[Spacetalk] https://www.nasa.gov/index.html

Thu Feb 21 00:04:54 CST 2019

Hi all,

 I hope everything is going great…i returned from Brazil on Monday, leaving for Norway on Sunday night, get back on the evening of the 1st... leave again on the 3rd for Mexico, back  on the 7th, leave for Brazil on the 15th…crazy, yes :-) so much fun…the interface with the kids is phenomenal…I can’t describe it but I see their smiles and sparkle in their eyes…I don’t normally include pictures here but this was so adorable…if you would like to see pictures, you can find them on... Space Talk Gabe... on Facebook…

Please see below for coverage og the Space X launch with the commercial crew vehicle test…a major step for the US to be able to take astronauts to space…go to the subject link for all the latest…We have to remember to always do our best, enjoy everything we do, live in the present, make each day special, let those we care about most know, smile and have fun…:-) :-) love ya, Gabe

 to see the ISS from your home, go to www.spotthestation.nasa.gov <http://www.spotthestation.nasa.gov/>

my new little buddy in Brazil….

Falcon 9 launch set for Thursday at Cape Canaveral <https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/02/19/falcon-9-launch-set-for-thursday-at-cape-canaveral/> Live coverag <https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/02/21/falcon-9-nusantara-satu-mission-status-center/>

 <https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/02/19/falcon-9-launch-set-for-thursday-at-cape-canaveral/>
SpaceX is set to end a two-month launch drought at Cape Canaveral with a blastoff Thursday night carrying a privately-funded Israeli moon lander, an Indonesian communications satellite and a U.S. Air Force surveillance payload into orbit. 
 <https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/02/21/falcon-9-nusantara-satu-mission-status-center/>
Live coverage: First launch of the year from Cape Canaveral set for Thursday <https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/02/21/falcon-9-nusantara-satu-mission-status-center/>
February 21, 2019
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff at 8:45 p.m. EST Thursday (0145 GMT Friday) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The commercial launcher, featuring a reused first stage booster flying for the third time, will haul into orbit Indonesia’s Nusantara Satu communications satellite, the Beresheet lunar lander for SpaceIL, and the S5 space surveillance payload for the Air Force Research Laboratory.
NASA to Provide Coverage of SpaceX Commercial Crew Flight Test
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/dragonliftoff_1.jpg>
This illustration depicts SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Credits: SpaceXNASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the SpaceX Demo-1 flight test to the International Space Station <https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html> for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, which is working with the U.S. aerospace industry to launch astronauts on American rockets and spacecraft from American soil for the first time since 2011.

NASA and SpaceX are targeting 2:48 a.m. EST Saturday, March 2, for the launch of the company’s uncrewed Demo-1 flight, which will be the first time a commercially built and operated American rocket and spacecraft designed for humans will launch to the space station. The launch, as well as other activities leading up to the launch, will air on NASA Television and the agency’s website <http://www.nasa.gov/live>. The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Crew Dragon is scheduled to dock to the space station at approximately 5:55 a.m. Sunday, March 3. This will be the first uncrewed flight test of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and will provide data on the performance of the Falcon 9 rocket, Crew Dragon spacecraft and ground systems, as well as in-orbit, docking and landing operations. The flight test also will provide valuable data toward NASA certifying SpaceX’s crew transportation system for carrying astronauts to and from the space station. SpaceX’s Demo-2 test flight, which will fly NASA astronauts to the space station, is targeted to launch in July. Following each flight, NASA will review performance data to ensure each upcoming mission is as safe as possible. After completion of all test flights, NASA will continue its review of the systems and flight data for certification ahead of the start of regular crewed flights to the space station. https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew <https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew>

New NASA Book Shares Beauty of Earth from Space
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/book_rupert_bay_horizontal.jpg>
The rivers that flow into Rupert Bay in northern Quebec carry water stained brown with natural chemicals found in plants, as shown in this satellite view captured by Landsat 8 on July 30, 2016. This is one of the 69 images from space in the new book, “Earth.”
Credits: NASA

NASA’s new 168-page book “Earth,” a collection of dramatic images captured by Earth-observing satellites, is available now in hardcover and ebook, and online with interactive features. Credits: NASA

Swirling white clouds, deep blue oceans and multicolored landscapes bring to life the pages of NASA’s new 168-page book “Earth,” a collection of dramatic images captured by Earth-observing satellites. The book is available now in hardcover and ebook, and online with interactive features. From a lava field in Iceland to the icy Patagonian landscape of South America, the 69 images in “Earth” present our home planet’s atmosphere, water, land, and ice and snow with short explanations of the science behind each image. “The spectacular images in this book remind us of the majestic beauty of our world,” said Lawrence Friedl, program director for the Applied Sciences Program in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Earth Science Division in Washington. “We hope these images inspire everyone to explore, understand, and appreciate the planet we call home.” NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. The agency makes its Earth observations freely and openly available to those seeking solutions to important global issues such as changing freshwater availability, food security and human health. “Earth” is available for purchase in hardcover from the U.S. Government Publishing Office at: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/earth-book <https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/earth-book> 
A free ebook version of “Earth” can be downloaded at: https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/earth_detail.html <https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/earth_detail.html> An interactive online version is posted on NASA’s Earth Observatory at: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/earth-book-2019 <https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/earth-book-2019> For more information about NASA's Earth science programs, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/earth <https://www.nasa.gov/earth> 

Plasma Waves Are Cooking Electrons in Earth's Magnetic Shield

A colorful illustration shows the spacecraft of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission passing through the plasma of space. Credit: NASA
Space is warm — or, at least, warmer than it should be. All across the universe, including in our own solar system, astronomers have found that the nearly empty places between the stars and galaxies and other matter contain more heat than existing knowledge can fully explain. So what's cooking the void? A new study conducted in space might offer an answer: plasma waves banging into electrons. [The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics <https://www.livescience.com/34052-unsolved-mysteries-physics.html>] Those nearly empty places in our solar system do have some stuff in them. There's solar wind, which consists of thin streams of charged particles, like electrons, moving at superhigh velocities away from the sun. And there's loose plasma, a form of matter that's widely distributed throughout the universe and that often exists in a chaotic, "turbulent" state.
Scientists observed those electrons in the solar wind absorbing the energy of electromagnetic waves passing through the turbulent plasmas of Earth's magnetosheath. Once the energy was absorbed, it turned into heat. The magnetosheath is the region where Earth's electromagnetic fields most directly meet the solar wind. t was an effect researchers had observed before in less-complex situations on Earth, but never in the chaotic turbulence of Earth orbit. Researchers found the effect in data from the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission <https://mms.gsfc.nasa.gov/about_mms.html>. That project includes four robotic spacecraft orbiting the Earth and measuring how our planet's electromagnetic field interacts with the sun. In data from that extreme environment, researchers were able to tease out how energy in electromagnetic waves passing through the plasma turned into heat in the electrons. It was an effect never before seen in this sort of chaotic, natural setting. For the effect to work, the electrons and waves had to be moving at similar speeds. "The electric field associated with waves moving through the plasma can accelerate electrons moving with just the right speed along with the wave, analogous to a surfer catching a wave," co-researcher Greg Howes, of the University of Iowa, said in a statement <https://phys.org/news/2019-02-spacecraft-reveal-mechanism-solar.html>. (Adding energy to the electrons causes them to heat up.) The researchers said that their results, published today (Feb. 14) in the journal Nature Communications <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08435-3>, could help explain the universe's oddly high temperature. And their methods, they said, point the way forward to more-detailed studies of how energy moves through plasmas in space.

How NASA's Opportunity Mars Rover Lived So Long

A self-portrait of NASA's Mars rover Opportunity taken in late March 2014 (right) shows that much of the dust on the rover's solar arrays had been removed since a similar portrait from January 2014 (left). 
NASA's Opportunity Mars rover  <https://www.space.com/18289-opportunity-rover.html>didn't just luck into its amazing longevity.

The golf-cart-size Oppy and its twin, Spirit <https://www.space.com/mars-rovers-opportunity-spirit-change-exploration.html>, landed on the Red Planet a few weeks apart in January 2004, tasked with 90-day missions to look for signs of past water activity. Spirit explored its patch of Mars until 2010, and Opportunity kept rolling until a monster dust storm boiled up around the rover this past June.

NASA tried to revive Oppy for more than eight months but finally threw in the towel yesterday <https://www.space.com/mars-rover-opportunity-declared-dead.html> (Feb. 13), officially declaring an end to the two robots' Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission. [Postcards from Mars: The Amazing Photos of Opportunity and Spirit Rovers <https://www.space.com/27-latest-mars-shots-spirit-opportunity.html>]

A combination of factors made it possible for the solar-powered Spirit and Opportunity to exceed their warranties so spectacularly, said MER project manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

One of these was the Martian weather <https://www.space.com/16903-mars-atmosphere-climate-weather.html>. The mission team planned for a 90-day life for the rovers because it was thought that it would take about that long for falling dust to blanket the duo's solar panels, effectively choking them out. But strong winds came along and blasted both robots' arrays clean before the robots had to face down their first Martian winter. 

go to the link for the full story of Opportunity :
https://www.space.com/opportunity-mars-rover-long-life.html?utm_source=sdc-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190217-sdc
Hubble Reveals Dynamic Atmospheres of Uranus, Neptune
 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/stsci-h-p1906a-f-1028x543.png>
Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong and A. Hsu (University of California, Berkeley)
Like Earth, Uranus and Neptune have seasons, which likely drive some of the features in their atmospheres. But their seasons are much longer than on Earth, spanning decades rather than months.

The new Hubble view of Neptune shows the dark storm, seen at top center. Appearing during the planet's southern summer, the feature is the fourth and latest mysterious dark vortex captured by Hubble since 1993. Two other dark storms were discovered by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989 as it flew by the remote planet. Since then, only Hubble has had the sensitivity in blue light to track these elusive features, which have appeared and faded quickly. A study led by University of California, Berkeley, undergraduate student Andrew Hsu estimated that the dark spots appear every four to six years at different latitudes and disappear after about two years.

 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/stsci-h-p1906d-f-514x514.png>
This Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 image of Neptune, taken in September and November 2018, shows a new dark storm (top center).
Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong and A. Hsu (University of California, Berkeley)
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Hubble uncovered the latest storm in September 2018 in Neptune's northern hemisphere. The feature is roughly 6,800 miles across.

To the right of the dark feature are bright white "companion clouds." Hubble has observed similar clouds accompanying previous vortices. The bright clouds form when the flow of ambient air is perturbed and diverted upward over the dark vortex, causing gases to freeze into methane ice crystals. These clouds are similar to clouds that appear as pancake-shaped features when air is pushed over mountains on Earth (though Neptune has no solid surface). The long, thin cloud to the left of the dark spot is a transient feature that is not part of the storm system.

It's unclear how these storms form. But like Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the dark vortices swirl in an anti-cyclonic direction and seem to dredge up material from deeper levels in the ice giant's atmosphere.

The Hubble observations show that as early as 2016, increased cloud activity in the region preceded the vortex's appearance. The images indicate that the vortices probably develop deeper in Neptune's atmosphere, becoming visible only when the top of the storm reaches higher altitudes.

 <https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/stsci-h-p1906c-f-514x514.png>
This Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 image of Uranus, taken in November 2018, reveals a vast, bright stormy cloud cap across the planet's north pole.
Credits: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong and A. Hsu (University of California, Berkeley)
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The snapshot of Uranus, like the image of Neptune, reveals a dominant feature: a vast bright stormy cloud cap across the north pole.

Scientists believe this new feature is a result of Uranus' unique rotation. Unlike every other planet in the solar system, Uranus is tipped over almost onto its side. Because of this extreme tilt, during the planet's summer the Sun shines almost directly onto the north pole and never sets. Uranus is now approaching the middle of its summer season, and the polar-cap region is becoming more prominent. This polar hood may have formed by seasonal changes in atmospheric flow.

Near the edge of the polar storm is a large, compact methane-ice cloud, which is sometimes bright enough to be photographed by amateur astronomers. A narrow cloud band encircles the planet north of the equator. It is a mystery how bands like these are confined to such narrow widths, because Uranus and Neptune have very broad westward-blowing wind jets.

Both planets are classified as ice giant planets. They have no solid surface but rather mantles of hydrogen and helium surrounding a water-rich interior, itself perhaps wrapped around a rocky core. Atmospheric methane absorbs red light but allows blue-green light to be scattered back into space, giving each planet a cyan hue.

The new Neptune and Uranus images are from the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, a long-term Hubble project, led by Amy Simon of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, that annually captures global maps of our solar system's outer planets when they are closest to Earth in their orbits. OPAL's key goals are to study long-term seasonal changes, as well as capture comparatively transitory events, such as the appearance of Neptune's dark spot. These dark storms may be so fleeting that in the past some of them may have appeared and faded during multi-year gaps in Hubble's observations of Neptune. The OPAL program ensures that astronomers won't miss another one.

These images are part of a scrapbook of Hubble snapshots of Neptune and Uranus that track the weather patterns over time on these distant, cold planets. Just as meteorologists cannot predict the weather on Earth by studying a few snapshots, astronomers cannot track atmospheric trends on solar system planets without regularly repeated observations. Astronomers hope that Hubble's long-term monitoring of the outer planets will help them unravel the mysteries that still persist about these faraway worlds.

Analyzing the weather on these worlds also will help scientists better understand the diversity and similarities of the atmospheres of solar-system planets, including Earth.

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