The California Wildfires From Above

Clouds swirling in the coffee colored atmosphere of Jupiter, looks more like a familiar morning beverage of champions. 

This image from our Juno spacecraft was captured in North North Temperate Belt. Image Credit: Enhanced Image by Gerald Eichstädt and Sean Doran (CC BY-NC-SA)/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

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10 Things to Know About Parker Solar Probe

On Aug. 12, 2018, we launched Parker Solar Probe to the Sun, where it will fly closer than any spacecraft before and uncover new secrets about our star. Here's what you need to know.

1. Getting to the Sun takes a lot of power

At about 1,400 pounds, Parker Solar Probe is relatively light for a spacecraft, but it launched to space aboard one of the most powerful rockets in the world, the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy. That's because it takes a lot of energy to go to the Sun — in fact, 55 times more energy than it takes to go to Mars.

Any object launched from Earth starts out traveling at about the same speed and in the same direction as Earth — 67,000 mph sideways. To get close to the Sun, Parker Solar Probe has to shed much of that sideways speed, and a strong launch is good start.

2. First stop: Venus!

Parker Solar Probe is headed for the Sun, but it's flying by Venus along the way. This isn't to see the sights — Parker will perform a gravity assist at Venus to help draw its orbit closer to the Sun. Unlike most gravity assists, Parker will actually slow down, giving some orbital energy to Venus, so that it can swing closer to the Sun.

One's not enough, though. Parker Solar Probe will perform similar maneuvers six more times throughout its seven-year mission!

3. Closer to the Sun than ever before

At its closest approach toward the end of its seven-year prime mission, Parker Solar Probe will swoop within 3.83 million miles of the solar surface. That may sound pretty far, but think of it this way: If you put Earth and the Sun on opposite ends of an American football field, Parker Solar Probe would get within four yards of the Sun's end zone. The current record-holder was a spacecraft called Helios 2, which came within 27 million miles, or about the 30 yard line. Mercury orbits at about 36 million miles from the Sun.

This will place Parker well within the Sun's corona, a dynamic part of its atmosphere that scientists think holds the keys to understanding much of the Sun's activity.

4. Faster than any human-made object

Parker Solar Probe will also break the record for the fastest spacecraft in history. On its final orbits, closest to the Sun, the spacecraft will reach speeds up to 430,000 mph. That's fast enough to travel from New York to Tokyo in less than a minute!

5. Dr. Eugene Parker, mission namesake

Parker Solar Probe is named for Dr. Eugene Parker, the first person to predict the existence of the solar wind. In 1958, Parker developed a theory showing how the Sun’s hot corona — by then known to be millions of degrees Fahrenheit — is so hot that it overcomes the Sun’s gravity. According to the theory, the material in the corona expands continuously outwards in all directions, forming a solar wind.

This is the first NASA mission to be named for a living person, and Dr. Parker watched the launch with the mission team from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

6. Unlocking the secrets of the solar wind

Even though Dr. Parker predicted the existence of the solar wind 60 years ago, there's a lot about it we still don't understand. We know now that the solar wind comes in two distinct streams, fast and slow. We've identified the source of the fast solar wind, but the slow solar wind is a bigger mystery.

Right now, our only measurements of the solar wind happen near Earth, after it has had tens of millions of miles to blur together, cool down and intermix. Parker's measurements of the solar wind, just a few million miles from the Sun's surface, will reveal new details that should help shed light on the processes that send it speeding out into space.

7. Studying near-light speed particles

Another question we hope to answer with Parker Solar Probe is how some particles can accelerate away from the Sun at mind-boggling speeds — more than half the speed of light, or upwards of 90,000 miles per second. These particles move so fast that they can reach Earth in under half an hour, so they can interfere with electronics on board satellites with very little warning.

8. The mystery of the corona's high heat

The third big question we hope to answer with this mission is something scientists call the coronal heating problem. Temperatures in the Sun's corona, where Parker Solar Probe will fly, spike upwards of 2 million degrees Fahrenheit, while the Sun's surface below simmers at a balmy 10,000 F. How the corona gets so much hotter than the surface remains one of the greatest unanswered questions in astrophysics.

Though scientists have been working on this problem for decades with measurements taken from afar, we hope measurements from within the corona itself will help us solve the coronal heating problem once and for all.

9. Why won't Parker Solar Probe melt?

The corona reaches millions of degrees Fahrenheit, so how can we send a spacecraft there without it melting?

The key lies in the distinction between heat and temperature. Temperature measures how fast particles are moving, while heat is the total amount of energy that they transfer. The corona is incredibly thin, and there are very few particles there to transfer energy — so while the particles are moving fast (high temperature), they don’t actually transfer much energy to the spacecraft (low heat).

It’s like the difference between putting your hand in a hot oven versus putting it in a pot of boiling water (don’t try this at home!). In the air of the oven, your hand doesn’t get nearly as hot as it would in the much denser water of the boiling pot.

10. Engineered to thrive in an extreme environment

Make no mistake, the environment in the Sun's atmosphere is extreme — hot, awash in radiation, and very far from home — but Parker Solar Probe is engineered to survive.

The spacecraft is outfitted with a cutting-edge heat shield made of a carbon composite foam sandwiched between two carbon plates. The heat shield is so good at its job that, even though the front side will receive the full brunt of the Sun's intense light, reaching 2,500 F, the instruments behind it, in its shadow, will remain at a cozy 85 F.

Even though Parker Solar Probe's solar panels — which provide the spacecraft's power — are retractable, even the small bit of surface area that peeks out near the Sun is enough to make them prone to overheating. So, to keep its cool, Parker Solar Probe circulates a single gallon of water through the solar arrays. The water absorbs heat as it passes behind the arrays, then radiates that heat out into space as it flows into the spacecraft’s radiator.

For much of its journey, Parker Solar Probe will be too far from home and too close to the Sun for us to command it in real time — but don't worry, Parker Solar Probe can think on its feet. Along the edges of the heat shield’s shadow are seven sensors. If any of these sensors detect sunlight, they alert the central computer and the spacecraft can correct its position to keep the sensors — and the rest of the instruments — safely protected behind the heat shield.

Read the web version of this week’s “Solar System: 10 Things to Know” article HERE.

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“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.‎ Pause for a moment and take in the vastness and beauty of our home planet captured from the vantage point of space. On this spaceship we call Earth, we are all in this together. 💙 

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Let's Explore a Metal-Rich Asteroid 🤘

Between Mars and Jupiter, there lies a unique, metal-rich asteroid named Psyche. Psyche’s special because it looks like it is part or all of the metallic interior of a planetesimal—an early planetary building block of our solar system. For the first time, we have the chance to visit a planetary core and possibly learn more about the turbulent history that created terrestrial planets.

Here are six things to know about the mission that’s a journey into the past: Psyche.

1. Psyche could help us learn more about the origins of our solar system.

After studying data from Earth-based radar and optical telescopes, scientists believe that Psyche collided with other large bodies in space and lost its outer rocky shell. This leads scientists to think that Psyche could have a metal-rich interior, which is a building block of a rocky planet. Since we can’t pierce the core of rocky planets like Mercury, Venus, Mars, and our home planet, Earth, Psyche offers us a window into how other planets are formed.

2. Psyche might be different than other objects in the solar system.

Rocks on Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Earth contain iron oxides. From afar, Psyche doesn’t seem to feature these chemical compounds, so it might have a different history of formation than other planets.

If the Psyche asteroid is leftover material from a planetary formation, scientists are excited to learn about the similarities and differences from other rocky planets. The asteroid might instead prove to be a never-before-seen solar system object. Either way, we’re prepared for the possibility of the unexpected!

3. Three science instruments and a gravity science investigation will be aboard the spacecraft.

The three instruments aboard will be a magnetometer, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, and a multispectral imager. Here’s what each of them will do:

Magnetometer: Detect evidence of a magnetic field, which will tell us whether the asteroid formed from a planetary body

Gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer: Help us figure out what chemical elements Psyche is made of, and how it was formed

Multispectral imager: Gather and share information about the topography and mineral composition of Psyche

The gravity science investigation will allow scientists to determine the asteroid’s rotation, mass, and gravity field and to gain insight into the interior by analyzing the radio waves it communicates with. Then, scientists can measure how Psyche affects the spacecraft’s orbit.

4. The Psyche spacecraft will use a super-efficient propulsion system.

Psyche’s solar electric propulsion system harnesses energy from large solar arrays that convert sunlight into electricity, creating thrust. For the first time ever, we will be using Hall-effect thrusters in deep space.

5. This mission runs on collaboration.

To make this mission happen, we work together with universities, and industry and NASA to draw in resources and expertise.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the mission and is responsible for system engineering, integration, and mission operations, while NASA’s Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Services Program manages launch operations and procured the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Working with Arizona State University (ASU) offers opportunities for students to train as future instrument or mission leads. Mission leader and Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton is also based at ASU.

Finally, Maxar Technologies is a key commercial participant and delivered the main body of the spacecraft, as well as most of its engineering hardware systems.

6. You can be a part of the journey.

Everyone can find activities to get involved on the mission’s webpage. There's an annual internship to interpret the mission, capstone courses for undergraduate projects, and age-appropriate lessons, craft projects, and videos.

You can join us for a virtual launch experience, and, of course, you can watch the launch with us on Oct. 12, 2023, at 10:16 a.m. EDT!

For official news on the mission, follow us on social media and check out NASA’s and ASU’s Psyche websites.

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Have you seen Hidden Figures? What did you think

I have seen Hidden Figures, and I was very proud that NASA supported the telling of the story. Despite the circumstances of the time, it shows that we worked well together to get a human being in space. 

@justthenshefell: What's the hardest part of your job?

Physical Science...In Space!

Each month, we highlight a different research topic on the International Space Station. In May, our focus is physical science.

The space station is a laboratory unlike any on Earth; on-board, we can control gravity as a variable and even remove it entirely from the equation. Removing gravity reveals fundamental aspects of physics hidden by force-dependent phenomena such as buoyancy-driven convection and sedimentation.

Gravity often masks or distorts subtle forces such as surface tension and diffusion; on space station, these forces have been harnessed for a wide variety of physical science applications (combustion, fluids, colloids, surface wetting, boiling, convection, materials processing, etc).

Other examples of observations in space include boiling in which bubbles do not rise, colloidal systems containing crystalline structures unlike any seen on Earth and spherical flames burning around fuel droplets. Also observed was a uniform dispersion of tin particles in a liquid melt, instead of rising to the top as would happen in Earth’s gravity. 

So what? By understanding the fundamentals of combustion and surface tension, we may make more efficient combustion engines; better portable medical diagnostics; stronger, lighter alloys; medicines with longer shelf-life, and buildings that are more resistant to earthquakes.

Findings from physical science research on station may improve the understanding of material properties. This information could potentially revolutionize development of new and improved products for use in everything from automobiles to airplanes to spacecraft.

For more information on space station research, follow @ISS_Research on Twitter!

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Finalists for a Future Mission to Explore the Solar System

We’ve selected two finalists for a robotic mission that is planned to launch in the mid-2020s! Following a competitive peer review process, these two concepts were chosen from 12 proposals that were submitted in April under a New Frontiers program announcement opportunity.

What are they?

In no particular order…

CAESAR

CAESAR, or the Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return mission seeks to return a sample from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko – the comet that was successfully explored by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft – to determine its origin and history.

This mission would acquire a sample from the nucleus of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko and return it safely to Earth. 

Comets are made up of materials from ancient stars, interstellar clouds and the birth of our solar system, so the CAESAR sample could reveal how these materials contributed to the early Earth, including the origins of the Earth's oceans, and of life.

Dragonfly

A drone-like rotorcraft would be sent to explore the prebiotic chemistry and habitability of dozens of sites on Saturn’s moon Titan – one of the so-called ocean worlds in our solar system.

Unique among these Ocean Worlds, Titan has a surface rich in organic compounds and diverse environments, including those where carbon and nitrogen have interacted with water and energy.

Dragonfly would be a dual-quadcopter lander that would take advantage of the environment on Titan to fly to multiple locations, some hundreds of miles apart, to sample materials and determine surface composition to investigate Titan's organic chemistry and habitability, monitor atmospheric and surface conditions, image landforms to investigate geological processes, and perform seismic studies.

What’s Next?

The CAESAR and Dragonfly missions will receive funding through the end of 2018 to further develop and mature the concepts. It is planned that from these, one investigation will be chosen in the spring of 2019 to continue into subsequent mission phases.

That mission would be the fourth mission in the New Frontiers portfolio, which conducts principal investigator (PI)-led planetary science missions under a development cost cap of approximately $850 million. Its predecessors are the New Horizons mission to Pluto and a Kuiper Belt object, the Juno mission to Jupiter and OSIRIS-REx, which will rendezvous with and return a sample of the asteroid Bennu. 

Key Technologies

We also announced that two mission concepts were chosen to receive technology development funds to prepare them for future mission opportunities.

The Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability (ELSAH) mission concept will receive funds to enable life detection measurements by developing cost-effective techniques to limit spacecraft contamination on cost-capped missions.

The Venus In situ Composition Investigations (VICI) mission concept will further develop the VEMCam instrument to operate under harsh conditions on Venus. The instrument uses lasers on a lander to measure the mineralogy and elemental composition of rocks on the surface of Venus.

The call for these mission concepts occurred in April and was limited to six mission themes: comet surface sample return, lunar south pole-Aitken Basin sample return, ocean worlds, Saturn probe, Trojan asteroid tour and rendezvous and Venus insitu explorer.

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Flawless. Gorgeous. Stellar. 

You probably think this post is about you. Well, it could be. 

In this image taken by our Hubble Space Telescope, we see a spiral galaxy with arms that widen as they whirl outward from its bright core, slowly fading into the emptiness of space. Click here to learn more about this beautiful galaxy that resides 70 million light-years away. 

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Ho Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

100th Anniversary of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

One hundred years ago this month, Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity (GR), one of the most important scientific achievements in the last century.

A key result of Einstein’s theory is that matter warps space-time, and thus a massive object can cause an observable bending of light from a background object. The first success of the theory was the observation, during a solar eclipse, that light from a distant background star was deflected by the predicted amount as it passed near the sun.

When Einstein developed the general theory of relativity, he was trying to improve our understanding of how the universe works. At the time, Newtonian gravity was more than sufficient for any practical gravity calculations. However, as often happens in physics, general relativity has applications that would not have been foreseen by Einstein or his contemporaries.

How many of us have used a smartphone to get directions? Or to tag our location on social media? Or to find a recommendation for a nearby restaurant? These activities depend on GPS. GPS uses radio signals from a network of satellites orbiting Earth at an altitude of 20,000 km to pinpoint the location of a GPS receiver. The accuracy of GPS positioning depends on precision in time measurements of billionths of a second. To achieve such timing precision, however, relativity must be taken into account.

Our Gravity Probe B (GP-B) mission has confirmed two key predictions derived from Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which the spacecraft was designed to test. The experiment, launched in 2004, and measured the warping of space and time around a gravitational body, and frame-dragging, the amount a spinning object pulls space and time with it as it rotates.

Scientists continue to look for cracks in the theory, testing general relativity predictions using laboratory experiments and astronomical observations. For the past century, Einstein’s theory of gravity has passed every hurdle.

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