10 Out Of This World NASA Spinoff Technologies

NASA scientists are closer than ever to finding life outside of Earth.

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What’s Up for March 2017?

What’s Up for March? The moon hides red star Aldebaran and crescents dazzle after dusk.

On March 4 the first quarter moon passes between Earth and the star Aldebaran, temporarily blocking our view of the star. This is called an occultation. 

The occultation begins and concludes at different times, depending on where you are when you view it.

The event should be easy to see from most of the U.S., Mexico, most of Central America, the Western Caribbean and Bermuda. 

Observers along a narrow path from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Hartford, Connecticut, will see the moon “graze” the star. The star will disappear and reappear repeatedly as hills and valleys on the moon alternately obscure and reveal it.

As seen from Earth, both Mercury and Venus have phases like our moon. That’s because they circle the sun inside Earth’s orbit. 

Planets that orbit between Earth and the sun are known as inner or inferior planets.

Inferior planets can never be at “opposition,” which is when the planet and the sun are on opposite sides of Earth.

But inferior planets can be at “conjunction,” which is when a planet, the sun and Earth are all in a straight line. 

Conjunction can happen once when the planet is on the opposite side of the sun from Earth and again when it’s on the same side of the sun as Earth. 

When a planet is on the opposite side of the sun from Earth, we say it is at “superior conjunction.” As the planet moves out from behind the sun and gets closer to Earth, we see less and less of the lit side. We see phases, similar to our moon’s phases. 

Mercury is at superior conjunction on March 6. 

A few weeks later, the planet emerges from behind the sun and we can once again observe it. By the end of March we’ll see a last-quarter Mercury.

 On April 20 Mercury reaches “inferior conjunction.”

Brilliant Venus is also racing toward its own inferior conjunction on March 25. Watch its crescent get thinner and thinner as the planet’s size appears larger and larger, because it is getting closer to Earth.

Finally, look for Jupiter to rise in the East. It will be visible all month long from late evening until dawn.

You can catch up on solar system missions and all of our missions at www.nasa.gov

Watch the full “What’s Up for March 2017″ video here: 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Comets may hold the secret to the origin of life on Earth

We’ve studied life on Earth extensively, but we still have no idea where it came from. Some scientists think it may have spontaneously arisen on Earth by some unknown process. Others think the ingredients for life were delivered here by comets crashing into Earth in the early days of the solar system. The latter theory just got a huge boost.

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Observing the Skies Above by Kirby Wright on Flickr.

A Look Back At Astronaut Scott Kelly’s #YearInSpace

THIS COMET IS DRUNK

Comet Lovejoy is the first comet we’ve found that disperses ethyl alcohol into space, as much as would be in 500 bottles of wine every second.

SpaceX announced they are planning to send their Red Dragon capsule to Mars as soon as 2018

To send Red Dragon spacecraft to Mars, SpaceX is building a mega-rocket called Falcon Heavy. Based on the company’s successful Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy consists of three core rocket stages, each of which is equipped with landing legs for reusability. They would use the capsule’s thrusters to make a landing. 

This artist’s illustration shows how the capsule could enter Mars’ atmosphere. SpaceX has successfully returned their capsules to Earth during space station resupply missions for NASA.

The Dragon can carry seven astronauts to and from destinations like the International Space Station (not yet a manned mission to Mars I’d guess 😄). Here’s an illustration of the Dragon Version 1 (the new version has some differences), to get the idea:

credit: SpaceX, Karl Tate/Space.com

This view of Jupiter shows the giant planet’s cloud tops taken by the Pioneer 10 spacecraft as it flew past Jupiter. This view was taken from 2,695,000 kilometers (1,842,451 miles) away. It shows the 25,000 mile long Great Red Spot, which is large enough to swallow up several Earths. Individual cloud formations are visible in some detail. The bright zones appear to become split up into the detailed flow patterns of Jupiter’s atmosphere and clouds. The area surrounding the Spot in the bright South Tropical Zone, suggests a flow pattern about the Spot which is bulged toward the north by the Spot. The Spot may be a gigantic “permanent hurricane.” The gigantic cloud swirls are thousands or more miles across. Pioneer 10 flew past Jupiter in December 1974 and flew past the orbit of Pluto in 1987. A sister spacecraft, Pioneer 11 reached Jupiter in December 1975. The Pioneer Project was managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calafornia. The spacecraft was built by TRW Systems.