Poster’s Note: One of the many under-appreciated aspects of NASA is the extent to which it publishes quality science content for children and Ph.D.’s alike. Your tax dollars help promote science! The following article was provided for reprinting by the Night Sky Network in June, 2019.
Jupiter stakes its claim as the king of the planets in June,
shining bright all night. Saturn trails behind Jupiter, and the Moon
passes by both planets mid-month. Mercury puts on its best evening
appearance in 2019 late in the month, outshining nearby Mars at sunset.
Jupiter
is visible almost the entire evening this month. Earth will be between Jupiter
and the Sun on June 10, meaning Jupiter is at opposition. On that date,
Jupiter rises in the east as the Sun sets in the west, remaining visible the
entire night. Jupiter will be one of the brightest objects in the night sky,
shining at magnitude -2.6. Its four largest moons and cloud bands are easily
spotted with even a small telescope.
What if
your sky is cloudy or you don’t have a telescope? See far more of Jupiter than
we can observe from Earth with NASA’s Juno mission! Juno has been
orbiting Jupiter since 2016, swooping mere thousands of miles above its cloud
tops in its extremely elliptical polar orbits, which take the probe over 5
million miles away at its furthest point! These extreme orbits minimize Juno’s
exposure to Jupiter’s powerful radiation as it studies the gas giant’s internal
structure, especially its intense magnetic fields. Juno’s hardy JunoCam
instrument takes incredible photos of Jupiter’s raging storms during its
flybys. All of the images are available to the public, and citizen scientists
are doing amazing things with them. You can too! Find out more at bit.ly/JunoCam
Saturn rises about two hours after Jupiter and is visible before
midnight. The ringed planet rises earlier each evening as its own opposition
approaches in July. The Moon appears near both gas giants mid-month. The
Moon’s tour begins on June 16 as it approaches Jupiter, and its visit ends on
June 19 after swinging past Saturn.
Mercury is back in evening skies and will be highest after sunset
on June 23, just two days after the summer solstice! Spot it low in the western
horizon, close to the much dimmer and redder Mars. This is your best
chance this year to spot Mercury in the evening, and nearly your last chance to
see Mars, too! The two smallest planets of our solar system pass close to each
other the evenings of June 17-18, coming within just ¼ degree, or half the
width of a full Moon, making for a potentially great landscape photo at
twilight.
Discover more about NASA’s current and future
missions at nasa.gov
A giant storm in Jupiter’s north polar region, captured by JunoCam on February 4, 2019. Image processing performed by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran. Source: bit.ly/JupiterSpiral
Mars and Mercury after sunset the evenings of June 17-18, 2019. Image created with assistance from Stellarium.
The Night Sky Network program supports astronomy clubs across the USA dedicated to astronomy outreach. Visit nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov to find local clubs, events, and more!
The NASA News Service provides up-to-date announcements of NASA policy, news events, and space science. A recent selection of space science articles are provided below, including direct links to the full announcements. Those interested in receiving these announcements from NASA can subscribe to their service by sending an email to: hqnews-request@newsletters.nasa.gov?subject=subscribe
NASA’s Juno Spacecraft In Orbit Around Mighty Jupiter
After an almost five-year journey to the solar system’s largest planet, NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit during a 35-minute engine burn. Confirmation that the burn had completed was received on Earth at 8:53 p.m. PDT (11:53 p.m. EDT) Monday, July 4.
“Independence Day always is something to celebrate, but today we can add to America’s birthday another reason to cheer — Juno is at Jupiter,” said NASA administrator Charlie Bolden. “And what is more American than a NASA mission going boldly where no spacecraft has gone before? With Juno, we will investigate the unknowns of Jupiter’s massive radiation belts to delve deep into not only the planet’s interior, but into how Jupiter was born and how our entire solar system evolved.”
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More information on the Juno mission is available at: www.nasa.gov/juno
This month, NASA begins an airborne experiment to improve scientists’ understanding of the sources of two powerful greenhouse gases and how they cycle into and out of the atmosphere.
Atmospheric Carbon and Transport–America, or ACT-America, is a multi-year airborne campaign that will measure concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane in relation to weather systems. The study will gather real-time measurements from research aircraft and ground stations to improve the ability to detect and quantify the surface sources and sinks of the gases.
After an extensive review process and passing a major development milestone, NASA is ready to proceed with final design and construction of its next Mars rover, currently targeted to launch in the summer of 2020 and arrive on the Red Planet in February 2021.
The Mars 2020 rover will investigate a region of Mars where the ancient environment may have been favorable for microbial life, probing the Martian rocks for evidence of past life. Throughout its investigation, it will collect samples of soil and rock and cache them on the surface for potential return to Earth by a future mission.
“The Mars 2020 rover is the first step in a potential multi-mission campaign to return carefully selected and sealed samples of Martian rocks and soil to Earth,” said Geoffrey Yoder, acting associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This mission marks a significant milestone in NASA’s Journey to Mars – to determine whether life has ever existed on Mars, and to advance our goal of sending humans to the Red Planet.”
Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have conducted the first search for atmospheres around temperate, Earth-sized planets beyond our solar system and found indications that increase the chances of habitability on two exoplanets.
Specifically, they discovered that the exoplanets TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c, approximately 40 light-years away, are unlikely to have puffy, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres usually found on gaseous worlds.
“The lack of a smothering hydrogen-helium envelope increases the chances for habitability on these planets,” said team member Nikole Lewis of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore. “If they had a significant hydrogen-helium envelope, there is no chance that either one of them could potentially support life because the dense atmosphere would act like a greenhouse.”
Julien de Wit of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, led a team of scientists to observe the planets in near-infrared light using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. They used spectroscopy to decode the light and reveal clues to the chemical makeup of an atmosphere. While the content of the atmospheres is unknown and will have to await further observations, the low concentration of hydrogen and helium has scientists excited about the implications.
NASA is joining with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston to operate a new institute charged with researching and developing innovative approaches to reduce risks to humans on long-duration exploration missions, including NASA’s Journey to Mars.
Work under the Translational Research Institute Cooperative Agreement, overseen by NASA’s Human Research Program, begins Oct. 1.
Translational research is an interdisciplinary model of research that focuses on translating fundamental research concepts into practice, with appreciable health outcomes. The NASA Translational Research Institute (NTRI) will implement a “bench-to-spaceflight” model, moving results or methods from laboratory experiments or clinical trials to point-of-care astronaut health and performance applications. The goal of the research is to produce promising new approaches, treatments, countermeasures or technologies that have practical application to spaceflight.
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For more information on NASA’s Human Research Program, go to: www.nasa.gov/hrp
