Science@NASA
Science News
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment, Earth
Mar 22, 2022
Sometimes the electrons in the upper atmosphere clump up and form giant waves larger than Texas that zip around the Earth faster than a jet plane! A team of researchers from the NASA/NSF-supported Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) led by Nathaniel Frissell at The University of... Read More
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Sep 24, 2021
As we look forward to the Artemis program to the Moon and even one-day crewed missions to Mars, accessing resources like water will be crucial for humans to survive on other worlds. We sat down with Victor Glover, NASA Crew-1 astronaut, to talk about NASA’s Artemis program, what it would be like to... Read More
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Sep 16, 2020
The Sun goes through regular cycles of activity approximately every 11 years, and tracking these cycles is a key part of better understanding the Sun and mitigating its impacts on human technology and astronauts in space.
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
May 4, 2020
A citizen scientist working with NASA's Aurorasaurus project has unearthed an exciting piece of scientific history. In the writings of early 20th-century aurora explorer Carl Størmer, citizen scientist Dr. Michael Hunnekuhl noticed mentions of “feeble homogeneous arcs of great altitude” and... Read More
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Jan 6, 2020
X-rays from the Sun help us probe the highest-energy phenomena that occur in our solar system, including solar storms and their origins. The Sun presents some unique challenges to researchers attempting to unravel its high-energy behavior. To deal with these challenges, a sounding rocket experiment... Read More
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Dec 2, 2019
This blog post originated in the 2018 Science Mission Directorate Science and Technology Report.
PROJECT
The Microwave Electrojet Magnetogram (MEM)
KEY POINTS
The low SWaP MEM sensor enables cost-effective implementation of future high-impact ionospheric current investigations on resource-... Read More
Sun, Our Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Nov 24, 2019
The continuously expanding solar wind begins in our Sun and doesn’t stop until after it reaches the edge of the heliosphere.
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Apr 14, 2019
NASA is using sounding rockets to study the cusp, a point where the magnetic bubble that surrounds our planet dips inward and touches down to Earth.
Earth’s Space Environment
Apr 30, 2018
NASA is sponsoring a team developing a new type of payload to collect ionospheric plasma data at multiple points near a suborbital main payload. These low-resource, easily reproducible payloads—called Bobs—were developed for the NASA Isinglass auroral sounding rocket mission (conducted in February... Read More
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Mar 30, 2018
The ionosphere is where Earth's atmosphere gives way to space, and two new NASA missions will work together to uncover its secrets.
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Mar 30, 2018
Up above the clouds, Earth’s atmosphere gives way to space. This interface is called the ionosphere. Changes in the ionosphere – in reaction to space weather above and Earth’s weather below -- can disrupt communications and GPS signals and could potentially harm astronauts. So it is important to... Read More
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Mar 25, 2018
Enveloping our planet and protecting us from the fury of the Sun is the magnetosphere, a key to helping Earth develop into a habitable planet.
Sun, Earth’s Space Environment
Mar 25, 2018
Enveloping our planet and protecting us from the fury of the Sun is a giant bubble of magnetism called the magnetosphere. It deflects most of the solar material sweeping towards us from our star at 1 million miles per hour or more. Without the magnetosphere, the relentless action of these solar... Read More
Universe, Stars, Earth’s Space Environment
Mar 6, 2018
Imagine an object moving at super-sonic speed. This object, as it moves through a medium, causes the material in the medium to pile up, compress, and heat up. The result is a type of shock wave, known as a bow shock.
