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NASA Science Live: Parker Solar Probe Nears Historic Close Encounter with the Sun
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The G-IV aircraft flies overhead in the Mojave Desert near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Baseline flights like this one occurred in June 2024, and future flights in service of science research will benefit from the installment of the Soxnav navigational system, developed in collaboration with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute in California’s Silicon Valley. This navigational system provides precise, economical aircraft guidance for a variety of aircraft types moving at high speeds.NASA/Carla Thomas NASA and its partners recently tested an aircraft guidance system that could help planes maintain a precise course even while flying at high speeds up to 500 mph. The instrument is Soxnav, the culmination of more than 30 years of development of aircraft navigation systems.
NASA’s G-IV aircraft flew its first mission to test this navigational system from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, in December 2024. The team was composed of engineers from NASA Armstrong, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute (BAERI) in California’s Silicon Valley.
“The objective was to demonstrate this new system can keep a high-speed aircraft within just a few feet of its target track, and to keep it there better than 90% of the time,” said John Sonntag, BAERI independent consultant co-developer of Soxnav.
With 3D automated steering guidance, Soxnav provides pilots with a precision approach aid for landing in poor visibility. Previous generations of navigational systems laid the technical baseline for Soxnav’s modern, compact, and automated iteration.
“The G-IV is currently equipped with a standard autopilot system,” said Joe Piotrowski Jr., operations engineer for the G-IV. “But Soxnav will be able to create the exact level flight required for Next Generation Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AirSAR-NG) mission success.”
Jose “Manny” Rodriguez adjusts the Soxnav instrument onboard the G-IV aircraft in December 2024. As part of the team of experts, Rodriguez ensures that the electronic components of this instrument are installed efficiently. His expertise will help bring the innovative navigational guidance of the Soxnav system to the G-IV and the wider airborne science fleet at NASA. Precision guidance provided by the Soxnav enables research aircraft like the G-IV to collect more accurate, more reliable Earth science data to scientists on the ground.NASA/Steve Freeman Guided by Soxnav, the G-IV may be able to deliver better, more abundant, and less expensive scientific information. For instance, the navigation tool optimizes observations by AirSAR-NG, an instrument that uses three radars simultaneously to observe subtle changes in the Earth’s surface. Together with the Soxnav system, these three radars provide enhanced and more accurate data about Earth science.
“With the data that can be collected from science flights equipped with the Soxnav instrument, NASA can provide the general public with better support for natural disasters, tracking of food and water supplies, as well as general Earth data about how the environment is changing,” Piotrowski said.
Ultimately, this economical flight guidance system is intended to be used by a variety of aircraft types and support a variety of present and future airborne sensors. “The Soxnav system is important for all of NASA’s Airborne Science platforms,” said Fran Becker, project manager for the G-IV AirSAR-NG project at NASA Armstrong. “The intent is for the system to be utilized by any airborne science platform and satisfy each mission’s goals for data collection.”
In conjunction with the other instruments outfitting the fleet of airborne science aircraft, Soxnav facilitates the generation of more abundant and higher quality scientific data about planet Earth. With extreme weather events becoming increasingly common, quality Earth science data can improve our understanding of our home planet to address the challenges we face today, and to prepare for future weather events.
“Soxnav enables better data collection for people who can use that information to safeguard and improve the lives of future generations,” Sonntag said.
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Last Updated Feb 07, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactErica HeimLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms
Airborne Science Armstrong Flight Research Center B200 Earth Science Jet Propulsion Laboratory Explore More
5 min read NASA CubeSat Finds New Radiation Belts After May 2024 Solar Storm
Key Points The largest solar storm in two decades hit Earth in May 2024. For…
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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
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By NASA
NASA astronaut Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA) For the first time, NASA is hosting a live Twitch event from about 250 miles off the Earth aboard the International Space Station, bringing new audiences closer to space than ever before. Viewers will have the opportunity to hear from NASA astronauts live and ask questions about life in orbit.
The event will begin at 11:45 a.m. EST on Wednesday, Feb. 12, livestreamed on the agency’s official Twitch channel:
https://www.twitch.tv/nasa
“This Twitch event from space is the first of many,” said Brittany Brown, director, Office of Communications Digital and Technology Division, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We spoke with digital creators at TwitchCon about their desire for streams designed with their communities in mind, and we listened. In addition to our spacewalks, launches, and landings, we’ll host more Twitch-exclusive streams like this one. Twitch is one of the many digital platforms we use to reach new audiences and get them excited about all things space.”
Although NASA has streamed events to Twitch previously, this conversation will be the first NASA event from the International Space Station developed specifically for the agency’s Twitch platform.
During the event, viewers will hear from NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who is currently aboard the orbiting laboratory, and NASA astronaut Matt Dominick, who recently returned to Earth after the agency’s Crew-8 mission.
The NASA astronauts will discuss daily life aboard the space station and the research conducted in microgravity. Additionally, the event will highlight ways for Twitch users to engage with NASA, including citizen science projects and science, technology, engineering, and math programs designed to inspire the Artemis Generation.
NASA is committed to exploring new digital platforms to engage with new audiences. Last year, the agency introduced its own streaming platform, NASA+, and redesigned nasa.gov and science.nasa.gov websites, creating a new homebase for agency news, Artemis information, and more.
To keep up with the latest news from NASA and learn more about the agency, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov
-end-
Abbey Donaldson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
Abbey.a.donaldson@nasa.gov
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:00:40 Back in 2023, we reported on Solar Orbiter’s discovery of tiny jets near the Sun’s south pole that could be powering the solar wind. The team behind this research has now used even more data from the European Space Agency’s prolific solar mission to confirm that these jets exist all over dark patches in the Sun’s atmosphere, and that they really are a source of not only fast but also slow solar wind.
The newfound jets can be seen in this sped-up video as hair-like wisps that flash very briefly, for example within the circled regions of the Sun's surface. In reality they last around one minute and fling out charged particles at about 100 km/s.
The surprising result is published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics, highlighting how Solar Orbiter’s unique combination of instruments can unveil the mysteries of the star at the centre of our Solar System.
The solar wind is the never-ending rain of electrically charged particles given out by the Sun. It pervades the Solar System and its effects can be felt on Earth. Yet despite decades of study, its origin remained poorly understood. Until now.
The solar wind comes in two main forms: fast and slow. We have known for decades that the fast solar wind comes from the direction of dark patches in the Sun’s atmosphere called coronal holes – regions where the Sun’s magnetic field does not turn back down into the Sun but rather stretches deep into the Solar System.
Charged particles can flow along these ‘open’ magnetic field lines, heading away from the Sun, and creating the solar wind. But a big question remained: how do these particles get launched from the Sun in the first place?
Building upon their previous discovery, the research team (led by Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany) used Solar Orbiter’s onboard ‘cameras’ to spot more tiny jets within coronal holes close to the Sun’s equator.
By combining these high-resolution images with direct measurements of solar wind particles and the Sun’s magnetic field around Solar Orbiter, the researchers could directly connect the solar wind measured at the spacecraft back to those exact same jets.
What’s more, the team was surprised to find not just fast solar wind coming from these jets, but also slow solar wind. This is the first time that we can say for sure that at least some of the slow solar wind also comes from tiny jets in coronal holes – until now, the origin of the solar wind had been elusive.
The fact that the same underlying process drives both fast and slow solar wind comes as a surprise. The discovery is only possible thanks to Solar Orbiter’s unique combination of advanced imaging systems, as well as its instruments that can directly detect particles and magnetic fields.
The measurements were taken when Solar Orbiter made close approaches to the Sun in October 2022 and April 2023. These close approaches happen roughly twice a year; during the next ones, the researchers hope to collect more data to better understand how these tiny jets ‘launch’ the solar wind.
Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA, operated by ESA. This research used data from Solar Orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI), Solar Wind Plasma Analyser (SWA) and Magnetometer (MAG). Find out more about the instruments Solar Orbiter is using to reveal more about the Sun.
Read our news story from 2023 about how Solar Orbiter discovered tiny jets that could power the solar wind
Read more about how Solar Orbiter can trace the solar wind back to its source region on the Sun
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By NASA
Explore This Section Mars Home Science Overview Objectives Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Perseverance Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Perseverance Home Mission Overview Rover Components Mars Rock Samples Where is Perseverance? Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mission Updates 3 min read
Persevering Through Science
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of its 26th collected rock sample, “Silver Mountain,” using its onboard Sample Caching System Camera (CacheCam), located inside the rover underbelly. It looks down into the top of a sample tube to take close-up pictures of the sampled material and the tube as it’s prepared for sealing and storage. This image was acquired on Jan. 28, 2025 — sol 1401, or Martian day 1,401 of the Mars 2020 mission — at the local mean solar time of 18:49:01. NASA/JPL-Caltech The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover continues to live up to its name, pushing forward in search of ancient Martian secrets. Following a brief period of system verification and remote testing, our operations team is back at full strength, and Perseverance has been hard at work uncovering new geological insights.
We began our latest campaign at “Mill Brook,” a site surrounded by dusty, fine-grained paver stones. Here, we conducted an abrasion experiment at “Steve’s Trail,” allowing our remote sensing instruments to capture a before-and-after analysis of the rock surface. SuperCam (SCAM) used its LIBS and VISIR systems to investigate “Bad Weather Pond,” while Mastcam-Z (ZCAM) imaged the entire workspace. These observations provide invaluable data on the composition, texture, and potential alteration of these rocks.
After wrapping up at Mill Brook — including a ZCAM multispectral scan of “Berry Hill” — Perseverance took a 140-meter drive (about 459 feet) to “Blue Hill” at “Shallow Bay,” a site of immense scientific interest. The rocks here are rich in low-calcium pyroxene (LCP), making them one of the most intriguing sample targets of the mission so far.
The significance of Blue Hill extends beyond just this one location. The pyroxene-rich nature of the site suggests a potential link to a much larger rock unit visible in orbital HiRISE images. Given that this may be the only exposure of these materials within our planned traverse, our science team prioritized sampling this Noachian-aged outcrop, a rare window into Mars’ deep past.
And now, we are thrilled to announce:
Perseverance has successfully cored and sealed a 2.9-centimeter (1.1-inch) rock sample from Blue Hill, officially named “Silver Mountain.” This marks our first Noachian-aged outcrop sample, an important milestone in our mission to uncover the geological history of Jezero Crater. Since Shallow Bay-Shoal Brook is the only location along our planned route where this regional low-calcium pyroxene unit was identified from orbit, this sample is a one-of-a-kind treasure for future Mars Sample Return analyses.
As we enter the Year of the Snake, it seems fitting that serpentine-bearing rocks have slithered into our focus! While Blue Hill remains a top priority, the tactical team has been highly responsive to the science team’s overwhelming interest in the nearby serpentine-bearing outcrops. These rocks, which may reveal critical clues about past water activity and potential habitability, are now part of our exploration strategy.
Between our Noachian-aged pyroxene sample and the newfound focus on serpentine-bearing rocks, our journey through Jezero Crater has never been more exciting. Each step — each scan, each drive, each core sample — brings us closer to understanding Mars’ complex past.
As Perseverance continues to, well, persevere, and as we embrace the Year of the Snake, we can’t help but marvel at the poetic alignment of science and tradition. Here’s to a year of wisdom, resilience, and groundbreaking discoveries — both on Earth and 225 million kilometers (140 million miles) away!
Stay tuned as we unravel the next chapter in Mars exploration!
Written by Nicolas Randazzo, Postdoctoral Scientist at University of Alberta
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Last Updated Feb 04, 2025 Related Terms
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