Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
Watch live: Living Planet Symposium 2022
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
2 min read
NASA-Funded Study Examines Tidal Effects on Planet and Moon Interiors
NASA-supported scientists have developed a new method to compute how tides affect the interiors of planets and moons. Importantly, the new study looks at the effects of body tides on objects that don’t have a perfectly spherical interior structure, which is an assumption of most previous models.
The puzzling, fascinating surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view, made from images taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. This is the color view of Europa from Galileo that shows the largest portion of the moon’s surface at the highest resolution. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute Body tides refer to the deformations experienced by celestial bodies when they gravitationally interact with other objects. Think of how the powerful gravity of Jupiter tugs on its moon Europa. Because Europa’s orbit isn’t circular, the crushing squeeze of Jupiter’s gravity on the moon varies as it travels along its orbit. When Europa is at its closest to Jupiter, the planet’s gravity is felt the most. The energy of this deformation is what heats up Europa’s interior, allowing an ocean of liquid water to exist beneath the moon’s icy surface.
“The same is true for Saturn’s moon Enceladus.” says co-author Alexander Berne of CalTech in Pasadena and an affiliate at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Enceladus has an ice shell that is expected to be much more non-spherically symmetric than that of Europa.”
The body tides experienced by celestial bodies can affect how the worlds evolve over time and, in cases like Europa and Enceladus, their potential habitability for life as we know it. The new study provides a means to more accurately estimate how tidal forces affect planetary interiors.
In this movie Europa is seen in a cutaway view through two cycles of its 3.5 day orbit about the giant planet Jupiter. Like Earth, Europa is thought to have an iron core, a rocky mantle and a surface ocean of salty water. Unlike on Earth, however, this ocean is deep enough to cover the whole moon, and being far from the sun, the ocean surface is globally frozen over. Europa’s orbit is eccentric, which means as it travels around Jupiter, large tides, raised by Jupiter, rise and fall. Jupiter’s position relative to Europa is also seen to librate, or wobble, with the same period. This tidal kneading causes frictional heating within Europa, much in the same way a paper clip bent back and forth can get hot to the touch, as illustrated by the red glow in the interior of Europa’s rocky mantle and in the lower, warmer part of its ice shell. This tidal heating is what keeps Europa’s ocean liquid and could prove critical to the survival of simple organisms within the ocean, if they exist. The giant planet Jupiter is now shown to be rotating from west to east, though more slowly than its actual rate. NASA/JPL-Caltech The paper also discusses how the results of the study could help scientists interpret observations made by missions to a variety of different worlds, ranging from Mercury to the Moon to the outer planets of our solar system.
The study, “A Spectral Method to Compute the Tides of Laterally Heterogeneous Bodies,” was published in The Planetary Science Journal.
For more information on NASA’s Astrobiology Program, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/astrobiology
-end-
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Explore More
2 min read NASA’s New Edition of Graphic Novel Features Europa Clipper
NASA has released a new edition of Issue 4 of the Astrobiology Graphic History series.…
Article
6 days ago
5 min read NASA: New Insights into How Mars Became Uninhabitable
Article
1 month ago
14 min read The Making of Our Alien Earth: The Undersea Volcanoes of Santorini, Greece
Article
2 months ago
Share
Details
Last Updated Nov 07, 2024 Related Terms
Astrobiology View the full article
-
By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A SWOT data visualization shows water on the northern side of Greenland’s Dickson Fjord at higher levels than on the southern side on Sept. 17, 2023. A huge rockslide into the fjord the previous day led to a tsunami lasting nine days that caused seismic rumbling around the world. NASA Earth Observatory Data from space shows water tilting up toward the north side of the Dickson Fjord as it sloshed from south to north and back every 90 seconds for nine days after a 2023 rockslide.
The international Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission, a collaboration between NASA and France’s CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), detected the unique contours of a tsunami that sloshed within the steep walls of a fjord in Greenland in September 2023. Triggered by a massive rockslide, the tsunami generated a seismic rumble that reverberated around the world for nine days. An international research team that included seismologists, geophysicists, and oceanographers recently reported on the event after a year of analyzing data.
The SWOT satellite collected water elevation measurements in Dickson Fjord on Sept. 17, 2023, the day after the initial rockslide and tsunami. The data was compared with measurements made under normal conditions a few weeks prior, on Aug. 6, 2023.
In the data visualization (above), colors toward the red end of the scale indicate higher water levels, and blue colors indicate lower-than-normal levels. The data suggests that water levels at some points along the north side of the fjord were as much as 4 feet (1.2 meters) higher than on the south.
“SWOT happened to fly over at a time when the water had piled up pretty high against the north wall of the fjord,” said Josh Willis, a sea level researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Seeing the shape of the wave — that’s something we could never do before SWOT.”
In a paper published recently in Science, researchers traced a seismic signal back to a tsunami that began when more than 880 million cubic feet of rock and ice (25 million cubic meters) fell into Dickson Fjord. Part of a network of channels on Greenland’s eastern coast, the fjord is about 1,772 feet (540 meters) deep and 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) wide, with walls taller than 6,000 feet (1,830 meters).
Far from the open ocean, in a confined space, the energy of the tsunami’s motion had limited opportunity to dissipate, so the wave moved back and forth about every 90 seconds for nine days. It caused tremors recorded on seismic instruments thousands of miles away.
From about 560 miles (900 kilometers) above, SWOT uses its sophisticated Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) instrument to measure the height of nearly all water on Earth’s surface, including the ocean and freshwater lakes, reservoirs, and rivers.
“This observation also shows SWOT’s ability to monitor hazards, potentially helping in disaster preparedness and risk reduction,” said SWOT program scientist Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
It can also see into fjords, as it turns out.
“The KaRIn radar’s resolution was fine enough to make observations between the relatively narrow walls of the fjord,” said Lee-Lueng Fu, the SWOT project scientist. “The footprint of the conventional altimeters used to measure ocean height is too large to resolve such a small body of water.”
More About SWOT
Launched in December 2022 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, SWOT is now in its operations phase, collecting data that will be used for research and other purposes.
The SWOT satellite was jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. CNES provided the Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform, and ground operations. CSA provided the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA provided the launch vehicle and the agency’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, managed the associated launch services.
To learn more about SWOT, visit:
https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov
News Media Contacts
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
2024-153
Share
Details
Last Updated Oct 31, 2024 Related Terms
SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) Earth Earth Science Earth Science Division Jet Propulsion Laboratory Explore More
6 min read Why NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Will Make ‘Most Colorful’ Cosmic Map Ever
Article 7 hours ago 4 min read NASA’s Perseverance Captures ‘Googly Eye’ During Solar Eclipse
Article 1 day ago 2 min read NASA Brings Drone and Space Rover to Air Show
Article 1 day ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
By NASA
Learn Home Watch How Students Help NASA… Citizen Science Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Activation Stories Citizen Science 2 min read
Watch How Students Help NASA Grow Plants in Space: Growing Beyond Earth
Since 2015, students from across the USA have been partnering with scientists at NASA to advance research on growing plants in space, ultimately to feed astronauts on long-distance space missions, as part of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden’s Growing Beyond Earth project, which is now in its 9th year. This classroom-based citizen science project for 6th-12th grade students includes a series of plant experiments conducted by students in a Fairchild-designed plant habitat similar to the Vegetable Production System (VEGGIE) on the International Space Station.
This year, 8000+ students from 400+ schools are testing new edible plant varieties, studying radiation effects on growth, exploring the perfect light spectrum for super-sized space radishes, and experimenting with cosmic soil alternatives.
Watch these South Florida students show us how it’s done.
NASA citizen science projects are open to everyone around the world, not limited to U.S. citizens or residents. They are collaborations between scientists and interested members of the public. Through these collaborations, volunteers (known as citizen scientists) have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries. More than 450 NASA citizen scientists have been named as co-authors on refereed scientific publications. Explore opportunities for you to get involved and do NASA science: https://science.nasa.gov/citizen-science/
The Growing Beyond Earth project is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number 80NSSC22MO125 and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn
Niki Jose Share
Details
Last Updated Oct 28, 2024 Editor NASA Science Editorial Team Related Terms
Citizen Science Opportunities For Students to Get Involved Plant Biology Science Activation Vegetable Production System (VEGGIE) Explore More
3 min read Kites in the Classroom: Training Teachers to Conduct Remote Sensing Missions
Article
3 days ago
2 min read Educator Night at the Museum of the North: Activating Science in Fairbanks Classrooms
Article
4 days ago
3 min read Europa Trek: NASA Offers a New Guided Tour of Jupiter’s Ocean Moon
Article
5 days ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
James Webb Space Telescope
Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…
Perseverance Rover
This rover and its aerial sidekick were assigned to study the geology of Mars and seek signs of ancient microbial…
Parker Solar Probe
On a mission to “touch the Sun,” NASA’s Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona…
Juno
NASA’s Juno spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter in 2016, the first explorer to peer below the planet’s dense clouds to…
View the full article
-
-
By NASA
Since its launch in 2014, the Physical Sciences Informatics (PSI) system has served as NASA’s online repository for physical science data. Now, the PSI system is live with new updates to further align with NASA’s open data policy.
With its first significant update in over five years, the data repository has been completely redesigned, featuring a new layout, improved structure, and enhanced search functionalities. This updated system was created with a focus on user experience, and more updates are anticipated as new features are introduced.
A key new feature of the system is, the PSI Submission Portal. This tool is designed to streamline the processes of collecting, curating, and publishing new data by enabling Principal Investigators and scientific teams to upload files directly to the system with the support of a data curator. The Portal also offers a dedicated workspace for data submitters, assigns a unique digital object identifier to each dataset, and standardizes the documentation and data structure for each investigation.
Both the updated PSI system and Submission Portal can be accessed at PSI.NASA.gov.
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.