Get Down to Earth This Year With Globe-Spanning Expeditions: We're sending scientists around the world in 2016 – from the edge of the Greenland ice sheet to the coral reefs of the South Pacific – to delve into challenging questions about how our planet is changing and what impacts humans are having on it.
While Earth science field experiments are nothing new for us, the next six months will be a particularly active period with eight major new campaigns taking researchers around the world on a wide range of science investigations. The public is invited to follow this journey of exploration online through our social media channels and the new Earth Expeditions webpage, which will feature regular video, photos and blog posts from these missions and other ongoing field activities. Visit: http://www.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions for more information.
And liftoff! A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Liftoff was at 11:05 p.m. EDT. The Orbital ATK CRS-6 Cygnus spacecraft on a commercial resupply services mission to deliver 7,500 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station.
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While residents of islands and nations in the Western Pacific looked up in the early morning hours to observe a total eclipse of the Sun, the DSCOVR mission looked down from space and captured the shadow of the Moon marching across Earth’s sunlit face.
This animation was assembled from 13 images acquired on March 9, 2016, by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four-megapixel charge-coupled device and Cassegrain telescope on the DSCOVR satellite.
Credit: NASA/DSCOVR EPIC Team
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Wow, a total solar eclipse! See the moon pass directly in front of the sun. It happened from 8:38 to 8:42 p.m. EST Tuesday. As the moon passed precisely between the sun and Earth - a relatively rare occurrence that happens only about once a year because of the fact that the moon and the sun do not orbit in the exact same plane - it blocked the sun's bright face, revealing the tenuous and comparatively faint solar atmosphere, the corona.
The total eclipse was only visible in parts of Southeast Asia.
Unraveling Solar Prominence: An elongated solar prominence rose up above the sun's surface and slowly unraveled on Feb. 3, 2016, as seen in this video by our Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO. Prominences, also known as filaments when seen over the sun's limb, are clouds of solar material suspended above the sun's surface by the solar magnetic field - the same complex magnetism that drives solar events like flares and coronal mass ejections. The solar material in the prominence streams along the sun's magnetic field lines before it thins out and gradually breaks away from the solar surface. These images were taken in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths of 304 angstroms, a type of light that is invisible to our eyes but is colorized here in red.
Credit: NASA/SDO
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British European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) posted this video and wrote, 'Amazing how much lightning can strike our planet in a short time #Principia #timelapse.' Astronauts capture photographs and video of the Earth from the International Space Station (@ISS) routinely. The station is a unique place - a convergence of science, technology and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and makes research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. It is a microgravity laboratory in which an international crew of six people live and work while traveling at a speed of 17,500 mph, orbiting Earth every 90 minutes.
Fly Over Dwarf Planet Ceres: A colorful new animation shows a simulated flight over the surface of dwarf planet Ceres, based on images from our Dawn spacecraft. The movie shows Ceres in enhanced color, which helps to highlight subtle differences in the appearance of surface materials. Scientists believe areas with shades of blue contain younger, fresher material, including flows, pits and cracks. This animated flight over Ceres emphasizes the prominent crater Occator and its intriguing bright spots, which are believed to be a type of salt.
Credit: NASA
Ping pong in space, anyone? NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who marked day 300 of a historic year in space on Jan. 21, shows off another fascinating feature of life in microgravity. Kelly used two paddles with hydrophobic, or water repellant, features to pass a sphere of water back and forth. Scientists use the microgravity environment of the space station to advance scientific knowledge in Earth, space, physical, and biological sciences that otherwise wouldn't be possible down here on the planet.
The paddles are polycarbonate laser etched so that the surfaces are actually arrays of 300 micrometer posts (0.3mm). The surfaces were then spray coated with a Teflon coat. The combined effects of surface roughness and non-wettability produce a super-hydrophobic surface capable of preventing water adhesion in dynamic processes. The larger the drop, the less force it takes to break it up. The smaller the drop, the harder you can hit it. Scott is demonstrating about a 4 mL drop (over 100 times larger than a rain drop).
SpaceX recently tested its ability to fire engines that will be used to land a human-rated spacecraft safely on the ground with the accuracy of a helicopter at the company’s test facility in McGregor, Texas. SpaceX envisions returning people to Earth from space on the power of thrust instead of beneath parachutes. Working with our Commercial Crew Program, SpaceX is in the early phases of analysis. The Crew Dragon spacecraft will be equipped with eight SuperDraco thrusters that would be used to slow the vehicle’s return to Earth through the atmosphere and ultimately set the spacecraft and its crew down. Propulsive landing will not be used initially for missions with NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. The Crew Dragon will splash down safely in the ocean under parachutes as its passengers return from the space station.
A dark solar filament above the sun's surface became unstable and erupted this past December, generating a cascade of magnetic arches.
A small eruption to the upper right of the filament was likely related to its collapse. The arches of solar material appear to glow as they emit light in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, highlighting the charged particles spinning along the sun's magnetic field lines.
This video was taken in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths of 193 angstroms, a type of light that is typically invisible to our eyes, but is colorized here in bronze.
Dwarf planet Ceres is shown in these images from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft that create a movie of Ceres rotating. Ceres reveals some of its well-kept secrets in two new studies in the journal Nature, thanks to data from Dawn. They include highly anticipated insights about mysterious bright features found all over the dwarf planet's surface.
In one study, scientists identify this bright material as a kind of salt. The second study suggests the detection of ammonia-rich clays, raising questions about how Ceres formed.
These images are false-color renderings, which highlight differences in surface materials.
Video credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
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