How NASA Explores Fires in an Evolving World?
NASA scientists and their collaborators are at the forefront of developing tools and techniques for predicting, remotely sensing, and ultimately mitigating wildfires, spanning from the forest floor to the reaches of outer space. This comprehensive approach commences with a deep understanding of fire dynamics, followed by satellite-based monitoring, and the dissemination of critical data to land managers and communities grappling with unprecedented wildfire seasons.
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Cosmic Cycles: Travelers
Roaming Celestial Nomads, asteroids, and comets, resembling wanderers amidst the planets, serve as messengers from a distant past. Many of these diminutive celestial bodies encapsulate remnants from the very inception of our solar system, bearing invaluable insights into its origins and the emergence of life on Earth. NASA, in its relentless pursuit of knowledge, has embarked on missions to some of these celestial travelers, recently achieving a monumental milestone by reaching and gently touching the ancient asteroid Bennu to procure samples of rock that have remained unaltered for nearly 5 billion years.
Introducing "Cosmic Cycles: A Space Symphony," a pioneering collaboration uniting the talents of the renowned composer Henry Dehlinger, NASA, and the National Philharmonic. This groundbreaking endeavor seamlessly melds music and visuals in seven multimedia masterpieces, each dedicated to the Sun, Earth, Moon, Planets, and the Cosmos itself. This transformative initiative offers an enthralling expedition through the cosmos, exemplifying the harmonious fusion of music and scientific discovery, spotlighting the awe-inspiring beauty and profound potency of their synergy.
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There's No Place Like Home
Understanding Earth gives us the means to better protect it. Join NASA, as we monitor, study, and observe our planet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year – to learn more and to protect and improve life on Earth.
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How To Track The Solar Cycle ?
Understanding the Sun’s behavior is an important part of life in our solar system. The Sun’s powerful outbursts can disturb the satellites and communications signals traveling around Earth, or one day, Artemis astronauts exploring distant worlds. NASA scientists study the solar cycle so we can better predict solar activity. As of 2020, the Sun has begun to shake off the sleep of minimum, which occurred in December 2019, and Solar Cycle 25 is underway. Scientists use several indicators to track the solar cycle's progress.
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Hubble Sees Evaporating Planet Getting The Hiccups
A young planet whirling around a petulant red dwarf star is changing in unpredictable ways orbit-by-orbit. It is so close to its parent star that it experiences a consistent, torrential blast of energy, which evaporates its hydrogen atmosphere – causing it to puff off the planet.
But during one orbit observed with the Hubble Space Telescope, the planet looked like it wasn’t losing any material at all, while an orbit observed with Hubble a year and a half later showed clear signs of atmospheric loss.
Cosmic Cycles: Resonances from the Birth of the Universe
NASA's mission extends from delving into the intricate constituents and mechanisms governing the universe, encompassing the tiniest particles of matter and energy, to comprehending its grand-scale structure and evolutionary trajectory. Scientists cast their gaze deep into the vast realms of space and time to unearth the comprehensive cosmic narrative, tracing the origins and evolution of stars and galaxies. They meticulously unveil the intricacies of the environments surrounding enigmatic black holes and bear witness to the most colossal celestial detonations since the momentous Big Bang.
In parallel, NASA embarks on an exploration that transcends our own solar system, uncovering a multitude of exoplanets and deciphering the complex processes underpinning the genesis of planetary systems. Simultaneously, they gain insights into the genesis of life-friendly environments.
Introducing "Cosmic Cycles: A Space Symphony," a pioneering collaboration uniting the talents of the renowned composer Henry Dehlinger, NASA, and the National Philharmonic. This groundbreaking endeavor seamlessly melds music and visuals in seven multimedia masterpieces, each dedicated to the Sun, Earth, Moon, Planets, and the Cosmos itself. This transformative initiative offers an enthralling expedition through the cosmos, exemplifying the harmonious fusion of music and scientific discovery, spotlighting the awe-inspiring beauty and profound potency of their synergy.
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What Is an Annular Eclipse?
On October 14, 2023, a remarkable celestial event will unfold as an annular solar eclipse traverses the skies over North, Central, and South America. This captivating phenomenon will be observable in various regions, including parts of the United States, Mexico, and numerous countries in Central and South America, offering millions of people in the Western Hemisphere the opportunity to witness this spectacular eclipse. But what precisely is an annular eclipse, and what gives rise to it? Furthermore, why does it conjure the mesmerizing spectacle of a "ring of fire" encircling the sun in the sky?
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NASA Animation Sizes Up the Biggest Black Holes
A previous version of this video mislabeled the orbit of Saturn as the orbit of Jupiter.
This new NASA animation highlights the “super” in supermassive black holes. These monsters lurk in the centers of most big galaxies, including our own Milky Way, and contain between 100,000 and tens of billions of times more mass than our Sun.
Any light crossing the event horizon – the black hole’s point of no return – becomes trapped forever, and any light passing close to it is redirected by the black hole’s intense gravity. Together, these effects produce a “shadow” about twice the size of the black hole’s actual event horizon.
The animation shows 10 supersized black holes that occupy center stage in their host galaxies, including the Milky Way and M87, scaled by the sizes of their shadows. Starting near the Sun, the camera steadily pulls back to compare ever-larger black holes to different structures in our solar system.
First up is 1601+3113, a dwarf galaxy hosting a black hole packed with the mass of 100,000 Suns. The matter is so compressed that even the black hole’s shadow is smaller than our Sun.
The black hole at the heart of our own galaxy, called Sagittarius A* (pronounced ay-star), boasts the weight of 4.3 million Suns based on long-term tracking of stars in orbit around it. It’s shadow diameter spans about half that of Mercury’s orbit in our solar system.
The animation shows two monster black holes in the galaxy known as NGC 7727. Located about 1,600 light-years apart, one weighs 6 million solar masses and the other more than 150 million Suns. Astronomers say the pair will merge within the next 250 million years.
At the animation’s larger scale lies M87’s black hole, now with a updated mass of 5.4 billion Suns. Its shadow is so big that even a beam of light – traveling at 670 million mph (1 billion kph) – would take about two and a half days to cross it.
The movie ends with TON 618, one of a handful of extremely distant and massive black holes for which astronomers have direct measurements. This behemoth contains more than 60 billion solar masses, and it boasts a shadow so large that a beam of light would take weeks to traverse it.
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Gravitational Waves: Distortions in the Fabric of Space-Time
Gravitational waves, imperceptible undulations in the very structure of space-time, arise from the most tumultuous and high-energy occurrences in the cosmos. These phenomena encompass the collision of black holes, the implosion of massive stellar cores, the fusion of neutron stars or white dwarf stars, the irregular gyrations of non-spherical neutron stars, and conceivably, the echoes of gravitational radiation dating back to the inception of the universe.
In the following video, Dr. Padi Boyd elucidates the concept of gravitational waves and underscores the pivotal role played by the Hubble Space Telescope in unraveling the enigmatic facets of our universe.
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Returning from Bennu: The Journey's Conclusion
NASA's pioneering OSIRIS-REx mission, the agency's maiden endeavor into asteroid sample retrieval, embarked on its odyssey in September 2016 with the primary objective of exploring the near-Earth asteroid known as Bennu. In a significant milestone in October 2020, the spacecraft descended to Bennu's surface and successfully gathered approximately 250 grams of material, marking the beginning of its journey back to Earth.
Now, after two years and four months of traversing space, OSIRIS-REx is rapidly approaching the point from which it initially departed. The mission's captivating climax is slated for September 24, 2023, when a specially designed capsule carrying the precious Bennu samples is scheduled to make its touchdown in the West Desert of Utah. Stay tuned as we continue to track the remarkable journey to Bennu's heart and back to Earth.
Feasting Black Hole: A Cosmic Snack Attack
In the vast cosmic theater, where stars and black holes dance to the gravitational tune of the universe, a remarkable discovery has ignited the imaginations of astronomers. Meet Swift J0230, a celestial enigma found in the depths of a distant galaxy, over 500 million light-years away, nestled within the northern constellation Triangulum.
This captivating revelation comes courtesy of NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a marvel of scientific exploration launched in 2004. It's here, in the heart of the cosmos, that scientists have unveiled an enthralling cosmic drama. Picture this: a Sun-like star, venturing perilously close to a colossal black hole, its very existence hanging in the balance.
As the star draws near, the relentless gravitational forces of the black hole begin to flex their might. They create tidal forces so immense that the star is stretched and torn apart, like a cosmic act of creation and destruction in one breathtaking moment. This dramatic phenomenon is what astronomers call a "tidal disruption event." It's a celestial spectacle where a star is devoured by the voracious appetite of a black hole, unleashing a symphony of multiwavelength light that reverberates across the cosmos.
But Swift J0230 has something unique up its celestial sleeve. Instead of succumbing to the black hole's embrace in one fell swoop, it teases its cosmic predator with a mesmerizing dance of survival. Each time it approaches the black hole, the star swells and sheds material, like a celestial flirtation with destiny. And yet, it somehow manages to escape the clutches of its gravitational captor, only to repeat the mesmerizing waltz over and over again.
This celestial ballet unfolds thanks to Swift's X-ray Telescope (XRT), which captured Swift J0230's cosmic performance for the first time on June 22, 2022. Since then, this enigmatic star has lit up the night sky with a series of dazzling outbursts, occurring roughly every few weeks, much to the delight of eager astronomers.
Intriguingly, Swift J0230 appears to be a repeating tidal disruption event, where the star's fate hangs in the balance with each encounter, all while orbiting a black hole of mind-boggling proportions, over 200,000 times the mass of our Sun. It's estimated that with each pass, the star sheds a staggering three Earth masses of material, a cosmic spectacle that pushes the boundaries of our understanding of the cosmos.
This celestial revelation, Swift J0230, not only captivates our imaginations but also serves as a bridge to unlock the secrets of other suspected repeating disruptions. It offers a cosmic canvas on which scientists can paint the intricate interplay between different types of stars and black holes, unveiling a mesmerizing tapestry of behaviors that continue to challenge our cosmic comprehension.
But how did we uncover this cosmic gem? Thanks to a cutting-edge tool known as the Swift X-ray Transient Detector, which automates the search for such celestial wonders. After scanning a portion of the sky, the instrument transmits its findings to Earth, where a sophisticated program compares them to previous snapshots. When the X-ray sky shows signs of change, scientists receive a cosmic alert, allowing them to swiftly coordinate additional observations and dive deeper into the mysteries of the universe.
In the grand cosmic theater, where stars twirl and black holes beckon, Swift J0230's captivating performance reminds us that the universe is a stage where the most extraordinary stories unfold, waiting to be discovered by those who dare to look beyond the stars.
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