Top Study Tips From NASA

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I got the chance to road trip out to the path of totality! My phone camera didn’t do it justice, so I painted what I saw instead 🌞🌚

Here’s the photo I took and the sketch I made with my finger in the notes app while watching it happen 😆

Nicolas Geiser - Almost, 2015, stylo sur papier, 29,7 x 21 cm

https://www.pinterest.dk/jafersondoctar/

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Jaferson Doctar (jafersondoctar) on Pinterest

Jaferson Doctar | The Secretary-General's son Gabriel Lougou Unicef.org 🇺🇳🇨🇫🇩🇰

Take a Road Trip through Time with Landsat 9

A lot can change in five decades! How we talk, what we wear – it all evolves. But one thing that’s stayed consistent is our unique view of our home planet from above. Five decades ago, we at NASA partnered with United States Geological Survey (USGS) to launch a satellite called Landsat to see Earth from space. Now, we’re launching Landsat 9 – that’s right, the ninth in the series!

Join us for a road trip through the decades from the idea of an Earth-imaging satellite in the groovy 60s to the launch of Landsat 9 this year. Hop in!

The 60s

Far out! In 1966, USGS proposed a satellite to image land all around our planet. Researchers worked with our scientists and engineers to design the satellite and figure out how it would work.

The 70s

Here’s the lowdown: In 1970, we got approval to build the Earth Resources Technology Satellite, later renamed Landsat 1. The satellite launched in 1972 and provided the first digital data of Earth, repeated at regular intervals, which allows us to see changes as they happen.

The 80s

In 1982, we launched Landsat 4, followed by Landsat 5 in 1984. These two satellites collected more wavelengths of light at higher precision, allowing for natural color images, which is totally radical, dude.

The 90s

Wasssup, 1990s? Landsat 7 launched this decade, collecting even more data than previous Landsat satellites, enough to produce the first hi-res natural color map of remote Antarctica.

The 2000s

In 2008, our partners at USGS made all Landsat data available for free. This gave peeps around the world access to all the data they needed, unlocking innovation and creating economic benefits, like the ability to track crop health from space. Sweet!

The 2010s

In 2013, Landsat 8 began the modern era of Landsat observations. A new style of sensor and ground system made it possible to download much more and better data than ever before. Plus, a partnership with European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites gives even more regular observations. We heart that!

The 2020s

Now, we’re set to launch Landsat 9, a twin to Landsat 8. Two Landsat satellites with two instruments each will highkey change our view of Earth once again.

Now, on to the next 50 years of Earth observations! Stay tuned to watch Landsat 9 launch and start telling us even more about our home planet.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space.

Sharpening Our View of Climate Change with the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Satellite

As our planet warms, Earth’s ocean and atmosphere are changing.

Climate change has a lot of impact on the ocean, from sea level rise to marine heat waves to a loss of biodiversity. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide continue to warm our atmosphere.

NASA’s upcoming satellite, PACE, is soon to be on the case!

Set to launch on Feb. 6, 2024, the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help us better understand the complex systems driving the global changes that come with a warming climate.

Earth’s ocean is becoming greener due to climate change. PACE will see the ocean in more hues than ever before.

While a single phytoplankton typically can’t be seen with the naked eye, communities of trillions of phytoplankton, called blooms, can be seen from space. Blooms often take on a greenish tinge due to the pigments that phytoplankton (similar to plants on land) use to make energy through photosynthesis.

In a 2023 study, scientists found that portions of the ocean had turned greener because there were more chlorophyll-carrying phytoplankton. PACE has a hyperspectral sensor, the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), that will be able to discern subtle shifts in hue. This will allow scientists to monitor changes in phytoplankton communities and ocean health overall due to climate change.

Phytoplankton play a key role in helping the ocean absorb carbon from the atmosphere. PACE will identify different phytoplankton species from space.

With PACE, scientists will be able to tell what phytoplankton communities are present – from space! Before, this could only be done by analyzing a sample of seawater.

Telling “who’s who” in a phytoplankton bloom is key because different phytoplankton play vastly different roles in aquatic ecosystems. They can fuel the food chain and draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to photosynthesize. Some phytoplankton populations capture carbon as they die and sink to the deep ocean; others release the gas back into the atmosphere as they decay near the surface.

Studying these teeny tiny critters from space will help scientists learn how and where phytoplankton are affected by climate change, and how changes in these communities may affect other creatures and ocean ecosystems.

Climate models are one of our most powerful tools to understand how Earth is changing. PACE data will improve the data these models rely on.

The PACE mission will offer important insights on airborne particles of sea salt, smoke, human-made pollutants, and dust – collectively called aerosols – by observing how they interact with light.

With two instruments called polarimeters, SPEXone and HARP2, PACE will allow scientists to measure the size, composition, and abundance of these microscopic particles in our atmosphere. This information is crucial to figuring out how climate and air quality are changing.

PACE data will help scientists answer key climate questions, like how aerosols affect cloud formation or how ice clouds and liquid clouds differ.

It will also enable scientists to examine one of the trickiest components of climate change to model: how clouds and aerosols interact. Once PACE is operational, scientists can replace the estimates currently used to fill data gaps in climate models with measurements from the new satellite.

With a view of the whole planet every two days, PACE will track both microscopic organisms in the ocean and microscopic particles in the atmosphere. PACE’s unique view will help us learn more about the ways climate change is impacting our planet’s ocean and atmosphere.

Stay up to date on the NASA PACE blog, and make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of sPACE!

What’s Inside a ‘Dead’ Star?

Matter makes up all the stuff we can see in the universe, from pencils to people to planets. But there’s still a lot we don’t understand about it! For example: How does matter work when it’s about to become a black hole? We can’t learn anything about matter after it becomes a black hole, because it’s hidden behind the event horizon, the point of no return. So we turn to something we can study – the incredibly dense matter inside a neutron star, the leftover of an exploded massive star that wasn’t quite big enough to turn into a black hole.

Our Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, is an X-ray telescope perched on the International Space Station. NICER was designed to study and measure the sizes and masses of neutron stars to help us learn more about what might be going on in their mysterious cores.

When a star many times the mass of our Sun runs out of fuel, it collapses under its own weight and then bursts into a supernova. What’s left behind depends on the star’s initial mass. Heavier stars (around 25 times the Sun’s mass or more) leave behind black holes. Lighter ones (between about eight and 25 times the Sun’s mass) leave behind neutron stars.

Neutron stars pack more mass than the Sun into a sphere about as wide as New York City’s Manhattan Island is long. Just one teaspoon of neutron star matter would weigh as much as Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth!

These objects have a lot of cool physics going on. They can spin faster than blender blades, and they have powerful magnetic fields. In fact, neutron stars are the strongest magnets in the universe! The magnetic fields can rip particles off the star’s surface and then smack them down on another part of the star. The constant bombardment creates hot spots at the magnetic poles. When the star rotates, the hot spots swing in and out of our view like the beams of a lighthouse.

Neutron stars are so dense that they warp nearby space-time, like a bowling ball resting on a trampoline. The warping effect is so strong that it can redirect light from the star’s far side into our view. This has the odd effect of making the star look bigger than it really is!

NICER uses all the cool physics happening on and around neutron stars to learn more about what’s happening inside the star, where matter lingers on the threshold of becoming a black hole. (We should mention that NICER also studies black holes!)

Scientists think neutron stars are layered a bit like a golf ball. At the surface, there’s a really thin (just a couple centimeters high) atmosphere of hydrogen or helium. In the outer core, atoms have broken down into their building blocks – protons, neutrons, and electrons – and the immense pressure has squished most of the protons and electrons together to form a sea of mostly neutrons.

But what’s going on in the inner core? Physicists have lots of theories. In some traditional models, scientists suggested the stars were neutrons all the way down. Others proposed that neutrons break down into their own building blocks, called quarks. And then some suggest that those quarks could recombine to form new types of particles that aren’t neutrons!

NICER is helping us figure things out by measuring the sizes and masses of neutron stars. Scientists use those numbers to calculate the stars’ density, which tells us how squeezable matter is!

Let’s say you have what scientists think of as a typical neutron star, one weighing about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass. If you measure the size of the star, and it’s big, then that might mean it contains more whole neutrons. If instead it’s small, then that might mean the neutrons have broken down into quarks. The tinier pieces can be packed together more tightly.

NICER has now measured the sizes of two neutron stars, called PSR J0030+0451 and PSR J0740+6620, or J0030 and J0740 for short.

J0030 is about 1.4 times the Sun’s mass and 16 miles across. (It also taught us that neutron star hot spots might not always be where we thought.) J0740 is about 2.1 times the Sun’s mass and is also about 16 miles across. So J0740 has about 50% more mass than J0030 but is about the same size! Which tells us that the matter in neutron stars is less squeezable than some scientists predicted. (Remember, some physicists suggest that the added mass would crush all the neutrons and make a smaller star.) And J0740’s mass and size together challenge models where the star is neutrons all the way down.

So what’s in the heart of a neutron star? We’re still not sure. Scientists will have to use NICER’s observations to develop new models, perhaps where the cores of neutron stars contain a mix of both neutrons and weirder matter, like quarks. We’ll have to keep measuring neutron stars to learn more!

Keep up with other exciting announcements about our universe by following NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

isabelle mathers

Vote for Your Favorite Astronaut Picture: Tournament Earth 2021

It is that time of year again…Tournament Earth is back! This year, NASA Earth Observatory has chosen a new theme for the tournament: astronaut photography. Choose your favorite image here.

For more than 20 years, astronauts have been shooting photos of Earth from the International Space Station that highlight the planet’s beauty, complexity, and vulnerabilities. So which are the most unforgettable ones? Over the next five weeks (March 8-April 13), you can help decide.

How can you get involved? It’s easy as 1…2…3!

1. Read and Vote.

Not sure which image to vote for because they are ALL so captivating? Read the intriguing stories behind the images to help you decide! You can access the stories by clicking on the image headlines on the voting page: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/tournament-earth

For instance, the Stars in Motion image is actually a compilation of 72 photographs. And some of the night lights around Bangkok, Thailand, actually show fishing boats as well as city lights.

2. Fill out your bracket.

Think you know which photo will win it all? Fill out a #TournamentEarth bracket with your predictions and challenge friends! Then share your predictions with NASAEarth on our blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or right here on Tumblr!

We can’t offer a trip to the Moon, but bragging rights are forever if you can pick the champion. Download a more print-friendly version of the bracket here.

3. View the results…and vote again!

Tournament Earth will have five rounds, and round one is currently underway. Voting for the following rounds begins on Tuesdays and will be open for six days. We will update our social media channels (including right here on Tumblr!) with the newest matchups. Check this space to see how your favorite images did. Then vote until we crown a champion on April 13, 2021.

See all of the images and vote HERE. Follow @NASAEarth on social media for updates.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

 Jess

by Hunter Holder