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By European Space Agency
Proba-3 is such an ambitious mission that it needs more than one single spacecraft to succeed. In order for Proba-3’s Coronagraph spacecraft observe the Sun’s faint surrounding atmosphere, the disk-bearing Occulter spacecraft must block out the fiery solar disk. This means Proba-3’s Occulter ends up facing the Sun continuously, making it a valuable platform for science in its own right.
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By NASA
4 min read
Final Venus Flyby for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Queues Closest Sun Pass
On Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will complete its final Venus gravity assist maneuver, passing within 233 miles (376 km) of Venus’ surface. The flyby will adjust Parker’s trajectory into its final orbital configuration, bringing the spacecraft to within an unprecedented 3.86 million miles of the solar surface on Dec. 24, 2024. It will be the closest any human made object has been to the Sun.
Parker’s Venus flybys have become boons for new Venus science thanks to a chance discovery from its Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, or WISPR. The instrument peers out from Parker and away from the Sun to see fine details in the solar wind. But on July 11, 2020, during Parker’s third Venus flyby, scientists turned WISPR toward Venus in hopes of tracking changes in the planet’s thick cloud cover. The images revealed a surprise: A portion of WISPR’s data, which captures visible and near infrared light, seemed to see all the way through the clouds to the Venusian surface below.
“The WISPR cameras can see through the clouds to the surface of Venus, which glows in the near-infrared because it’s so hot,” said Noam Izenberg, a space scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
Venus, sizzling at approximately 869 degrees Fahrenheit (about 465 C), was radiating through the clouds.
The WISPR images from the 2020 flyby, as well as the next flyby in 2021, revealed Venus’ surface in a new light. But they also raised puzzling questions, and scientists have devised the Nov. 6 flyby to help answer them.
Left: A series of WISPR images of the nightside of Venus from Parker Solar Probe’s fourth flyby showing near infrared emissions from the surface. In these images, lighter shades represent warmer temperatures and darker shades represent cooler. Right: A combined mosaic of radar images of Venus’ surface from NASA’s Magellan mission, where the brightness indicates radar properties from smooth (dark) to rough (light), and the colors indicate elevation from low (blue) to high (red). The Venus images correspond well with data from the Magellan spacecraft, showing dark and light patterns that line up with surface regions Magellan captured when it mapped Venus’ surface using radar from 1990 to 1994. Yet some parts of the WISPR images appear brighter than expected, hinting at extra information captured by WISPR’s data. Is WISPR picking up on chemical differences on the surface, where the ground is made of different material? Perhaps it’s seeing variations in age, where more recent lava flows added a fresh coat to the Venusian surface.
“Because it flies over a number of similar and different landforms than the previous Venus flybys, the Nov. 6 flyby will give us more context to evaluate whether WISPR can help us distinguish physical or even chemical properties of Venus’ surface,” Izenberg said.
After the Nov. 6 flyby, Parker will be on course to swoop within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface, the final objective of the historic mission first conceived over 65 years ago. No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker’s data will be charting as-yet uncharted territory. In this hyper-close regime, Parker will cut through plumes of plasma still connected to the Sun. It is close enough to pass inside a solar eruption, like a surfer diving under a crashing ocean wave.
“This is a major engineering accomplishment,” said Adam Szabo, project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The closest approach to the Sun, or perihelion, will occur on Dec. 24, 2024, during which mission control will be out of contact with the spacecraft. Parker will send a beacon tone on Dec. 27, 2024, to confirm its success and the spacecraft’s health. Parker will remain in this orbit for the remainder of its mission, completing two more perihelia at the same distance.
Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA’s Living with a Star program to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. The Living with a Star program is managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, manages the Parker Solar Probe mission for NASA and designed, built, and operates the spacecraft.
By Miles Hatfield
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Nov 04, 2024 Related Terms
Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Heliophysics Division Parker Solar Probe (PSP) Solar Wind The Sun Venus Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
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By NASA
Radioisotope Power Systems RPS Home About About RPS About the Program About Plutonium-238 Safety and Reliability For Mission Planners Contact Systems Overview Power Systems Thermal Systems Dynamic Radioisotope Power Missions Overview Timeline News Resources STEM Overview Power to Explore Contest Kid-Friendly Videos FAQ 5 Min Read After 60 Years, Nuclear Power for Spaceflight is Still Tried and True
Workers install one of three Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) on the Cassini spacecraft. More › Credits:
NASA Editor’s Note: Originally published on June 21, 2021.
Six decades after the launch of the first nuclear-powered space mission, Transit IV-A, NASA is embarking on a bold future of human exploration and scientific discovery. This future builds on a proud history of safely launching and operating nuclear-powered missions in space.
“Nuclear power has opened the solar system to exploration, allowing us to observe and understand dark, distant planetary bodies that would otherwise be unreachable. And we’re just getting started,” said Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Future nuclear power and propulsion systems will help revolutionize our understanding of the solar system and beyond and play a crucial role in enabling long-term human missions to the Moon and Mars.”
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Space nuclear power to explore the deepest, dustiest, darkest, and most distant regions of our solar system and beyond. NASA From Humble Beginnings: Nuclear Power Spawns an Age of Scientific Discovery
On June 29, 1961, the John’s Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory launched the Transit IV-A Spacecraft. It was a U.S. Navy navigational satellite with a SNAP-3B radioisotope powered generator producing 2.7 watts of electrical power — about enough to light an LED bulb. Transit IV-A broke an APL mission-duration record and confirmed the Earth’s equator is elliptical. It also set the stage for ground-breaking missions that have extended humanity’s reach across the solar system.
Since 1961, NASA has flown more than 25 missions carrying a nuclear power system through a successful partnership with the Department of Energy (DOE), which provides the power systems and plutonium-238 fuel.
“The department and our national laboratory partners are honored to play a role in powering NASA’s space exploration activities,” said Tracey Bishop, deputy assistant secretary in DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. “Radioisotope Power Systems are a natural extension of our core mission to create technological solutions that meet the complex energy needs of space research, exploration, and innovation.”
There are only two practical ways to provide long-term electrical power in space: the light of the sun or heat from a nuclear source.
We couldn’t do the mission without it. No other technology exists to power a mission this far away from the Sun, even today.
Alan Stern
Principal Investigator, NASA’s New Horizons Mission to Pluto and Beyond
“As missions move farther away from the Sun to dark, dusty, and harsh environments, like Jupiter, Pluto, and Titan, they become impossible or extremely limited without nuclear power,” said Leonard Dudzinski, chief technologist for NASA’s Planetary Science Division and program executive for Radioisotope Power.
That’s where Radioisotope Power Systems, or RPS, come in. They are a category of power systems that convert heat generated by the decay of plutonium-238 fuel into electricity.
“These systems are reliable and efficient,” said June Zakrajsek, manager for NASA’s Radioisotope Power Systems Program office at Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. “They operate continuously over long-duration space missions regardless of sunlight, temperature, charged particle radiation, or surface conditions like thick clouds or dust. They’ve allowed us to explore from the Sun to Pluto and beyond.”
RPS powered the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package. They’ve sustained Voyager 1 and 2 since 1977, and they kept Cassini-Huygens’ instruments warm as it explored frigid Saturn and its moon Titan.
Today, a Multi-Mission Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) powers the Perseverance rover, which is captivating the nation as it searches for signs of ancient life on Mars, and a single RTG is sustaining New Horizons as it ventures on its way out of the solar system 15 years after its launch.
“The RTG was and still is crucial to New Horizons,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute. “We couldn’t do the mission without it. No other technology exists to power a mission this far away from the Sun, even today.”
New Horizons carries seven scientific instruments and a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. The spacecraft weighs 1,060 pounds. NASA/JHUAPL Great Things to Come: Science and Human Exploration
Dragonfly, which is set to launch in 2028, is the next mission with plans to use an MMRTG. Part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, Dragonfly is an octocopter designed to explore and collect samples on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, an ocean world with a dense, hazy atmosphere.
“RPS is really an enabling technology,” said APL’s Zibi Turtle, principal investigator for the upcoming Dragonfly mission. “Early missions like Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini that relied on RPS have completely changed our understanding and given us a geography of the distant solar system…Cassini gave us our first close-up look at the surface of Titan.”
According to Turtle, the MMRTG serves two purposes on Dragonfly: power output to charge the lander’s battery and waste heat to keep its instruments and electronics warm.
“Flight is a very high-power activity. We’ll use a battery for flight and science activities and recharge the battery using the MMRTG,” said Turtle. “The waste heat from the power system is a key aspect of our thermal design. The surface of Titan is very cold, but we can keep the interior of the lander warm and cozy using the heat from the MMRTG.”
As the scientific community continues to benefit from RPS, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate is investing in new technology using reactors and low-enriched uranium fuel to enable a robust human presence on the Moon and eventually human missions to Mars.
Astronauts will need plentiful and continuous power to survive the long lunar nights and explore the dark craters on the Moon’s South Pole. A fission surface power system could provide enough juice to power robust operations. NASA is leading an effort, working with the DOE and industry to design a fission power system for a future lunar demonstration that will pave the way for base camps on the Moon and Mars.
NASA has also thought about viable ways to reduce the time it takes to travel to Mars, including nuclear propulsion systems.
As NASA advances its bold vision of exploration and scientific discovery in space, it benefits from 60 years of the safe use of nuclear power during spaceflight. Sixty years of enlightenment that all started with a little satellite called Transit IV-A.
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Jan Wittry
NASA’s Glenn Research Center
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By NASA
6 min read
NASA, NOAA: Sun Reaches Maximum Phase in 11-Year Solar Cycle
In a teleconference with reporters on Tuesday, representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the international Solar Cycle Prediction Panel announced that the Sun has reached its solar maximum period, which could continue for the next year.
The solar cycle is a natural cycle the Sun goes through as it transitions between low and high magnetic activity. Roughly every 11 years, at the height of the solar cycle, the Sun’s magnetic poles flip — on Earth, that’d be like the North and South poles swapping places every decade — and the Sun transitions from being calm to an active and stormy state.
Visible light images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory highlight the appearance of the Sun at solar minimum (left, Dec. 2019) versus solar maximum (right, May 2024). During solar minimum, the Sun is often spotless. Sunspots are associated with solar activity and are used to track solar cycle progress. For these images and more relating to solar maximum, visit https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14683.
NASA/SDO Images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory highlight the appearance of the Sun at solar minimum (left, December 2019) versus solar maximum (right, May 2024). These images are in the 171-angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light, which reveals the active regions on the Sun that are more common during solar maximum. For these images and more relating to solar maximum, visit https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14683.
NASA/SDO
NASA and NOAA track sunspots to determine and predict the progress of the solar cycle — and ultimately, solar activity. Sunspots are cooler regions on the Sun caused by a concentration of magnetic field lines. Sunspots are the visible component of active regions, areas of intense and complex magnetic fields on the Sun that are the source of solar eruptions.
“During solar maximum, the number of sunspots, and therefore, the amount of solar activity, increases,” said Jamie Favors, director, Space Weather Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This increase in activity provides an exciting opportunity to learn about our closest star — but also causes real effects at Earth and throughout our solar system.”
The solar cycle is the natural cycle of the Sun as it transitions between low and high activity. During the most active part of the cycle, known as solar maximum, the Sun can unleash immense explosions of light, energy, and solar radiation — all of which create conditions known as space weather. Space weather can affect satellites and astronauts in space, as well as communications systems — such as radio and GPS — and power grids on Earth.
Credits: Beth Anthony/NASA Solar activity strongly influences conditions in space known as space weather. This can affect satellites and astronauts in space, as well as communications and navigation systems — such as radio and GPS — and power grids on Earth. When the Sun is most active, space weather events become more frequent. Solar activity has led to increased aurora visibility and impacts on satellites and infrastructure in recent months.
During May 2024, a barrage of large solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) launched clouds of charged particles and magnetic fields toward Earth, creating the strongest geomagnetic storm at Earth in two decades — and possibly among the strongest displays of auroras on record in the past 500 years.
May 3–May 9, 2024, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory observed 82 notable solar flares. The flares came mainly from two active regions on the Sun called AR 13663 and AR 13664. This video highlights all flares classified at M5 or higher with nine categorized as X-class solar flares.
Credit: NASA “This announcement doesn’t mean that this is the peak of solar activity we’ll see this solar cycle,” said Elsayed Talaat, director of space weather operations at NOAA. “While the Sun has reached the solar maximum period, the month that solar activity peaks on the Sun will not be identified for months or years.”
Scientists will not be able to determine the exact peak of this solar maximum period for many months because it’s only identifiable after they’ve tracked a consistent decline in solar activity after that peak. However, scientists have identified that the last two years on the Sun have been part of this active phase of the solar cycle, due to the consistently high number of sunspots during this period. Scientists anticipate that the maximum phase will last another year or so before the Sun enters the declining phase, which leads back to solar minimum. Since 1989, the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel — an international panel of experts sponsored by NASA and NOAA — has worked together to make their prediction for the next solar cycle.
Solar cycles have been tracked by astronomers since Galileo first observed sunspots in the 1600s. Each solar cycle is different — some cycles peak for larger and shorter amounts of time, and others have smaller peaks that last longer.
Sunspot number over the previous 24 solar cycles. Scientists use sunspots to track solar cycle progress; the dark spots are associated with solar activity, often as the origins for giant explosions — such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections — which can spew light, energy, and solar material out into space. For these images and more relating to solar maximum, visit https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14683.
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center “Solar Cycle 25 sunspot activity has slightly exceeded expectations,” said Lisa Upton, co-chair of the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel and lead scientist at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. “However, despite seeing a few large storms, they aren’t larger than what we might expect during the maximum phase of the cycle.”
The most powerful flare of the solar cycle so far was an X9.0 on Oct. 3 (X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength).
NOAA anticipates additional solar and geomagnetic storms during the current solar maximum period, leading to opportunities to spot auroras over the next several months, as well as potential technology impacts. Additionally, though less frequent, scientists often see fairly significant storms during the declining phase of the solar cycle.
The Solar Cycle 25 forecast, as produced by the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel. Sunspot number is an indicator of solar cycle strength — the higher the sunspot number, the stronger the cycle. For these images and more relating to solar maximum, visit https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14683.
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center NASA and NOAA are preparing for the future of space weather research and prediction. In December 2024, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission will make its closest-ever approach to the Sun, beating its own record of closest human-made object to the Sun. This will be the first of three planned approaches for Parker at this distance, helping researchers to understand space weather right at the source.
NASA is launching several missions over the next year that will help us better understand space weather and its impacts across the solar system.
Space weather predictions are critical for supporting the spacecraft and astronauts of NASA’s Artemis campaign. Surveying this space environment is a vital part of understanding and mitigating astronaut exposure to space radiation.
NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. To see how space weather can affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts.
By Abbey Interrante
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media Contact:
Sarah Frazier, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
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Abbey Interrante
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Last Updated Oct 15, 2024 Related Terms
Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Heliophysics Division Parker Solar Probe (PSP) Solar Science Sunspots The Sun The Sun & Solar Physics Explore More
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By NASA
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Queen’s Univ. Belfast/M. Nicholl et al.; Optical/IR: PanSTARRS, NSF/Legacy Survey/SDSS; Illustration: Soheb Mandhai / The Astro Phoenix; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes have identified a supermassive black hole that has torn apart one star and is now using that stellar wreckage to pummel another star or smaller black hole, as described in our latest press release. This research helps connect two cosmic mysteries and provides information about the environment around some of the bigger types of black holes.
This artist’s illustration shows a disk of material (red, orange, and yellow) that was created after a supermassive black hole (depicted on the right) tore apart a star through intense tidal forces. Over the course of a few years, this disk expanded outward until it intersected with another object — either a star or a small black hole — that is also in orbit around the giant black hole. Each time this object crashes into the disk, it sends out a burst of X-rays detected by Chandra. The inset shows Chandra data (purple) and an optical image of the source from Pan-STARRS (red, green, and blue).
In 2019, an optical telescope in California noticed a burst of light that astronomers later categorized as a “tidal disruption event”, or TDE. These are cases where black holes tear stars apart if they get too close through their powerful tidal forces. Astronomers gave this TDE the name of AT2019qiz.
Meanwhile, scientists were also tracking instances of another type of cosmic phenomena occasionally observed across the Universe. These were brief and regular bursts of X-rays that were near supermassive black holes. Astronomers named these events “quasi-periodic eruptions,” or QPEs.
This latest study gives scientists evidence that TDEs and QPEs are likely connected. The researchers think that QPEs arise when an object smashes into the disk left behind after the TDE. While there may be other explanations, the authors of the study propose this is the source of at least some QPEs.
In 2023, astronomers used both Chandra and Hubble to simultaneously study the debris left behind after the tidal disruption had ended. The Chandra data were obtained during three different observations, each separated by about 4 to 5 hours. The total exposure of about 14 hours of Chandra time revealed only a weak signal in the first and last chunk, but a very strong signal in the middle observation.
From there, the researchers used NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) to look frequently at AT2019qiz for repeated X-ray bursts. The NICER data showed that AT2019qiz erupts roughly every 48 hours. Observations from NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and India’s AstroSat telescope cemented the finding.
The ultraviolet data from Hubble, obtained at the same time as the Chandra observations, allowed the scientists to determine the size of the disk around the supermassive black hole. They found that the disk had become large enough that if any object was orbiting the black hole and took about a week or less to complete an orbit, it would collide with the disk and cause eruptions.
This result has implications for searching for more quasi-periodic eruptions associated with tidal disruptions. Finding more of these would allow astronomers to measure the prevalence and distances of objects in close orbits around supermassive black holes. Some of these may be excellent targets for the planned future gravitational wave observatories.
The paper describing these results appears in the October 9, 2024 issue of the journal Nature. The first author of the paper is Matt Nicholl (Queen’s University Belfast in Ireland) and the full list of authors can be found in the paper, which is available online at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.02181
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description
This release features an artist’s rendering that illustrates the destructive power of a supermassive black hole. The digital image depicts a disk of stellar material surrounding one such black hole. At its outer edge a neighboring star is colliding with and flying through the disk.
The black hole sits halfway down our right edge of the vertical image. It resembles a jet black semicircle with a domed cap of pale blue light. The bottom half of the circular black hole is hidden behind the disk of stellar material. In this illustration, the disk is viewed edge on. It resembles a band of swirling yellow, orange, and red gas, cutting diagonally from our middle right toward our lower left.
Near our lower left, the outer edge of the stellar debris disk overlaps with a bright blue sphere surrounded by luminous white swirls. This sphere represents a neighboring star crashing through the disk. The stellar disk is the wreckage of a destroyed star. An electric blue and white wave shows the hottest gas in the disk.
As the neighboring star crashes through the disk it leaves behind a trail of gas depicted as streaks of fine mist. Bursts of X-rays are released and are detected by Chandra.
Superimposed in the upper left corner of the illustration is an inset box showing a close up image of the source in X-ray and optical light. X-ray light is shown as purple and optical light is white and beige.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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