and flew as the command pilot for Gemini VI in December 1965, the first space rendezvous mission. Two months earlier, he showed his cool when on the first attempt to launch Gemini VI, the rocket’s engines shutdown just before liftoff. Before the Apollo 1 fire, he served as the commander of the Apollo 2 mission, then once again as Grissom’s backup for Apollo 1. After the fire, he flew as the commander of Apollo 7, the first crewed test of Command and Service Module in October 1968, the only astronaut to fly aboard all three of America’s first spacecraft. Shepard holds the honor as the first American in space for his suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7 during the Mercury 4 mission in May 1961. Grounded by an inner ear malady, Shepard went on to lead the astronauts as their chief until reinstated to flight duty in May 1969. He served as the commander of Apollo 14 in January-February 1971, the only Mercury 7 astronaut to walk on the Moon. Originally assigned to fly the Mercury 7 mission, in March 1962, flight surgeons grounded Slayton due to a heart irregularity just two months before his scheduled mission aboard Delta 7. While grounded, he served as chief of flight crew operations. Flight surgeons reinstated him to flying status in March 1972, and soon after NASA assigned him as the docking module pilot for the July 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project joint mission with the Soviet Union.

Summary of spaceflights by the Mercury 7 astronauts. The highlighted boxes with flight names in italics represent astronauts who died before they could undertake the mission. Italics represent astronaut assigned to but did not fly the mission.

Astronaut biographies can be found at https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts

Read the JSC History Office oral histories with Carpenter, Cooper, Glenn, Schirra, and Shepard.

Explore More 6 min read 45 Years Ago: Space Shuttle Columbia Arrives at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Article 2 weeks ago 21 min read 55 Years Ago: Four Months Until the Moon Landing Article 2 weeks ago 11 min read 20 Years Ago: First Image of Earth from Mars and Other Postcards of Home Article 4 weeks ago

A team of researchers has an ambitious plan to capture the 2024 total solar eclipse like never before.

Previous research suggests that babies can recognise nursery rhymes that were sung to them while they were in the uterus. Now, scientists have found they also seem to remember nursery rhymes that are spoken with no tune  

Previous research suggests that babies can recognise nursery rhymes that were sung to them while they were in the uterus. Now, scientists have found they also seem to remember nursery rhymes that are spoken with no tune  

Do you live near the edge of where the solar eclipse passes? You might want to dive further into the shadow of totality to make sure you don't miss it, a new report suggests.

A big piece of Chinese space junk fell to Earth over Southern California early Tuesday morning (April 2), putting on quite a show for observers in the Golden State.

Researchers made an AI image generator produce less offensive images by feeding it a tiny amount of additional training data

Researchers made an AI image generator produce less offensive images by feeding it a tiny amount of additional training data

ISS astronauts and satellites will have a bird's-eye view of the April 8 total solar eclipse, which will thrill skywatchers across North America.

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

Aeronautics STEM

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 NASA

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Details Last Updated Apr 02, 2024 EditorLillian GipsonContactJim Bankejim.banke@nasa.gov Related Terms

• General

Unique patterns of neuron activation help tiny birds catalog thousands of scattered food caches

The primary structure of the Gateway space station's HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) module is one step closer to launch following welding completion in Turin, Italy. HALO is one of four Gateway modules where astronauts will live, conduct science, and prepare for lunar surface missions. NASA is partnering with Northrop Grumman and their subcontractor Thales Alenia Space to develop HALO.

Northrop Grumman/Thales Alenia Space

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

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 Henry

What 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 Pinnick

As 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.

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Details Last Updated Apr 02, 2024 Related Terms

• PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem)
• Climate Change
• Earth
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• Missions
• Oceans
• People of Goddard
• People of NASA

Solar eclipseNASA

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 Eclipse

On 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.

This year’s total solar eclipse represents a unique opportunity for NASA and partners to collaborate to inspire and engage students across the country.

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.

At NASA, we believe that science is for everyone. You don’t need a degree in science to be curious, ask questions, and explore how our world and universe work. We work to help people on their own journeys of scientific exploration.

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

Explore More 5 min read Scientists Use NASA Data to Predict Solar Corona Before Eclipse

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Details Last Updated Apr 02, 2024 EditorKaren Northon Related Terms

• Heliophysics
• 2024 Solar Eclipse

See newly released concept art for Celestial Park, one of the five "worlds" of the Universal Epic Universe theme park, coming in 2025.

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-Caltech

Our 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/SDO

And 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.”

A Long Year for a Cold Saturn

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Related Terms

• Earth-like Exoplanets
• Eclipses
• Exoplanets
• Gas Giant Exoplanets
• James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
• TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite)
• The Universe

Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA

Exoplanets

Universe

Planet Hunters TESS

Solar System

A strange world is being stretched out of shape by its neighbouring planets, heating it up so intensely that it probably has a molten surface