1NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

NASAnextempowering the next generation of space explorers

BIG SCIENCE,SMALL SATELLITESLearn how NASA is studying our Earth with small spacecraft!

PAGE 6

2NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

Has anyone ever told you to dream big? Maybe you’ve imagined making the next great invention or breaking a world record. Or maybe you dreamed that one day you could fly among the stars.

At NASA, we dream big every day. Our ambitions take us to new heights as we launch spacecraft and make extraordinary discoveries. Just this fall, we launched a weather satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This satellite will track storms from space. Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to deter-mine that there are at least 10 times more galaxies in the universe than we once thought. We also celebrated the 10-year anniversary of STEREO — a mission that helps scientists uncover the mysteries of space weather.

Sometimes our big dreams come in a miniature form. NASA is launching six Earth-observing missions that utilize small satellite technology. SmallSats range in size from a loaf of bread to a small washing machine. But these spacecraft are capable of a tremen-dous amount of science. The six missions will demonstrate new ways in which to study our changing planet.

Dreams come in all different sizes. Whether your dream is big or small, keep striving for it. Even the smallest of ambitions can have a big impact.

Sarah SchliederNASA Next editor

NASANextEmpowering the next generation of space explorers

Goddard Space Flight CenterVolume 2, Issue 1 | January 2017

Front cover: An artist’s concept drawing of a swarm of small, Earth-observing satellites. NASA

Back cover: The Getz Ice Shelf in Antarctica. NASA/Jeremy Harbeck

Dear Reader,

Tracking weather from space

The Moon...and more

The super-est of super-moons

SmallSats: The next big thing

Solving the mysteries of space weather

A closer look at the ozone hole

200 billion and counting

Mission: TESS. Target: Exoplanets

Q&A: Jim Garvin

For Educators

An artist’s rendering of GOES-R, a geostationary weather satellite launched in November 2016. NASA

JANUARY 20173

4 5

6

8

9

10

11

12

13

3NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

A new NOAA weather satellite, launched by NASA, will help weather forecasters make more accurate predictions

Did you know that a fleet of satellites is tracking thunderstorms on Earth? Satellites help weather forecasters track storms that can have devastating effects, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, extreme rain and snow storms.

In November, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Associa-tion partnered with NASA to launch the “next generation” geo-stationary weather satellite, called the Geostationary Operation-al Environmental Satellite-R series —or GOES-R.

GOES-R will be able to scan our planet five times faster and pro-vide storm trackers with greater detailed images than any other satellite has given us before. The data collected by GOES-R will specifically help improve hurricane tracking and understanding the intensity of storms, as well as with making predictions and giving warnings about severe weather.

Onboard GOES-R is six instruments, including a tool that will help scientists observe lightning and create maps of lightning strikes. Weather sensors on the satellite will monitor the sun.

Courtesy: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association

TRACKING WEATHER

FROM

SPACE

3NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

NASAnext

4NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

CLICK TO WATCH THE VIDEO!

Background image: NASA. Music video screenshots: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/David Ladd, producer

MOON the

and

MORE

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has collaborated with singer/

songwriter Matt Cusson and Javi-er Colon — season one winner of NBC’s The Voice — on a new song and music video inspired by NA-SA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbit-er (LRO) mission.

“The Moon and More” focus-es on how studying the moon helps us learn more about the solar sys-tem and how LRO has brought us stunning new images and scientific information about Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor.

LRO launched in June 2009. Since then, the spacecraft has col-lected a vast amount of data, con-tributing to our knowledge about the moon.

SPACE MEETS “THE VOICE” IN A NEW MUSIC VIDEO ABOUT EARTH’S CLOSEST NEIGHBOR

‘THE VOICE’ winner JAVIER COLON

4NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

5NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

of

the

T he moon is a familiar sight in our sky, brightening dark nights and reminding us of

space exploration, past and pres-ent. But the most recent super-moon, which happened on Nov. 14, was especially “super” because it was the closest full moon to Earth since 1948. We won’t see another supermoon like this until 2034! How old will you be then?

The moon’s orbit around Earth is slightly elliptical, not entirely circular, so sometimes it is closer and some-times it’s farther away. When the moon is full as it makes its closest pass to Earth it is known as a su-permoon. At perigee — the point at which the moon is closest to Earth — the moon can be as much as

14 percent closer to Earth than at apogee, when the moon is farthest from our planet. The full moon ap-pears that much larger in diameter and because it is larger shines 30 per-cent more moonlight onto the Earth.

NASA scientists have studied the moon for decades. A better under-standing of our moon helps scientists infer what is happening on other plan-ets and objects in the solar system.

“The moon is the Rosetta Stone by which we understand the rest of the solar system,” said Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbit-er (LRO) mission.

LRO has been mapping the moon’s surface and capturing high resolution images for more than

seven years. Extensive mapping of the moon aids scientists in under-standing our planet’s history, as well as that of planetary objects beyond the Earth-moon system.

“Because we have the Apollo sam-ples, we can tie what we see from orbit to those surface samples and make inferences about what has happened to the moon throughout its lifetime,” Petro said. “The sam-ples tell us how old certain lunar sur-faces are, and based on the number of impact craters on those surfaces, we can estimate the ages of the rest of the moon. Furthermore, we can then apply those models to estimate the ages of surface on other planets in our solar system — all by study-ing the moon!”

SUPERMOONS!

Take a full moon... ...voila! That’s A supermoon!

What makes a supermoon so super?

...at its closest approach to earth....

5NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

SUPER-EST

6NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

Beginning in November, NASA is launching a suite of six next-generation, Earth-ob-

serving small satellite missions to demonstrate new ways to study our changing planet.

These small satellites range in size from a loaf of bread to a small wash-ing machine and weigh from a few to 400 pounds.

Small-satellite technology has led to innovations in how scientists approach Earth observations from space. These new missions, five of which are scheduled to launch during the next several months, will

debut new methods to measure hurricanes, Earth’s energy capacity, aerosols and weather.

Small spacecraft and satellites are helping NASA advance scientific and human exploration, reduce the cost of new space missions, and expand access to space.

Through technological innovation, small satellites enable entirely new architectures for a wide range of activities in space with the potential for large leaps in transformative sci-ence.

SMALLSATS: THE NEXT BIG THING

small enough to hold in your hand...

...big enough to achieve great science!

NASA

SMALLSAT continues on page 7.

6NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

THERE’S MORE ONLINE!

Click to watch a video about the next-generation small satellites that will be observing Earth.

7NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

COMING TO AN ORBIT NEAR YOUExplore some of NASA’s new and upcoming SmallSat missions

RAVANThe Radiometer Assessment using Vertically Aligned Nanotubes (RAVAN) launched Nov. 11, 2016. It will demonstrate new technology for detecting solar radiation imbalance, the difference between solar radiation entering Earth’s atmosphere and solar radiation reflected or emitted back to space. This information is essential for understand-ing changes in Earth’s temperature due to greenhouse gases.

IceCubeThis small satellite will measure cloud ice with a new, miniature, high-frequency microwave radiometer. Radiometers are instru-ments that detect and measure the intensity of radiation.

HARPThe Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (HARP) will measure par-ticles in the air and the distribution of cloud droplet sizes with a new method that looks at a specific target from multiple perspectives.

MiRaTAThe Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration (MiRaTA) mis-sion packs many of the capabilities of a large weather satellite into a spacecraft the size of a shoebox. Its sensors will collect data on temperature, water vapor and cloud ice that can be used in weather forecasting and storm tracking.

CYGNSSThe Cyclone, Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) is made up of eight identical satellites that will fly in formation to mea-sure wind intensity over the ocean, providing new insights into trop-ical cyclones.

TROPICSThe Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) will make frequent measurements of temperature and water vapor throughout the life cycle of individual storms — using 12 satellites!

From top to bottom: TROPICS, which will study the insides of hurricanes with a constellation of 12 CubeSats. Lunar IceCube, which will send a 6U CubeSat to hunt for water ice on the moon. One of the eight microsatellites in the CYGNSS constellation under construction. MIT Lincoln Laboratory; Morehead State University; University of Michigan.

8NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

with bursts of energetic particles and how those events impact Earth and other objects in the solar system.

STEREO carry two types of tele-scopes that let us observe the near-constant activity churning on the surface of the sun. But it’s the position of these two spacecraft that really make STEREO special.

The two observatories, STEREO-A and STEREO-B, have distinct views of the sun because of their different orbits. They were sent out from Earth in opposite directions. STEREO-A’s orbit is slightly closer to the sun than the Earth’s, and STEREO-B’s orbit is slightly farther from the sun than the Earth’s. These different orbits gave scientists new views of how solar

You know that the sun keeps us warm and helps our plants grow. But did you know that

the sun can disrupt our satellites and even cause electrical power outages?

NASA is studying how activity on the sun can affect Earth, other plan-ets and even humans in space. One mission, the Solar and Terres-trial Relations Observatory (STE-REO), has spent the last 10 years helping scientists uncover the mys-teries of space weather.

Launched in 2006, the twin STE-REO spacecraft have given us amaz-ing views of the sun, including the first-ever simultaneous view of the entire star at once. This data is key to understanding how the sun erupts

storms travel through space.While STEREO-A continues to

send us information about the sun, scientists lost contact with STE-REO-B back in October 2014. Af-ter nearly two years, on August 21, 2016, mission operators managed to regain contact with the spacecraft — an amazing feat!

This contact revealed information about the spacecraft’s battery and charge state, its position in space, its speed and its spin. The recovery attempts are continuing so that STE-REO-B can once again add to the STEREO mission’s treasure trove of data on solar events and contin-ue to advance our understanding of the sun.

Solving the mysteries of space weather

STEREO MISSION

An artist’s conceptual drawing of the STEREO spacecraft in orbit around the sun. NASA. Below: NASA/STEREO.

8NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

9NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

There’s a hole in Earth’s ozone layer that grows and shrinks throughout the year. This year

the ozone hole grew to about 8.9 million square miles, according to scientists from NASA and the Na-tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-ministration (NOAA).

At its peak on Sept. 28, 2016, the ozone hole extended across an area nearly three times the size of the continental United States. The average area of the hole observed since 1991 has been roughly 10 mil-lion square miles.

In 2015 the ozone hole grew to 10.9 million square miles, 2 million square miles larger than this year, before returning to relatively nor-mal summer levels. Its larger size last year was due to colder-than-av-erage temperatures in the strato-sphere — the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere. In 2016, temperatures were warmer in the stratosphere, constraining the growth of the ozone hole.

The ozone layer, roughly 6 to 30 miles above the surface, acts like sunscreen, shielding Earth from ul-traviolet radiation that can be harm-ful to humans and plants. Ozone is also one of the primary greenhouse gasses that regulate Earth’s tem-perature.

Although warmer than average stratospheric weather conditions reduce ozone depletion, the current ozone hole area is large compared to

Ozone layer: shields Earth from ultraviolet rays that can be harmful to humans and plants.

Ozone: One of the primary greenhouse gases that regu-late Earth’s temperature.

the ozone holethe 1980s, when the depletion of the ozone layer above Antarctica was first detected. Signed in 1987, the Montreal Protocol is an international agreement that regulates emissions of the human-made ozone-deplet-ing substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. Because of the Montreal Protocol and its amend-ments, levels of ozone-depleting substances have declined but still remain high enough to produce sig-nificant ozone loss.

Scientists expect the ozone hole to recover back to 1980 levels around 2070.

A closer look atEarth’s ozone hole shrinks to smaller size in 2016 than in previous years

At its peak on Sept. 28, 2016, the ozone hole extended across an area nearly three times the size of the continental United States. The purple and blue colors are where there is the least ozone, and the yellows and reds are where there is more ozone. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

WORDS TO KNOW

10NASAnext

JANUARY 201710

NASAnext

MAY 2016

Hubble shows our observable universe contains 10 times more galaxies than previously thought

10

2 TRILLIONAND COUNTING

WORDS TO KNOW

WANT MORE HUBBLE?

Learn more about the Hubble Space Telescope and check out stunning images and the latest Hubble news at nasa.gov/hubble or follow us on Twitter at @NASA_Hubble.

NASA/ESA/S. Beckwith(STScI) and The HUDF Team

10NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

The universe suddenly looks a lot more crowded, thanks to obser-vations from NASA’s Hubble

Space Telescope and other obser-vatories.

Astronomers have found that there are at least 10 times more galaxies in the observable universe than they once thought!

Most of these galaxies were rel-atively small and faint in the early universe. They had masses similar to those of the satellite galaxies surrounding our Milky Way. As they merged to form larger galaxies, the population densities of galaxies in space decreased.

So just how many galaxies does our universe contain? That’s one of the most fundamental questions in astronomy!

The Hubble Deep Field images, such as the Ultra-Deep Field image above, gave us the first real under-

standing of just how many galaxies exist in the universe.

These observations revealed a number of faint galaxies. This led astronomers to estimate that the ob-servable universe contained about 200 billion galaxies. This new finding shows this estimate is at least 10 times too low!

Space telescopes, such as Hub-ble, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (set to launch in 2018) and other observatories, allow us to peer into our universe’s past and piece together what it once looked like billions of years ago.

Satellite galaxy: a galaxy that orbits a larger galaxy due to gravitational forces.

Population density of galaxies: The number of galaxies in a particular volume.

Observable universe: Re-gion of the universe that may be observed from Earth at the present time.

11NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

Background image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s search for planets out-side of our solar system has most-ly involved very distant, faint stars. Because they are so dim, planets around faint stars are harder to study more closely because they require a lot of telescope time to get a good measurement. However, NASA’s upcoming Transiting Exoplan-et Survey Satellite (TESS) mission will solve this problem by looking at the brightest stars in our own solar neighborhood.

TESS is scheduled to launch no earlier than March 2018. After launch, it will quickly start discov-ering new exoplanets that ground-based observatories, the Hubble Space Telescope and, later, the James Webb Space Telescope, will target for follow-up studies. Planets around closer, brighter stars are ide-al for follow-up study because they’ll produce stronger signals than plan-ets around more distant stars.

By surveying the entire sky over two years, TESS will do the initial round-up of nearby exoplanets, with the potential to identify thousands during its prime mission. One of TESS’ main science goals is to identify 50 rocky

worlds, like Earth or Venus, whose masses can be measured through follow-up observations.

Follow-up observations from space- and ground-based tele-scopes will study what the exoplan-ets’ atmospheres are like.

Using a technique known as spec-troscopy, the telescopes will look at the chemical signatures of the light passing through an exoplanet’s at-mosphere.

These signatures can tell sci-entists what chemicals are in the planetary atmosphere, and how abundant they are. Knowing this information, scientists can then compare the atmospheres of distant rocky worlds with the atmospheres of the rocky worlds in our own solar system: Earth, Venus and Mars.

Together, these observations will help scientists d e t e r m i n e whether some planets could potentially support life.

Misson: TESSTarget: Exoplanets

NASA MISSION PROFILE

11NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

Above: TESS seeks to detect planets ranging from Earth-sized to gas giants with bright host stars in the solar planet. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

12NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

What do you do, and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard?

I am the professional catalyst who helps inspire the women and men of science and engineering at God-dard to pursue our next missions of discovery.

I help catalyze the innovative science for the new missions that our scientists and engineers need to develop for our agency to move forward in our understanding of the universe.

I look at myself as someone who channels the ideas of our people to help them implement their ideas now and especially in the future.

I’m also fortunate to have some time to continue as a practicing plan-etary geoscientist. I’m co-investiga-

tor on the Curiosity Mars Rover imaging team.

I’m leading NASA’s investigation of Earth’s newest land – an island that formed in the Kingdom of Ton-ga in the southwest Pacific ocean.

How have curiosity and observations fueled your creativity to enable new science?

Curiosity has inspired me every second of my waking life.

My first memory as a tiny child, just two years old living in Pough-keepsie, New York, was my curiosity

about the rocks, trees, and bugs in our backyard, much to the chagrin of my non-scientific parents who must have wondered, “What the heck?”

When I was in ninth grade, I convinced one of my teachers to allow me to completely map every tree in the forest that encircled our school before developers cut them down.

I spent a month, slogging through the mud, holding maps and

AQ &

GARVIN continues on page 13.

“I am very lucky that I can dream of science possibilities and then live to witness my dreams coming true.”

JIM GARVIN // GODDARD CHIEF SCIENTISTNASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

13NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

counting every single tree to under-stand the forest, and to document it in the name of science.

That’s curiosity-driven research at a young age and the kind of thing I did throughout my childhood and will continue doing the rest of my life.

I am very lucky that I can dream of science possibilities and then live to witness my dreams coming true.

Curiosity fuels creativity, which enables new science often never previously considered.

How do you view your role as a team leader?

Science and engineering are all about teamwork. I think of myself as the goaltender.

In ice hockey, the goaltender is the one who ensures that the puck stops here.

I see myself as the person in the background protecting the game and net for the team to enable oth-ers to win the game by scoring.

My job is to make sure we do not lose the game, in this case, of scien-tific exploration of the universe.

I would rather that other people, such as the scientists, engineers, managers and artists, get the credit they deserve because they do the tough work.

My ambition is to see others do well and discover new things. It’s not about me, it is about them!

Who inspires you? For the most part, fantastic teach-

ers have inspired me throughout my life.

I also admired Astronaut Sally Ride who was quietly focused on doing great things.

She was a brilliant physicist who understood space flight, as well as the first U.S. woman in space. I was fortunate to have spent a year work-ing for her after Space Shuttle Chal-lenger.

How do you inspire others?All scientists stand on the shoul-

ders of those who came before them.

I try to enable talented young people to go on to achieve great things in science just as others did for me.

GARVIN continues from page 12.

NASANextEmpowering the next generation of space explorers

Goddard Space Flight CenterVolume 2, Issue 1 | January 2017

EditorSarah Schlieder

Layout EditorJenny Hottle

ContributorsConnie Barclay, Steve Cole, Denise Davis-Konopka,

Sarah Frazier, Jim Garvin, Audrey Haar, Amanda Harvey, Liz Jarrell, Claire Saravia, Ray Villard

NASANEXT is a publication of Goddard Space Flight Center’s Office of Communications to engage children and young teens in the fascinating world of science and space exploration.

FAST FACTS

Education: Ph.D. in Planetary geology (Brown University); M.S. in computer science (Stanford University); M.S. in planetary geology (Brown); B.S. in applied math and computer sciences (Brown) Catch phrase: “Never wait to wander”

Inspired by: Sally Ride (first woman in space), Ed Weiler (former Goddard center director) and former teachers

Click to watch Jim’s TED talk about space, the “forever frontier”! TEDxTraverseCity

14NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

FOR EDUC A TORS+

Want to incorporate NASANext articles into your classroom? Get started here!

14NASAnext

JANUARY 2017

GOES-R Launch (page 3)http://www.goes-r.gov/education/overview.html

Supermoon (page 5)Learn more about the moon and supermoons! https://www.nasa.gov/moon

NASA’s SmallSat Initiative (page 5)In May 2016, the International Space Station launched a CubeSat that was designed and built by a group of elementary school students. Read about their work and discover how your classroom could engage with designing CubeSats! https://www.nasa.gov/feature/first-cubesat-built-by-an-elementary-school-deployed-into-space

Explore NASA’s Beginning Engineering Science and Technology (BEST) curriculum for lessons and hands-on activities for your students to design satellites, rovers, landing pods and more! https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/best/

Annual Ozone Hole (page 5)Educator resources from NASA’s Aura mission pro-vides educators with information and activities to help students understand the importance of Earth’s atmo-sphere. https://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/outreach/index.html

The Aura Ozone Monitoring Garden could be a great way for your students to make observations right in your own community! https://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/outreach/ozonegarden.html

STEREO 10th Anniversary (page 5)STEREO’s Learning Center has great links, videos, downloadable materials and posters and many other useful tools for educators.https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/classroom/classroom.shtml

Hubble Discovers More Galaxies (page 5)#SpotHubble: Hubble has impacted our lives from space to art to dance. Show your students how Hubble is present in their daily lives.http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/2016/spothub-ble

TESS Mission Overview (page 5)The TESS education page has activities and materials to help students discover exoplanets.https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/education.html

To learn more about NASA’s many educator resourc-es, check out NASA’s Office of Education website and the Science Mission Directorate’s digital collection of Earth and space science resources, NASA Wavelength. You can also receive regular updates on educational resources and activities going on at NASA centers right now by signing up for our weekly email lists, EXPRESS and Science WOW!

Quick Links

NASA Educationwww.nasa.gov/offices/education/about

NASA Goddard Office of Education www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/education

Scientific Visualization Studio http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov

NASA Wavelength (Science lessons and plans)http://nasawavelength.org/

Digital Learning Network for students/teachers http://www.nasa.gov/dln