Latest Posts by nasa - Page 5

The Artemis I Mission: To the Moon and Back

The Artemis I mission was the first integrated test of the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and Exploration Ground Systems at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We’ll use these deep space exploration systems on future Artemis missions to send astronauts to the Moon and prepare for our next giant leap: sending the first humans to Mars.

Take a visual journey through the mission, starting from launch, to lunar orbit, to splashdown.

Liftoff

The SLS rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launched on Nov. 16, 2022, from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The world’s most powerful rocket performed with precision, meeting or exceeding all expectations during its debut launch on Artemis I.

"This is Your Moment"

Following the successful launch of Artemis I, Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson congratulates the launch team.

“The harder the climb, the better the view,” she said. “We showed the space coast tonight what a beautiful view it is.”

That's Us

On Orion’s first day of flight, a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays captured this image of Earth.

Inside Orion

On the third day of the mission, Artemis I engineers activated the Callisto payload, a technology demonstration developed by Lockheed Martin, Amazon, and Cisco that tested a digital voice assistant and video conferencing capabilities in a deep space environment. In the image, Commander Moonikin Campos occupies the commander’s seat inside the spacecraft. The Moonikin is wearing an Orion Crew Survival System suit, the same spacesuit that Artemis astronauts will use during launch, entry, and other dynamic phases of their missions. Campos is also equipped with sensors that recorded acceleration and vibration data throughout the mission that will help NASA protect astronauts during Artemis II. The Moonikin was one of three “passengers” that flew aboard Orion. Two female-bodied model human torsos, called phantoms, were aboard. Zohar and Helga, named by the Israel Space Agency (ISA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) respectively, supported the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE), an experiment to provide data on radiation levels during lunar missions. Snoopy, wearing a mock orange spacesuit, also can be seen floating in the background. The character served as the zero-gravity indicator during the mission, providing a visual signifier that Orion is in space.

Far Side of the Moon

A portion of the far side of the Moon looms large in this image taken by a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays on the sixth day of the mission.

First Close Approach

The Orion spacecraft captured some of the closest photos of the Moon from a spacecraft built for humans since the Apollo era — about 80 miles (128 km) above the lunar surface. This photo was taken using Orion’s optical navigational system, which captures black-and-white images of the Earth and Moon in different phases and distances.

Distant Retrograde Orbit

Orion entered a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon almost two weeks into the mission. The orbit is “distant” in the sense that it’s at a high altitude approximately 50,000 miles (80,467 km) from the surface of the Moon. Orion broke the record for farthest distance of a spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and safely return them to Earth, reaching a maximum distance of 268,563 miles (432,210 km).

Second Close Approach

On the 20th day of the mission, the spacecraft made its second and final close approach to the Moon flying 79.2 miles (127.5 km) above the lunar surface to harness the Moon’s gravity and accelerate for the journey back to Earth.

Cameras mounted on the crew module of the Orion spacecraft captured these views of the Moon’s surface before its return powered flyby burn.

Heading Home

After passing behind the far side of the Moon on Flight Day 20, Orion powered a flyby burn that lasted approximately 3 minutes and 27 seconds to head home. Shortly after the burn was complete, the Orion spacecraft captured these views of the Moon and Earth, which appears as a distant crescent.

Parachutes Deployed

Prior to entering the Earth’s atmosphere, Orion’s crew module separated from its service module, which is the propulsive powerhouse provided by ESA (European Space Agency). During re-entry, Orion endured temperatures about half as hot as the surface of the Sun at about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). Within about 20 minutes, Orion slowed from nearly 25,000 mph (40,236 kph) to about 20 mph (32 kph) for its parachute-assisted splashdown.

Splashdown

On Dec. 11, the Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California after traveling 1.4 million miles (2.3 million km) over a total of 25.5 days in space. Teams are in the process of returning Orion to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once at Kennedy, teams will open the hatch and unload several payloads, including Commander Moonikin Campos, the space biology experiments, Snoopy, and the official flight kit. Next, the capsule and its heat shield will undergo testing and analysis over the course of several months.

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5 Ways Studying Water Will Help Us Better Understand Earth

Studying our home planet is just as powerful as exploring what’s beyond it.

Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) is a joint mission developed by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency and the UK Space Agency. It will track water on more than 90% of Earth’s surface and help communities, scientists, and researchers better understand this finite and vital resource. And it’s launching this month!

So how will SWOT help us better understand Earth? Here are 5 ways.

SWOT will address some of the most pressing climate change questions of our time.

An important part of predicting our future climate is determining at what point Earth’s ocean water slows down its absorption of the excess heat in the atmosphere and starts releasing that heat back into the air, where it could accelerate global warming. SWOT will provide crucial information about this global heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, enabling researchers to test and improve future climate forecasts.

The satellite will also offer insights to improve computer models for sea level rise projections and coastal flood forecasting.

Data from SWOT will additionally help scientists, engineers, water managers, and others better monitor drought conditions in lakes and reservoirs and improve flood forecasts for rivers.

SWOT is the first satellite mission that will observe nearly all water on the planet’s surface.

SWOT will measure the height of water in Earth’s lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and the ocean, giving scientists the ability to track the movement of water around the world.

SWOT’s eye in the sky will provide a truly global view of the water on more than 90% of Earth’s surface, enriching humankind’s understanding of how the ocean reacts to and influences climate change along with what potential hazards – including floods – lie ahead in different regions of the world.

SWOT will see Earth’s water in higher definition than ever before.

Because everything is better in HD 😉, SWOT will view Earth’s ocean and freshwater bodies with unprecedented clarity compared to other satellites, much like a high-definition television delivers a picture far more detailed than older models. This means that SWOT will be able to “see” ocean features – like fronts and eddies – that are too small for current space-based instruments to detect. Those measurements will help improve researchers’ understanding of the ocean’s role in climate change.

Not only will the satellite show where – and how fast – sea level is rising, it will also reveal how coastlines around the world are changing. It will provide similar high-definition clarity for Earth’s lakes, rivers, and reservoirs, many of which remain a mystery to researchers, who aren’t able to outfit every water body with monitoring instruments.

SWOT data will be used to help make decisions about our daily lives and livelihoods.

As climate change accelerates the water cycle, more communities around the world will be inundated with water while others won’t have enough. SWOT data will be used to monitor drought conditions and improve flood forecasts, providing essential information to water management agencies, disaster preparedness agencies, universities, civil engineers, and others who need to track water in their local areas. SWOT data also will help industries, like shipping, by providing measurements of water levels along rivers, as well as ocean conditions, including tides, currents, and storm surges.

Finally … SWOT will pave the way for future Earth missions.

With its innovative technology and commitment to engaging a diverse community of people who plan to use data from the mission, SWOT is blazing a trail for future Earth-observing missions. SWOT’s data and the tools to support researchers in analyzing the information will be free and accessible. This will help to foster research and applications activities by a wide range of users, including scientists, resource managers, and others who in the past may not have had the opportunity to access this kind of information. Lessons learned from SWOT will lead to new questions and improvements for future missions, including our upcoming Earth System Observatory, a constellation of missions focused on studying key aspects of our home planet.

Keep track of the mission here. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

12 Great Gifts from Astronomy

This is a season where our thoughts turn to others and many exchange gifts with friends and family. For astronomers, our universe is the gift that keeps on giving. We’ve learned so much about it, but every question we answer leads to new things we want to know. Stars, galaxies, planets, black holes … there are endless wonders to study.

In honor of this time of year, let’s count our way through some of our favorite gifts from astronomy.

Our first astronomical gift is … one planet Earth

So far, there is only one planet that we’ve found that has everything needed to support life as we know it — Earth. Even though we’ve discovered over 5,200 planets outside our solar system, none are quite like home. But the search continues with the help of missions like our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). And even you (yes, you!) can help in the search with citizen science programs like Planet Hunters TESS and Backyard Worlds.

Our second astronomical gift is … two giant bubbles

Astronomers found out that our Milky Way galaxy is blowing bubbles — two of them! Each bubble is about 25,000 light-years tall and glows in gamma rays. Scientists using data from our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope discovered these structures in 2010, and we're still learning about them.

Our third astronomical gift is … three types of black holes

Most black holes fit into two size categories: stellar-mass goes up to hundreds of Suns, and supermassive starts at hundreds of thousands of Suns. But what happens between those two? Where are the midsize ones? With the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, scientists found the best evidence yet for that third, in between type that we call intermediate-mass black holes. The masses of these black holes should range from around a hundred to hundreds of thousands of times the Sun’s mass. The hunt continues for these elusive black holes.

Our fourth and fifth astronomical gifts are … Stephan’s Quintet

When looking at this stunning image of Stephan’s Quintet from our James Webb Space Telescope, it seems like five galaxies are hanging around one another — but did you know that one of the galaxies is much closer than the others? Four of the five galaxies are hanging out together about 290 million light-years away, but the fifth and leftmost galaxy in the image below — called NGC 7320 — is actually closer to Earth at just 40 million light-years away.

Our sixth astronomical gift is … an eclipsing six-star system

Astronomers found a six-star system where all of the stars undergo eclipses, using data from our TESS mission, a supercomputer, and automated eclipse-identifying software. The system, called TYC 7037-89-1, is located 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus and the first of its kind we’ve found.

Our seventh astronomical gift is … seven Earth-sized planets

In 2017, our now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope helped find seven Earth-size planets around TRAPPIST-1. It remains the largest batch of Earth-size worlds found around a single star and the most rocky planets found in one star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on a planet’s surface.

Further research has helped us understand the planets’ densities, atmospheres, and more!

Our eighth astronomical gift is … an (almost) eight-foot mirror

The primary mirror on our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is approximately eight feet in diameter, similar to our Hubble Space Telescope. But Roman can survey large regions of the sky over 1,000 times faster, allowing it to hunt for thousands of exoplanets and measure light from a billion galaxies.

Our ninth astronomical gift is … a kilonova nine days later

In 2017, the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and European Gravitational Observatory’s Virgo detected gravitational waves from a pair of colliding neutron stars. Less than two seconds later, our telescopes detected a burst of gamma rays from the same event. It was the first time light and gravitational waves were seen from the same cosmic source. But then nine days later, astronomers saw X-ray light produced in jets in the collision’s aftermath. This later emission is called a kilonova, and it helped astronomers understand what the slower-moving material is made of.

Our tenth astronomical gift is … NuSTAR’s ten-meter-long mast

Our NuSTAR X-ray observatory is the first space telescope able to focus on high-energy X-rays. Its ten-meter-long (33 foot) mast, which deployed shortly after launch, puts NuSTAR’s detectors at the perfect distance from its reflective optics to focus X-rays. NuSTAR recently celebrated 10 years since its launch in 2012.

Our eleventh astronomical gift is … eleven days of observations

How long did our Hubble Space Telescope stare at a seemingly empty patch of sky to discover it was full of thousands of faint galaxies? More than 11 days of observations came together to capture this amazing image — that’s about 1 million seconds spread over 400 orbits around Earth!

Our twelfth astronomical gift is … a twelve-kilometer radius

Pulsars are collapsed stellar cores that pack the mass of our Sun into a whirling city-sized ball, compressing matter to its limits. Our NICER telescope aboard the International Space Station helped us precisely measure one called J0030 and found it had a radius of about twelve kilometers — roughly the size of Chicago! This discovery has expanded our understanding of pulsars with the most precise and reliable size measurements of any to date.

Stay tuned to NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with what’s going on in the cosmos every day. You can learn more about the universe here.

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50 Years Ago: Apollo 17

Not long after midnight on Dec. 7, 1972, the last crewed mission to the Moon, Apollo 17, lifted off with three astronauts: Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, and Ronald Evans.

Experience the Apollo 17 launch and follow the mission in real time.

Meet the Crew

Let’s meet the astronauts who made the final Apollo trip to the Moon, including the first scientist-astronaut.

Gene Cernan: In 1972, Apollo 17 Mission Commander Eugene A. Cernan had two space flights under his belt, Gemini 9 in June 1966, and Apollo 10 in May 1969. He was a naval aviator, electrical and aeronautical engineer and fighter pilot.

Ron Evans: Apollo 17 Command Module Pilot Ronald E. Evans was selected as a member of the 4th group of NASA astronauts in 1966. Like Cernan, he was an electrical and aeronautical engineer, and naval aviator before his assignment to the Apollo 17 crew.

Harrison (Jack) Schmitt: Lunar Module Pilot Dr. Harrison (Jack) Schmitt joined NASA as a member of the first group of scientist-astronauts in 1965. Before working for NASA, Schmitt was a geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Center. He was on the backup crew for Apollo 15 before being selected for the prime crew of Apollo 17. He became the first of the scientist-astronauts to go to space and the 12th human to walk on the Moon.

The Blue Marble

“The Blue Marble,” one of the most reproduced images in history, was taken 50 years ago on Dec. 7, 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew as they made their way to the Moon.

Bag of Soup, Anyone?

NASA astronauts have an array of menu items to stay well fed and hydrated on missions. For Apollo 17, the menus allocated around 2,500 calories per day for each astronaut. They included:

Bacon Squares

Peanut Butter Sandwiches

Frankfurters

Lobster Bisque

Like anything going to space, weight and containment matter. That's why the Apollo 17 menu included plenty of soups and puddings.

Synchronicity

On Dec. 11, 2022,  the Artemis I mission will be splashing down on Earth after its 25.5-day mission. At 2:55 p.m. 50 years prior, the Apollo 17 lunar module (LM) landed on the Moon, with Commander Gene Cernan and LM Pilot Harrison Schmitt on board. Ron Evans remained in the Command and Service Module (CSM) orbiting the Moon.

Experience the landing.

Planting the Flag

One of the first tasks the Apollo 17 crew did on their first moonwalk was to plant the American flag. There’s no wind on the Moon, but that doesn’t mean the flag has to droop. Did you know that a horizontal rod with a latch makes the flag appear to be flying in the wind? Gene Cernan carefully composed this photo to get Schmitt, the flag, and the Earth in a single shot.

So, is the flag still there? Images of the Apollo 17 landing site from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera show that in 2011 the flag was still standing and casting a shadow!

Moon Buggy

During Apollo 17, the Lunar Rover Vehicle (LRV), nicknamed the Moon buggy, logged the farthest distance from the Lunar Module of any Apollo mission, about 4.7 miles (7.5 km). 

As a precaution, the LRV had a walk-back limit in the event of an issue; astronauts had to have enough resources to walk back to the lunar module if need be.

Grab the Duct Tape!

The right rear fender extension of the LRV (Moon buggy) was torn off, kicking up dust as the crew drove, reducing visibility. The crew made a resourceful repair using duct tape and maps.

For LRV fans, visiting an LRV driven on the Moon is a bit difficult since all three LRVs used on the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions were left on the Moon. But you can find an LRV used for training at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Read more about the LRV.

The Perils of Lunar Dust

After the first lunar EVA, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt reported that he suffered from “lunar hay fever” in reaction to the lunar dust. Unlike Earth’s dust particles which are rounded, Moon dust particles are sharp and abrasive, irritating astronaut eyes, nasal passages, and lungs.

Curious about how Moon dust feels and smells? Find out!

So What’s it Like?

After his return to Earth, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt (on the right) described his time on the Moon:

“Working on the Moon is a lot of fun. It’s like walking around on a giant trampoline all the time and you’re just as strong as you were here on Earth, but you don’t weigh as much.”

Splashdown! 

After 12 days and 14 hours in space, the Apollo 17 astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 2:25 p.m. EST on Dec. 19, 1972. It was the longest of all the Apollo missions, with the most photos taken. A recovery team was waiting on the USS Ticonderoga just 4 miles (6.4 km) away to pick up the astronauts, the lunar samples, and the Crew Module.

When Are We Going Back?

NASA’s Artemis Program has taken its first steps to sending humans back to the Moon with Artemis I, currently on its way back to Earth. The program plans to land humans, including the first women and person of color, on the Moon’s south polar region with its Artemis III mission, currently slated to launch in 2025.

Is aerospace history your cup of tea? Be sure to check out more from NASA’s past missions at www.nasa.gov/history.

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Say Hello to NGC 6441

Location: In the Scorpius constellation

Distance from Earth: About 44,000 light-years

Object type: Globular star cluster

Discovered by: James Dunlop in 1826

Each tiny point of light in this image is its own star - and there are more than a million of them! This stunning image captured by the Hubble Telescope depicts NGC 6441, a globular cluster that weighs about 1.6 million times the mass of our Sun. Globular clusters like NGC 6441 are groups of old stars held together by their mutual gravitational attraction, appearing nearly spherical in shape due to the density of stars that comprises them. This particular cluster is one of the most massive and luminous in our Milky Way Galaxy. It is also home to a planetary nebula and four pulsars (rotating neutron stars that emit beams of radiation at steady intervals, detected when the beams are aimed at Earth). 

Read more information about NGC 6441 here.

Right now, the Hubble Space Telescope is delving into its #StarrySights campaign! Find more star cluster content and spectacular new images by following along on Hubble’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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A Laboratory for Star Formation

Location: In the Carina spiral arm of our Milky Way Galaxy

Distance from Earth: About 20,000 light-years

Object type: Nebula and open star cluster

Discovered by: Sir John Herschel in 1834

Imaged here by the Hubble Space Telescope, NGC 3603 is a collection of thousands of large, hot stars, including some of the most massive stars known to us. Scientists categorize it as an “open cluster” because of its spread-out shape and low density of stars. Surrounding the bright star cluster are plumes of interstellar gas and dust, which comprise the nebula part of this cosmic object. New stars are formed from the gaseous material within these clouds! NGC 3603 holds stars at a variety of life stages, making it a laboratory for scientists to study star evolution and formation. Astronomers estimate that star formation in and around the cluster has been occurring for 10 to 20 million years.

Read more information about NGC 3603 here.

Right now, the Hubble Space Telescope is delving into its #StarrySights campaign! Find more star cluster content and breathtaking new images by following along on Hubble’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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Follow NASA’s Artemis I Moon Mission: Live Tracker, Latest Images, and Videos

On Nov. 16, 2022, the Artemis I mission officially began with the launch of the Orion spacecraft atop the Space Launch System rocket. The rocket and spacecraft lifted off from historic Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Now, the Orion spacecraft is about halfway through its journey around the Moon. Although the spacecraft is uncrewed, the Artemis I mission prepares us for future missions with astronauts, starting with Artemis II.

Stay up-to-date with the mission with the latest full-resolution images, mission updates, on-demand and live video.

Imagery:

Find full-resolution images from the Orion spacecraft as they are released here.

Launch imagery can be found here. When Orion splashes down in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11, the images will be available here, as well!

Videos:

This playlist contains informational videos, as well as upcoming and past live events, about Artemis I.

You can watch a livestream of the Artemis I mission here. (Just a note: the livestream may cut off during moments when the Orion team needs higher bandwidth for activities.)

Keep yourself updated on the upcoming broadcasts of Artemis milestones with the NASA TV schedule.

Trackers:

Our Artemis I Tracker uses live telemetry data streamed directly from Mission Control Center in Houston to show Orion position, attitude, solar array positions, and thruster firings throughout the mission.

“Eyes on the Solar System” shows Orion's position along the Artemis I trajectory and in relation to other NASA spacecraft and objects in the solar system.

“DSN Now” shows which antenna on Earth’s Deep Space Network is communicating with Orion.

Updates:

Read up on where Orion is and what’s next in the Artemis I mission with the Mission Blog.

Thank you so much for following with us on this historic mission. Go Artemis!

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We are going to the Moon!

At 1:47 a.m. EST on Nov. 16, 2022, our Orion spacecraft launched aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from historic Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a path to the Moon, officially beginning the Artemis I mission.

This mission is the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, the SLS rocket, and Kennedy ground systems. This is the very first time this rocket and spacecraft have flown together, and it’s the first of many Artemis missions to the Moon. Artemis I is uncrewed, but it lays the groundwork for increasingly complex missions that will land humans on the lunar surface, including the first woman and the first person of color to do so.

With Artemis, we will build a long-term human presence on the Moon and prepare humanity for future exploration plans to Mars and beyond.

See more photos of Artemis I on our Flickr.

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What Makes the Artemis Moon Mission NASA's Next Leap Forward?

When NASA astronauts return to the Moon through Artemis, they will benefit from decades of innovation, research, and technological advancements. We’ll establish long-term lunar science and exploration capabilities at the Moon and inspire a new generation of explorers—the Artemis Generation.

Meet the Space Launch System rocket, or SLS. This next-generation super heavy-lift rocket was designed to send astronauts and their cargo farther into deep space than any rocket we’ve ever built. During liftoff, SLS will produce 8.8 million pounds (4 million kg) of maximum thrust, 15 percent more than the Saturn V rocket.

SLS will launch the Orion spacecraft into deep space. Orion is the only spacecraft capable of human deep space flight and high-speed return to Earth from the vicinity of the Moon. More than just a crew module, Orion has a launch abort system to keep astronauts safe if an emergency happens during launch, and a European-built service module, which is the powerhouse that fuels and propels Orion and keeps astronauts alive with water, oxygen, power, and temperature control.

Orion and SLS will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with help from Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) teams. EGS operates the systems and facilities necessary to process and launch rockets and spacecraft during assembly, transport, launch, and recovery.

The knowledge we've gained while operating the International Space Station has opened new opportunities for long-term exploration of the Moon's surface. Gateway, a vital component of our Artemis plans, is a Moon-orbiting space station that will serve as a staging post for human expeditions to the lunar surface. Crewed and uncrewed landers that dock to Gateway will be able to transport crew, cargo, and scientific equipment to the surface.

Our astronauts will need a place to live and work on the lunar surface. Artemis Base Camp, our first-ever lunar science base, will include a habitat that can house multiple astronauts and a camper van-style vehicle to support long-distance missions across the Moon’s surface. Apollo astronauts could only stay on the lunar surface for a short while. But as the Artemis base camp evolves, the goal is to allow crew to stay at the lunar surface for up to two months at a time.

The Apollo Program gave humanity its first experience traveling to a foreign world. Now, America and the world are ready for the next era of space exploration. NASA plans to send the first woman and first person of color to the lunar surface and inspire the next generation of explorers.

Our next adventure starts when SLS and Orion roar off the launch pad with Artemis I. Together with commercial and international partners, NASA will establish a long-term presence on the Moon to prepare for missions to Mars. Everything we’ve learned, and everything we will discover, will prepare us to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.

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What is Artemis I?

On November 14, NASA is set to launch the uncrewed Artemis I flight test to the Moon and back. Artemis I is the first integrated flight test of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and Exploration Ground Systems at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. These are the same systems that will bring future Artemis astronauts to the Moon.

Standing 322 feet (98 meters) tall, the SLS rocket comprises of a core stage, an upper stage, two solid boosters, and four RS-25 engines. The SLS rocket is the most powerful rocket in the world, able to carry 59,500 pounds (27 metric tons) of payloads to deep space — more than any other vehicle. With its unprecedented power, SLS is the only rocket that can send the Orion spacecraft, astronauts, and cargo directly to the Moon on a single mission.

Before launch, Artemis I has some big help: the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC is the largest single-story building in the world. The VAB was constructed for the assembly of the Apollo/Saturn V Moon rocket, and this is where the SLS rocket is assembled, maintained, and integrated with the Orion spacecraft. 

The mobile launcher is used to assemble, process, and launch the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. The massive structure consists of a two-story base and a tower equipped with a number of connection lines to provide the rocket and spacecraft with power, communications, coolant, and fuel prior to launch.

Capable of carrying 18 million pounds (8.2 million kg) and the size of a baseball infield, crawler-transporter 2 will transport SLS and Orion the 4.2 miles (6.8 km) to Launch Pad 39B. This historic launch pad was where the Apollo 10 mission lifted off from on May 18, 1969, to rehearse the first Moon landing.

During the launch, SLS will generate around 8.8 million pounds (~4.0 million kg) of thrust, propelling the Orion spacecraft into Earth’s orbit. Then, Orion will perform a Trans Lunar Injection to begin the path to the Moon. The spacecraft will orbit the Moon, traveling 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the Moon — farther than any human-rated spacecraft has ever flown.

The Orion spacecraft is designed to carry astronauts on deep space missions farther than ever before. Orion contains the habitable volume of about two minivans, enough living space for four people for up to 21 days. Future astronauts will be able to prepare food, exercise, and yes, have a bathroom. Orion also has a launch abort system to keep astronauts safe if an emergency happens during launch, and a European-built service module that fuels and propels the spacecraft.

While the Artemis I flight test is uncrewed, the Orion spacecraft will not be empty: there will be three manikins aboard the vehicle. Commander Moonikin Campos will be sitting in the commander’s seat, collecting data on the vibrations and accelerations future astronauts will experience on the journey to the Moon. He is joined with two phantom torsos, Helga and Zohar, in a partnership with the German Aerospace Center and Israeli Space Agency to test a radiation protection vest.

A host of shoebox-sized satellites called CubeSats help enable science and technology experiments that could enhance our understanding of deep space travel and the Moon while providing critical information for future Artemis missions.

At the end of the four-week mission, the Orion spacecraft will return to Earth. Orion will travel at 25,000 mph (40,000 km per hour) before slowing down to 300 mph (480 km per hour) once it enters the Earth’s atmosphere. After the parachutes deploy, the spacecraft will glide in at approximately 20 mph (32 km per hour) before splashdown about 60 miles (100 km) off the coast of California. NASA’s recovery team and the U.S. Navy will retrieve the Orion spacecraft from the Pacific Ocean.

With the ultimate goal of establishing a long-term presence on the Moon, Artemis I is a critical step as NASA prepares to send humans to Mars and beyond.

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Boo! Did we get you? 🎃

This solar jack-o-lantern, captured by our Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in October 2014, gets its ghoulish grin from active regions on the Sun, which emit more light and energy than the surrounding dark areas. Active regions are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere.

The SDO has kept an unblinking eye on the Sun since 2010, recording phenomena like solar flares and coronal loops. It measures the Sun’s interior, atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output, helping us understand our nearest star.

Grab the high-resolution version here.

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Scary Space Stories to Tell in the Dark

The universe is full of dazzling sights, but there’s an eerie side of space, too. Nestled between the stars, shadowy figures lurk unseen. The entire galaxy could even be considered a graveyard, full of long-dead stars. And it’s not just the Milky Way – the whole universe is a bit like one giant haunted house! Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will illuminate all kinds of spine-chilling cosmic mysteries when it launches in 2027, but for now settle in for some true, scary space stories.

Flickering Lights

One of the first signs that things are about to get creepy in a scary movie is when the lights start to flicker. That happens all the time in space, too! But instead of being a sinister omen, it can help us find planets circling other stars.

Roman will stare toward the heart of our galaxy and watch to see when pairs of stars appear to align in the sky. When that happens, the nearer star – and orbiting planets – can lens light from the farther star, creating a brief brightening. That’s because every massive object warps the fabric of space-time, changing the path light takes when it passes close by. Roman could find around 1,000 planets using this technique, which is called microlensing.

The mission will also see little flickers when planets cross in front of their host star as they orbit and temporarily dim the light we receive from the star. Roman could find an additional 100,000 planets this way!

Galactic Ghosts

Roman is going to be one of the best ghost hunters in the galaxy! Since microlensing relies on an object’s gravity, not its light, it can find all kinds of invisible specters drifting through the Milky Way. That includes rogue planets, which roam the galaxy alone instead of orbiting a star…

…and solo stellar-mass black holes, which we can usually only find when they have a visible companion, like a star. Astronomers think there should be 100 million of these black holes in our galaxy.

Stellar Skeletons

Black holes aren’t the only dead stars hiding in the sky. When stars that aren’t quite massive enough to form black holes run out of fuel, they blast away their outer layers and become neutron stars. These stellar cores are the densest material we can directly observe. One sugar cube of neutron star material would weigh about 1 billion tons (or 1 trillion kilograms) on Earth! Roman will be able to detect when these extreme objects collide.

Smaller stars like our Sun have less dramatic fates. After they run out of fuel, they swell up and shrug off their outer layers until only a small, hot core called a white dwarf remains. Those outer layers may be recycled into later generations of stars and planets. Roman will explore regions where new stars are bursting to life, possibly containing the remnants of such dead stars.

Cosmic Cobwebs

If we zoom out far enough, the structure of space looks like a giant cobweb! The cosmic web is the large-scale backbone of the universe, made up mainly of a mysterious substance known as dark matter and laced with gas, upon which galaxies are built. Roman will find precise distances for more than 10 million galaxies to map the structure of the cosmos, helping astronomers figure out why the expansion of the universe is speeding up.

Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on Twitter and Facebook.

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Comin’ in Hot: Seven Things to Know About our New Heat Shield

What goes up, must come down, and from space, without burning up in an atmosphere. That’s why we’re pumped for the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator, or LOFTID. Launching on Nov. 1, 2022, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Joint Polar Orbiting Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2) mission, this technology demonstration marks the next step in advancing an innovative heat shield design that could one day be used to land heavy payloads – including humans – on Mars!

Here are seven things to know about this innovative re-entry system: 

1. LOFTID is the first-ever in-orbit test of this technology. 

Inflatable heat shields, called Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators (HIADs), have been in the works for more than a decade. In 2012, the third of the Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiments (IRVE) launched on a suborbital sounding rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility, demonstrating a 3-meter (10-foot) diameter inflatable heat shield.

But the LOFTID re-entry vehicle, at 19.7 feet (6 meters) in diameter, will be the largest blunt body aeroshell to ever go through atmospheric entry. Designed to withstand temperatures as high as 2900°F (1600°C), this first-ever in-orbit test of this technology will prove if it can successfully slow down large payloads – such as crewed spacecraft, robotic explorers, and rocket components – enabling them to survive the heat of re-entry at planetary destinations with an atmosphere.

2. You can find out how this tech works in real-time.  

LOFTID is unique in that all operations will happen within a few hours of launch. After the JPSS-2 satellite safely reaches orbit, the LOFTID vehicle will separate from the upper stage of the Atlas V rocket and begin re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. If all goes as planned, the technology will help the vehicle decelerate from hypersonic (more than 25 times faster than the speed of sound) down to subsonic flight, less than 609 miles per hour for a safe splash down and recovery from the Pacific Ocean. 

While in flight, engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center will receive location data every 20 seconds and onboard sensors and cameras will record more comprehensive data about the technology’s performance. You can get a behind-the-scenes look at Langley’s Flight Mission Support Center where the LOFTID project team will be monitoring the flight test at NASA.gov/live following the launch.

3. A lemon-sized capsule ejected into the Pacific Ocean will hold key flight data. 

The LOFTID re-entry vehicle will record both sensor and camera data during its flight. The data will include the temperatures and pressures experienced by the heat shield and will illustrate how well the technology performed during the demonstration.

Although the goal is to retrieve the LOFTID re-entry vehicle after it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, the team wanted a back-up option just in case they can’t recover it. Enter the tiny yellow package called an ejectable data module (EDM) which will also record flight data. The EDM will be released from the spacecraft at an altitude of about 50,000 feet. It will free fall into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii and should land within 10 miles of the spacecraft’s splash down location. A recovery team, that has practiced hide-and-seek of the EDM on land and sea, will use GPS to search an approximately 900-mile area of the Pacific Ocean to find their “lemon.”

4. This heat shield packs a punch. 

Although NASA has historically relied on rigid aeroshells, parachutes, and retro-propulsion (rockets) to decelerate people, vehicles, and hardware during entry, descent, and landing operations, a benefit of inflatable heat shields is that they take up less space in a rocket, allowing more room for other hardware or payloads. LOFTID’s aeroshell has been folded and tightly packed down to 4 by 1.5 feet for launch and stacked in the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket payload fairing.

5. LOFTID is dedicated in honor of one of its innovators.  

LOFTID was developed as a partnership with ULA and is dedicated to the memory of Bernard Kutter, ULA manager of advanced programs, who passed away in August 2020. Kutter was instrumental in advancing the inflatable heat shield design and developing the plan to test the system on an Atlas V rocket. He was an advocate for both space technology and expanding access to space. Kutter’s NASA and ULA counterparts agree that LOFTID is unlikely to have made it to space without his vision and passion.

6. LOFTID is made of tough stuff. 

Synthetic fibers make up the inflatable structure, braided into tubes that are, by weight, 10 times stronger than steel. The tubes are coiled so that they form the shape of a blunt cone when inflated. The thermal protection system that covers the inflatable structure can survive searing entry temperatures up to 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit. Researchers used the same heat-shielding materials to create a fire shelter prototype for firefighters battling forest fires.

7. You can make your own LOFTID Halloween costume! 

Still looking for an out-of-this world Halloween costume? With a few commonly found materials, like orange pool noodles and duct tape, you can create your own LOFTID costume. However, we make no promises of protecting or slowing you down from becoming the life of the party.

Follow @NASA_Technology for the latest updates on LOFTID. Don’t miss our live coverage leading up to launch from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The NASA Edge JPSS-2 Tower Rollback Show airs live on NASA TV and YouTube on Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 12 a.m. EDT, and NASA TV live launch coverage will begin at 4:45 a.m. EDT. 

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A Dusty Fingerprint in Space

A new image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals a remarkable cosmic sight: at least 17 concentric dust rings emanating from a pair of stars. Just 5,300 light-years from Earth, the star duo are collectively known as Wolf-Rayet 140. Each ring was created when the two stars came close together and their stellar winds (streams of gas they blow into space) collided so forcefully that some of the gas was compressed into dust. The stars' orbits bring them together about once every eight years, and forms a half-shell of dust that looks like a ring from our perspective. Like a cosmic fingerprint, the 17 rings reveal more than a century of stellar interactions—and the "fingerprint" belonging to Wolf-Rayet 140 may be equally unique. Other Wolf-Rayet stars produce dust, but no other pair are known to produce rings quite like Wolf-Rayet 140.

Learn more about Wolf-Rayet 140.

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Why Do X-Ray Mirrors Look So Unusual?

Does the object in this image look like a mirror? Maybe not, but that’s exactly what it is! To be more precise, it’s a set of mirrors that will be used on an X-ray telescope. But why does it look nothing like the mirrors you’re familiar with? To answer that, let’s first take a step back. Let’s talk telescopes.

How does a telescope work?

The basic function of a telescope is to gather and focus light to amplify the light’s source. Astronomers have used telescopes for centuries, and there are a few different designs. Today, most telescopes use curved mirrors that magnify and focus light from distant objects onto your eye, a camera, or some other instrument. The mirrors can be made from a variety of materials, including glass or metal.

Space telescopes like the James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes use large mirrors to focus light from some of the most distant objects in the sky. However, the mirrors must be tailored for the type and range of light the telescope is going to capture—and X-rays are especially hard to catch.

X-rays versus mirrors

X-rays tend to zip through most things. This is because X-rays have much smaller wavelengths than most other types of light. In fact, X-rays can be smaller than a single atom of almost every element. When an X-ray encounters some surfaces, it can pass right between the atoms!

Doctors use this property of X-rays to take pictures of what’s inside you. They use a beam of X-rays that mostly passes through skin and muscle but is largely blocked by denser materials, like bone. The shadow of what was blocked shows up on the film.

This tendency to pass through things includes most mirrors. If you shoot a beam of X-rays into a standard telescope, most of the light would go right through or be absorbed. The X-rays wouldn’t be focused by the mirror, and we wouldn’t be able to study them.

X-rays can bounce off a specially designed mirror, one turned on its side so that the incoming X-rays arrive almost parallel to the surface and glance off it. At this shallow angle, the space between atoms in the mirror's surface shrinks so much that X-rays can't sneak through. The light bounces off the mirror like a stone skipping on water. This type of mirror is called a grazing incidence mirror.

A metallic onion

Telescope mirrors curve so that all of the incoming light comes to the same place. Mirrors for most telescopes are based on the same 3D shape — a paraboloid. You might remember the parabola from your math classes as the cup-shaped curve. A paraboloid is a 3D version of that, spinning it around the axis, a little like the nose cone of a rocket. This turns out to be a great shape for focusing light at a point.

Mirrors for visible and infrared light and dishes for radio light use the “cup” portion of that paraboloid. For X-ray astronomy, we cut it a little differently to use the wall. Same shape, different piece. The mirrors for visible, infrared, ultraviolet, and radio telescopes look like a gently-curving cup. The X-ray mirror looks like a cylinder with very slightly angled walls.

The image below shows how different the mirrors look. On the left is one of the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s cylindrical mirrors. On the right you can see the gently curved round primary mirror for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy telescope.

If we use just one grazing incidence mirror in an X-ray telescope, there would be a big hole, as shown above (left). We’d miss a lot of X-rays! Instead, our mirror makers fill in that cylinder with layers and layers of mirrors, like an onion. Then we can collect more of the X-rays that enter the telescope, giving us more light to study.

Nested mirrors like this have been used in many X-ray telescopes. Above is a close-up of the mirrors for an upcoming observatory called the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM, pronounced “crism”), which is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)-led international collaboration between JAXA, NASA, and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The XRISM mirror assembly uses thin, gold-coated mirrors to make them super reflective to X-rays. Each of the two assemblies has 1,624 of these layers packed in them. And each layer is so smooth that the roughest spots rise no more than one millionth of a millimeter.

Why go to all this trouble to collect this elusive light? X-rays are a great way to study the hottest and most energetic areas of the universe! For example, at the centers of certain galaxies, there are black holes that heat up gas, producing all kinds of light. The X-rays can show us light emitted by material just before it falls in.

Stay tuned to NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the latest on XRISM and other X-ray observatories.

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NASA Photographers Share Their Favorite Photos of the SLS Moon Rocket

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is on the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and in final preparations for the Artemis I mission to the Moon. Now that our Moon rocket is almost ready for its debut flight, we wanted to take a look back at some of the most liked photographs of our SLS rocket coming together over the years.

We asked NASA photographers to share their favorite photos of the SLS rocket for Artemis I at different phases of testing, manufacturing, and assembly. Here are their stories behind the photos:

“On this day in March 2018, crews at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, transported the intertank structural test article off NASA’s Pegasus barge to the Load Test Annex test facility for qualification testing.” —Emmett Given, photographer, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

“This is the liquid oxygen tank structural test article as it was moved from the Pegasus barge to the West Test Area at our Marshall Space Flight Center on July 9, 2019. The tank, which is structurally identical to its flight version, was subsequently placed in the test stand for structural testing several days later. I remember it being a blazing hot day!” —Fred Deaton, photographer, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

“The large components of the SLS rocket’s core stage can make you forget that there are many hands-on tasks required to assemble a rocket, too. During the mating of the liquid hydrogen tank to the forward section of the rocket’s 212-foot-tall core stage in May 2019, technicians fastened 360 bolts to the circumference of the rocket. Images like this remind me of all the small parts that have to be installed with care, expertise, and precision to create one huge Moon rocket. Getting in close to capture the teammates that work tirelessly to make Artemis a success is one of the best parts of my job.” —Eric Bordelon, photographer, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility

“An incredible amount of precision goes into building a rocket, including making sure that each of our SLS rocket’s four RS-25 engines is aligned and integrated into the core stage correctly. In this image from October 2019, I attempted to illustrate the teamwork and communication happening as technicians at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans do their part to help land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon through the Artemis missions. It’s rare to see the inside of a rocket – not as much for the NASA and Boeing engineers who manufacture and assemble a rocket stage!” —Jared Lyons, photographer, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility

“When the fully assembled and completed core stage left the Michoud factory in January 2020, employees took a “family photo” to mark the moment. Crews transported the flight hardware to NASA’s Pegasus barge on Jan. 8 in preparation for the core stage Green Run test series at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. When I look at this photo, I am reminded of all of the hard work and countless hours the Michoud team put forth to build this next-generation Moon rocket. I am honored to be part of this family and to photograph historic moments like this for the Artemis program.” —Steven Seipel, MAF multimedia team lead, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility

“This photo shows workers at Stennis prepare to lift the SLS core stage into the B-2 Test Stand for the SLS Green Run test series in the early morning hours of Jan. 22, 2020. I started shooting the lift operation around midnight. During a break in the action at about 5:30 a.m., I was driving my government vehicle to the SSC gas station to fuel up, when I saw the first light breaking in the East and knew it was going to be a nice sunrise. I turned around and hurried back to the test stand, sweating that I might run out of gas. Luckily, I didn’t run out and was lucky enough to catch a beautiful Mississippi sunrise in the background, too.” —Danny Nowlin, photographer, NASA’s Stennis Space Center

“I like the symmetry in the video as it pushes toward the launch vehicle stage adapter. Teams at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, loaded the cone-shaped piece of flight hardware onto our Pegasus barge in July 2020 for delivery to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The one-point perspective puts the launch vehicle stage adapter at the center of attention, but, if you pay attention to the edges, you can see people working. It gives a sense of scale. This was the first time I got to walk around Pegasus and meet the crew that transport the deep space rocket hardware, too.” —Sam Lott, videographer, SLS Program at Marshall Space Flight Center

“This was my first time photographing a test at our Stennis Space Center, and I wasn't sure what to expect. I have photographed big events like professional football games, but I wasn't prepared for the awesome power unleashed by the Space Launch System’s core stage and four RS-25 engines during the Green Run hot fire test. Watching the sound wave ripple across the tall grass toward us, feeling the shock wave of ignition throughout my whole body, seeing the smoke curling up into the blue sky with rainbows hanging from the plume; all of it was as unforgettable as watching a football player hoist a trophy into the air.” —Michael DeMocker, photographer, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility

“When our SLS Moon rocket launches the agency’s Artemis I mission to the Moon, 10 CubeSats, or small satellites, are hitching a ride inside the rocket’s Orion stage adapter (OSA). BioSentinel is one of those CubeSats. BioSentinel’s microfluidics card, designed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, will be used to study the impact of interplanetary space radiation on yeast. To me, this photo is a great combination of the scientific importance of Artemis I and the human touch of more than 100 engineers and scientists who have dedicated themselves to the mission over the years.” —Dominic Hart, photographer, NASA’s Ames Research Center

“I was in the employee viewing area at Kennedy when the integrated SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft was rolled out to the launchpad for its wet dress rehearsal in March 2022. I really like this photo because the sun is shining on Artemis I like a spotlight. The giant doors of the Vehicle Assembly Building are the red curtain that opened up the stage -- and the spotlight is striking the SLS because it’s the star of the show making its way to the launchpad. I remember thinking how cool that NASA Worm logo looked as well, so I wanted to capture that. It was so big that I had to turn my camera sideways because the lens I had wasn’t big enough to capture the whole thing.” —Brandon Hancock, videographer, SLS Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

“I made this image while SLS and Orion atop the mobile launcher were nearing the end of their four-mile trek to the pad on crawler-transporter 2 ahead of launch. Small groups of employees were filtering in and out of the parking lot by the pad gate to take in the sight of the rocket’s arrival. The “We Are Going!” banner affixed to the gate in the foreground bears the handwritten names of agency employees and contractors who have worked to get the rocket and spacecraft ready for the Artemis I flight test. As we enter the final days before launch, I am proud to have made my small contribution to documenting the historic rollout for this launch to the Moon.” —Joel Kowsky, photographer, NASA Headquarters

More Photo-worthy Moments to Come!

NASA photographers will be on the ground covering the Artemis I launch. As they do, we’ll continue to share their photos on our official NASA channels.

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NASA Photographers Share Their #NASAMoonSnap

We’re getting ready to launch Artemis I, the first test flight of the rocket and spacecraft that will take future astronauts to the Moon! As we prepare for the lunar voyage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft launching as early as Aug. 29, 2022, we would like you to share your excitement with us. Share all types of Moon-inspired content with us with the hashtag #NASAMoonSnap, and we will choose some entries to share on our social media platforms and during the launch broadcast. Get creative! We’re looking for Moon paintings, Moon poetry, Moon pottery, Moon latte foam art — the sky is not the limit.

Since we have the full Moon coming up on Aug. 11, we wanted to share our handy dandy Moon photography guide and inspire you with some of our NASA imagery experts’ stories on capturing the Moon.

"The first rollout of the SLS rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard was a really exciting moment to capture. I was photographing at Kennedy Space Center in an area where many of the employees that had worked on different parts of the SLS were watching. It was so great to hear some of their stories and see their pride in helping to build this amazing rocket and spacecraft. Once the mobile launcher with SLS passed the crowds to head toward the launchpad, people began to line up in their cars to leave. I decided to stick around and try to get a closer image of the Moon with SLS. It was fairly dark by the time I made this image, so there isn’t any detail in the moon, but it’s still moving to see them next to one another and know that SLS will be closer to the Moon than Earth very soon, and will one day enable humans to land on the lunar surface again!" — Aubrey Gemignani, NASA contract Photo Archivist/Photographer, NASA Headquarters

“I set up this shot when I saw the Moon was lined up perfectly with the X-1E in front of the main entrance to Armstrong Flight Research Center one morning last year. What captured my eye about this scene was that it showcased the past and the future of NASA in one image. The X-1 was a key piece of early NACA/NASA history, and it is pointing to the Moon showing us where we are going next with Artemis. I still remember walking around on my first day at NASA and seeing all the places where history was made. I was in awe as I walked these hallowed grounds. I know that there is still a great deal of history to be written here as we strive to go higher, further and faster and I’m glad that I get to be here to document it.” — Joshua Fisher, Photographer, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center

“While out capturing images of the Moon, the memories of my first day as a photographer for NASA came flooding back. One of my first memories is going to the exhibits department and getting to hold an actual Moon rock sample. That day changed my perception of the Moon forever. That moment made the Moon more than just something in the sky. It became tangible and real, and my part in all of this became clear. The honor and privilege I feel everyday is overwhelming.” — Jef Janis, Still Imaging Specialist, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

“When I can, I like my Moon photos to have a sense of place. The trick is finding a shooting position and a landmark that will fit in with the Moon’s very stringent plans for rising. I went out to shoot the Sturgeon Moon, which was also a rare blue moon, last August. As I was shooting the moonrise from the riverbank in downtown New Orleans, I was lucky to have one of the city’s iconic riverboats turn a bend and head upriver to pass beneath the Moon. Happily the river was low and I was able to scramble down the high bank to reduce the vertical distance between the quickly rising moon and the slowly passing riverboat.” — Michael DeMocker, Photographer, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility

“I was excited to try to capture a waning crescent Moon at dawn, even though it was late February, 20 degrees Fahrenheit and 6:30 in the morning…Nonetheless, I decided to photograph on-site at Lewis Field, and ended up using my telephoto lens to really zoom in on the Moon. In a race against the sunrise and the Moon disappearing, I was able to capture a cool shot of the Moon with a couple planes making an appearance as well (The Cleveland Hopkins Airport is right next door). Although is it me, or does one of the planes look like a rocket taking off…?” — Jordan Salkin, Scientific Imaging Specialist, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

“I have worked at NASA’s Glenn Research Center since 1990 and have enjoyed every second doing what I do to support NASA’s mission. On my first day back to work onsite after 22 months of telework I saw this beautiful sunrise with the snow, the Moon, and the hangar. It felt good to be at work seeing the landscape I was so used to seeing. I had to take these pictures to share with my colleagues. ” — Jeffrey F. Abbott, Media Support Specialist, NASA’s Glenn Research Center 

“In creating this Moon image, I almost felt pressured to find the ‘perfect location.’ The more that I thought about that prospect, the more I was drawn to using only natural elements, in my own environment. I wanted to find an image in my own backyard. This image was captured just as the Sun dropped below the horizon. I had a very short window of time when these colors would be possible. Two minutes earlier or later would have produced a totally different image. The almost abstract lines of a Maple tree in the earliest stages of budding seemed to be in concert with the waxing crescent Moon, both preparing for full bloom. Nature on display in its simplicity.” — Marvin Smith, Still Imaging Specialist Lead, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

“The lighthouse in Lorain, Ohio, has been photographed by amateur and professional photographers for decades, but I have never photographed it before. When I calculated that the path of the Moon was going to go over and past the lighthouse with a reflection over the water, I decided to give it a try. I encountered four other photographers on the same pier with me that early morning. They were huddled in the middle of the pier and I was at the end. I think I got the best photo.” — Quentin Schwinn, Scientific Photographer, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

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“It’s Summer Camp for Aviation Geeks”: NASA Returns to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh

As a child fascinated with aviation, Michael Jorgensen, Public Affairs Specialist for the Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration project, attended EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (“Oshkosh” for short) multiple times. Now, he represents us there, sharing what we’ve been working on. Read on to see what going to Oshkosh is like as Michael takes us on a tour—and join us next time!

MICHAEL:

Every year, Wittman Regional Airport in the town of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, swells from 67,000 to 600,000 people, becoming a hotspot for aviation in the United States. The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) began AirVenture in 1953 and is a ‘Must Do’ for any aviation geek.

My story with EAA AirVenture began in the late 1990s. As a fan of everything aviation, and having grown up near Chicago, Oshkosh was always on my radar – and I attended several times while I was growing up.

Michael recreates a childhood image from EAA AirVenture 1998 at EAA AirVenture 2022. Credit: Michael Jorgensen

Coming back to the airport grounds this week, all my childhood memories came flooding back: the noises, the planes, the smells, and the pure excitement. As a kid, I could only dream of working for NASA, never imagining it would come true almost 25 years later.

The airport traffic control tower at Wittman Regional Airport at EAA AirVenture 2022 in Oshkosh, WI. Credit: Michael Jorgensen

When driving in, you first see a lot of air traffic – ranging from hang gliders, to old warbirds, to stunt planes, to the newest military jets rumbling skyward. During the last full week in July, the airport control tower becomes the busiest one in the world, coordinating approximately 116 takeoffs/landings per hour throughout each day – almost 2 every minute! Last year saw more than 10,000 aircraft arrive at the airport. The excitement grows as you pull off the highway and are greeted by rows and rows of general aviation aircraft as far as the eye can see.

The airport field at Wittman Regional Airport, featuring general aviation aircraft and camping tents, at EAA AirVenture 2022 in Oshkosh, WI. Credit: Michael Jorgensen

The constant propeller buzz in the background and crackling of fighter jets overhead is noticeable as you walk through the airport grounds. What makes this sight even more unique is camping tents under the wings of each aircraft, stretching along the entire grounds of the airport. AirVenture truly is a summer camp for #AvGeeks.

Boeing Plaza, the central display area at AirVenture, featuring a C-5 Galaxy transport with its nose open, and a C-17 Globemaster III, at EAA AirVenture 2022 in Oshkosh, WI. Credit: Michael Jorgensen

The main tarmac at the airport is converted into Boeing Plaza, the central display area featuring the biggest and most exciting aircraft: C-17 Globetrotter III, SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Nighthawk, DC-3, and many, many more. One year, I even got to see the Concorde fly into and out of this teeny regional airport in the middle of Wisconsin.

There are countless opportunities to interact with the pilots and other aviation enthusiasts including sitting in cockpits, checking out the interiors and exteriors of various airplanes, and chances to fly in vintage aircraft including an original 1929 Ford Trimotor and a B-17 Flying Fortress from 1945. And, of course, no matter my age, I posed with anything and everything I found interesting, including a T-38 Talon stationed in front of the NASA pavilion and the inside of an ecoDemonstrator.

Michael sitting in the cockpit of Boeing’s 777-200ER ecoDemonstrator at EAA AirVenture 2022 in Oshkosh, WI. Credit: Michael Jorgensen

Inside the various hangars are hundreds of aviation vendors, exhibitors, and storefronts, ranging from avionics manufacturers to social clubs/societies, wooden model companies, and all the pilot accessories imaginable.

Michael standing in front of NASA’s SR22 aircraft at the NASA pavilion at EAA AirVenture 2022 in Oshkosh, WI. Credit: Michael Jorgensen

This year’s theme for the NASA pavilion was “Faces of Flight”. Throughout the week, we had meet-and-greets with leaders, researchers, engineers, and even an astronaut or two, hands-on educational experiences for guests of all ages, giveaways, and models of our aircraft, spacecraft, and more, including a model of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter and the Space Launch System rocket.

Aside from the events in the NASA pavilion, we participated in a number of panels like Women@NASA, where women leaders from the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate talked about NASA’s aviation research portfolio, activities taking places at NASA centers, and their personal experiences as leaders.

If you’re interested in the future of aviation—supersonic flight, advanced air mobility, and so much more—come see us at Oshkosh!

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Next Gen @ NASA: Celebrating National Intern Day

To celebrate National Intern Day, we asked interns to share how they got their internship and their perspective and advice to the next generation of prospective NASA interns.

Meet our interns and check out their suggestions for the next generation.

Sarah Kilpatrick, STDCE-2 Data Intern

Sarah is a summer Surface Tension Driven Convection Experiment Data Intern at NASA. Her inspiration for applying for an internship came from a passion for science from an early age. “I grew up in a family that liked, enjoyed and appreciated science and the fun of it all,” she recalls. “I grew up watching PBS, NOVA, and other science shows, so when I saw NASA had opportunities for students like me, I was very interested.” 

Sarah’s advice to the next generation of NASA interns is one of perseverance and resilience.

Nicholas Natsoulas, Attitude Control Engineering Intern

Nicholas is a summer Attitude Control Engineering Intern at NASA. He wants to contribute to scientific innovation and discovery. “Overall, what inspired me to apply and come to work here was to contribute to the scientific exploration of space while learning about unique perspectives and innovative space discoveries.”

Nicholas’s advice for prospective NASA interns is to make the most out of your time here and to be a curious and eager learner.

“Use all the resources that are at your center and ask questions about projects you are working on. Don’t be afraid to talk to your mentor about your plans for the future and ask for any advice you may need, as they are more than willing to help you during your time here,” says Nicholas.

Nicholas and his mentor, Brent Faller, are using software to inform design decisions on a variety of spacecraft.

Nylana Murphy, former Additive Manufacturing Engineering Intern

As an American Indian College Fund ambassador and a Navajo engineer, Nylana Murphy hopes her internship story will inspire others to pursue a career in aerospace.

After attending the American Indian Science Engineering Society Conference, Nylana secured an internship in the additive manufacturing research laboratory at NASA Marshall.

 “My internships have helped me get to where I am,” she says, “There is a career for everyone, where their dreams can become reality. Those dreams WILL become a reality.”

You might be wondering: what happens after a NASA internship Here’s what two of our former interns did.

Loral O’Hara, Astronaut, former intern

Lorel interned at NASA JPL in 2003, and at NASA Goddard in 2004. She earned science degrees from both the University of Kansas and Purdue University.

As a research and project engineer, O’Hara reported for duty in August 2017 and completed two years of training as an Astronaut Candidate. She is projected to fly in Soyuz missions as a NASA astronaut soon.

If she could go back in time, Loral says she would tell her younger self to enjoy the opportunities that come her way—and never stop looking for new ones. “Enjoy the whole journey of…figuring out what it is that you like to do and exploring all different kinds of things.”

Jeff Carlson, Assembly, Test, Launch Operations Engineer

The “7 Minutes of Terror” video piqued Jeff Carlson’s interest in working at JPL. He thought, "That's the coolest thing I've ever heard of. I've got to go be a part of that in some way." While interning at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he worked on Starshade, a sunflower-shaped device used to block starlight in order to reveal planets orbiting a star. Later, he went on to work on the team tasked with assembling and testing the “head” and “neck” (officially called the Remote Sensing Mast) for the Mars 2020 rover.

Want to join us in exploring the secrets of the universe? Visit intern.nasa.gov to learn more about open opportunities and requirements!

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Credits: Isabel Rodriguez, Glenn Research Center intern and Claire O'Shea, Johnson Space Center intern

Meet Our Superhero Space Telescopes!

While the first exoplanets—planets beyond our solar system—were discovered using ground-based telescopes, the view was blurry at best. Clouds, moisture, and jittering air molecules all got in the way, limiting what we could learn about these distant worlds.

A superhero team of space telescopes has been working tirelessly to discover exoplanets and unveil their secrets. Now, a new superhero has joined the team—the James Webb Space Telescope. What will it find? Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

To capture finer details—detecting atmospheres on small, rocky planets like Earth, for instance, to seek potential signs of habitability—astronomers knew they needed what we might call “superhero” space telescopes, each with its own special power to explore our universe. Over the past few decades, a team of now-legendary space telescopes answered the call: Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, Kepler, and TESS.

Much like scientists, space telescopes don't work alone. Hubble observes in visible light—with some special features (superpowers?)—Chandra has X-ray vision, and TESS discovers planets by looking for tiny dips in the brightness of stars.

Kepler and Spitzer are now retired, but we're still making discoveries in the space telescopes' data. Legends! All were used to tell us more about exoplanets. Spitzer saw beyond visible light into the infrared and was able to make exoplanet weather maps! Kepler discovered more than 3,000 exoplanets.

Three space telescopes studied one fascinating planet and told us different things. Hubble found that the atmosphere of HD 189733 b is a deep blue. Spitzer estimated its temperature at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (935 degrees Celsius). Chandra, measuring the planet’s transit using X-rays from its star, showed that the gas giant’s atmosphere is distended by evaporation.

Adding the James Webb Space Telescope to the superhero team will make our science stronger. Its infrared views in increased ranges will make the previously unseen visible.

Soon, Webb will usher in a new era in understanding exoplanets. What will Webb discover when it studies HD 189733 b? We can’t wait to find out! Super, indeed.

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Travel to Exotic Destinations in our Galaxy!

The planets beyond our solar system – exoplanets – are so far away, often trillions of miles, that we don’t have the technology to truly see them. Even the best photos show the planets as little more than bright dots. We’ve confirmed more than 5,000 exoplanets, but we think there are billions. Space telescopes like Hubble aren’t able to take photos of these far-off worlds, but by studying them in different wavelengths of light (colors), we’ve learned enough about conditions on these planets that we can illustrate them.

We know, thanks to the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope, that there is a thick atmosphere on a planet called 55 Cancri e about 40 light-years away. And Hubble found silicate vapor in the atmosphere of this rocky world. We also know it’s scorching-close to its Sun-like star, so … lava. Lots and lots of lava. This planet is just one of the many that the James Webb Space Telescope will soon study, telling us even more about the lava world!

You can take a guided tour of this planet (and others) and see 360-degree simulations at our new Exoplanet Travel Bureau.

Travel to the most exotic destinations in our galaxy, including:

Kepler-16b, a planet with two suns.

Then there’s PSO J318.5-22, a world with no sun that wanders the galaxy alone. The nightlife would never end on a planet without a star.

TRAPPIST-1e, which will also be studied by the Webb Space Telescope, is one of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a star about 40 light-years from Earth. It’s close enough that, if you were standing on this exoplanet, you could see our Sun as a star in the Leo constellation! You can also see it on the poster below: look for a yellow star to the right of the top person’s eye.

We haven’t found life beyond Earth (yet) but we’re looking. Meanwhile, we can imagine the possibility of red grass and other plants on Kepler-186f, a planet orbiting a red dwarf star.

We can also imagine what it might be like to skydive on a super-Earth about seven times more massive than our home planet. You would fall about 35% faster on a super-Earth like HD 40307g, making for a thrilling ride!

Any traveler is going to want to pick up souvenirs, and we have you covered. You can find free downloads of all the posters here and others! What are you waiting for? Come explore with us!

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Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

See the Universe in a New Way with the Webb Space Telescope's First Images

Are you ready to see unprecedented, detailed views of the universe from the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space observatory ever made? Scroll down to see the first full-color images and data from Webb. Unfold the universe with us. ✨

Carina Nebula

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars, called the Cosmic Cliffs, is the edge of the star-birthing Carina Nebula. Usually, the early phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but Webb can peer through cosmic dust—thanks to its extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging capability. Protostellar jets clearly shoot out from some of these young stars in this new image.

Southern Ring Nebula

The Southern Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula: it’s an expanding cloud of gas and dust surrounding a dying star. In this new image, the nebula’s second, dimmer star is brought into full view, as well as the gas and dust it’s throwing out around it. (The brighter star is in its own stage of stellar evolution and will probably eject its own planetary nebula in the future.) These kinds of details will help us better understand how stars evolve and transform their environments. Finally, you might notice points of light in the background. Those aren’t stars—they’re distant galaxies.

Stephan’s Quintet

Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies near each other, was discovered in 1877 and is best known for being prominently featured in the holiday classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” This new image brings the galaxy group from the silver screen to your screen in an enormous mosaic that is Webb’s largest image to date. The mosaic covers about one-fifth of the Moon’s diameter; it contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. Never-before-seen details are on display: sparkling clusters of millions of young stars, fresh star births, sweeping tails of gas, dust and stars, and huge shock waves paint a dramatic picture of galactic interactions.

WASP-96 b

WASP-96 b is a giant, mostly gas planet outside our solar system, discovered in 2014. Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) measured light from the WASP-96 system as the planet moved across the star. The light curve confirmed previous observations, but the transmission spectrum revealed new properties of the planet: an unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence of clouds in the atmosphere. This discovery marks a giant leap forward in the quest to find potentially habitable planets beyond Earth.

Webb's First Deep Field

This image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, looks 4.6 billion years into the past. Looking at infrared wavelengths beyond Hubble’s deepest fields, Webb’s sharp near-infrared view reveals thousands of galaxies—including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared—in the most detailed view of the early universe to date. We can now see tiny, faint structures we’ve never seen before, like star clusters and diffuse features and soon, we’ll begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions.

These images and data are just the beginning of what the observatory will find. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.

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Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

The Adventures of Commander Moonikin Campos

Artemis I will be an enormous step toward humanity’s return to the Moon. This mission will be the first flight test of the integrated Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft — the same system that will send future Artemis astronauts to the Moon. That’s why NASA needs someone capable to test the vehicle. Someone with the necessary experience. Someone with the Right Stuff. (Or... stuffing).

Meet Commander Moonikin Campos. He is a manikin, or a replica human body. Campos is named after Arturo Campos, a trailblazing NASA employee who worked on Apollo missions. Arturo Campos’ skill as an electrical engineer was pivotal in the rescue efforts to help guide the Apollo 13 astronauts home.

As the leader of the mission, Commander Campos will be flying in the pilot’s seat for the length of the mission: a journey of 1.3 million miles (~2 million km) around the Moon and back to Earth. He's spent years training for this mission and he loves a challenge. Campos will be equipped with two radiation sensors and will have additional sensors under his headrest and behind his seat to record acceleration and vibration data throughout the mission.

Traveling with Campos are his quirky companions, Zohar and Helga. They’re part of a special experiment to measure radiation outside of the protective bubble of Earth’s atmosphere. Together with their commander, they’re excited to play a role in humanity’s next great leap. (And hopefully they can last the entire flight without getting on each other's nerves.)

Will our brave explorers succeed on their mission and ensure the success of future Artemis operations? Can Commander Moonikin Campos live up to the legacy of his heroic namesake?? And did anyone remember to bring snacks??? Get the answers in this thrilling three-part series!

In the first part of Commander Moonikin Campos’ journey, our trailblazing hero prepares for liftoff from NASA’s spaceport at Kennedy Space Center  in Florida, gets acquainted with the new hardware aboard the Orion spacecraft, and meets his crewmates: Helga and Zohar!

In the second part of the trio’s adventure, Campos, Helga, and Zohar blast out of the Earth’s atmosphere with nearly 8.8 million pounds (4 million kg) of thrust powering their ascent. Next stop: the Moon!

In the final chapter of the Artemis I mission, Campos and friends prepare for their return home, including the last and most dangerous part of their journey: reentering Earth’s atmosphere at a screeching 25,000 miles per hour (40,000 kph).

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You Are Made of Stardust

Though the billions of people on Earth may come from different areas, we share a common heritage: we are all made of stardust! From the carbon in our DNA to the calcium in our bones, nearly all of the elements in our bodies were forged in the fiery hearts and death throes of stars.

The building blocks for humans, and even our planet, wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for stars. If we could rewind the universe back almost to the very beginning, we would just see a sea of hydrogen, helium, and a tiny bit of lithium.

The first generation of stars formed from this material. There’s so much heat and pressure in a star’s core that they can fuse atoms together, forming new elements. Our DNA is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. All those elements (except hydrogen, which has existed since shortly after the big bang) are made by stars and released into the cosmos when the stars die.

Each star comes with a limited fuel supply. When a medium-mass star runs out of fuel, it will swell up and shrug off its outer layers. Only a small, hot core called a white dwarf is left behind. The star’s cast-off debris includes elements like carbon and nitrogen. It expands out into the cosmos, possibly destined to be recycled into later generations of stars and planets. New life may be born from the ashes of stars.

Massive stars are doomed to a more violent fate. For most of their lives, stars are balanced between the outward pressure created by nuclear fusion and the inward pull of gravity. When a massive star runs out of fuel and its nuclear processes die down, it completely throws the star out of balance. The result? An explosion!

Supernova explosions create such intense conditions that even more elements can form. The oxygen we breathe and essential minerals like magnesium and potassium are flung into space by these supernovas.

Supernovas can also occur another way in binary, or double-star, systems. When a white dwarf steals material from its companion, it can throw everything off balance too and lead to another kind of cataclysmic supernova. Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will study these stellar explosions to figure out what’s speeding up the universe’s expansion. 

This kind of explosion creates calcium – the mineral we need most in our bodies – and trace minerals that we only need a little of, like zinc and manganese. It also produces iron, which is found in our blood and also makes up the bulk of our planet’s mass!

A supernova will either leave behind a black hole or a neutron star – the superdense core of an exploded star. When two neutron stars collide, it showers the cosmos in elements like silver, gold, iodine, uranium, and plutonium.

Some elements only come from stars indirectly. Cosmic rays are nuclei (the central parts of atoms) that have been boosted to high speed by the most energetic events in the universe. When they collide with atoms, the impact can break them apart, forming simpler elements. That’s how we get boron and beryllium – from breaking star-made atoms into smaller ones.

Half a dozen other elements are created by radioactive decay. Some elements are radioactive, which means their nuclei are unstable. They naturally break down to form simpler elements by emitting radiation and particles. That’s how we get elements like radium. The rest are made by humans in labs by slamming atoms of lighter elements together at super high speeds to form heavier ones. We can fuse together elements made by stars to create exotic, short-lived elements like seaborgium and einsteinium.

From some of the most cataclysmic events in the cosmos comes all of the beauty we see here on Earth. Life, and even our planet, wouldn’t have formed without them! But we still have lots of questions about these stellar factories. 

In 2006, our Stardust spacecraft returned to Earth containing tiny particles of interstellar dust that originated in distant stars, light-years away – the first star dust to ever be collected from space and returned for study. You can help us identify and study the composition of these tiny, elusive particles through our Stardust@Home Citizen Science project.

Our upcoming Roman Space Telescope will help us learn more about how elements were created and distributed throughout galaxies, all while exploring many other cosmic questions. Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on Twitter and Facebook.

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NASA’s Artemis I Rocket is on the Launch Pad — and in Your Living Room

Artemis I will be the first integrated flight test of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft: the rocket and spacecraft that will send future astronauts to the Moon!

Before we embark on the uncrewed Artemis I mission to the Moon and back, the rocket and spacecraft will need to undergo a test at the launch pad called a “wet dress rehearsal.” This test will take the team at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida through every step of the launch countdown, including filling the rocket’s tanks with propellant.

But in the meantime, you can take a closer look at SLS and the Orion spacecraft by downloading the 3D model for free on the NASA app! You can view the SLS model in augmented reality by placing it virtually in your own environment – on your desk, for example. Or standing beside your family pet!

SLS and Orion join more than 40 other 3D models in the app, including BioSentinel, one of 10 CubeSats flying aboard Artemis I.

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Tour the Ocean through the Art of Sound

The ocean is one of the largest ecosystems on our planet. From eye-catching waves to the darkness of the twilight zone, it’s a place filled with mystery and rapid change.

For a scientist studying ocean color at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, there was one more question–what does it sound like?

Before long, a “symphonic ocean experience” was born, combining satellite imagery, ocean color data and programming expertise. Learn more about how data gets converted to music and sound here:

This World Oceans Day, enjoy a tour of the ocean set to sound. Here we go:

SoundCloud

Sounds of the Sea

For World Oceans Month, enjoy a moment of zen with a symphonic tour of the ocean. Experience the swirls off the coast of Río de la Plata to

Bering Sea

This melody explores the phytoplankton blooms in the western Bering Sea along the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula collected by Aqua/MODIS on May 15, 2021. The melody created for this image was aimed at capturing the movement of the eddies or the circular movements of water. Data came from the image’s red, green, and blue channels.

Rio de la Plata

This melody explores a spring bloom in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, lending the water many different shades of green, blue, and brown. The Rio de la Plata estuary in the northwest corner of the above image gets most of its tan coloration from sediments suspended in the water. The melody paired with the data evokes the sediment plumes and swirls happening off the coast.

Coral Sea

Data for the sounds of the Coral Sea were collected over the course of one year from the Aqua/Modis satellite. The information was extracted from a series of 32-day rolling averages for the year 2020, displaying the movement of chlorophyll a data.

Chlorophyll a is a specific form of chlorophyll used in photosynthesis. It absorbs most energy from wavelengths of violet-blue and orange-red light. It is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, and that’s why it appears green.

Western Australia

Off the coast of western Australia is the appearance of swirls in the ocean. To catch the movement of the Indian Ocean, data was collected from 31 days of imagery examining blue wavelengths of light. The information was gathered from the Suomi-NPP/VIIRS instrument aboard the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) series of spacecraft.

More moments of zen

Looking for more moments of zen? Explore them with NASA’s Soundcloud page, where many are out of this world. Curious on how we get these breathtaking ocean images? Take time to read about Goddard Oceanographer Norman Kuring and how he helped create them.

A Space Starburst

Welcome to one of the most active galaxies in our cosmic neighborhood: NGC 1569. This starburst galaxy creates stars at a rate 100 times faster than in our own galaxy, the Milky Way – and it’s been doing so for the past 100 million years.

NGC 1569 is about 11 million light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis. Find out more about this sparkling galaxy here.

For the past few weeks, our Hubble Space Telescope explored #GalaxiesGalore! You can find more galaxy content and spectacular new images on Hubble’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and A. Aloisi (STScI/ESA)

Tune in, Starliner! How NASA’s Near Space Network Powers Communications

On May 19, 2022, our partners at Boeing launched their Starliner CST-100 spacecraft to the International Space Station as a part of our Commercial Crew Program. This latest test puts the company one step closer to joining the SpaceX Crew Dragon in ferrying astronauts to and from the orbiting laboratory. We livestreamed the launch and docking at the International Space Station, but how? Let’s look at the communications and navigation infrastructure that makes these missions possible.

Primary voice and data communications are handled by our constellation of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS), part of our Near Space Network. These spacecraft relay communications between the crewed vehicles and mission controllers across the country via terrestrial connections with TDRS ground stations in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean.

TDRS, as the primary communications provider for the space station, is central to the services provided to Commercial Crew vehicles. All spacecraft visiting the orbiting laboratory need TDRS services to successfully complete their missions.

During launches, human spaceflight mission managers ensure that Commercial Crew missions receive all the TDRS services they need from the Near Space Operations Control Center at our Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. There, communications engineers synthesize network components into comprehensive and seamless services for spacecraft as they launch, dock, undock, and deorbit from the space station.

Nearby, at our Flight Dynamics Facility, navigation engineers track the spacecraft on their ascent, leveraging years of experience supporting the navigation needs of crewed missions. Using tracking data sent to our Johnson Space Center in Houston and relayed to Goddard, these engineers ensure astronaut safety throughout the vehicles’ journey to the space station.

Additionally, our Search and Rescue office monitors emergency beacons on Commercial Crew vehicles from their lab at Goddard. In the unlikely event of a launch abort, the international satellite-aided search and rescue network will be able to track and locate these beacons, helping rescue professionals to return the astronauts safely. For this specific uncrewed mission, the search and rescue system onboard the Boeing Starliner will not be activated until after landing for ground testing.

To learn more about NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) services and technologies, visit  https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/index.html. To learn more about NASA’s Near Space Network, visit https://esc.gsfc.nasa.gov/projects/NSN.

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Prepare to be mesmerized… 😵‍💫

Feast your eyes on the magnificent galaxy M51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy! This hypnotic spiral galaxy was captured in visible light with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Living up to its nickname, the Whirlpool Galaxy has the traits of a typical spiral galaxy, like beautifully curving arms, pink star-forming regions, and brilliant blue strands of star clusters.

The Whirlpool Galaxy is located about 31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici.

Discover more about the Whirlpool Galaxy here.

Right now, the Hubble Space Telescope is exploring #GalaxiesGalore! Find more galaxy content and spectacular new images by following along on Hubble’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Astrobiology: The Story of our Search for Life in the Universe

Astrobiologists study the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. This includes identifying evidence left behind by life that once survived on the ancient Earth, and extends to the search for life beyond our planet.

When looking for signs of life on other worlds, what are they looking for?

Things called biosignatures. For example, when you sign a piece of paper, your signature is evidence of your existence. Similarly, biosignatures are anything that can prove that life was once, or is, present in an environment.

If we were very very lucky, we might spot something we know is life with a powerful telescope or receive a "phone call" or radio signal from alien civilizations. Those types of biosignatures would be obvious. But they would only let us identify advanced life.

For most of Earth’s history (billions of years), single-celled life like bacteria and archaea have been around. Humans have only been making radio transmissions for hundreds of years. So we have a better chance of finding life if we look for signs that have been around for very long periods of time.

Patterns in ancient rocks that were created by life are a great example. That can be anything like a dinosaur footprint or structures built by microorganisms, like stromatolites.

Molecules can also be biosignatures, like DNA left behind for detectives to discover. But DNA doesn’t last very long on its own in most environments, so other molecules like lipids (like natural oils, wax, and fat) might be a better choice if you are looking for signatures of life from millions (or billions) of years ago.

Even the balance of gases in a planet’s atmosphere can be a sign of past or present life. On Earth, biology plays a major role in maintaining the delicate composition of gases like nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide in the air that we breathe.

These are just a few examples of signs astrobiologists look for when searching for life amongst the stars! Research into these biosignatures inform many of our biggest missions, from observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope and the Webb Space Telescope to our Mars Sample Return endeavor.

Want to learn more about the search for life? Check out the latest issue of our comic-book style graphic history novel, Astrobiology: The Story of our Search for Life in the Universe. This new chapter is all about biosignatures.

Explore life in the universe with us by following NASA Astrobiology on Twitter and Facebook.

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