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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
What are the dangers of going to space?
For human spaceflight, the first thing I think about is the astronauts actually strapping themselves to a rocket. And if that isn’t dangerous enough, once they launch and they’re out into space in deep exploration, we have to worry about radiation.
Radiation is coming at them from all directions. From the Sun, we have solar particles. We have galactic cosmic rays that are all over in the universe. And those cause damage to DNA. On Earth here, we use sunscreen to protect us from DNA damage. Our astronauts are protected from the shielding that’s around them in the space vehicles.
We also have to worry about microgravity. So what happens there? We see a lot of bone and muscle loss in our astronauts. And so to prevent this, we actually have the astronauts exercising for hours every day. And of course we don’t want to run out of food on a space exploration mission. So we want to make sure that we have everything that the astronauts need to take with them to make sure that we can sustain them.
There are many risks associated with human space exploration. NASA has been planning for these missions to make our astronauts return home safely.
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Last Updated Apr 02, 2025 Related Terms
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3 min read NASA Continues Support for Private Astronaut Missions to Space Station
Article 3 hours ago 2 min read Citizen Scientists Use NASA Open Science Data to Research Life in Space
How can life thrive in deep space? The Open Science Data Repository Analysis Working Groups invite…
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By NASA
2 min read
Citizen Scientists Use NASA Open Science Data to Research Life in Space
2023 Workshop of Analysis Working Group members, Washington, D.C., November 14, 2023. Now, you are invited to join their quest to understand how life can thrive in deep space! Want to learn more first? Join our live virtual event April 17 at 3pm Eastern Time to hear an overview of the OSDR AWG’s operations. Photo: NASA OSDR Team How can life thrive in deep space? The Open Science Data Repository Analysis Working Groups invite volunteers from all backgrounds to help answer this question. Request to join these citizen science groups to help investigate how life adapts to space environments, exploring topics like radiation effects, microgravity’s impact on human and plant health, and how microbes change in orbit.
Currently, nine Analysis Working Groups (AWGs) hold monthly meetings to advance their specific focus areas. Participants collaborate using an online platform, the AWG “Forum-Space”, where they connect with peers and experts, join discussions, and contribute to over 20 active projects.
The AWGs work with data primarily from the NASA Open Science Data Repository (OSDR), a treasure trove of spaceflight data on physiology, molecular biology, bioimaging, and much more. For newcomers, there are tutorials and a comprehensive paper covering all aspects of the repository and the AWG community. You can explore 500+ studies, an omics multi-study visualization portal, the environmental data app, and RadLab, a portal for radiation telemetry data. (“Omics” refers to fields of biology that end in “omics,” like “genomics”.)
Each of the nine AWGs has a Lead who organizes their group and holds monthly virtual meetings. Once you join, make sure to connect with the Lead and get on the agenda so you can introduce yourself. Learn more about the AWGs here.
Have an idea for a new project? Propose a new project and help lead it! From data analysis and visualization to shaping data standards and conducting literature meta-analyses, there’s a place for everyone to contribute. Request to join, and together, we can address a great challenge for humanity: understanding and enabling life to thrive in deep space!
Want to learn more?
On April 17 at 3pm Eastern Time, the NASA Citizen Science Leaders Series is hosting an virtual event with Ryan Scott about these Analysis Working Groups and their work. Ryan is the Science Lead for the Ames Life Sciences Data Archive and the liaison between the Open Data Science Repository and the Analysis Working Groups. Click here to register for this event!
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Last Updated Apr 01, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 5 Min Read 20-Year Hubble Study of Uranus Yields New Atmospheric Insights
The image columns show the change of Uranus for the four years that STIS observed Uranus across a 20-year period. Over that span of time, the researchers watched the seasons of Uranus as the south polar region darkened going into winter shadow while the north polar region brightened as northern summer approaches. Credits:
NASA, ESA, Erich Karkoschka (LPL) The ice-giant planet Uranus, which travels around the Sun tipped on its side, is a weird and mysterious world. Now, in an unprecedented study spanning two decades, researchers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered new insights into the planet’s atmospheric composition and dynamics. This was possible only because of Hubble’s sharp resolution, spectral capabilities, and longevity.
The team’s results will help astronomers to better understand how the atmosphere of Uranus works and responds to changing sunlight. These long-term observations provide valuable data for understanding the atmospheric dynamics of this distant ice giant, which can serve as a proxy for studying exoplanets of similar size and composition.
When Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986, it provided a close-up snapshot of the sideways planet. What it saw resembled a bland, blue-green billiard ball. By comparison, Hubble chronicled a 20-year story of seasonal changes from 2002 to 2022. Over that period, a team led by Erich Karkoschka of the University of Arizona, and Larry Sromovsky and Pat Fry from the University of Wisconsin used the same Hubble instrument, STIS (the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph), to paint an accurate picture of the atmospheric structure of Uranus.
Uranus’ atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, with a small amount of methane and traces of water and ammonia. The methane gives Uranus its cyan color by absorbing the red wavelengths of sunlight.
The Hubble team observed Uranus four times in the 20-year period: in 2002, 2012, 2015, and 2022. They found that, unlike conditions on the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter, methane is not uniformly distributed across Uranus. Instead, it is strongly depleted near the poles. This depletion remained relatively constant over the two decades. However, the aerosol and haze structure changed dramatically, brightening significantly in the northern polar region as the planet approaches its northern summer solstice in 2030.
The image columns show the change of Uranus for the four years that STIS observed Uranus across a 20-year period. Over that span of time, the researchers watched the seasons of Uranus as the south polar region darkened going into winter shadow while the north polar region brightened as northern summer approaches. NASA, ESA, Erich Karkoschka (LPL) Uranus takes a little over 84 Earth years to complete a single orbit of the Sun. So, over two decades, the Hubble team has only seen mostly northern spring as the Sun moves from shining directly over Uranus’ equator toward shining almost directly over its north pole in 2030. Hubble observations suggest complex atmospheric circulation patterns on Uranus during this period. The data that are most sensitive to the methane distribution indicate a downwelling in the polar regions and upwelling in other regions.
The team analyzed their results in several ways. The image columns show the change of Uranus for the four years that STIS observed Uranus across a 20-year period. Over that span of time, the researchers watched the seasons of Uranus as the south polar region (left) darkened going into winter shadow while the north polar region (right) brightened as it began to come into a more direct view as northern summer approaches.
The top row, in visible light, shows how the color of Uranus appears to the human eye as seen through even an amateur telescope.
In the second row, the false-color image of the planet is assembled from visible and near-infrared light observations. The color and brightness correspond to the amounts of methane and aerosols. Both of these quantities could not be distinguished before Hubble’s STIS was first aimed at Uranus in 2002. Generally, green areas indicate less methane than blue areas, and red areas show no methane. The red areas are at the limb, where the stratosphere of Uranus is almost completely devoid of methane.
The two bottom rows show the latitude structure of aerosols and methane inferred from 1,000 different wavelengths (colors) from visible to near infrared. In the third row, bright areas indicate cloudier conditions, while the dark areas represent clearer conditions. In the fourth row, bright areas indicate depleted methane, while dark areas show the full amount of methane.
At middle and low latitudes, aerosols and methane depletion have their own latitudinal structure that mostly did not change much over the two decades of observation. However, in the polar regions, aerosols and methane depletion behave very differently.
In the third row, the aerosols near the north pole display a dramatic increase, showing up as very dark during early northern spring, turning very bright in recent years. Aerosols also seem to disappear at the left limb as the solar radiation disappeared. This is evidence that solar radiation changes the aerosol haze in the atmosphere of Uranus. On the other hand, methane depletion seems to stay quite high in both polar regions throughout the observing period.
Astronomers will continue to observe Uranus as the planet approaches northern summer.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
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20 Years of Uranus Observations
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Last Updated Mar 31, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Contact Media Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Ann Jenkins
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Spots a Chance Alignment
This NASA/ESA Hubble image features the spiral galaxy NGC 5530. ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker The subject of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is the stunning spiral galaxy NGC 5530. This galaxy is situated 40 million light-years away in the constellation Lupus, the Wolf, and classified as a ‘flocculent’ spiral, meaning its spiral arms are patchy and indistinct.
While some galaxies have extraordinarily bright centers that host a feasting supermassive black hole, the bright source near the center of NGC 5530 is not an active black hole but a star within our own galaxy, only 10,000 light-years from Earth. This chance alignment gives the appearance that the star is at the dense heart of NGC 5530.
If you pointed a backyard telescope at NGC 5530 on the evening of September 13, 2007, you would have seen another bright point of light adorning the galaxy. That night, Australian amateur astronomer Robert Evans discovered a supernova, named SN 2007IT, by comparing NGC 5530’s appearance through the telescope to a reference photo of the galaxy. While it’s remarkable to discover even one supernova using this painstaking method, Evans has in fact discovered more than 40 supernovae this way! This particular discovery was truly serendipitous: it’s likely that the light from the supernova completed its 40-million-year journey to Earth just days before Evans spotted the explosion.
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Last Updated Mar 28, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Hubble Space Telescope Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Spiral Galaxies The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
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