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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured these drifting noctilucent, or twilight, clouds in a 16-minute recording on Jan. 17. (This looping clip has been speeded up about 480 times.) The white plumes falling out of the clouds are carbon dioxide ice that would evaporate closer to the Martian surface.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/SSI While the Martian clouds may look like the kind seen in Earth’s skies, they include frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice.
Red-and-green-tinted clouds drift through the Martian sky in a new set of images captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover using its Mastcam — its main set of “eyes.” Taken over 16 minutes on Jan. 17 (the 4,426th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity’s mission), the images show the latest observations of what are called noctilucent (Latin for “night shining”), or twilight clouds, tinged with color by scattering light from the setting Sun.
Sometimes these clouds even create a rainbow of colors, producing iridescent, or “mother-of-pearl” clouds. Too faint to be seen in daylight, they’re only visible when the clouds are especially high and evening has fallen.
Martian clouds are made of either water ice or, at higher altitudes and lower temperatures, carbon dioxide ice. (Mars’ atmosphere is more than 95% carbon dioxide.) The latter are the only kind of clouds observed at Mars producing iridescence, and they can be seen near the top of the new images at an altitude of around 37 to 50 miles (60 to 80 kilometers). They’re also visible as white plumes falling through the atmosphere, traveling as low as 31 miles (50 kilometers) above the surface before evaporating because of rising temperatures. Appearing briefly at the bottom of the images are water-ice clouds traveling in the opposite direction roughly 31 miles (50 kilometers) above the rover.
Dawn of Twilight Clouds
Twilight clouds were first seen on Mars by NASA’s Pathfinder mission in 1997; Curiosity didn’t spot them until 2019, when it acquired its first-ever images of iridescence in the clouds. This is the fourth Mars year the rover has observed the phenomenon, which occurs during early fall in the southern hemisphere.
Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, led a paper summarizing Curiosity’s first two seasons of twilight cloud observations, which published late last year in Geophysical Research Letters. “I’ll always remember the first time I saw those iridescent clouds and was sure at first it was some color artifact,” he said. “Now it’s become so predictable that we can plan our shots in advance; the clouds show up at exactly the same time of year.”
Each sighting is an opportunity to learn more about the particle size and growth rate in Martian clouds. That, in turn, provides more information about the planet’s atmosphere.
Cloud Mystery
One big mystery is why twilight clouds made of carbon dioxide ice haven’t been spotted in other locations on Mars. Curiosity, which landed in 2012, is on Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, just south of the Martian equator. Pathfinder landed in Ares Vallis, north of the equator. NASA’s Perseverance rover, located in the northern hemisphere’s Jezero Crater, hasn’t seen any carbon dioxide ice twilight clouds since its 2021 landing. Lemmon and others suspect that certain regions of Mars may be predisposed to forming them.
A possible source of the clouds could be gravity waves, he said, which can cool the atmosphere: “Carbon dioxide was not expected to be condensing into ice here, so something is cooling it to the point that it could happen. But Martian gravity waves are not fully understood and we’re not entirely sure what is causing twilight clouds to form in one place but not another.”
Mastcam’s Partial View
The new twilight clouds appear framed in a partially open circle. That’s because they were taken using one of Mastcam’s two color cameras: the left 34 mm focal length Mastcam, which has a filter wheel that is stuck between positions. Curiosity’s team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California remains able to use both this camera and the higher-resolution right 100 mm focal length camera for color imaging.
The rover recently wrapped an investigation of a place called Gediz Vallis channel and is on its way to a new location that includes boxwork — fractures formed by groundwater that look like giant spiderwebs when viewed from space.
More recently, Curiosity visited an impact crater nicknamed “Rustic Canyon,” capturing it in images and studying the composition of rocks around it. The crater, 67 feet (20 meters) in diameter, is shallow and has lost much of its rim to erosion, indicating that it likely formed many millions of years ago. One reason Curiosity’s science team studies craters is because the cratering process can unearth long-buried materials that may have better preserved organic molecules than rocks exposed to radiation at the surface. These molecules provide a window into the ancient Martian environment and how it could have supported microbial life billions of years ago, if any ever formed on the Red Planet.
More About Curiosity
Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.
For more about Curiosity, visit:
science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Feb 11, 2025 Related Terms
Curiosity (Rover) Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) Explore More
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By NASA
NASA/Michael DeMocker The full moon rises over the Superdome and the city of New Orleans, Louisiana on Monday evening, January 13, 2025.
New Orleans is home to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility where several pieces of hardware for the SLS (Space Launch system) are being built. For more than half a century, NASA Michoud has been “America’s Rocket Factory,” the nation’s premiere site for manufacturing and assembly of large-scale space structures and systems.
See more photos from NASA Michoud.
Image credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker
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By NASA
5 min read
NASA CubeSat Finds New Radiation Belts After May 2024 Solar Storm
Key Points
The May 2024 solar storm created two new temporary belts of high-energy particles surrounding Earth. Such belts have been seen before, but the new ones were particularly long lasting, especially the new proton belt. The findings are particularly important for spacecraft launching into geostationary orbits, which can be damaged as they traverse the dangerous belts. The largest solar storm in two decades hit Earth in May 2024. For several days, wave after wave of high-energy charged particles from the Sun rocked the planet. Brilliant auroras engulfed the skies, and some GPS communications were temporarily disrupted.
With the help of a serendipitously resurrected small NASA satellite, scientists have discovered that this storm also created two new temporary belts of energetic particles encircling Earth. The findings are important to understanding how future solar storms could impact our technology.
The new belts formed between two others that permanently surround Earth called the Van Allen Belts. Shaped like concentric rings high above Earth’s equator, these permanent belts are composed of a mix of high-energy electrons and protons that are trapped in place by Earth’s magnetic field. The energetic particles in these belts can damage spacecraft and imperil astronauts who pass through them, so understanding their dynamics is key to safe spaceflight.
The May 2024 solar storm created two extra radiation belts, sandwiched between the two permanent Van Allen Belts. One of the new belts, shown in purple, included a population of protons, giving it a unique composition that hadn’t been seen before. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Kristen Perrin The discovery of the new belts, made possible by NASA’s Colorado Inner Radiation Belt Experiment (CIRBE) satellite and published Feb. 6, 2025, in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, is particularly important for protecting spacecraft launching into geostationary orbits, since they travel through the Van Allen Belts several times before reaching their final orbit.
New Belts Amaze Scientists
Temporary belts have been detected in the aftermath of large solar storms before. But while previous belts have been composed mostly of electrons, the innermost of the two new belts also included energetic protons. This unique composition is likely due to the strength and composition of the solar storm.
“When we compared the data from before and after the storm, I said, ‘Wow, this is something really new,’” said the paper’s lead author Xinlin Li, a professor at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) and Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. “This is really stunning.”
The new belts also seem to have lasted much longer than previous belts. Whereas previous temporary belts lasted around four weeks, the new belt composed primary of electrons lasted more than three months. The other belt, that also includes protons, has lasted much longer than the electron belt because it is in a more stable region and is less prone to the physical processes that can knock the particles out of orbit. It is likely still there today.
“These are really high-energy electrons and protons that have found their way into Earth’s inner magnetic environment,” said David Sibeck, former mission scientist for NASA’s Van Allen Probes and research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who was not involved with the new study. “Some might stay in this place for a very long time.”
How long such belts stick around depends on passing solar storms. Large storms can provide the energy to knock particles in these belts out of their orbits and send them spiraling off into space or down to Earth. One such storm at the end of June significantly decreased the size of the new electron belt and another in August nearly erased the remainder of that electron belt, though a small population of high-energy electrons endured.
CubeSat Fortuitously Comes Back to Life to Make the Discovery
The new discovery was made by NASA’s CIRBE satellite, a CubeSat about the size of a shoebox that circled the planet’s magnetic poles in a low Earth orbit from April 2023 to October 2024. CIRBE housed an instrument called the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope integrated little experiment-2 (REPTile-2) — a miniaturized and upgraded version of an instrument that flew aboard NASA’s Van Allen Probes, which made the first discovery of a temporary electron belt in 2013.
The CIRBE CubeSat in the laboratory before launch. CIRBE was designed and built by LASP at the University of Colorado Boulder. Xinlin Li/LASP/CU Boulder After a year in space, the CubeSat experienced an anomaly and unexpectedly went quiet on April 15, 2024. The scientists were disappointed to miss the solar storm in May but were able to rely on other spacecraft to provide some preliminary data on the electron belt. Luckily, on June 15, the spacecraft sprang back to life and resumed taking measurements. The data provided high-resolution information that couldn’t be gleaned by any other instrument and allowed the scientists to understand the magnitude of the new belts.
“Once we resumed measurements, we were able to see the new electron belt, which wasn’t visible in the data from other spacecraft,” Li said.
Having the CubeSat in orbit to measure the effect of the solar storm has been bittersweet, Li said. While it provided the opportunity to measure the effects of such a large event, the storm also increased atmospheric drag on the CubeSat, which caused its orbit to decrease prematurely. As a result, the CubeSat deorbited in October 2024. However, the spacecraft’s data makes it all worth it.
“We are very proud that our very small CubeSat made such a discovery,” Li said.
CIRBE was designed and built by LASP at the University of Colorado Boulder and was launched through NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI). The mission is sponsored by NASA’s Heliophysics Flight Opportunities for Research & Technology (H-FORT) program.
By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Feb 06, 2025 Related Terms
Heliophysics CubeSats Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Division Ionosphere Space Weather The Sun Van Allen Probes Explore More
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project concluded wind tunnel testing in the fall of 2024. Tests on a Boeing-built X-66 model were completed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in its 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility. The model underwent tests representing expected flight conditions to obtain engineering information to influence design of the wing and provide data for flight simulators.NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator (SFD) project recently concluded wind tunnel tests of its X-66 semi-span model in partnership with Boeing. The model, designed to represent half the aircraft, allows the research team to generate high-quality data about the aerodynamic forces that would affect the actual X-66.
Test results will help researchers identify areas where they can refine the X-66 design – potentially reducing drag, enhancing fuel efficiency, or adjusting the vehicle shape for better flying qualities.
Tests on the Boeing-built X-66 semi-span model were completed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in its 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility. The model underwent tests representing expected flight conditions so the team could obtain engineering information to influence the design of the aircraft’s wing and provide data for flight simulators.
NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project concluded wind tunnel testing in the fall of 2024. Tests on a Boeing-built X-66 model were completed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in its 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility. Pressure points, which are drilled holes with data sensors attached, are installed along the edge of the wing and allow engineers to understand the characteristics of airflow and will influence the final design of the wing.NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete Semi-span tests take advantage of symmetry. The forces and behaviors on a model of half an aircraft mirror those on the other half. By using a larger half of the model, engineers increase the number of surface pressure measurements. Various sensors were placed on the wing to measure forces and movements to calculate lift, drag, stability, and other important characteristics.
The semi-span tests follow earlier wind tunnel work at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, using a smaller model of the entire aircraft. Engineers will study the data from all of the X-66 wind tunnel tests to determine any design changes that should be made before fabrication begins on the wing that will be used on the X-66 itself.
The SFD project is NASA’s effort to develop more efficient aircraft configurations as the nation moves toward aviation that’s more economically, societally, and environmentally sustainable. The project seeks to provide information to inform the next generation of single-aisle airliners, the most common aircraft in commercial aviation fleets around the world. Boeing and NASA are partnering to develop the X-66 experimental demonstrator aircraft.
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Last Updated Feb 05, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactSarah Mannsarah.mann@nasa.govLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
A groundbreaking study, funded by ESA, reveals that fire emissions in the Amazon and Cerrado are largely driven by the smouldering combustion of woody debris. This crucial discovery highlights the significant influence of fuel characteristics on fire emissions, with wide-ranging implications for global carbon cycles, air quality and biodiversity.
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