Cosmic Piece Of Pi!

Do you guys (everyone at mission control) have inside jokes?

What is the best about being mission control?

As someone who's about to go to college to hopefully be astronaut if everything goes to plan. What is some good advice you wish someone told you?

Pluto the Small Dwarf Planet

Tired of singing the same holiday songs? Here’s a celestial take on the classic Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer that you can introduce to your friends and family.

(Three infrared wavelength ranges were placed into the three color channels (red, green and blue, respectively) to create this false color Christmas portrait.)

Sung to the tune of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Intro You know Mercury, Venus and Earth and Mars, too Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune But do you recall the most famous Solar System body of all

Verse 1 Pluto the small dwarf planet Has a very shiny glow And if you had discovered it Your name might be Clyde Tombaugh

Verse 2 All of the other planets  used to laugh and call him names They never let poor Pluto join in planetary games

Verse 3 Then one fateful summer eve New Horizons came to say “Pluto with your heart so bright Won’t you let me flyby tonight?”

Verse 4 Then all the planets loved him and they shouted out with glee, “NASA!” Pluto the small dwarf planet You’ll go down in history!

(repeat V3 and V4)

This song was written by Andres Almeida, a NASA employee, for a holiday office party. It’s a fun take on the classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, with a NASA spin. Enjoy!

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Making the Skies Safe for Unmanned Aircraft

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (commonly known as UAS or drones) are typically a smaller aircraft that fly without an onboard pilot. Currently used for research, testing, and aerial-visual purposes, these vehicles could one day carry cargo, or even passengers, through countryside and city landscapes.

UAS are a key component of our Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Aairspace Ssystem (UAS in the NAS) project. Our research will help develop the rules so that unmanned aircraft can safely coexist with manned aircraft in the national airspace.

We collaborate with private companies, like Navmar Applied Science Corporation (NASC), to research and test aerodynamically efficient UAS. We also work with government agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct research that will contribute to setting standards and certifications.

We are leading the nation to open a new era in air transportation called Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). AAM will enable safe, sustainable, affordable, and accessible aviation that moves people and cargo between places using a transformed air transportation system and revolutionary new aircraft.

With new cost-and-fuel efficient aircraft and technologies becoming available, UAS will provide substantial benefit to U.S. industry and the public. Such benefits include air-lifted organ transplant deliveries that arrive more quickly and safely than ever before; and search and rescue missions performed with increased speed and accuracy.

There are other benefits too, like pizza being air- dropped to your front door, and less package delivery trucks on the road. The burgeoning landscape of AAM holds many potentials – and it’s our job to help safely and sustainably map out and navigate what that future landscape looks like.

Want to learn the many ways that NASA is with you when you fly? Visit https://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics. Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Navigating Space by the Stars

A sextant is a tool for measuring the angular altitude of a star above the horizon and has helped guide sailors across oceans for centuries. It is now being tested aboard the International Space Station as a potential emergency navigation tool for guiding future spacecraft across the cosmos. The Sextant Navigation investigation will test the use of a hand-held sextant that utilizes star sighting in microgravity. 

Read more about how we’re testing this tool in space!  

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Ever want to ask a real life astronaut a question? Here's your chance!

Astronaut Jessica Meir will be taking your questions in an Answer Time session on Saturday, March 11 from 4:30-5:30pm ET/1:30-2:30pm PT here on NASA’s Tumblr. Make sure to ask your question now by visiting http://nasa.tumblr.com/ask!

Jessica Meir was selected to become an astronaut in 2013 and was part of NASA’s first astronaut class that was 50% female. She and her astronaut classmates are training to fly to space now and are involved in the future of our human exploration program. She’d like to be one of the first astronauts to set foot on Mars and pursue technological and scientific advances. 

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Brown University, a Master of Science in Space Studies from the International Space University, and a Doctorate in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD). In her research, the Caribou, Maine native studied the physiology of animals in extreme environments.  Follow Jessica on Twitter at @Astro_Jessica and follow NASA on Tumblr for your regular dose of space.

what has nasa and jpl learned from opportunity that has helped with developing this new project?

Five Ways the International Space Station’s National Lab Enables Commercial Research

A growing number of commercial partners use the International Space Station National Lab. With that growth, we will see more discoveries in fundamental and applied research that could improve life on the ground.

Space Station astronaut Kate Rubins was the first person to sequence DNA in microgravity.

Since 2011, when we engaged the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to manage the International Space Station (ISS) National Lab, CASIS has partnered with academic researchers, other government organizations, startups and major commercial companies to take advantage of the unique microgravity lab. Today, more than 50 percent of CASIS’ experiments on the station represent commercial research.

Here’s a look at five ways the ISS National Lab is enabling new opportunities for commercial research in space.

1. Supporting Commercial Life Sciences Research

One of the main areas of focus for us in the early origins of the space station program was life sciences, and it is still a major priority today. Studying the effects of microgravity on astronauts provides insight into human physiology, and how it evolves or erodes in space. CASIS took this knowledge and began robust outreach to the pharmaceutical community, which could now take advantage of the microgravity environment on the ISS National Lab to develop and enhance therapies for patients on Earth. Companies such as Merck, Eli Lilly & Company, and Novartis have sent several experiments to the station, including investigations aimed at studying diseases such as osteoporosis, and examining ways to enhance drug tablets for increased potency to help patients on Earth. These companies are trailblazers for many other life science companies that are looking at how the ISS National Lab can advance their research efforts.

2. Enabling Commercial Investigations in Material and Physical Sciences

Over the past few years, CASIS and the ISS National Lab also have seen a major push toward material and physical sciences research by companies interested in enhancing their products for consumers. Examples range from Proctor and Gamble’s investigation aimed at increasing the longevity of daily household products, to Milliken’s flame-retardant textile investigation to improve protective clothing for individuals in harm’s way, and companies looking to enhance materials for household appliances. Additionally, CASIS has been working with a variety of companies to improve remote sensing capabilities in order to better monitor our oceans, predict harmful algal blooms, and ultimately, to better understand our planet from a vantage point roughly 250 miles above Earth.

3. Supporting Startup Companies Interested in Microgravity Research 

CASIS has funded a variety of investigations with small startup companies (in particular through seed funding and grant funding from partnerships and funded solicitations) to leverage the ISS National Lab for both research and test-validation model experiments. CASIS and The Boeing Company recently partnered with MassChallenge, the largest startup accelerator in the world, to fund three startup companies to conduct microgravity research.

4. Enabling Validation of Low-Earth Orbit Business Models 

The ISS National Lab helps validate low-Earth orbit business models. Companies such as NanoRacks, Space Tango, Made In Space, Techshot, and Controlled Dynamics either have been funded by CASIS or have sent instruments to the ISS National Lab that the research community can use, and that open new channels for inquiry. This has allowed the companies that operate these facilities to validate their business models, while also building for the future beyond station.

5. Demonstrating the Commercial Value of Space-based Research

We have been a key partner in working with CASIS to demonstrate to American businesses the value of conducting research in space. Through outreach events such as our Destination Station, where representatives from the International Space Station Program Science Office and CASIS select cities with several major companies and meet with the companies to discuss how they could benefit from space-based research. Over the past few years, this outreach has proven to be a terrific example of building awareness on the benefits of microgravity research.

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Vice President Mike Pence visited our Kennedy Space Center in Florida today. While there, he delivered remarks to the workforce and toured our complex to see progress toward sending humans deeper into space, and eventually to Mars. He also had the opportunity to see our work with commercial companies to launch humans from U.S. soil to the International Space Station. 

Spread your cosmic wings 🦋

The Butterfly Nebula, created by a dying star, was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in this spectacular image. Observations were taken over a more complete spectrum of light, helping researchers better understand the “wings'' of gas bursting out from its center. The nebula’s dying central star has become exceptionally hot, shining ultraviolet light brightly over the butterfly’s wings and causing the gas to glow.

Learn more about Hubble’s celebration of Nebula November and see new nebula images, here.

You can also keep up with Hubble on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Flickr!

Image credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Kastner (RIT)

What's Made in a Thunderstorm and Faster Than Lightning? Gamma Rays!

A flash of lightning. A roll of thunder. These are normal stormy sights and sounds. But sometimes, up above the clouds, stranger things happen. Our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has spotted bursts of gamma rays - some of the highest-energy forms of light in the universe - coming from thunderstorms. Gamma rays are usually found coming from objects with crazy extreme physics like neutron stars and black holes. 

So why is Fermi seeing them come from thunderstorms?

Thunderstorms form when warm, damp air near the ground starts to rise and encounters colder air. As the warm air rises, moisture condenses into water droplets. The upward-moving water droplets bump into downward-moving ice crystals, stripping off electrons and creating a static charge in the cloud.

The top of the storm becomes positively charged, and the bottom becomes negatively charged, like two ends of a battery. Eventually the opposite charges build enough to overcome the insulating properties of the surrounding air - and zap! You get lightning.

Scientists suspect that lightning reconfigures the cloud's electrical field. In some cases this allows electrons to rush toward the upper part of the storm at nearly the speed of light. That makes thunderstorms the most powerful natural particle accelerators on Earth!

When those electrons run into air molecules, they emit a terrestrial gamma-ray flash, which means that thunderstorms are creating some of the highest energy forms of light in the universe. But that's not all - thunderstorms can also produce antimatter! Yep, you read that correctly! Sometimes, a gamma ray will run into an atom and produce an electron and a positron, which is an electron's antimatter opposite!

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope can spot terrestrial gamma-ray flashes within 500 miles of the location directly below the spacecraft. It does this using an instrument called the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor which is primarily used to watch for spectacular flashes of gamma rays coming from the universe.

There are an estimated 1,800 thunderstorms occurring on Earth at any given moment. Over the 10 years that Fermi has been in space, it has spotted about 5,000 terrestrial gamma-ray flashes. But scientists estimate that there are 1,000 of these flashes every day - we're just seeing the ones that are within 500 miles of Fermi's regular orbits, which don't cover the U.S. or Europe.

The map above shows all the flashes Fermi has seen since 2008. (Notice there's a blob missing over the lower part of South America. That's the South Atlantic Anomaly, a portion of the sky where radiation affects spacecraft and causes data glitches.)

Fermi has also spotted terrestrial gamma-ray flashes coming from individual tropical weather systems. The most productive system we've seen was Tropical Storm Julio in 2014, which later became a hurricane. It produced four flashes in just 100 minutes!

Learn more about what Fermi's discovered about gamma rays over the last 10 years and how we're celebrating its accomplishments.

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