For astronauts in space, the Earth is always an amazing sight and the year 2017 offered dazzling (and sometimes frightening) views of our home planet from space. From hurricanes and volcanoes to amazing sunsets, see the best photos of 2017 here. See NASA’s video of best astronaut photos from 2017 here! This Image: The massive storm system named Hurricane Jose slammed into the Caribbean Islands on Sept. 6, 2017.
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Learn About Space History with NASA JPL's Free 2018 Calendar
The United States’ first successful satellite, Explorer 1, launched on Jan. 31, 1958, and discovered the radiation belt around Earth. Holding a model of the satellite in celebration after its successful launch are (left to right): William Pickering, former director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built and operated the satellite; James van Allen, of the State University of Iowa, who designed and built the instrument on Explorer 1 that detected the radiation belt; and Wernher von Braun, leader of the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal rocket team.
You can start each day of the new year with a little spaceflight history, thanks to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
JPL, the agency’s hub for robotic planetary exploration missions, is offering a free download of a spaceflight-themed 2018 calendar. You can get it here.
The calendar marks the many spaceflight milestones and achievements that JPL helped make happen, from the launch of the United States’ first successful satellite, Explorer 1, in January 1958 to the epic Cassini Saturn mission’s “Grand Finale” this past September.
JPL’s roots trace all the way back to the mid-1930s, when a group of students at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and some amateur rocketeers began conducting rocket experiments — first at the Caltech campus and then, after an explosion there, in a dry canyon in Southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains.
Indeed, the new calendar’s image for October 2018 shows five of these trailblazers lounging at the canyon test site in 1936.
These experiments had some success, leading to funding support from the U.S. military. By 1943, the Caltech rocket team was referring to its base of operations as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL officially became a part of NASA in late 1958, just after the space agency’s creation.
Over the years, JPL has managed most of NASA’s famous, big-ticket planetary missions, such as the Viking Mars orbiters and landers, the twin Voyager probes, Cassini and the car-size Curiosity rover, which touched down on the Red Planet in August 2012.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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Biggest Space Movies to Watch in 2018
The Avengers join forces with the Guardians of the Galaxy to defeat the powerful Thanos (played by Josh Brolin), who is trying to collect the Infinity Stones. Thanos was born into a group of superhumans, known as the Eternals, who live on Saturn’s moon, Titan. He plans to use the six stones for a gauntlet that will allow him to bend reality to his will.
During this epic battle, we’ll see almost every major Marvel hero, including Iron Man, the Hulk, Black Widow, Thor, Star-Lord and his team, Doctor Strange, Captain America, and Spider-Man. Watch the trailer to “Avengers: Infinity War” here.
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Lunar Eclipse 2018 Guide: When, Where & How to See It
Sequential images of the moon show the change inflicted by a penumbral eclipse. The images were taken April 25, 2013, by space enthusiast Stanislaus Ronny Terence of Chennai, India, during a trip to Frankfurt, Germany.
Update for Jan. 31: For full coverage and live views of the Super Blue Blood Moon eclipse of 2018, visit our main guide here: Super Blue Blood Moon 2018: Complete Lunar Eclipse Coverage!
2018 will feature two lunar eclipses: one in January, and one in July. Both will be total lunar eclipses, when the full moon passes through Earth’s shadow.
Lunar eclipses are visible from anywhere on Earth where it is nighttime. However, the duration of the eclipse you see will depend on how close to moonrise or moonset the eclipse starts in your location. During total lunar eclipses, the moon turns a deep red color when it enters the depths of Earth’s shadow. So why doesn’t the moon just look like it’s in darkness? The color change happens because Earth’s atmosphere acts as both a lens and a scattering medium for the sun’s light.
As light passes through any medium, it slows down a bit, and bends. So some sunlight gets bent toward the moon’s surface as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere during an eclipse. If you were standing on the moon, observing the Earth during a lunar eclipse, you’d see a ring of light around the Earth’s edge as it passed in front of the sun. In addition to the bending, air scatters short-wavelength light more than longer-wavelength light. Colors such as green and blue have shorter wavelengths than red or orange, so they scatter more — and what’s left is the redder end of the spectrum.
The January eclipse
This graph shows the path of the January 2018 total lunar eclipse, and times when the event will be visible.
Credit: NASA
On Jan. 31, the first lunar eclipse of the year will be visible from eastern Europe and eastern Africa, and from there eastward all the way to western South America. In Australia and eastern Asia, the eclipse will occur in late evening or near midnight local time, and this is where the moon will be highest in the sky.
The year’s next eclipse will be on the night of July 27, or the wee hours of July 28 depending on the time zone, and the center of the eclipse visibility region is on the Indian Ocean. The eclipse will be fully or partly visible in South America, Africa, central Asia and India, and parts of Australia.
Viewers in New York City will have a chance to catch the January eclipse, but the July event will be below the horizon because it will be daytime in the U.S.
On Jan. 31, people on the U.S. East Coast will be able to see the moon enter Earth’s penumbra — the lighter, outer part of the shadow — at 5:51 a.m. local time. The penumbra darkens the moon only a little; it is often hard to notice the difference in the moon’s color. The moon will touch the umbra — the darker part of the shadow that produces the distinctive darkening and reddening of the moon during an eclipse — at 6:48 a.m. local time. The moon sets only 16 minutes later, so viewers on the Eastern Seaboard will see only the first part of the eclipse; they won’t be able to see our lunar companion transform into a full “Blood Moon.”.
As you travel west, the eclipse starts earlier, so more of it will be visible before moonset. Chicagoans, for example, will see the moon touch the penumbra at 4:51 a.m. local time and the umbra at 5:48 a.m., with the moon turning the characteristic red at 6:51 a.m. However, at that point, the moon will be only about three moon diameters above the western horizon, so observers should be sure to find a viewing spot with a clear view. That can make for some dramatic photos as the moon sets at 7:03 a.m.
People on the West Coast will be able to see the whole total phase of the eclipse, which starts at 3:48 a.m. local time. The moon will start to pass out of the umbra at 6:07 a.m. and will set at 6:54 a.m., before it fully emerges from the umbral shadow. (It will be mostly out, but not all the way.)
In Hawaii, the moon will start turning red at 1:48 a.m. local time and completely enter the Earth’s umbra and 2:51 a.m. Maximum eclipse occurs at 3:29 a.m. and the moon exits the umbra by 5:11 a.m.
The July eclipse
This graph shows the path of the July 2018 total lunar eclipse, and times when the event will be visible.
Credit: NASA
July’s eclipse will be partially visible from the east coast of South America as the moon rises. For example, observers in Rio de Janeiro will see the moon already deep in the umbral shadow of Earth as it comes up at 5:27 p.m. local time. About 45 minutes later, at 6:13 p.m., the moon will touch the edge of the umbra and begin coming out. It will emerge from the umbra at 7:19 p.m., and the penumbral phase will end at 8:28 p.m.
In Europe, observers will be in a similar situation. Londoners will see the moon rise at 8:51 p.m. local time, when the moon will already be in shadow, with the maximum eclipse occurring at 9:21 p.m. The moon will emerge from the umbra at 11:19 p.m.
In Athens, Greece, the penumbral phase of the eclipse will already be underway at moonrise (9:24 p.m. local time), and the umbral phase will start at 10:30 p.m. The maximal eclipse will happens at 11:21 p.m., and the moon will move into the penumbra at 1:19 a.m. By 2:28 a.m., it will have exited the penumbral shadow completely.
Skywatchers in New Delhi and other areas of central Asia will see the eclipse peak near midnight. In New Delhi, the penumbral eclipse will start at 10:44 p.m. local time, when the moon will be well above the horizon, and the umbral phase will begin at 11:54 p.m. The moon will appear to turn red soon after 1:00 a.m. on July 28. It will reach the edge of the umbra at 2:43 a.m. and will emerge from the umbra at 3:49 a.m.
In Cape Town, South Africa, the penumbral eclipse will start at 7:14 p.m. local time, with the umbral phase following at 8:24 p.m. Maximal eclipse occurs at 10:21 p.m.; by that point, the moon will have looked red for about 40 minutes. The umbral phase ends at 11:13 p.m.
In parts of Australia, the moon will be setting as the eclipse progresses. In Melbourne, for example, the moon will touch the umbral shadow at 4:24 a.m. and will become a Blood Moon at about 5:30 a.m. local time; the maximal eclipse will occur at 6:21 a.m. By the time the moon sets, at 7:28 a.m., the moon will be coming out of the umbra, but it won’t emerge until the moon is below the horizon.
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Astronauts Are Gearing Up to Celebrate the New Year in Space (Video)
Astronauts on the International Space Station have New Year’s Day (Jan. 1) off, so how will they ring in the New Year, and how will it compare to their year-end traditions on Earth?
In a new video from NASA, some of the current residents of the space stationshare their favorite New Year’s traditions (both on the ground and in space), and hinted at how they might spend the holiday. In past years, some of the station crews have engaged in rather enthusiasticyear-end celebrations.
“In Japan, in the morning on New Year’s Day, people go out and watch the first sunlight,” Japanese astronaut and station flight engineer Norishige Kanaisaid in the video. “I have a memory with my father of walking in a very, very cold early morning in Tokyo to watch the first sunrise [of the year]. It’s a fond memory for me.” [Holidays in Space: An Astronaut Photo Album]
Of course, the “first sunlight” of 2018 might be hard to define on the orbiting laboratory. The space station orbits Earth at 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h) and completes an orbit every 92 minutes. As such, the crewmembers experience 15 or 16 sunrises and sunsetsevery day. In 2015, the station crewmembers said they decided to ring in the new year 16 times, once for each “midnight” they experienced.
NASA astronaut and flight engineer Joe Acaba said that when he was a kid, his family would always host a New Year’s party, and at midnight, his father would serve homemade chili.
“The big treat for staying up that late was my dad’s chili,” Acaba said. “We’ll see what we do up here [on the space station], if I can even stay up that late. I think we have vegetarian chili, and we’ll see how that competes.”
Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and station commander Alexander Misurkin also might be celebrating on Jan. 7, which is Christmas Day in the Russian Orthodox Church (but most Russians open gifts on New Year’s Eve). Jan. 7 is a Sunday, so crewmembers will have the day off.
Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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The Top Skywatching Events to Look for This Year
The second full moon of January (a Blue Moon, by some definitions) will be totally eclipsed by the shadow of the Earth. The Pacific Ocean is turned toward the moon when this takes place; the event will occur more or less during the middle of the night in that region.
To the west of the Pacific Ocean, for central and eastern Asia, Indonesia, New Zealand and most of Australia, a fine view of this moon show will be had in the evening sky. Heading farther west, into western Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, the eclipse will already be underway as the moon rises. To the east of the Pacific Ocean, Alaska and northwestern Canada see the eclipse from start to finish (as does Hawaii) between midnight and dawn, while for the rest of North and Central America, moonset will intervene before the event is through.
The farther east you go, the closer the start of the eclipse will coincide with moonset. Along the U.S. Atlantic Seaboard, for instance, the moon will have only just begun to enter the Earth’s umbra when the satellite will disappear from view below the west-northwest horizon. The duration of the total phase is 76 minutes with the moon tracking through the southern part of the Earth’s shadow. So, during totality, the moon’s lower limb (its edge) will appear brightest, its upper limb darkest.
The eclipse is also one day after another January supermoon, so some outlets — including NASA — have grouped these three events together into a super Blue Moon eclipse.
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'Bill Nye Saves the World' Season 2 Debuts on Netflix Today
Bill Nye the Science Guy is back for a second season of “Bill Nye Saves the World,” which returns to Netflix today (Dec. 29).
The new season kicks off at a cannabis dispensary in Hollywood, where Nye examines the science behind marijuana, a Schedule I drug in the U.S. that is “presumed to have no medical value and be addictive,” Nye told Space.com.
Even though marijuana is widely used for medical purposes, it has not been legalized everywhere in the U.S., and “nobody really knows for sure” what the active chemical components of the drug do, Nye said. That’s why Nye legally purchases a sample from the cannabis dispensary to learn more about the controversial plant.
Other episodes of the new season delve into topics like cybersecurity, extinction, sleep, superbugs and even time travel, Nye said.
Joined by actor Zach Braff, retired astronaut Scott Kelly, and Brannon Braga, a producer who has worked on “Star Trek,” “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” and “The Orville,” Nye breaks down the science of time travel and provides “an update on our current understanding of the astrophysics” of time travel, he told Space.com.
Bill Nye the Science Guy returns to Netflix Friday, Dec. 29, for Season 2 of his show “Bill Nye Saves the World.”
Credit: Netflix
The second season of “Bill Nye Saves the World” will feature many other famous guests, including actors Kevin Smith, Steve-O and Drew Carey, as well as comedian Ali Wong and musicians from the band OK Go.
Nye also turns to NASA experts to better understand sleep patterns of humans on Earth, as well as astronauts at the International Space Station, who see the sun rise and set about once every 90 minutes.
“It makes you a little disoriented, by all accounts,” which is why NASA scientists strive to better understand sleep, Nye told Space.com.
This also relates to the question of how astronauts would get a good night’s sleep during future missions to Mars, where the day is about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth. “Could you do that — live on a Martian day, or would it make you nuts because you’re hardwired for an Earth day?” Nye said.
Only the first six episodes of “Bill Nye Saves the World” will be released today, Dec. 29, on Netflix, which requires a monthly paid subscription. The remaining six episodes will follow sometime in 2018. The original 1990s kids’ TV show “Bill Nye, the Science Guy” is also available to stream on Netflix.
Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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The Most Exciting Space Missions to Watch This Year
China’s Tiangong-1 space lab has been orbiting Earth since September 2011, but it is slated for an uncontrolled re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere in late January or later, officials have said. Most of the vehicle is expected to burn up during the re-entry.
The uncrewed space lab, which weighed 18,740 lbs. (8,500 kilograms) at launch, was used for a total of six successive rendezvous and dockings with three different spacecraft, including the Shenzhou-8 (uncrewed), Shenzhou-9 (piloted) and Shenzhou-10 (piloted). [Gallery: Tiangong-1, China’s First Space Laboratory]
The Tiangong-1 spacecraft was part of China’s human space exploration activities, but it stopped working properly on March 16, 2016. Although Tiangong-1 has maintained its structural integrity, officials do not expect to regain control of the space lab before re-entry.
Tiangong-1 is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere somewhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south latitude. Researchers monitoring the spacecraft have found that it is slowly dropping in altitude; however, the exact time and location at which Tiangong-1 will plunge toward Earth cannot yet be predicted. Debris from the re-entry is not expected to cause any harm or damage. China will track the spacecraft more closely as it gets closer to re-entry.
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See the Moon Eclipse Bright Star Aldebaran on Saturday
An image of the star Aldebaran near the limb of the moon. On the right, the brightness is turned up to make the star visible.
The last of this year’s series of occultations of the star Aldebaran by the moon is set for Saturday, Dec. 30.
The final “vanishing act” of this bright orange star favors the Middle Atlantic and northeastern United States as well as the eastern third of Canada. In these regions, the star will disappear in a dark sky or during late (nautical) twilight, with the sun at least 12 degrees below the horizon.
As one heads farther to the west and south, the sky will become progressively brighter at the time of the occultation. The central U.S. down to the Gulf Coast will be bathed in bright twilight. For all points west of a line running roughly from eastern Montana southeast to the Texas/Louisiana border, the sun will be above the horizon and it will still be daytime when the occultation takes place (making Aldebaran invisible). [Best Night Sky Events of January 2018 (Stargazing Maps)]
The moon can hide four first-magnitude stars, and Aldebaran, the star marking the angry right eye of Taurus, the Bull, is the brightest of the four.
The moon will be about 2.5 days before full and 92 percent sunlit during this occultation. For easterners, the natural satellite will be at least one-third of the way up from the eastern horizon to the overhead point (the zenith).
For those in the occultation zone, Aldebaran will disappear behind the dark, unilluminated part of the lunar disk — an event that can be glimpsed with the unaided eye but can be much better appreciated through binoculars or a telescope. The emergence of the star will occur about 50 minutes later — give or take about 10 minutes depending on your location — on the bright side of the moon, an effect that can be observed only with optical aid.
An occultation timetable
In the table below, we list 10 selected cities and local standard times to the nearest minute for when Aldebaran will wink out behind the dark lunar sliver and reappear from behind the moon’s bright limb.
Local Circumstances for the Occultation of Aldebaran Saturday, Dec. 30, 2017 Location Disappears Reappears St. Louis 5:08 p.m.* 6:03 p.m.* Chicago 5:13 p.m.* 6:10 p.m. Atlanta 6:09 p.m.* 6:52 p.m.* Pittsburgh 6:17 p.m.* 7:11 p.m. Washington, D.C. 6:19 p.m.* 7:09 p.m. Jacksonville, Fla. 6:19 p.m.* 6:56 p.m.* Toronto 6:21 p.m.* 7:19 p.m. New York 6:24 p.m. 7:16 p.m. Montreal 6:28 p.m. 7:27 p.m. Boston 6:29 p.m. 7:22 p.m. An asterisk ( * ) indicates that evening twilight is still in progress.
The International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA) has a web page that provides a viewing schedule for the Dec. 30 occultation at nearly 1,500 locations, including many in the United States and Canada. You can find it here: http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/bstar/1230zc692.htm.
Take note that the times on the IOTA page are all in Universal Time (UT), so you will need to correct for your local time zone. As an example, the disappearance of Aldebaran as seen from Philadelphia (listed as location 1342), occurs at 23:22:25 UT. Subtracting 5 hours to convert to Eastern Standard Time gives 18:22:25 or 6:22:25 p.m. As for the reappearance of Aldebaran as seen from Philadelphia, we find 0:12:53 UT, which when converted to Eastern Time, gives 19:12:53 or 7:12:53 p.m.
So, if you’re in the City of Brotherly Love, get ready to watch Aldebaran wink out behind the dark limb of the moon at around 6:22 p.m. And be prepared to watch the star pop back into view on the opposite (bright) side of the moon some 50 minutes later, at 7:12 p.m.
A glancing blow
Of much greater interest is what will happen over central Florida, where the star will be just barely occulted behind the edge of the moon, along the line marking the southern limit of the area where the occultation will be visible. That southern line runs from Port Richey, Florida, near the Gulf coast northeast to the Atlantic Coast, to a point in Florida about midway between Daytona Beach Shores and Wilbur-by-the-Sea. This line is actually a path 2 or 3 miles (3 to 5 kilometers) wide, within which telescope users can see Aldebaran vanish and reappear several times as the mountainous limb of the moon glides by. Observers south of that path, such as in Tampa and Orlando, will see a near miss.
Because Aldebaran subtends an angle as large as 0.021 degrees, corresponding to 130 feet (40 meters) at the moon’s distance, observers in the graze path may notice that some disappearances and reappearances take place gradually rather than instantaneously. Partial blinks or flashes are also possible when features at the lunar limb fail to completely hide the star.
In addition, IOTA’s Brad Timerson has created an interactive Google map that depicts the graze path. You can view it here at: http://www.iota.timerson.net/ZC692_2017_Dec_31.htm.
And to augment his graze map, Timerson has calculated the times when the moon will apparently skim past the star. You’ll need to know your precise latitude and longitude to get the specific times. The southern edge of the moon will sweep over Central Florida roughly between 6:23 and 6:26 p.m. EST. Go to: http://www.iota.timerson.net/Dec31_ZC692Times.txt.
Your last chance?
For many readers, Saturday might be the last opportunity to see the moon hide Aldebaran for quite some time. The moon will occult Aldebaran during the dawn hours of July 10, 2018, but the zone of visibility for that event will be confined mainly to northern and central sections of Canada, though a small slice of the Northern Plains and western Great Lakes will also get a brief glimpse. See the map from the U.S. Naval Observatory here: http://asa.usno.navy.mil/static/files/2018/occns/occn.2018Jul10.Aldebaran.pdf.
After that, North Americans will have to wait until the next Aldebaran occultation series, which will not begin until the year 2033. There will, in fact, be a well-placed occultation of Aldebaran that will be visible across most of North America during convenient evening hours on March 24, 2034, a little over 16 years from now!
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmer’s Almanac and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for Verizon Fios1 News in Rye Brook, N.Y.
Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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Skywatching Event of the Year: How a Solar Eclipse Captivated America in 2017
Though 2017 included several astronomical highlights, the Great American Solar Eclipse of Aug. 21 stands out as the biggest skywatching event of the year, if not all time.
While a partial solar eclipse was visible in most of the United States, a total solar eclipse could be seen in a smaller, coast-to-coast path stretching from Oregon to South Carolina. An estimated 215 million American adults — 88 percent of the U.S. adult population — turned their eyes to the skies to witness the historic event. That’s nearly twice the viewership of this year’s Super Bowl, according to one study.
“It was an epic event by all measures,” NASA solar researcher Lika Guhathakurta told members of the press this month at the American Geophysical Union conference in New Orleans. The eclipse broke NASA’s previous web-traffic records about seven times over, with the agency’s eclipse websites receiving more than 90 million page views on Aug. 21. [Amazing Photos: Relive the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse]
“The NASA solar eclipse coverage was the agency’s most watched and most followed event on social media to date,” Guhathakurta said.
This composite view shows the progress of the total solar eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017, over Madras, Oregon. The eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the contiguous United States from Lincoln Beach, Oregon, to Charleston, South Carolina, with a partial solar eclipse visible across the entire North American continent and parts of South America, Africa and Europe.
Credit: Aubrey Gemignani/NASA
“One of the biggies”
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between Earth and the sun. In a partial eclipse, the moon only “takes a bite” out of the sun. Because the sun isn’t fully blocked during a partial solar eclipse, viewers must wear safety glasses throughout the event. But during a total solar eclipse, the moon completely blocks the body of the sun, making it safe to remove protective glasses to observe the usually hidden structures of the solar atmosphere. [Photos: Coolest 2017 Solar Eclipse Signs and Celebrations]
NASA estimates that more than 200 million U.S. adults observed the eclipse, but it’s not quite clear how many children might have viewed it because kids couldn’t be surveyed, Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, told Space.com. But those uncounted kids might have gotten the most out of the eclipse.
A boy watches the total solar eclipse through protective glasses in Madras, Oregon, on Aug. 21, 2017.
Credit: Aubrey Gemignani/NASA
“To me, this is probably one of the greatest events, providing to our kids an exciting opportunity to witness a natural phenomenon that they may want to know more about,” Green said. Experiencing the eclipse may make them curious about the sun, the moon, the climate or other things that could spur an interest in science.
“It is an experience that they will take with them,” Green said.
Related: The Greatest Skywatching Moments of 2017
But just because the eclipse is over, that doesn’t mean children — or adults — need to stop being interested in the sun or throw out their eclipse glasses. Green pointed out that eclipse glasses can be used to study the sun, which occasionally has sunspots large enough to be viewed using only solar eclipse glasses.
In fact, the eclipse could serve as a “gravity assist” for getting young people into scientific fields, Green added. Much as a moon or planet can change a spacecraft’s path and send it speeding in a new direction, an event such as the eclipse can pique children’s interest and set them on a path to explore science and math.
“This was one of the biggies,” Green said.
Elevate their experience
A total solar eclipse occurs somewhere on Earth about once every 18 months, but most of those events occur over water, making it challenging for most people to observe them. Others occur in remote regions or countries where communication and transportation can be difficult. [The Most Amazing 2017 Total Solar Eclipse Photos From Space]
That’s one of the reasons the total solar eclipse of 2017 was so special, Guhathakurta said.
“This eclipse, in particular, offered the scientists a really unique opportunity, as it fell upon our first world nation with a sophisticated infrastructure, a developed nation excited by the notion of citizen science,” Guhathakurta said. The last solar eclipse to cross the United States occurred nearly a hundred years ago.
A map of the total solar eclipse path of Aug. 21, 2017. An estimated 215 million American adults — 88 percent of the U.S. adult population — observed the eclipse.
Credit: NASA
According to Kristen Erickson, NASA’s science engagement and partnerships director, the agency’s objective in 2017 was to increase scientific literacy and scientific education. [Photos: Great American Solar Eclipse Seen from a Plane]
“We suspected that the 2017 total solar eclipse was going to be a pretty big deal,” Erickson told Space.com.
“Then, we said, ‘How can we make this the most enriching experience for the most citizens across the country?’”
NASA recruited partners from various companies, libraries and volunteer networks, and worked to organize them all, she said.
“We had a lot of these things in place,” Erickson said. “It was really just a matter of taking a leadership vision of what could happen.”
During the eclipse, NASA supported 11 scientific investigations and many more citizen-science investigations, Guhathakurta said.
One such investigation was the Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse (Citizen CATE) experiment, which put telescopes into the hands of teams at 68 sites to have them study the structure of the sun. Matt Penn, who led Citizen CATE, said most of their volunteers had already planned to watch the eclipse.
“What we did was try to enable them to elevate their experience,” Penn said.
Angela Des Jardins is the principal investigator on the Eclipse Ballooning Project, which helped nearly a thousand students on 55 high school and college teams fly science balloons into the upper atmosphere during the eclipse.
Des Jardins said one of the key lessons she learned that will help her prepare for the next eclipse was that engaging nonscientists goes beyond developing accessible science projects.
“You have to do something that’s really exciting and challenging to get the students involved and to get the general public involved,” she said.
Ready for 2024
The next total solar eclipse to cross the United States will occur on April 8, 2024. This map by cartographer Michael Zeiler of GreatAmericanEclipse.com shows the path of the moon’s shadow across the U.S.
Credit: Michael Zeiler, GreatAmericanEclipse.com
The sun has set on the 2017 eclipse, but NASA is already gearing up for the next one. In 2024, a total solar eclipse will sweep across the eastern United States, on its way from Mexico to Canada. [Total Solar Eclipse of 2024: Maps of the ‘Path of Totality’]
As for whether NASA plans to coordinate events for the upcoming solar event, “there’s no question, to me anyway, if I’m still the director of [NASA’s] Planetary Science [Division] in 2024,” Green said.
The 2017 eclipse also offered learning experiences to keep in mind for the next solar event. For example, there was the last-minute eclipse-glasses scare that popped up in the days leading up to the eclipse. When NASA realized that many unsafe eclipse glasses were on the market, the agency hurried to let people know how to tell if their glasses were safe for eclipse viewing.
Erickson cited Rick Fienberg, press officer for the American Astronomical Society (AAS), as the “unsung hero.” The AAS had a website listing the names of reputable vendors of filters and glasses, and detailing how to view the eclipse safely.
“NASA relied on AAS and his [Fienberg’s] leadership for the whole safe solar viewing,” Erickson said.
The agency will learn from that experience to be better prepared to teach safe viewing for the 2024 eclipse, she said, adding that glasses from this year’s eclipse will still be usable in 2024.
Citizen science will continue for the next eclipse as well. Penn said Citizen CATE received more attention than they had anticipated.
“We could have had 200 sites, easily, with the amount of interest,” Penn said. “I think we could have a much bigger event in 2024.”
Follow Nola Taylor Redd at @NolaTRedd, Facebook, or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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Military Launch Quality Issues Flagged by DoD Watchdog
A United Launch Alliance Delta IV-Heavy rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
WASHINGTON — An evaluation of military space launch services revealed lapses in quality control that could compromise the schedule and performance of future missions, the Defense Department inspector general reported last week.
The IG specifically called out the main contractors that support the evolved expendable launch vehicle program, or EELV, for failing to comply with standards required by AS9100 — a widely adopted quality management system for the aviation and space industries.
Prime contractors United Launch Alliance (ULA) and SpaceX, and ULA subcontractor Aerojet Rocketdyne “did not perform adequate quality assurance management of the EELV program,” said the Dec. 20 report signed by Randolph Stone, deputy inspector general for policy and oversight. [The Most Dangerous Space Weapons Concepts Ever]
Auditors flagged the contractors for 181 “nonconformities” in the Aerospace Standard 9100C, known as “Quality Management Systems — Requirements for Aviation, Space, and Defense Organizations.”
The IG report listed a number of lapses that inspectors believe could put at risk billions of dollars worth of satellite launches that the EELV program is responsible for. It called on the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, and the Defense Contract Management Agency to dig deeper into these issues.
Gaps in quality assurance management, the IG cautioned, “could increase program costs, delay launch schedules, and increase the risk of mission failure.”
Three launch vehicles made by ULA and SpaceX support the EELV program. The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center acquires launch services for U.S. military and intelligence spacecraft from both firms. Aerojet Rocketdyne provides ULA the RL-10 engine for the Delta IV and Atlas V vehicles. The EELV program office delegates day-to-day management of vendor agreements to the Defense Contract Management Agency.
IG audits took place from June 2016 through March 2017 at ULA Delta IV and Atlas V manufacturing facilities in Decatur, Alabama; at ULA program management sites in Denver, Colorado; at the SpaceX Falcon 9 manufacturing plant in Hawthorne, California, at Falcon 9 booster and engine testing in McGregor, Texas; and at Aerojet’s RL-10 engine manufacturing and test operations in West Palm Beach, Florida.
One issue identified at ULA was related to the protection of electrostatic sensitive devices in the avionics production area. “Inadequate ESD controls and mitigation could result in the premature failure of electronic components in the EELV system,” the report said.
At SpaceX, inspectors found an “inadequately protected” Merlin engine on the test stand. The Merlin engine exhaust ports and vent tubes “should have been protected with specific covers,” they wrote. “We found bottles of soda and personal items in FOD-controlled areas.” FOD is short for foreign object debris.
The RL-10 engine test stand at Aerojet, used to test both the Delta IV and Atlas V second stage engine, had “significant FOD issues,” the report said, including “loose bolts, nuts, tape, foil, tie wraps, and animal feces.”
In the aerospace industry, FOD costs billions of dollars in the form of schedule delays, rework, injuries, and product losses. “A bit of debris lodged in the right place could be enough to drop a rocket right out of the sky,” warned an FOD prevention guide published by Lockheed Martin. “Delivering products that are not FOD-free sends the message that you do not have control over your manufacturing processes,” the guidelines said.
The IG suggested the EELV program office and the DCMA conduct a “root cause analysis and implement corrective actions” for the 181 violations that inspectors identified. Air Force and Defense Department officials said they agreed with some of the IG findings but noted that many of the issues cited by auditors already were being addressed and fixed by the contractors.
The Air Force program office and DCMA informed the IG that they are “actively engaged with the EELV contractors as they conduct root cause analyses and develop corrective plans.” They noted that Aerojet has “implemented corrective actions for all nonconformities, ULA has implemented corrective actions for all nonconformities except one, and SpaceX is in the process of implementing corrective actions.”
DCMA and Air Force program officials also told the IG that they have stepped up quality surveillance of ULA and Aerojet Rocketdyne. And they noted that “quality surveillance of SpaceX has been implemented for SpaceX’s first EELV mission and will be further refined as a result of the DoD OIG inspection.”
This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
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A Gift from Saturn: Icy Moon Enceladus Amid Glowing Rings (Photo)
Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus is seen half-lit, with the gas giant’s glistening rings in the background, in this image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft released Dec. 27, 2017. The spacecraft took the image in 2011 and crashed into Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has given the world a belated Christmas gift: a stunning view of Saturn’s Enceladus moon silhouetted against the planet’s glistening rings.
The photo, which NASA released today (Dec. 27), shows Enceladus in visible light as seen by Cassini’s narrow-angle camera at a distance of around 90,000 miles (145,000 kilometers) on Nov. 6, 2011. [See more amazing Enceladus photos]
Enceladus’ frozen crust hides a “global ocean of liquid water,” one that frequently bursts forth through fractures in the ice, according to NASA. This phenomenon can be spotted at the moon’s south pole; the glow in fact comes from one of the “plume[s] of water-ice particles and other materials” that spew out with regularity.
The bright point to the right of Enceladus is a distant star, NASA added in an image description.
The Cassini-Huygens mission — a joint effort by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency — began with the spacecraft’s launch in October 1997. The mission ended on Sept. 15, when the probe plunged into Saturn’s atmosphere and burned up about 45 seconds after its last transmission.
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Asteroid Phaethon's Earth Flyby, Closest Until 2093, Captured by Arecibo Observatory
Images from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico show a massive space rock’s close approach to Earth on Dec. 16.
The asteroid 3200 Phaethon zipped to within about 6.4 million miles (10.3 million kilometers) of Earth, or about 27 times the distance from Earth to the moon. This was the space rock’s closest approach to our planet since 1974 (when it also flew by on Dec. 16). Phaethon will not come that close to Earth again until Dec. 14, 2093. [In Images: Potentially Dangerous Asteroids]
Radar images of near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon were generated by astronomers at the National Science Foundation’s Arecibo Observatory on Dec. 17, 2017.
Credit: Arecibo Observatory/NASA/NSF
The images, though grainy, have helped researchers clarify the size of 3200 Phaethon and some of its physical features, according to a statement from NASA. The rock appears to be roughly spherical, with a diameter of about 3.6 miles (6 km), or about 0.6 miles (1 km) larger than previous estimates, according to the statement.
The images of 3200 Phaethon show that it also has “a large concavity, or depression, at least several hundred meters in extent near its equator, and a conspicuous dark, circular feature near one of the poles,” according to the statement. The dark feature could be a crater or a depression that does not reflect the light emitted by Arecibo’s radar instrument, Patrick Taylor, a scientist at the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and group leader for Planetary Radar at Arecibo Observatory, said in the statement. Arecibo has the most powerful radar system on Earth and is used by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office to monitor “potentially hazardous asteroids,” or PHAs. The observatory suffered “minor structural damage” when Hurricane Maria made landfall on Sept. 20.
Near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon, imaged by the radar instrument at the Arecibo Observatory.
Credit: Arecibo Observatory/NASA/NSF
“Arecibo is an important global asset, crucial for planetary defense work because of its unique capabilities,” Joan Schmelz, of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and deputy director of Arecibo Observatory, said in the statement. “We have been working diligently to get it back up and running since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico.”
Phaethon may have once been a comet, meaning it contained water ice near its surface that would sublimate as it flew by the sun. It’s also likely that a trail of debris left behind by Phaethon is responsible for the annual Geminid meteor shower.
Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.