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Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week

January 8: Images for Your Computer or Phone Wallpaper

Need some fresh perspective? Here are 10 vision-stretching images for your computer desktop or phone wallpaper. These are all real pictures, sent recently by our planetary missions throughout the solar system. You'll find more of our images at solarsystem.nasa.gov/galleries, images.nasa.gov and www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages.

Applying Wallpaper: 1. Click on the screen resolution you would like to use. 2. Right-click on the image (control-click on a Mac) and select the option 'Set the Background' or 'Set as Wallpaper' (or similar).

1. The Fault in Our Mars

This image from our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of northern Meridiani Planum shows faults that have disrupted layered deposits. Some of the faults produced a clean break along the layers, displacing and offsetting individual beds.

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2. Jupiter Blues

Our Juno spacecraft captured this image when the spacecraft was only 11,747 miles (18,906 kilometers) from the tops of Jupiter's clouds -- that's roughly as far as the distance between New York City and Perth, Australia. The color-enhanced image, which captures a cloud system in Jupiter's northern hemisphere, was taken on Oct. 24, 2017, when Juno was at a latitude of 57.57 degrees (nearly three-fifths of the way from Jupiter's equator to its north pole) and performing its ninth close flyby of the gas giant planet.

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3. A Farewell to Saturn

After more than 13 years at Saturn, and with its fate sealed, our Cassini spacecraft bid farewell to the Saturnian system by firing the shutters of its wide-angle camera and capturing this last, full mosaic of Saturn and its rings two days before the spacecraft's dramatic plunge into the planet's atmosphere on Sept. 15, 2017.

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4. All Aglow

Saturn's moon Enceladus drifts before the rings, which glow brightly in the sunlight. Beneath its icy exterior shell, Enceladus hides a global ocean of liquid water. Just visible at the moon's south pole (at bottom here) is the plume of water ice particles and other material that constantly spews from that ocean via fractures in the ice. The bright speck to the right of Enceladus is a distant star. This image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 6, 2011.

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5. Rare Encircling Filament

Our Solar Dynamics Observatory came across an oddity this week that the spacecraft has rarely observed before: a dark filament encircling an active region (Oct. 29-31, 2017). Solar filaments are clouds of charged particles that float above the Sun, tethered to it by magnetic forces. They are usually elongated and uneven strands. Only a handful of times before have we seen one shaped like a circle. (The black area to the left of the brighter active region is a coronal hole, a magnetically open region of the Sun).

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6. Jupiter's Stunning Southern Hemisphere

See Jupiter's southern hemisphere in beautiful detail in this image taken by our Juno spacecraft. The color-enhanced view captures one of the white ovals in the "String of Pearls," one of eight massive rotating storms at 40 degrees south latitude on the gas giant planet. The image was taken on Oct. 24, 2017, as Juno performed its ninth close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 20,577 miles (33,115 kilometers) from the tops of the clouds of the planet.

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7. Saturn's Rings: View from Beneath

Our Cassini spacecraft obtained this panoramic view of Saturn's rings on Sept. 9, 2017, just minutes after it passed through the ring plane. The view looks upward at the southern face of the rings from a vantage point above Saturn's southern hemisphere.

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8. From Hot to Hottest

This sequence of images from our Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the Sun from its surface to its upper atmosphere all taken at about the same time (Oct. 27, 2017). The first shows the surface of the sun in filtered white light; the other seven images were taken in different wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light. Note that each wavelength reveals somewhat different features. They are shown in order of temperature, from the first one at about 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit (6,000 degrees Celsius) on the surface, out to about 10 million degrees in the upper atmosphere. Yes, the sun's outer atmosphere is much, much hotter than the surface. Scientists are getting closer to solving the processes that generate this phenomenon.

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9. High Resolution View of Ceres

This orthographic projection shows dwarf planet Ceres as seen by our Dawn spacecraft. The projection is centered on Occator Crater, home to the brightest area on Ceres. Occator is centered at 20 degrees north latitude, 239 degrees east longitude.

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10. In the Chasm

This image from our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a small portion of the floor of Coprates Chasma, a large trough within the Valles Marineris system of canyons. Although the exact sequence of events that formed Coprates Chasma is unknown, the ripples, mesas, and craters visible throughout the terrain point to a complex history involving multiple mechanisms of erosion and deposition. The main trough of Coprates Chasma ranges from 37 miles (60 kilometers) to 62 miles (100 kilometers) in width.

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Explore and learn more about our solar system at: solarsystem.nasa.gov/. 

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A Space Odyssey: 21 Years of Searching for Another Earth

There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. We must believe that in all worlds there are living creatures and plants and other things we see in this world. – Epicurus, c. 300 B.C.

Are we alone? Are there other planets like ours? Does life exist elsewhere in the universe?

These are questions mankind has been asking for years—since the time of Greek philosophers. But for years, those answers have been elusive, if not impossible to find.

The month of October marks the 21st anniversary of the discovery of the first planet orbiting another sun-like star (aka. an exoplanet), 51 Pegasi b or “Dimidium.” Its existence proved that there were other planets in the galaxy outside our solar system.*

Even more exciting is the fact that astronomers are in hot pursuit of the first discovery of an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting a star other than the sun. The discovery of the so-called "blue dot" could redefine our understanding of the universe and our place in it, especially if astronomers can also find signs that life exists on that planet's surface.

Astronomy is entering a fascinating era where we're beginning to answer tantalizing questions that people have pondered for thousands of years.

Are we alone?

In 1584, when the Catholic monk Giordano Bruno asserted that there were "countless suns and countless earths all rotating around their suns," he was accused of heresy.

But even in Bruno's time, the idea of a plurality of worlds wasn't entirely new. As far back as ancient Greece, humankind has speculated that other solar systems might exist and that some would harbor other forms of life.

Still, centuries passed without convincing proof of planets around even the nearest stars.

Are there other planets like ours?

The first discovery of a planet orbiting a star similar to the sun came in 1995. The Swiss team of Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of Geneva announced that they had found a rapidly orbiting gas world located blisteringly close to the star 51 Pegasi.

This announcement marked the beginning of a flood of discoveries. Exotic discoveries transformed science fiction into science fact:

a pink planet

worlds with two or even three suns

a gas giant as light as Styrofoam

a world in the shape of an egg

a lava planet

But what about another Earth?

Our first exoplanet mission**, Kepler, launched in 2009 and revolutionized how astronomers understand the universe and our place in it. Kepler was built to answer the question—how many habitable planets exist in our galaxy?

And it delivered: Thousands of planet discoveries poured in, providing statistical proof that one in five sun-like stars (yellow, main-sequence G type) harbor Earth-sized planets orbiting in their habitable zones– where it’s possible liquid water could exist on their surface.

Now, our other missions like the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes point at promising planetary systems (TRAPPIST-1) to figure out whether they are suitable for life as we know it.

Does life exist elsewhere in the universe?

Now that exoplanet-hunting is a mainstream part of astronomy, the race is on to build instruments that can find more and more planets, especially worlds that could be like our own.

Our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), set for launch in 2017-2018, will look for super-Earth and Earth-sized planets around stars much closer to home. TESS will find new planets the same way Kepler does—via the transit method—but will cover 400 times the sky area.

The James Webb Space Telescope, to launch in 2018, wil be our most powerful space telescope to date. Webb will use its spectrograph to look at exoplanet atmospheres, searching for signs of life.

We still don’t know where or which planets are in the habitable zones of the nearest stars­ to Earth. Searching out our nearest potentially habitable neighbors will be the next chapter in this unfolding story.

*The first true discovery of extrasolar planets was actually a triplet of dead worlds orbiting the remains of an exploded star, called a pulsar star. Two of three were found by Dr. Alexander Wolszczan in 1992– a full three years before Dimidium’s discovery. But because they are so strange, and can’t support life as we know it, most scientists would reserve the “first” designation for a planet orbiting a normal star.

** The French CoRoT mission, launched in 2006, was the first dedicated exoplanet space mission. It has contributed dozens of confirmed exoplanets to the ranks and boasts a roster of some of the most well-studied planets outside our solar system.

To stay up-to-date on our latest exoplanet discoveries, visit: https://exoplanets.nasa.gov

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What are Gravitational Waves?

Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the detection of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), a pair of ground-based observatories. But...what are gravitational waves? Let us explain:

Gravitational waves are disturbances in space-time, the very fabric of the universe, that travel at the speed of light. The waves are emitted by any mass that is changing speed or direction. The simplest example is a binary system, where a pair of stars or compact objects (like black holes) orbit their common center of mass.

We can think of gravitational effects as curvatures in space-time. Earth’s gravity is constant and produces a static curve in space-time. A gravitational wave is a curvature that moves through space-time much like a water wave moves across the surface of a lake. It is generated only when masses are speeding up, slowing down or changing direction.

Did you know Earth also gives off gravitational waves? Earth orbits the sun, which means its direction is always changing, so it does generate gravitational waves, although extremely weak and faint.

What do we learn from these waves?

Observing gravitational waves would be a huge step forward in our understanding of the evolution of the universe, and how large-scale structures, like galaxies and galaxy clusters, are formed.

Gravitational waves can travel across the universe without being impeded by intervening dust and gas. These waves could also provide information about massive objects, such as black holes, that do not themselves emit light and would be undetectable with traditional telescopes.

Just as we need both ground-based and space-based optical telescopes, we need both kinds of gravitational wave observatories to study different wavelengths. Each type complements the other.

Ground-based: For optical telescopes, Earth’s atmosphere prevents some wavelengths from reaching the ground and distorts the light that does.

Space-based: Telescopes in space have a clear, steady view. That said, telescopes on the ground can be much larger than anything ever launched into space, so they can capture more light from faint objects.

How does this relate to Einstein’s theory of relativity?

The direct detection of gravitational waves is the last major prediction of Einstein’s theory to be proven. Direct detection of these waves will allow scientists to test specific predictions of the theory under conditions that have not been observed to date, such as in very strong gravitational fields.

In everyday language, “theory” means something different than it does to scientists. For scientists, the word refers to a system of ideas that explains observations and experimental results through independent general principles. Isaac Newton's theory of gravity has limitations we can measure by, say, long-term observations of the motion of the planet Mercury. Einstein's relativity theory explains these and other measurements. We recognize that Newton's theory is incomplete when we make sufficiently sensitive measurements. This is likely also true for relativity, and gravitational waves may help us understand where it becomes incomplete.

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How does it feel to take a walk in space?

How do blackholes form and how do they move ?

What’s Up for May 2016?

What's Up for May? Two huge solar system highlights: Mercury transits the sun and Mars is closer to Earth than it has been in 11 years.

On May 9, wake up early on the west coast or step out for coffee on the east coast to see our smallest planet cross the face of the sun. The transit will also be visible from most of South America, western Africa and western Europe.

A transit occurs when one astronomical body appears to move across the face of another as seen from Earth or from a spacecraft. But be safe! You'll need to view the sun and Mercury through a solar filter when looking through a telescope or when projecting the image of the solar disk onto a safe surface. Look a little south of the sun's Equator. It will take about 7 1/2 hours for the tiny planet's disk to cross the sun completely. Since Mercury is so tiny it will appear as a very small round speck, whether it's seen through a telescope or projected through a solar filter. The next Mercury transit will be Nov. 11, 2019.

Two other May highlights involve Mars. On May 22 Mars opposition occurs. That's when Mars, Earth and the sun all line up, with Earth directly in the middle.

Eight days later on May 30, Mars and Earth are nearest to each other in their orbits around the sun. Mars is over half a million miles closer to Earth at closest approach than at opposition. But you won't see much change in the diameter and brightness between these two dates. As Mars comes closer to Earth in its orbit, it appears larger and larger and brighter and brighter. 

During this time Mars rises after the sun sets. The best time to see Mars at its brightest is when it is highest in the sky, around midnight in May and a little earlier in June. 

Through a telescope you can make out some of the dark features on the planet, some of the lighter features and sometimes polar ice and dust storm-obscured areas showing very little detail.

After close approach, Earth sweeps past Mars quickly. So the planet appears large and bright for only a couple weeks. 

But don't worry if you miss 2016's close approach. 2018's will be even better, as Mars' close approach will be, well, even closer.

You can find out about our #JourneytoMars missions at mars.nasa.gov, and you can learn about all of our missions at http://www.nasa.gov.

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This animation blinks between two images of our Mars Phoenix Lander. The first – dark smudges on the planet’s surface. The second – the same Martian terrain nearly a decade later, covered in dust. Our Mars orbiter captured this shot as it surveyed the planet from orbit: the first in 2008. The second: late 2017.

In August 2008, Phoenix completed its three-month mission studying Martian ice, soil and atmosphere. The lander worked for two additional months before reduced sunlight caused energy to become insufficient to keep the lander functioning. The solar-powered robot was not designed to survive through the dark and cold conditions of a Martian arctic winter.

Read the full story HERE.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

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Meet More Humans Behind the Robots

There are many paths to a career at NASA. Here are 10 amazing people on the frontlines of deep space exploration.

1—The Pub Master

“I was running a pub in the North of England after dropping out of college, and as fate would have it, I met a lovely American physics lecturer Dr. Jim Gotaas,” said Abi Rymer (shown above in the bottom right of the group photo). Abi works on the Europa Clipper mission.

“I was sold on a course he ran on Observational Astronomy and Instrumentation at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, Lancashire and I went from there to join the second year of the Physics and Astronomy at Royal Holloway, part of London University. I loved theoretical physics but never imagined I was talented enough to do a PhD. When I graduated, I was shocked to be top of the year.”

2—The Orbit Artist

“Within seven months of being at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,” says Brent Buffington, a mission design manager, “I figured out we could modify the Cassini Prime Mission trajectory to fly very close to the moon Tethys—a moon that didn’t have any close flybys in the original Prime Mission—and simultaneously lower a planned 621-mile (1,000-kilometer) targeted flyby of Hyperion down to 311 miles (500 kilometers). To be this young buck fresh out of grad school standing in front of a room full of seasoned engineers and scientists, trying to convince them that this was the right thing to do with a multi-billion dollar asset, and ultimately getting the trajectory modification approved was extremely rewarding.”

3—The Searcher

“Geochemical evidence suggests that between 4 and 2.5 billion years ago, there may have been an intermittent haze in the atmosphere of Earth similar to the haze in the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan,” says astrobiologist Giada Arney. “It's a really alien phase of Earth's history —our planet wouldn't have been a pale blue dot, it would have been a pale orange dot. We thought about questions like: What would our planet look like if you were looking at it as an exoplanet? How you might infer biosignatures—the signs of life—from looking at such an alien planet?”

4—The Volcanologist

“I spent the summer after graduating from studying Mars' remnant magnetic field in the Planetary Magnetospheres Lab at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,” says planetary geophysicist Lynnae Quick. “My advisor, Mario Acuña, showed me how to bring up Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) images of the Martian surface on my computer. This was the first time I'd ever laid eyes, firsthand, on images of another planet's surface returned from a spacecraft. I remember just being in awe.

“My second favorite moment has to be pouring over mosaics of Europa and learning to identify and map chaos regions, impact craters and other surface units during my first summer at APL. Once again, I felt that there was a whole other alien world at my fingertips.”

5—The Pioneer

“A few months after NASA was formed I was asked if I knew anyone who would like to set up a program in space astronomy,” says Nancy Roman, a retired NASA astronomer. “I knew that taking on this responsibility would mean that I could no longer do research, but the challenge of formulating a program from scratch that I believed would influence astronomy for decades to come was too great to resist.”

6—The Modeler

“I took Planetary Surfaces with Bruce Murray (whom I later found out had been JPL’s fifth director) and did a presentation on Europa's chaos terrains,” say Serina Diniega, an investigation scientist on the Europa Clipper mission. “I was fascinated to learn about the different models proposed for the formation of these enigmatic features and the way in which scientists tried to discriminate between the models while having very limited observational data. In this, I realized I’d found my application: modeling the evolution of planetary landforms."

7—The Bassist

“I admire people who dedicate themselves 110 percent to what they do,” says Warren Kaye, a software engineer. “People like the recently deceased Stephen Hawking, who rose above his own physical limitations to develop new scientific theories, or Frank Zappa, who was able to produce something like 50 albums worth of music over a 20-year span.”

8—The (Space) Photographer

“I got to pick what the camera took pictures of in a given week, and then analyze those pictures from the standpoint of a geologist,” says Tanya Harrison, a planetary scientist. “There aren't many people in the world who get paid to take pictures of Mars every day! Seeing the first images...It was almost surreal -- not only are you picking what to take pictures of on Mars, you're also typically the first person on Earth to see those pictures when they come back from Mars.”

9—The Scientist

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

“A scientist,” says Casey Lisse, a scientist on our New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

At what point did you determine that you would become a scientist?

“Age 5.”

10 —The Extrovert

“Throughout my life, I’ve gone from being an extremely shy introvert to more of an outgoing extrovert,” says science writer Elizabeth Landau. “It’s been a gradual uphill climb. I used to be super shy. When I was really young, I felt like I didn't know how to talk to other kids. I was amazed by how people fluidly spoke to each other without thinking too hard about it, without appearing to have any kind of embarrassment or reservation about what they were saying. I've definitely developed confidence over time—now I can very quickly and comfortably switch from talking about something like physics to personal matters, and be totally open to listening to others as well.”

Check out the full version of “Solar System: 10 Things to Know This Week” HERE.

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10 Space & Football Facts You Probably Didn’t Know

There are more connections between space and football than you may have originally thought. Here are a few examples of how...

1. The International Space Station and a football field are basically the same size

Yes, that’s right! The International Space Station measures 357 feet end-to-end. That’s almost equivalent to the length of a football field including the end zones (360 feet).

2. It would take over 4,000 footballs to fill the Orion spacecraft

Our Orion spacecraft is being designed to carry astronauts to deep space destinations, like Mars! It will launch atop the most powerful rocket ever built, the Space Launch System rocket. If you were to fill the Orion spacecraft with footballs instead of crew members, you would fit a total of 4,625!

3. Our new Space Launch System rocket is taller than a football field is long

We’re building the most powerful rocket ever, the Space Launch System. At its full height it will stand 384 feet – 24 feet taller than a football field is long.

4. The crew living on space station will see the day begin and end…twice…during the Super Bowl

An average NFL game lasts more than three hours. Traveling at 17,500 mph, the crew on the space station will see two sunrises and two sunsets in that time…they see 16 sunrises and sunsets each day!

5. Playing football on Mars would be…lighter

On Mars, a football would weigh less than half a pound, while a 200-pund football player would weigh just about 75 pounds.

6. It would take over 3,000 hours for a football to reach the Moon

Talk about going long…if you threw a football to the Moon at 60 mph, the average speed of an NFL pass, it would take 3,982 hours, or 166 days, to get there. The quickest trip to the Moon was the New Horizons probe, which zipped pass the Moon in just 8 hours 35 minutes on its way to Pluto 

7. The longest field goal kick in history would’ve been WAY easier to make on Mars

The longest field goal kick in NFL history is 64 yards. On Mars, at 1/3 the gravity of Earth, that same field goal, ignoring air resistance, could have been made from almost two football fields away (192 yards).

8. A quarterback would be able to throw even further on Mars

Aerodynamic drag doesn’t happen on Mars. With a very thin atmosphere and low gravity to drag the ball down, a quarterback could throw the football three times as far as he could on Earth. A receiver would have to be much further down the field to catch the throw 

9. Football players and astronauts both need to exercise every day

Football players must be quick and powerful, honing the physical skills necessary for their unique positions. In space, maintaining physical fitness is a top priority, since astronauts will lose bone and muscle mass if they do not keep up their strength and conditioning.

10. Clear team communication is important on the football field AND in space

During football games, calling plays and relaying information from coaches on the sidelines or in the booth to players on the field is essential. Coaches communicate directly with quarterbacks and a defensive player between plays via radio frequencies. They must have a secure and reliable system that keeps their competitors from listening in and also keeps loud fan excitement from drowning out what can be heard. Likewise, reliable communication with astronauts in space and robotic spacecraft exploring far into the solar system is key to our mission success.

A radio and satellite communications network allows space station crew members to talk to the ground-based team at control centers, and for those centers to send commands to the orbital complex.

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Take a moment, look outside your window. 🌷🌼

Today is the #FirstDayOfSpring in the Northern Hemisphere, also known as the vernal equinox.

#DYK Earth’s tilted axis causes the season? Throughout the year, different parts of Earth receive the Sun’s most direct rays. So, when the North Pole tilts toward the Sun, it’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere. And when the South Pole tilts toward the Sun, it’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

These images are of Zinnias. They are part of the flowering crop experiment that began aboard the International Space Station on Nov. 16, 2015, when NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren activated the Veggie system and its rooting "pillows" containing zinnia seeds.

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