NASA
NASA | Tracking Space Weather for New Horizons
A few months before New Horizons was due to reach Pluto, a community of scientists came together to determine just what kind of a environment the mission would experience during its historic flyby. While the simulations aren't 100%...
NASA
NASA | Top Solar Discoveries: #1
A countdown of the top 5 solar discoveries from the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum. These include the discoveries of sunspots, the solar cycle, the heliosphere, aurora formation, and space weather. Number 1 in the Top 5 Solar...
NASA
What is GOES-R?
The GOES-R series, NOAA's next-generation geostationary weather satellites, is a game changer. These satellites will provide continuous imagery and atmospheric measurements of Earth’s Western Hemisphere, total lightning data, and space...
NASA
Lasers Fired At NASA's Parker Solar Probe
NASA's Parker Solar Probe is in the midst of intense environmental testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in preparation for its journey to the Sun. These tests simulate the noise and shaking the spacecraft...
NASA
April 2017 Solar Flares
The sun emitted a trio of mid-level solar flares on April 2-3, 2017. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured images of the three events. Music credit: A Waltz into Darkness by Joseph Bennie Credit:...
NASA
NASA | Solar Wind Strips Martian Atmosphere
Mars is a cold and barren desert today, but scientists think that in the ancient past it was warm and wet. The loss of the early Martian atmosphere may have led to this dramatic change, and one of the prime suspects is the solar wind....
Curated Video
Can You Hear Sound in Space?
Space is full of radio waves, plasma waves, magnetic waves, gravitational waves, and shock waves, all of which can travel in space without a medium. These waves are recorded by instruments that can sense these waves, and the data is...
NASA
Tribute to Eugene Parker, Namesake of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe
Dr. Eugene N. Parker, visionary of heliophysics and namesake of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, passed away on March 15, 2022. He was 94. As a young professor at the University of Chicago in the mid-1950s, Parker developed a mathematical...
NASA
NASA’s New Solar Scope Is Ready For Balloon Flight
NASA and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, or KASI, are getting ready to test a new way to see the Sun, high over the New Mexico desert. A pearlescent balloon — large enough to hug a football field — is scheduled to take...
NASA
NASA-funded Balloon Recovered From Antarctica
For 12 days in January 2016, a football-field-sized balloon with a telescope hanging beneath it floated 24 miles above the Antarctic continent, riding the spiraling polar vortex. On Jan. 31, 2016, scientists sent the pre-planned command...
NASA
Apollo Moon Soil Radiation Experiment
When a stream of charged particles known as the solar wind careens into the Moon’s surface at nearly 280 miles per second (450 kilometers per second), it enriches it in ingredients that could make water. Planetary scientists Jason McLain...
Next Animation Studio
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe ‘touches’ the sun for the first time ever
For the first time ever, a spacecraft has touched the Sun, with NASA announcing its Parker Solar Probe has flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere.
Next Animation Studio
How the Northern Lights are formed
Ongoing geomagnetic storms have led to sightings of the Northern Lights across North America this week, the result of a coronal mass ejection from the Sun that occurred on Sunday, sending a stream of charged particles toward Earth.
NASA
NASA Spacecraft Discovers New Magnetic Process in Turbulent Space
Though close to home, the space immediately around Earth is full of hidden secrets and invisible processes. In a new discovery reported in the journal Nature, scientists working with NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft — MMS —...
NASA
NASA | Lunar Polar Craters May Be Electrified
New research from NASA's Lunar Science Institute indicates that the solar wind may be charging certain regions at the lunar poles to hundreds of volts. In this short video Dr. Bill Farrell discusses this research and what it means for...
NASA
NASA | The Mysterious Holes in the Atmosphere on Venus
The European Space Agency's Venus Express mission saw something it could not explain. It appeared that there were holes on the nightside of Venus' ionosphere. Researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center investigated these...
NASA
NASA | Death-Defying Comets Explore the Sun's Atmosphere
To observe how winds move high in Earth's atmosphere, scientists sometimes release clouds of barium as tracers to track how the material corkscrews and sweeps around � but scientists have no similar technique to study the turbulent...
NASA
NASA | What is a Sungrazing Comet?
Sungrazing comets are a special class of comets that come very close to the sun at their nearest approach, a point called perihelion. To be considered a sungrazer, a comet needs to get within about 850,000 miles from the sun at...
NASA
NASA | IBEX: Observing the Sun's Horizon
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, is the first mission designed to map the entire region of the boundary of our Solar System. As charged particles from the Sun, called the "solar wind," flow outward well beyond the orbits of...
NASA
NASA | MAVEN Magnetometer
When you navigate with a compass you can orient yourself thanks to Earth's global magnetic field. But on Mars, if you were to walk around with a compass it would haphazardly point from one anomaly to another, because the Red Planet does...
NASA
NASA | How to Cook a Comet
A comet's journey through the solar system is perilous and violent. Before it reaches Mars - at some 230 million miles away from the sun - the radiation of the sun begins to cook off the frozen water ice directly into gas. This is called...
Curated Video
Solar Flares: The Powerful Explosions of the Sun
This video provides an overview of solar flares, explaining how they occur and their impact on Earth. It highlights the immense energy released during a solar flare and the various emissions it produces. The video also discusses the...
NASA
NASA in Silicon Valley: James Cockrell, Small Spacecrafts: NASA in Silicon Valley Podcast
A conversation with James Cockrell, Project Manager for Small Spacecrafts.
Curated Video
Exploring Space Weather
In this video, we explore the weather in space, focusing on the sun and its impact on Earth. We learn about solar wind, auroras, solar storms, and their effects on our communication systems and astronauts in space. The video highlights...