Inner Corona And Prominences During Monday’s Total Solar Eclipse

Celebrating 17 Years of NASA’s ‘Little Earth Satellite That Could’

The satellite was little— the size of a small refrigerator; it was only supposed to last one year and constructed and operated on a shoestring budget — yet it persisted.

After 17 years of operation, more than 1,500 research papers generated and 180,000 images captured, one of NASA’s pathfinder Earth satellites for testing new satellite technologies and concepts comes to an end on March 30, 2017. The Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite will be powered off on that date but will not enter Earth’s atmosphere until 2056. 

“The Earth Observing-1 satellite is like The Little Engine That Could,” said Betsy Middleton, project scientist for the satellite at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

To celebrate the mission, we’re highlighting some of EO-1’s notable contributions to scientific research, spaceflight advancements and society. 

Scientists Learn More About Earth in Fine Detail

This animation shifts between an image showing flooding that occurred at the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers on January 12, 2016, captured by ALI and the rivers at normal levels on February 14, 2015 taken by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8. Credit: NASA’s Earth Observatory  

EO-1 carried the Advanced Land Imager that improved observations of forest cover, crops, coastal waters and small particles in the air known as aerosols. These improvements allowed researchers to identify smaller features on a local scale such as floods and landslides, which were especially useful for disaster support. 

On the night of Sept. 6, 2014, EO-1’s Hyperion observed the ongoing eruption at Holuhraun, Iceland as shown in the above image. Partially covered by clouds, this scene shows the extent of the lava flows that had been erupting.

EO-1’s other key instrument Hyperion provided an even greater level of detail in measuring the chemical constituents of Earth’s surface— akin to going from a black and white television of the 1940s to the high-definition color televisions of today. Hyperion’s level of sophistication doesn’t just show that plants are present, but can actually differentiate between corn, sorghum and many other species and ecosystems. Scientists and forest managers used these data, for instance, to explore remote terrain or to take stock of smoke and other chemical constituents during volcanic eruptions, and how they change through time.  

Crowdsourced Satellite Images of Disasters   

EO-1 was one of the first satellites to capture the scene after the World Trade Center attacks (pictured above) and the flooding in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. EO-1 also observed the toxic sludge in western Hungary in October 2010 and a large methane leak in southern California in October 2015. All of these scenes, which EO-1 provided quick, high-quality satellite imagery of the event, were covered in major news outlets. All of these scenes were also captured because of user requests. EO-1 had the capability of being user-driven, meaning the public could submit a request to the team for where they wanted the satellite to gather data along its fixed orbits. 

This image shows toxic sludge (red-orange streak) running west from an aluminum oxide plant in western Hungary after a wall broke allowing the sludge to spill from the factory on October 4, 2010. This image was taken by EO-1’s Advanced Land Imager on October 9, 2010. Credit: NASA’s Earth Observatory

 Artificial Intelligence Enables More Efficient Satellite Collaboration

This image of volcanic activity on Antarctica’s Mount Erebus on May 7, 2004 was taken by EO-1’s Advanced Land Imager after sensing thermal emissions from the volcano. The satellite gave itself new orders to take another image several hours later. Credit: Earth Observatory

EO-1 was among the first satellites to be programmed with a form of artificial intelligence software, allowing the satellite to make decisions based on the data it collects. For instance, if a scientist commanded EO-1 to take a picture of an erupting volcano, the software could decide to automatically take a follow-up image the next time it passed overhead. The Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment software was developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and was uploaded to EO-1 three years after it launched. 

This image of Nassau Bahamas was taken by EO-1’s Advanced Land Imager on Oct 8, 2016, shortly after Hurricane Matthew hit. European, Japanese, Canadian, and Italian Space Agency members of the international coalition Committee on Earth Observation Satellites used their respective satellites to take images over the Caribbean islands and the U.S. Southeast coastline during Hurricane Matthew. Images were used to make flood maps in response to requests from disaster management agencies in Haiti, Dominican Republic, St. Martin, Bahamas, and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The artificial intelligence software also allows a group of satellites and ground sensors to communicate and coordinate with one another with no manual prompting. Called a “sensor web”, if a satellite viewed an interesting scene, it could alert other satellites on the network to collect data during their passes over the same area. Together, they more quickly observe and downlink data from the scene than waiting for human orders. NASA’s SensorWeb software reduces the wait time for data from weeks to days or hours, which is especially helpful for emergency responders. 

Laying the Foundation for ‘Formation Flying’

This animation shows the Rodeo-Chediski fire on July 7, 2002, that were taken one minute apart by Landsat 7 (burned areas in red) and EO-1 (burned areas in purple). This precision formation flying allowed EO-1 to directly compare the data and performance from its land imager and the Landsat 7 ETM+. EO-1’s most important technology goal was to test ALI for future Landsat satellites, which was accomplished on Landsat 8. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

EO-1 was a pioneer in precision “formation flying” that kept it orbiting Earth exactly one minute behind the Landsat 7 satellite, already in orbit. Before EO-1, no satellite had flown that close to another satellite in the same orbit. EO-1 used formation flying to do a side-by-side comparison of its onboard ALI with Landsat 7’s operational imager to compare the products from the two imagers. Today, many satellites that measure different characteristics of Earth, including the five satellites in NASA’s A Train, are positioned within seconds to minutes of one another to make observations on the surface near-simultaneously.

For more information on EO-1’s major accomplishments, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/celebrating-17-years-of-nasa-s-little-earth-satellite-that-could

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

The Elephants Trunk in IC 1396 : Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephants Trunk Nebula winds through the emission nebula and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Of course, the cosmic elephants trunk is over 20 light-years long. This composite was recorded through narrow band filters that transmit the light from ionized hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms in the region. The resulting image highlights the bright swept-back ridges that outline pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas. Such embedded, dark, tendril-shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars within the obscuring cosmic dust. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex covers a large region on the sky, spanning over 5 degrees. via NASA

js

Physicists Have Figured Out Where The Sun's Plasma Jets Come From

Things are heating up.

After over a century of observations and several theories, scientists may have finally nailed the origin of the high-speed plasma blasting through the Sun’s atmosphere several times a day. Using a state-of-the-art computer simulation, researchers have developed a detailed model of these plasma jets, called spicules.

The new findings answer some of the bigger questions in solar physics, including how these plasma jets form and why the Sun’s outer atmosphere is far hotter than the surface.

“This is the first model that has been able to reproduce all the features observed in spicules,” Juan Martinez-Sykora, lead author and astrophysicist at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute in California, told ScienceAlert.

Continue Reading.

“It sounds far fetched even for the plot of a sci-fi film.

NASA scientists have proposed a radical idea to launch a magnetic field around Mars, with hopes it could protect the red planet from intense solar wind and allow humans to explore alongside rovers.

Jim Green, NASA’s Planetary Science Division Director, revealed the idea today at the Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop in Washington DC…

The proposal would create a dipole field –a pair of equal and oppositely charged magnets – in an orbit between Mars and the sun, at a point known as Mars L1.

This ‘artificial magnetic field’ would put Mars inside a ‘magnetotail,’ protecting it from the harsh solar wind.

Without the barrage of high-energy particles, Mars’ atmosphere would begin to rebuild itself over time.

In just a matter of years, the simulations show the planet could achieve an ‘Earth comparable field.’

Increasing the pressure would cause the equator to heat up, leading the polar cap to collapse, Green says…"

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4276210/NASA-unveils-plan-surround-Mars-magnetic-field.html?ITO=applenews

Happy long weekend to folks in the US who are lucky enough to HAVE a long weekend! I finally fulfilled my promise to bring you an episode on comets—I didn’t last month but I had a good reason, and that reason was black holes. Now you can learn about comets! I’ve likewise talked about comets before, but now I go in-depth on what they are, some great comets throughout human history, and some of the missions we’ve sent out to collect info on comets.

Below the cut are the glossary, transcript, a timeline of all the people I mention, sources, and music credits. Send me any topic suggestions via Tumblr message (you don’t need an account to do this, just submit as anonymous). You can also tweet at me on Twitter at @HDandtheVoid, or you can ask me to my face if you know me in real life. Subscribe on iTunes to get the new episodes of my semi-monthly podcast, and please please please rate and review it. Go ahead and tell friends if you think they’d like to hear it, too!

(The next episode is... not decided, or even thought about much. It’ll go up at the end of June if I come up with a topic, though!)

Glossary

coma - the cloud of dust and gas particles that is burned off of a comet and trails behind it, helping to form the comet’s tail.

comet - a small, icy body that orbits the Sun. When its orbit takes it close to the Sun, the comet warms up and releases gases and debris that produce a visible atmosphere, sometimes called the comet’s tail. (ep. 8, 9, 33)

hyperbolic comets - comets which will only ever enter our solar system once.

long period comets - comets come near our Sun for brief times every few thousand years, following egg-shaped elliptical orbits that often send them beyond Pluto before they return to the Sun.

short-period comets - comets that orbit the Sun closely and show up at regular intervals.

sungrazing comets - comets which come within about 850,000 miles from the Sun at their perihelion, though many of these kinds of comets come even closer, to within a few thousand miles at perihelion.

perihelion - a comet’s closest approach to the Sun in its orbit.

Transcript

Timeline

Ephorus of Cyme (c. 400-330 BCE), Greek

Taqi ad-Din (1526–1585), Turkish

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Danish

Gottfried Kirch (1639-1710), German

Isaac Newton (1643-1727), English

Eusebio Kino (1645-1711), Spanish

Edmund Halley (1656-1742), English

Battista Donati (1826-1873), Italian

Jérôme Eugène Coggia (1849-1919), French

Heinrich Kreutz (1854-1907), German

Frank Skjellerup (1875-1952), Australian

Edmundo Maristany (1895-1983), Argentinian

Sylvain Arend (1902-1992), Belgian

Georges Roland (1922-1991), Belgian

Eugene Shoemaker (1928-1997), American

Carolyn Shoemaker (1929- ), American

Tsutomu Seki (1930- ), Japanese

Richard Martin West (1941- ), Danish

Kaoru Ikeya (1943- ), Japanese

David H. Levy (1948- ), Canadian

Thomas Bopp (1949-2018), American

Yuji Hyakutake (1950- ), Japanese

Robert McNaught (1956- ), Scottish-Australian

Alan Hale (1958- ), American

Terry Lovejoy (1966- ), Australian

Sources

Comets via Cool Cosmos (August 2013)

Comet Introduction via Views of the Solar System

On Hyperbolic Comets by David W. Hughes (1991)

What is a Sungrazing Comet? via NASA (July 2013)

Missions to Comets via NASA

Galileo via NASA

Shoemaker-Levy 9 via NASA

Rosetta Images via ESA (video)

Rosetta spacecraft image archive complete via EarthSky (June 2018)

Intro Music: ‘Better Times Will Come’ by No Luck Club off their album Prosperity

Filler Music: ‘Stories We Build/Stories We Tell’ by José González off his album Vestiges & Claws

Outro Music: ‘Fields of Russia’ by Mutefish off their album On Draught

The Beauty of Webb Telescope’s Mirrors

The James Webb Space Telescope’s gold-plated, beryllium mirrors are beautiful feats of engineering. From the 18 hexagonal primary mirror segments, to the perfectly circular secondary mirror, and even the slightly trapezoidal tertiary mirror and the intricate fine-steering mirror, each reflector went through a rigorous refinement process before it was ready to mount on the telescope. This flawless formation process was critical for Webb, which will use the mirrors to peer far back in time to capture the light from the first stars and galaxies. 

The James Webb Space Telescope, or Webb, is our upcoming infrared space observatory, which will launch in 2019. It will spy the first luminous objects that formed in the universe and shed light on how galaxies evolve, how stars and planetary systems are born, and how life could form on other planets.  

A polish and shine that would make your car jealous

All of the Webb telescope’s mirrors were polished to accuracies of approximately one millionth of an inch. The beryllium mirrors were polished at room temperature with slight imperfections, so as they change shape ever so slightly while cooling to their operating temperatures in space, they achieve their perfect shape for operations.

The Midas touch

Engineers used a process called vacuum vapor deposition to coat Webb’s mirrors with an ultra-thin layer of gold. Each mirror only required about 3 grams (about 0.11 ounces) of gold. It only took about a golf ball-sized amount of gold to paint the entire main mirror!

Before the deposition process began, engineers had to be absolutely sure the mirror surfaces were free from contaminants. 

The engineers thoroughly wiped down each mirror, then checked it in low light conditions to ensure there was no residue on the surface.

Inside the vacuum deposition chamber, the tiny amount of gold is turned into a vapor and deposited to cover the entire surface of each mirror.

Primary, secondary, and tertiary mirrors, oh my!

Each of Webb’s primary mirror segments is hexagonally shaped. The entire 6.5-meter (21.3-foot) primary mirror is slightly curved (concave), so each approximately 1.3-meter (4.3-foot) piece has a slight curve to it.

Those curves repeat themselves among the segments, so there are only three different shapes — 6 of each type. In the image below, those different shapes are labeled as A, B, and C.

Webb’s perfectly circular secondary mirror captures light from the 18 primary mirror segments and relays those images to the telescope’s tertiary mirror.

The secondary mirror is convex, so the reflective surface bulges toward a light source. It looks much like a curved mirror that you see on the wall near the exit of a parking garage that lets motorists see around a corner.

Webb’s trapezoidal tertiary mirror captures light from the secondary mirror and relays it to the fine-steering mirror and science instruments. The tertiary mirror sits at the center of the telescope’s primary mirror. The tertiary mirror is the only fixed mirror in the system — all of the other mirrors align to it.

All of the mirrors working together will provide Webb with the most advanced infrared vision of any space observatory we’ve ever launched!

Who is the fairest of them all?

The beauty of Webb’s primary mirror was apparent as it rotated past a cleanroom observation window at our Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. If you look closely in the reflection, you will see none other than James Webb Space Telescope senior project scientist and Nobel Laureate John Mather!

Learn more about the James Webb Space Telescope HERE, or follow the mission on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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

Light Echoes Used to Study Protoplanetary Disks : This illustration shows a star surrounded by a protoplanetary disk. A new study uses data from NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope and four ground-based telescopes to determine the distance from a star to the inner rim of its surrounding protoplanetary disk. Researchers used a method called photo-reverberation, also known as light echoes.

js

Mosaic of the nebulae in the Orion Constellation

js

I'm reading Starlight Detectives pretty hard cuz new episode goes up on Monday and let me tell you, I now have a very deep appreciation for the photographs we have of space.

Small Magellanic Cloud: Stunning Infrared Image

For the love of all that’s good and proper click here and zoom way into this image. It’s more than beautiful. The fact that it’s infrared means that we’re able to see past a lot of the dust that would otherwise block our view.

(Image credit: ESA/VISTA)

A Lunar Eclipse Animation

Credit & Copyright: Larry Koehn