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55 Years Ago: Apollo 11’s One Small Step, One Giant Leap
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By NASA
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A Martian dust devil can be seen consuming its smaller friend in this short video made of images taken at the rim of Jezero Crater by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover on Jan. 25, 2025. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI The six-wheeled explorer recently captured several Red Planet mini-twisters spinning on the rim of Jezero Crater.
A Martian dust devil can be seen consuming a smaller one in this short video made of images taken by a navigation camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. These swirling, sometimes towering columns of air and dust are common on Mars. The smaller dust devil’s demise was captured during an imaging experiment conducted by Perseverance’s science team to better understand the forces at play in the Martian atmosphere.
When the rover snapped these images from about 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) away, the larger dust devil was approximately 210 feet (65 meters) wide, while the smaller, trailing dust devil was roughly 16 feet (5 meters) wide. Two other dust devils can also be seen in the background at left and center. Perseverance recorded the scene Jan. 25 as it explored the western rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater at a location called “Witch Hazel Hill.”
“Convective vortices — aka dust devils — can be rather fiendish,” said Mark Lemmon, a Perseverance scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “These mini-twisters wander the surface of Mars, picking up dust as they go and lowering the visibility in their immediate area. If two dust devils happen upon each other, they can either obliterate one another or merge, with the stronger one consuming the weaker.”
While exploring the rim of Jezero Crater on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover captured new images of multiple dust devils in January 2025. These captivating phenomena have been documented for decades by the agency’s Red Planet robotic explorers. NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/INTA-CSIC/Space Science Institute/ISAE-Supaero/University of Arizona Science of Whirlwinds
Dust devils are formed by rising and rotating columns of warm air. Air near the planet’s surface becomes heated by contact with the warmer ground and rises through the denser, cooler air above. As other air moves along the surface to take the place of the rising warmer air, it begins to rotate. When the incoming air rises into the column, it picks up speed like a spinning ice skater bringing their arms closer to their body. The air rushing in also picks up dust, and a dust devil is born.
“Dust devils play a significant role in Martian weather patterns,” said Katie Stack Morgan, project scientist for the Perseverance rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Dust devil study is important because these phenomena indicate atmospheric conditions, such as prevailing wind directions and speed, and are responsible for about half the dust in the Martian atmosphere.”
NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter captured this Martian dust devil casting a shadow on Aug. 1, 1978. During the 15-second interval between the two images, the dust devil moved toward the northeast (toward the upper right) at a rate of about 59 feet (18 meters) per second. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Since landing in 2021, Perseverance has imaged whirlwinds on many occasions, including one on Sept. 27, 2021, where a swarm of dust devils danced across the floor of Jezero Crater and the rover used its SuperCam microphone to record the first sounds of a Martian dust devil.
NASA’s Viking orbiters, in the 1970s, were the first spacecraft to photograph Martian dust devils. Two decades later, the agency’s Pathfinder mission was the first to image one from the surface and even detected a dust devil passing over the lander. Twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity managed to capture their fair share of dusty whirlwinds. Curiosity, which is exploring a location called Mount Sharp in Gale Crater on the opposite side of the Red Planet as Perseverance, sees them as well.
Capturing a dust devil image or video with a spacecraft takes some luck. Scientists can’t predict when they’ll appear, so Perseverance routinely monitors in all directions for them. When scientists see them occur more frequently at a specific time of day or approach from a certain direction, they use that information to focus their monitoring to try to catch additional whirlwinds.
“If you feel bad for the little devil in our latest video, it may give you some solace to know the larger perpetrator most likely met its own end a few minutes later,” said Lemmon. “Dust devils on Mars only last about 10 minutes.”
More About Perseverance
A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover is characterizing the planet’s geology and past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and as the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program (MEP) portfolio and the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
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Last Updated Apr 03, 2025 Related Terms
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Explore This Section Exoplanets Home Exoplanets Overview Exoplanets Facts Types of Exoplanets Stars What is the Universe Search for Life The Big Questions Are We Alone? Can We Find Life? The Habitable Zone Why We Search Target Star Catalog Discoveries Discoveries Dashboard How We Find and Characterize Missions People Exoplanet Catalog Immersive The Exoplaneteers Exoplanet Travel Bureau 5 Ways to Find a Planet Strange New Worlds Universe of Monsters Galaxy of Horrors News Stories Blog Resources Get Involved Glossary Eyes on Exoplanets Exoplanet Watch More Multimedia ExEP This artist’s concept pictures the planets orbiting Barnard’s Star, as seen from close to the surface of one of them. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld The Discovery
Four rocky planets much smaller than Earth orbit Barnard’s Star, the next closest to ours after the three-star Alpha Centauri system. Barnard’s is the nearest single star.
Key Facts
Barnard’s Star, six light-years away, is notorious among astronomers for a history of false planet detections. But with the help of high-precision technology, the latest discovery — a family of four — appears to be solidly confirmed. The tiny size of the planets is also remarkable: Capturing evidence of small worlds at great distance is a tall order, even using state-of-the-art instruments and observational techniques.
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Watching for wobbles in the light from a star is one of the leading methods for detecting exoplanets — planets orbiting other stars. This “radial velocity” technique tracks subtle shifts in the spectrum of starlight caused by the gravity of a planet pulling its star back and forth as the planet orbits. But tiny planets pose a major challenge: the smaller the planet, the smaller the pull. These four are each between about a fifth and a third as massive as Earth. Stars also are known to jitter and quake, creating background “noise” that potentially could swamp the comparatively quiet signals from smaller, orbiting worlds.
Astronomers measure the back-and-forth shifting of starlight in meters per second; in this case the radial velocity signals from all four planets amount to faint whispers — from 0.2 to 0.5 meters per second (a person walks at about 1 meter per second). But the noise from stellar activity is nearly 10 times larger at roughly 2 meters per second.
How to separate planet signals from stellar noise? The astronomers made detailed mathematical models of Barnard’s Star’s quakes and jitters, allowing them to recognize and remove those signals from the data collected from the star.
The new paper confirming the four tiny worlds — labeled b, c, d, and e — relies on data from MAROON-X, an “extreme precision” radial velocity instrument attached to the Gemini Telescope on the Maunakea mountaintop in Hawaii. It confirms the detection of the “b” planet, made with previous data from ESPRESSO, a radial velocity instrument attached to the Very Large Telescope in Chile. And the new work reveals three new sibling planets in the same system.
Fun Facts
These planets orbit their red-dwarf star much too closely to be habitable. The closest planet’s “year” lasts a little more than two days; for the farthest planet, it’s is just shy of seven days. That likely makes them too hot to support life. Yet their detection bodes well in the search for life beyond Earth. Scientists say small, rocky planets like ours are probably the best places to look for evidence of life as we know it. But so far they’ve been the most difficult to detect and characterize. High-precision radial velocity measurements, combined with more sharply focused techniques for extracting data, could open new windows into habitable, potentially life-bearing worlds.
Barnard’s star was discovered in 1916 by Edward Emerson Barnard, a pioneering astrophotographer.
The Discoverers
An international team of scientists led by Ritvik Basant of the University of Chicago published their paper on the discovery, “Four Sub-Earth Planets Orbiting Barnard’s Star from MAROON-X and ESPRESSO,” in the science journal, “The Astrophysical Journal Letters,” in March 2025. The planets were entered into the NASA Exoplanet Archive on March 13, 2025.
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Last Updated Apr 01, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
On March 24, 1975, the last in a long line of super successful Saturn rockets rolled out from the vehicle assembly building to Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Saturn IB rocket for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was the 19th in the Saturn class stacked in the assembly building, beginning in 1966 with the Saturn V 500F facilities checkout vehicle. Thirteen flight Saturn V rockets followed, 12 to launch Apollo spacecraft and one to place the Skylab space station into orbit. In addition, workers stacked four flight Saturn IB rockets, three to launch crews to Skylab and one for Apollo-Soyuz, plus another for the Skylab rescue vehicle that was not needed and never launched. Previously, workers stacked Saturn I and Saturn IB rockets on the pads at Launch Complexes 34 and 37. With the successful liftoff in July 1975, the Saturn family of rockets racked up a 100 percent success rate of 32 launches.
Workers lower the Apollo command and service modules onto the spacecraft adaptor.NASA Technicians in the assembly building replace the fins on the Saturn IB rocket’s first stage. NASA Workers in the assembly building prepare to lower the spacecraft onto its Saturn IB rocket.NASA Inspections of the Saturn IB rocket’s first stage fins revealed hairline cracks in several hold-down fittings and managers ordered the replacement of all eight fins. While the cracks would not affect the flight of the rocket they bore the weight of the rocket on the mobile launcher. Workers finished the fin replacement on March 16. Engineers in Kennedy’s spacecraft operations building prepared the Apollo spacecraft for its historic space mission. By early March, they had completed checkout and assembly of the spacecraft and transported it to the assembly building on March 17 to mount it atop the Saturn IB’s second stage. Five days later, they topped off the rocket with the launch escape system.
The final Saturn IB begins its rollout from the vehicle assembly building. NASA The Saturn IB passes by the Launch Control Center. NASA Apollo astronauts Thomas Stafford, left, Vance Brand, and Donald “Deke” Slayton pose in front of their Saturn IB during the rollout.NASA On March 23, workers edged the mobile transporter carrying the Saturn IB just outside the assembly building’s High Bay 1, where engineers installed an 80-foot tall lightning mast atop the launch tower. The next morning, the stack continued its rollout to Launch Pad 39B with the prime crew of Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand, and Donald “Deke” Slayton and support crew members Robert Crippen and Richard Truly on hand to observe. About 7,500 people, including guests, dependents of Kennedy employees and NASA Tours patrons, watched as the stack moved slowly out of the assembly building on its five-mile journey to the launch pad.
Mission Control in Houston during the joint simulation with Flight Director Donald Puddy in striped shirt and a view of Mission Control in Moscow on the large screen at left. NASA A group of Soviet flight controllers in a support room in Mission Control in Houston during the joint simulation. NASA On March 20, flight controllers and crews began a series of joint simulations for the joint mission scheduled for July 1975. For the six days of simulations, cosmonauts Aleksei Leonov and Valeri Kubasov and astronauts Stafford, Brand, and Slayton participated in the activity in spacecraft simulators in their respective countries, with both control centers in Houston and outside Moscow fully staffed as if for the actual mission. The exercises simulated various phases of the mission, including the respective launches, rendezvous and docking, crew transfers and joint operations, and undocking.
Astronauts Thomas Stafford, left, Vance Brand, and Donald “Deke” Slayton in a boilerplate Apollo command module preparing for the water egress training. NASA Stafford, left, Slayton, and Brand in the life raft during water egress training. NASA Astronauts Stafford, Brand and Slayton participated in a water egress training activity on March 8, completing the exercise in a water tank in Building 260 at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The astronauts practiced egressing from their spacecraft onto a lift raft and being lifted up with the use of a Billy Pugh rescue net. They practiced wearing their flight coveralls as well as their spacesuits.
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By NASA
On March 23, 1965, the United States launched the Gemini III spacecraft with astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom and John Young aboard, America’s first two-person spaceflight. Grissom earned the honor as the first person to enter space twice and Young as the first member of the second group of astronauts to fly in space. During their three-orbit flight they carried out the first orbital maneuvers of a crewed spacecraft, a critical step toward demonstrating rendezvous and docking. Grissom and Young brought Gemini 3 to a safe splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. Their ground-breaking mission led the way to nine more successful Gemini missions in less than two years to demonstrate the techniques required for a Moon landing. Gemini 3 marked the last spaceflight controlled from Cape Kennedy, that function shifting permanently to a new facility in Houston.
In one of the first uses of the auditorium at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, managers announce the prime and backup Gemini III crews. NASA NASA astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom and John Young, the Gemini III prime crew. NASA Grissom, foreground, and Young in their capsule prior to launch.NASA On April 13, 1964, just five days after the uncrewed Gemini I mission, in the newly open auditorium at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Director Robert Gilruth introduced the Gemini III crew to the press. NASA assigned Mercury 4 veteran Grissom and Group 2 astronaut Young as the prime crew, with Mercury 8 veteran Walter Schirra and Group 2 astronaut Thomas Stafford serving as their backups. The primary goals of Project Gemini included proving the techniques required for the Apollo Program to fulfil President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth before the end of the 1960s. Demonstrating rendezvous and docking between two spacecraft ranked as a high priority for Project Gemini.
Liftoff of Gemini III.NASA The uncrewed Gemini I and II missions validated the spacecraft’s design, reliability, and heat shield, clearing the way to launch Gemini III with a crew. On March 23, 1965, after donning their new Gemini spacesuits, Grissom and Young rode the transfer van to Launch Pad 19 at Cape Kennedy in Florida. They rode the elevator to their Gemini spacecraft atop its Titan II rocket where technicians assisted them in climbing into the capsule. At 9:24 a.m. EST, the Titan’s first stage engines ignited, and Gemini III rose from the launch pad.
The Mission Control Center at Cape Kennedy in Florida during Gemini III, controlling a human spaceflight for the final time.NASA The Mission Control Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, monitoring the Gemini III mission.NASA Five and a half minutes after launch, the Titan II’s second stage engine cut off and the spacecraft separated to begin its orbital journey. Grissom became the first human to enter space a second time. While engineers monitored the countdown from the Launch Pad 19 blockhouse, once in orbit flight controllers in the Mission Control Center at the Cape took over. Controllers in the new Mission Control Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now the Johnson Space Center in Houston, staffed consoles and monitored the mission in a backup capacity. Beginning with Gemini IV, control of all American human spaceflights shifted permanently to the Houston facility.
Gemini III entered an orbit of 100 miles by 139 miles above the Earth. Near the end of the first orbit, while passing over Texas, Grissom and Young fired their spacecraft’s thrusters for one minute, 14 seconds. “They appear to be firing good,” said Young, confirming the success of the maneuver. The change in velocity adjusted their orbit to 97 miles by 105 miles. A second burn 45 minutes later altered the orbital inclination by 0.02 degrees. Another task for the crew involved testing new food and packaging developed for Gemini. As an off-the-menu item, Young had stowed a corned beef on rye sandwich in his suit pocket before flight, and both he and Grissom took a bite before stowing it away, concerned about crumbs from the sandwich floating free in the cabin.
Shortly after splashdown, Gemini III astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom exits the spacecraft as crewmate John Young waits in the life raft. NASA Sailors hoist the Gemini III spacecraft aboard the prime recovery ship U.S.S. Intrepid.NASA Young, left, and Grissom stand with their spacecraft aboard Intrepid. NASA Near the end of their third revolution, Grissom and Young prepared for the retrofire burn to bring them out of orbit. They oriented Gemini III with its blunt end facing forward and completed a final orbital maneuver to lower the low point of their orbit to 45 miles, ensuring reentry even if the retrorockets failed to fire. They jettisoned the rearmost adapter section, exposing the retrorockets that fired successfully, bringing the spacecraft out of orbit. They jettisoned the retrograde section, exposing Gemini’s heat shield. Minutes later, they encountered the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere at 400,000 feet, and he buildup of ionized gases caused a temporary loss of communication between the spacecraft and Mission Control. At 50,000 feet, Grissom deployed the drogue parachute to stabilize and slow the spacecraft, followed by the main parachute at 10,600 feet. Splashdown occurred in the Atlantic Ocean near Grand Turk Island, about 52 miles short of the planned point, after a flight of 4 hours, 52 minutes, 31 seconds.
Gemini III astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, left, and John Young upon their return to Cape Kennedy in Florida. NASA Grissom and Young at the postflight press conference. NASA The welcome home ceremony for Grissom and Young at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.NASA A helicopter recovered Grissom and Young and delivered them to the deck of the U.S.S. Intrepid, arriving there one hour and 12 minutes after splashdown. On board the carrier, the astronauts received a medical checkup and a telephone call from President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ship sailed to pick up the spacecraft and sailors hoisted it aboard less than three hours after landing. The day after splashdown, Grissom and Young flew to Cape Kennedy for debriefings, a continuation of the medical examinations begun on the carrier, and a press conference. Following visits to the White House, New York, and Chicago, the astronauts returned home to Houston on March 31. The next day, Gilruth welcomed them back to the Manned Spacecraft Center, where in front of the main administration building, workers raised an American flag that Grissom and Young had carried on their mission. That flag flew during every subsequent Gemini mission.
During the Gemini III welcome home ceremony in front of the main administration building at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, workers raise an American flag that the astronauts had carried on their mission. NASA
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Explore This Section Earth Home Earth Observer Home Editor’s Corner Feature Articles Meeting Summaries News Science in the News Calendars In Memoriam More Archives 5 min read
Celebrating 25 Years of Terra
Expanded coverage of topics from “The Editor’s Corner” in The Earth Observer
Terra anniversary banner Image credit: NASA Nasa personnel gather to celebrate Terra’s 25th anniversary at the Goddard Visitor Center. Image credit: NASA On December 18, 2024, Terra—the first EOS Flagship mission celebrated the 25th anniversary of its launch from Vandenberg Space Force (then Air Force) Base. Some 70 individuals gathered at the Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) Visitor Center to celebrate this remarkable achievement for the venerable mission – with 75 more participating virtually.
The gathering began with a reception culminating with some informal remarks in the main area of the Visitor’s Center outside the auditorium from Marc Dinardo [Lockheed Martin, emeritus] who was involved in the design of Terra. He explained that – at the time it was being built in the 1990s – Terra represented a “big step forward” for Lockheed Martin compared to projects the company had done prior to this. He discussed several engineering feats, e.g., fitting spacecraft components into the Atlas rocket used to launch Terra, moving from tape recorders to solid state recorders for data storage, the (at the time) novel thermal system developed to reject heat and protect instruments, and the direct broadcast capabilities.
After the initial remarks, the in-person participants moved into the auditorium where they heard from representatives from Senior management [both from NASA Headquarters and GSFC] as well as from several key figures in Terra’s long history. Each speaker gave brief remarks and shared their perspectives on Terra’s development and achievements. Short summaries of each presentation follow below.
Julie Robinson [NASA HQ—Deputy Director of the Earth Science Division] began by noting that this feels like a family celebration. She said her first personal experience with Terra was submitting a proposal as a young scientist to do research that would use data from Terra. At that time the idea of studying Earth as a system of systems was brand new. She had no idea at that time that more than a quarter-century later, she’d be involved in planning the “next generation” Earth System Observatory (ESO).
Shawn Domagal-Goldman [Deputy Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate] spoke about how some of the biggest science questions we try to answer are interdisciplinary and cross-instrument, spanning missions and generations, and that the expertise and diverse skillsets of those who have worked on the Terra team over the past 25 years embodies this goal.
Tom Neumann [GSFC—Deputy Director of Earth Science Division (GSFC)] reflected on his early involvement in the Terra–Aqua–Aura proposal reviews. He noted the sheer number of people involved in the mission and the logistical challenges that organizing that size group presented at the time. He also commented on the feeling of family surrounding the Team and how this surely contributed to its remarkable achievements over the past 25 years.
Guennadi Kroupnik [Canadian Space Agency—Director General of Space Utilization] extended congratulations to NASA and Terra team for 25 years of operations. He commented that this “six year” mission has endured far beyond what was planned. Canada’s contribution was the Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument with Jim Drummond [University of Toronto] as Principal Investigator. Kroupnik noted that MOPITT Is longest continuously running instrument in Canadian history. He is pleased that CSA has been able to partner with NASA on Terra and looks forward to future collaboration on the Atmospheric Observing System (AOS), which is one of the missions planned as part of ESO.
Jack Kaye [NASA Headquarters—Associate Director for Research of the Earth Science Division] spoke of Terra’s remarkable scientific accomplishments, the creativity of the team, and the intentional emphasis placed on validating the data, and the creativity of the Team. He also noted that the direct broadcast capability was extremely useful and led to many applications. Kaye remarked that the late Yoram Kauffman referred to the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) as the “zoom lens of Terra.”
Miguel Román [GSFC—Deputy Director for Atmospheres] described himself as a “child of Terra,” as he began his science career at around the same time that Terra launched and has been involved in various capacities ever since. Román recalled the launch taking place near vineyards, where the team celebrated the successful launch with local wine, to finally sharing a bottle of wine with the late Piers Sellers (who served as the first Terra project scientist) at one of the final gatherings Piers threw before he passed from cancer. Román also mentioned the Our Changing Planet book that four Earth Scientists – including former EOS Senior Project Scientist and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Science Team Leader Michael King and former Aqua Project Scientist Claire Parkinson—both GSFC emeritus – collaborated to write that was published in 2007. This book made use of numerous images and data from Terra’s five instruments – as well as other EOS data.
Kurt Thome [GSFC—Terra Project Scientist] rounded out the presentations, emphasizing again what several have stated in their individual comments – the Terra Team truly is a family. He commented that he’s only been leading the mission for the past ten years and that his work builds on the shoulders of those who came before him. In particular, he acknowledged the slide Miguel Román showed briefly during his presentation that honored those who were part of the Terra family who have passed away – e.g., Piers Sellers, Yoram Kauffman.
Steve Platnick
EOS Senior Project Scientist
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Last Updated Mar 20, 2025 Related Terms
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