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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
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On a mission to “touch the Sun,” NASA’s Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona…
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By NASA
Hubble Space Telescope Home Hubble Captures a New View of… Hubble Space Telescope 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 Lithographs Fact Sheets Glossary Posters Hubble on the NASA App More Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Captures a New View of Galaxy M90
This eye-catching image offers us a new view of the spiral galaxy Messier 90 from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker, J This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the striking spiral galaxy Messier 90 (M90, also NGC 4569), located in the constellation Virgo. In 2019, Hubble released an image of M90 created with Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) data taken in 1994, soon after its installation. That WFPC2 image has a distinctive stair-step pattern due to the layout of its sensors. Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) replaced WFPC2 in 2009 and Hubble used WFC3 when it turned its aperture to Messier 90 again in 2019 and 2023. That data resulted in this stunning new image, providing a much fuller view of the galaxy’s dusty disk, its gaseous halo, and its bright core.
The inner regions of M90’s disk are sites of star formation, seen here in red H-alpha light from nebulae. M90 sits among the galaxies of the relatively nearby Virgo Cluster, and its orbit took M90 on a path near the cluster’s center about three hundred million years ago. The density of gas in the inner cluster weighed on M90 like a strong headwind, stripping enormous quantities of gas from the galaxy and creating the diffuse halo we see around it. This gas is no longer available to form new stars in M90, with the spiral galaxy eventually fading as a result.
M90 is located 55 million light-years from Earth, but it’s one of the very few galaxies getting closer to us. Its orbit through the Virgo cluster has accelerated so much that M90 is in the process of escaping the cluster entirely. By happenstance, it’s moving in our direction. Astronomers have measured other galaxies in the Virgo cluster at similar speeds, but in the opposite direction. As M90 continues to move toward us over billions of years, it will also be evolving into a lenticular galaxy.
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Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Oct 17, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
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This beautiful spiral is expected to evolve into a lenticular galaxy.
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Farms in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta face strict reporting requirements for water usage because the delta supplies most of the state’s freshwater. This Landsat image uses infrared wavelengths to depict vegetation.Credit: U.S. Geological Survey The 30-acre pear orchard in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta has been in Brett Baker’s family since the end of the Gold Rush. After six generations, though, California’s most precious resource is no longer gold – it’s water. And most of the state’s freshwater is in the delta.
Landowners there are required to report their water use, but methods for monitoring were expensive and inaccurate. Recently, however, a platform called OpenET, created by NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and other partners, has introduced the ability to calculate the total amount of water transferred from the surface to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration. This is a key measure of the water that’s actually being removed from a local water system. It’s calculated based on imagery from Landsat and other satellites.
“It’s good public policy to start with a measure everyone can agree upon,” Baker said.
OpenET is only one of the latest uses researchers and businesses continue finding for Landsat over 50 years after the program started collecting continuous imagery of Earth’s surface. NASA has built and launched all nine of the satellites before handing them over to USGS, which manages the program.
Some of the most pressing questions people ask about Earth are about the food it’s producing. Agriculture and adjacent industries are among the heaviest users of Earth-imaging data, which can help assess crop health and predict yields.
The latest Landsat satellite, Landsat 9, went into orbit in fall of 2021. NASA and the USGS are already developing options for the next iteration of Landsat, currently known as Landsat Next.Credit: NASA Even in this well-established niche, though, new capabilities continue to emerge. One up-and-coming company is using Landsat to validate sustainable farming practices by measuring carbon stored in the ground, which can be detected in the reflectance rate in certain wavelengths. This is how Perennial Inc. is enabling emerging markets for carbon credits, through which farmers get paid for maximizing their land’s storage of carbon.
The company is also discovering interest among food companies that want to reduce their environmental impact by choosing eco-conscious suppliers, as well as companies in the fertilizer, farm equipment, and agricultural lending businesses.
Landsat also enables countless map-based apps, studies of changes in Earth’s surface cover over half a century, and so much more.
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Last Updated Oct 16, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 p.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. After launch, the spacecraft plans to fly by Mars in February 2025, then back by Earth in December 2026, using the gravity of each planet to increase its momentum. With help of these “gravity assists,” Europa Clipper will achieve the velocity needed to reach Jupiter in April 2030.Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA’s Europa Clipper has embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter, where it will investigate Europa, a moon with an enormous subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life. The spacecraft launched at 12:06 p.m. EDT Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The largest spacecraft NASA ever built for a mission headed to another planet, Europa Clipper also is the first NASA mission dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) on a trajectory that will leverage the power of gravity assists, first to Mars in four months and then back to Earth for another gravity assist flyby in 2026. After it begins orbiting Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times.
“Congratulations to our Europa Clipper team for beginning the first journey to an ocean world beyond Earth,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA leads the world in exploration and discovery, and the Europa Clipper mission is no different. By exploring the unknown, Europa Clipper will help us better understand whether there is the potential for life not just within our solar system, but among the billions of moons and planets beyond our Sun.”
Approximately five minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s second stage fired up and the payload fairing, or the rocket’s nose cone, opened to reveal Europa Clipper. About an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from the rocket. Ground controllers received a signal soon after, and two-way communication was established at 1:13 p.m. with NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. Mission teams celebrated as initial telemetry reports showed Europa Clipper is in good health and operating as expected.
“We could not be more excited for the incredible and unprecedented science NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will deliver in the generations to come,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and Europa Clipper’s scientific discoveries will build upon the legacy that our other missions exploring Jupiter — including Juno, Galileo, and Voyager — created in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet.”
The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Europa is about the size of our own Moon, but its interior is different. Information from NASA’s Galileo mission in the 1990s showed strong evidence that under Europa’s ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. Scientists also have found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.
If the mission determines Europa is habitable, it may mean there are more habitable worlds in our solar system and beyond than imagined.
“We’re ecstatic to send Europa Clipper on its way to explore a potentially habitable ocean world, thanks to our colleagues and partners who’ve worked so hard to get us to this day,” said Laurie Leshin, director, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Europa Clipper will undoubtedly deliver mind-blowing science. While always bittersweet to send something we’ve labored over for years off on its long journey, we know this remarkable team and spacecraft will expand our knowledge of our solar system and inspire future exploration.”
In 2031, the spacecraft will begin conducting its science-dedicated flybys of Europa. Coming as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) to the surface, Europa Clipper is equipped with nine science instruments and a gravity experiment, including an ice-penetrating radar, cameras, and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water. As the most sophisticated suite of science instruments NASA has ever sent to Jupiter, they will work in concert to learn more about the moon’s icy shell, thin atmosphere, and deep interior.
To power those instruments in the faint sunlight that reaches Jupiter, Europa Clipper also carries the largest solar arrays NASA has ever used for an interplanetary mission. With arrays extended, the spacecraft spans 100 feet (30.5 meters) from end to end. With propellant loaded, it weighs about 13,000 pounds (5,900 kilograms).
In all, more than 4,000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper mission since it was formally approved in 2015.
“As Europa Clipper embarks on its journey, I’ll be thinking about the countless hours of dedication, innovation, and teamwork that made this moment possible,” said Jordan Evans, project manager, NASA JPL. “This launch isn’t just the next chapter in our exploration of the solar system; it’s a leap toward uncovering the mysteries of another ocean world, driven by our shared curiosity and continued search to answer the question, ‘are we alone?’”
More About Europa Clipper
Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
Find more information about NASA’s Europa Clipper mission here:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper
-end-
Meira Bernstein / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
meira.b.bernstein@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-287-4115
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Oct 14, 2024 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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