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The latest crew chosen by NASA to venture on a simulated trip to Mars inside the agency’s Human Exploration Research Analog. From left are Sergii Iakymov, Erin Anderson, Brandon Kent, and Sarah Elizabeth McCandless.Credit: C7M3 Crew NASA selected a new team of four research volunteers to participate in a simulated mission to Mars within HERA (Human Exploration Research Analog) at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Erin Anderson, Sergii Iakymov, Brandon Kent, and Sarah Elizabeth McCandless will begin their simulated trek to Mars on Friday, Aug. 9. The volunteer crew members will stay inside the 650-square-foot habitat for 45 days, exiting Monday, Sept. 23 after a simulated “return” to Earth. Jason Staggs and Anderson Wilder will serve as alternate crew members.
The HERA missions offer scientific insights into how people react to the type of isolation, confinement, work and life demands, and remote conditions astronauts might experience during deep space missions.
The facility supports more frequent, shorter-duration simulations in the same building as CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Analog). This crew is the third group of volunteers to participate in a simulated Mars mission in HERA this year. The most recent crew completed its HERA mission on June 24. In total, there will be four analog missions in this series.
During this summer’s simulation, participants will perform a mix of science and operational tasks, including harvesting plants from a hydroponic garden, growing shrimp, deploying a small, cube-shaped satellite (CubeSat) to simulate gathering virtual data for analysis, “walking” on the surface of Mars using virtual reality goggles, and flying simulated drones on the simulated Mars surface. The team members also will encounter increasingly longer communication delays with Mission Control throughout their mission, culminating in five-minute lags as they “near” Mars. Astronauts traveling to Mars may experience communications delays of up to 20 minutes.
NASA’s Human Research Program will conduct 18 human health experiments during each of the 2024 HERA missions. Collectively, the studies explore how a Mars-like journey may affect the crew members’ mental and physical health. The work also will allow scientists to test certain procedures and equipment designed to keep astronauts safe and healthy on deep space missions.
Primary Crew
Erin Anderson
Erin Anderson is a structural engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. Her work focuses on manufacturing and building composite structures — using materials engineered to optimize strength, stiffness, and density — that fly in air and space.
Anderson earned a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013. After graduating, she worked as a structural engineer for Boeing on NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) in Huntsville, Alabama. She moved to New Orleans to support the assembly of the first core stage of the SLS at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility. Anderson received a master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, in 2020. She started her current job in 2021, continuing her research on carbon fiber composites.
In her free time, Anderson enjoys playing rugby, doting on her dog, Sesame, and learning how to ride paddleboard at local beaches.
Sergii Iakymov
Sergii Iakymov is an aerospace engineer with more than 15 years of experience in research and design, manufacturing, quality control, and project management. Iakymov currently serves as the director of the Mars Desert Research Station, a private, Utah-based research facility that serves as an operational and geological Mars analog.
Iakymov received a bachelor’s degree in Aviation and Cosmonautics and a master’s in Aircraft Control Systems from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in Ukraine. His graduate research focused on the motion of satellites equipped with pitch flywheels and magnetic coils.
Iakymov was born in Germany, raised in Ukraine, and currently splits his time between southern Utah and Chino Hills, California. His hobbies include traveling, running, hiking, scuba diving, photography, and reading.
Brandon Kent
Brandon Kent is a medical director in the pharmaceutical industry, supporting ongoing global efforts to develop new therapies across cancer types.
Kent received a bachelor’s degrees in Biochemistry and Biology from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. He earned his doctorate in Biomedicine from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, where his work primarily focused on how genetic factors regulate early embryonic development and cancer development.
Following graduate school, Kent moved into scientific and medical communications consulting in oncology, primarily focusing on clinical trial data disclosures, scientific exchange, and medical education initiatives.
Kent and his wife have two daughters. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his daughters, flying private aircraft, hiking, staying physically fit, and reading. He lives in Kinnelon, New Jersey.
Sarah Elizabeth McCandless
Sarah Elizabeth McCandless is a navigation engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. McCandless’ job involves tracking the location and predicting the future trajectory of spacecraft, including the Mars Perseverance rover, Artemis I, Psyche, and Europa Clipper.
McCandless received a bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, and a master’s in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, focused on orbital mechanics.
McCandless is originally from Fairway, Kansas, and remains an avid fan of sports teams from her alma mater and hometown. She is active in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) outreach and education and enjoys camping, running, traveling with friends and family, and piloting Cessna 172s. She lives in Pasadena, California.
Alternate Crew
Jason Staggs
Jason Staggs is a cybersecurity researcher and adjunct professor of computer science at the University of Tulsa. His research focuses on systems security engineering, infrastructure protection, and resilient autonomous systems. Staggs is an editor for the International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection and the Critical Infrastructure Protection book series.
Staggs supported scientific research expeditions with the National Science Foundation at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. He also previously served as a space engineer and medical officer while working as an analog astronaut in the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) atop the Mauna Loa volcano.
Staggs received his bachelor’s degree in Information Assurance and Forensics at Oklahoma State University and master’s and doctorate degrees in Computer Science from the University of Tulsa. During his postdoctoral studies at Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, he investigated electric vehicle charging station vulnerabilities.
In his spare time, Staggs enjoys hiking, building radio systems, communicating with ham radio operators in remote locations, and volunteering as a solar system ambassador for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory — sharing his passion for astronomy, oceanography, and space exploration with his community.
Anderson Wilder
Anderson Wilder is a Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne graduate student working on his doctorate in psychology. His research focuses on team resiliency and human-machine interactions. Wilder also works in the campus neuroscience lab, investigating how spaceflight contributes to astronaut neurobehavioral changes.
Wilder previously served as an executive officer and engineer for an analog mission at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. There, he performed studies related to crew social dynamics, plant growth, and geology.
Wilder received bachelor’s degrees in Linguistics and Psychology from Ohio State University in Columbus. He also received a master’s degree in Space Studies from International Space University in Strasbourg, France, and is completing a second master’s in Cognitive Experimental Psychology from Cleveland State University in Ohio.
Outside of school, Wilder works as a parabolic flight coach, teaching people how to experience reduced-gravity environments. He also enjoys chess, reading, video games, skydiving, and scuba diving. On a recent dive, he explored a submerged section of the Great Wall of China.
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NASA’s Human Research Program
NASA’s Human Research Program (HRP) pursues the best methods and technologies to support safe, productive human space travel. Through science conducted in laboratories, ground-based analogs, and the International Space Station, HRP scrutinizes how spaceflight affects human bodies and behaviors. Such research drives HRP’s quest to innovate ways to keep astronauts healthy and mission-ready as space travel expands to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
By Wayne Smith
Investigators at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will use observations from a recently-launched sounding rocket mission to provide a clearer image of how and why the Sun’s corona grows so much hotter than the visible surface of Earth’s parent star. The MaGIXS-2 mission – short for the second flight of the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer – launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on Tuesday, July 16.
NASA’s MaGIXS-2 sounding rocket mission successfully launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on July 16. United States Navy The mission’s goal is to determine the heating mechanisms in active regions on the Sun by making critical observations using X-ray spectroscopy.
The Sun’s surface temperature is around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit – but the corona routinely measures more than 1.8 million degrees, with active regions measuring up to 5 million degrees.
Amy Winebarger, Marshall heliophysicist and principal investigator for the MaGIXS missions, said studying the X-rays from the Sun sheds light on what’s happening in the solar atmosphere – which, in turn, directly impacts Earth and the entire solar system.
X-ray spectroscopy provides unique capabilities for answering fundamental questions in solar physics and for potentially predicting the onset of energetic eruptions on the Sun like solar flares or coronal mass ejections. These violent outbursts can interfere with communications satellites and electronic systems, even causing physical drag on satellites as Earth’s atmosphere expands to absorb the added solar energy.
“Learning more about these solar events and being able to predict them are the kind of things we need to do to better live in this solar system with our Sun,” Winebarger said.
The NASA team retrieved the payload immediately after the flight and has begun processing datasets.
“We have these active regions on the Sun, and these areas are very hot, much hotter than even the rest of the corona,” said Patrick Champey, deputy principal investigator at Marshall for the mission. “There’s been a big question – how are these regions heated? We previously determined it could relate to how often energy is released. The X-rays are particularly sensitive to this frequency number, and so we built an instrument to look at the X-ray spectra and disentangle the data.”
The MaGIXS-2 sounding rocket team stand on the launchpad in White Sands, New Mexico prior to launch on July 16, 2024. United States Navy Following a successful July 2021 launch of the first MaGIXS mission, Marshall and its partners refined instrumentation for MaGIXS-2 to provide a broader view for observing the Sun’s X-rays. Marshall engineers developed and fabricated the telescope and spectrometer mirrors, and the camera. The integrated instrument was exhaustively tested in Marshall’s state-of-the-art X-ray & Cryogenic Facility. For MaGIXS-2, the team refined the same mirrors used on the first flight, with a much larger aperture and completed the testing at Marshall’s Stray Light Test Facility.
A Marshall project from inception, technology developments for MaGIXS include the low-noise CCD camera, high-resolution X-ray optics, calibration methods, and more.
Winebarger and Champey said MaGIXS many of the team members started their NASA careers with the project, learning to take on lead roles and benefitting from mentorship.
“I think that’s probably the most critical thing, aside from the technology, for being successful,” Winebarger said. “It’s very rare that you get from concept to flight in a few years. A young engineer can go all the way to flight, come to White Sands to watch it launch, and retrieve it.”
NASA routinely uses sounding rockets for brief, focused science missions. They’re often smaller, more affordable, and faster to design and build than large-scale satellite missions, Winebarger said. Sounding rockets carry scientific instruments into space along a parabolic trajectory. Their overall time in space is brief, typically five minutes, and at lower vehicle speeds for a well-placed scientific experiment.
The MaGIXS mission was developed at Marshall in partnership with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Sounding Rockets Program Office, located at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility, provides suborbital launch vehicles, payload development, and field operations support to NASA and other government agencies.
Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.932.1940
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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Earth Observer Earth Home Earth Observer Home Editor’s Corner Feature Articles Meeting Summaries News Science in the News Calendars In Memoriam More Archives 18 min read
Summary of the 2023 Sun – Climate Symposium
Introduction
Observations of the Sun and Earth from space continue to revolutionize our view and understanding of how solar variability and other natural and anthropogenic forcings impact Earth’s atmosphere and climate. For more than four decades (spanning four 11-year solar cycles and now well into a fifth), the total and spectral solar irradiance and global terrestrial atmosphere and surface have been observed continuously, providing an unprecedented, high-quality time series of data for Sun–climate studies, such as the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) composite record – see Figure 1.
Figure 1. The Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) composite record spans almost 5 decades and includes measurements from 13 different instruments (9 NASA and 4 international). Figure credit: Greg Kopp, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)/University of Colorado (UC). Sun–Climate Symposia, originally called SOlar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) Science Team Meetings, have been held at a regular cadence since 1999 – before the launch of SORCE in 2003. These meetings provide an opportunity for experts from across the solar, Earth atmosphere, climate change, stellar, and planetary communities to present and discuss their research results about solar variability, climate influences and the Earth-climate system, solar and stellar variability comparative studies, and stellar impacts on exoplanets.
The latest iteration was the eighteenth in the series and occurred in October 2023. (As an example of a previous symposium, see Summary of the 2022 Sun–Climate Symposium, in the January–February 2023 issue of The Earth Observer [Volume 35, Issue 1, pp. 18–27]). The 2023 Sun–Climate Symposium took place October 17–20 in Flagstaff, AZ – with a focus topic of “Solar and Stellar Variability and its Impacts on Earth and Exoplanets.” The Sun–Climate Research Center – a joint venture between NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado (UC) with the Lowell Observatory hosting the meeting. The in-person meeting had 75 attendees – including 7 international participants – with diverse backgrounds covering a wide range of climate change and solar-stellar variability research topics – see Photo.
Photo. Attendees at the 2023 Sun–Climate Symposium in Flagstaff, AZ. Photo credit: Kelly Boden/LASP Update on NASA’s Current and Planned TSIS Missions
The current NASA solar irradiance mission, the Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor (TSIS-1), marks a significant advance in our ability to measure the Sun’s energy input to Earth across various wavelengths. Following in the footsteps of its predecessors, most notably SORCE, TSIS-1 contributes to the continuous time series of solar energy data dating back to 1978 – see Figure 1. The two instruments on TSIS-1 improve upon those on previous missions, enabling scientists to study the Sun’s natural influence on Earth’s ozone layer, atmospheric circulation, clouds, and ecosystems. These observations are essential for a scientific understanding of the effects of solar variability on the Earth system.
TSIS-1 launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in December 2017 and is deployed on the Station’s EXpedite the PRocessing of Experiments to Space Station (ExPRESS) Logistics Carrier–3 (ELC-3). Its payload includes the Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) for observing the TSI and the Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM) for measuring the Solar Spectral Irradiance (SSI) – see comparison in Figure 2. The mission completed its five-year prime science mission in March 2023. SIM measures from 200–2400 nm with variable spectral resolution ranging from about 1 nm in the near ultraviolet (NUV) to about 10 nm in the near infrared (NIR). TSIS-1 has been extended by at least three more years as part of the Earth Sciences Senior Review process.
TSIS-2 is intended as the follow-on to TSIS-1. The mission is currently in development at LASP and GSFC with a planned launch around mid 2025. The TSIS-2 payload is nearly identical to that of TSIS-1, except that the payload will ride on a free-flying spacecraft rather than be mounted on a solar pointing platform on the ISS. NASA hopes to achieve 1–2 years of overlap between TSIS-1 and TSIS-2. Achieving such measurement overlap between missions is crucial to the continuity of the long-term records of the TSI and SSI without interruption and improving the solar irradiance composite.
In addition to the current solar irradiance mission and its planned predecessor, NASA is always looking ahead to plan for the inevitable next solar irradiance mission. Two recent LASP CubeSat missions – called Compact SIM (CSIM) and Compact TIM (CTIM) – have tested miniaturized versions of the SIM and TIM instruments, respectively. Both CSIM and CTIM have performed extremely well in space – with measurements that correlate well with the larger instruments – and are being considered as continuity options for the SSI and TSI measurements. Based on the success of CSIM and CTIM, LASP has developed a concept study report about the Compact-TSIS (CTSIS) as a series of small satellites viable for a future TSIS-3 mission.
Figure 2. The Solar Spectral Irradiance (SSI) variability from TSIS-1 Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM) is compared to the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) variability from TSIS-1 Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM). The left panel shows the SIM SSI integrated over its wavelength range of 200–2400 nm, which is in excellent agreement with the TSI variability during the rising phase of solar cycle 25. The right panels show comparison of SSI variability at individual wavelengths to the TSI variability, revealing linear relationships with ultraviolet variability larger than TSI variability, visible variability similar to TSI variability, and near infrared variability smaller than TSI variability. Figure credit: Erik Richard/LASP Meeting Overview
After an opening plenary presentation in which Erik Richard [LASP] covered the information on TSIS-1, TSIS-2, CSIM, and CTIM presented in the previous section on “NASA’s Current and Planned Solar Irradiance Missions,” the remainder of the four-day meeting was divided into five science sessions each with oral presentations, and a poster session featuring 23 contributions.
The five session topics were:
Solar and Stellar Activity Cycles Impacts of Stellar Variability on Planetary Atmospheres Evidence of Centennial and Longer-term Variability in Climate Change Evidence of Short-term Variability in Climate Change Trending of Solar Variability and Climate Change for Solar Cycle 25 (present and future) There was also a banquet held on the final evening of the meeting (October 19) with special presentations focusing on the water drainage system and archaeology of the nearby Grand Canyon – see Sun-Climate Symposium Banquet Special Presentation on the Grand Canyon National Park.
The remainder of this report summarizes highlights from each of the science sections. To learn more, the reader is referred to the full presentations from the 2023 Sun–Climate Symposium, which can be found on the Symposium website by clicking on individual presentation titles in the Agenda tab.
Session 1: Solar and Stellar Activity Cycles
Sun-like stars (and solar analogs, solar twins) provide a range of estimates for how the Sun’s evolution may affect its solar magnetic cycle variability. Recent astrophysics missions (e.g., NASA’s Kepler mission) have added thousands of Sun-like stars to study, compared to just a few dozen from a couple decades ago when questions remained if the Sun is a normal G star or not.
Tom Ayres [UC Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA)] gave the session’s keynote presentation on Sun-like stars. He pointed out that the new far ultraviolet (FUV) and X-ray stellar observations have been used to clarify that our Sun is a normal G-type dwarf star with low activity relative to most other G-type dwarf stars.
Travis Metcalfe [White Dwarf Research Corporation (WDRC)] discussed the recent progress in modeling of the physical processes that generate a star’s magnetic field – or stellar dynamo. He explained how the presence of stellar wind can slow down a star’s rotation, which in turn lengthens the period of the magnetic cycle. He related those expectations to the Sun and to the thousands of Sun-like stars observed by Kepler.
Continuing on the topic of solar dynamo, Lisa Upton [Space Systems Research Corporation (SSRC)] and Greg Kopp [LASP] discussed their recent findings using a solar surface magnetic flux transport model, which they can use to reconstruct an estimated TSI record back in time to the anomalously low activity during the Maunder Minimum in the 1600s. Dan Lubin [University of California San Diego (UCSD)] described efforts to identify grand-minimum stars – which exhibit characteristics similar to our Sun during the Maunder Minimum. Using Hamilton Echelle Spectrograph observations, they have identified about two dozen candidate grand-minimum stars.
In other presentations and posters offered during this session, Adam Kowalski [LASP]) discussed stellar and solar flare physics and revealed that the most energetic electrons generated during a flare are ten times more than previously thought, while Moira Jardine [University of St. Andrews, Scotland]) discussed the related subject of space weather on the Sun and stars and how the coronal extent was likely much larger for the younger Sun. Three presenters – Debi Choudhary [California State University, Northridge], Garrett Zills [Augusta University], and Serena Criscuoli [National Solar Observatory] –discussed how solar emission line variability from both line intensity and line width are good indicators of magnetic activity on the Sun and thus relevant for studies of Sun-like star variability. Andres Munoz-Jaramillo [Southwest Research Institute (SWRI)] highlighted the importance of archiving large datasets showing the Harvard dataverse as an example. Juan Arjona [LASP] discussed the solar magnetic field observations made using the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research’s GREGOR solar telescope.
Session 2: Impacts of Stellar Variability on Planetary Atmospheres
Presenters in this session focused on how the stellar variability can impact exoplanet evolution and climate. By analyzing data from NASA’s Kepler mission, scientists have discovered numerous Earth-like planets orbiting other stars – or exoplanets, which has enabled comparative studies between planets in our Solar System and exoplanets.
Aline Vidotto [University of Leiden, Netherlands] gave this session’s keynote presentation in which he discussed the impact of stellar winds on exoplanets. In general, younger stars rotate faster and thus have more stellar variability. The evolution of the exoplanet’s atmosphere is dependent on its star’s variability and also modulated by the exoplanet’s own magnetic field. Robin Ramstad [LASP] further clarified a planetary magnetic field’s influences on atmospheric evolution for planets in our solar system.
Vladimir Airapetian [GSFC] presented an overview of how laboratory measurements used to simulate pre-biosignatures – characteristics that precede those elements, molecules, or substances that would indicate past or present life – could be created in an exoplanet atmosphere by highly energetic particles and X-rays from stars with super flares, very large-scale magnetic eruptions on a star that can be thousands of times brighter than a typical solar flare. While the probability of a super flare event is low for our Sun (perhaps 1 every 400 years), super flares are routinely observed on more active stars.
The stellar flares and the spectral distribution of the flare’s released energy can have large impacts on exoplanet’s atmospheres. Laura Amaral [Arizona State University] presented on the super-flare influences on the habitable zone of exoplanets and explained how the flare’s significantly enhanced X-ray emissions would greatly accelerate water escape from the exoplanet’s atmosphere. Ward Howard [ UC CASA] showed that exoplanet transits can also provide information about starspots (akin to the dark sunspots on the Sun) when a transit event happens to occult a starspot – see Figure 3. Ward also explained the importance of observing the transit events at multiple wavelengths, referred to as transit spectroscopy, to understand the physical characteristics of the starspots. Yuta Notsu [LASP] compared the energetics observed in many different stars using X-ray and far ultraviolet (FUV) observations to estimate stellar magnetic field strengths, which in turn can be used to estimate the stellar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectra. Those results provide new information on how the stellar spectra could evolve during the lifetime of Sun-like stars, and how those spectral changes can affect the atmospheric escape rates on their exoplanets.
Nina-Elisabeth Nemec [University of Göttingen, Germany] described how Kepler observations of exoplanets rely on tracking their transits across its host star’s disk. She explained some of the challenges that arise with analyzing such transits when there are large starspots present.
Figure 3. Illustration of an exoplanet transit that will occult a starspot. The transit light curve can provide information about the size of the starspot, and transit observations at multiple wavelengths can reveal physical parameters, such as temperature, of the starspot. Figure credit: Ward Howard, CASA/University of Colorado Session 3: Evidence of Centennial and Longer-term Variability in Climate Change
Venkatachalam “Ram” Ramaswamy [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL)] gave the keynote for this session in which he discussed Earth’s variable climate change over the past two centuries. He explained in detail Earth’s energy budget and energy imbalance, which leads to less land and sea ice, warmer temperatures at the surface and in the atmosphere and ocean, and more extreme weather. These weather changes have different regional impacts, such as more floods in some regions and more drought in different regions – see Figure 4.
Figure 4. The rainfall amount has shifted over the past fifty years (red is less and blue is more) with strong regional impacts on droughts and floods. Figure credit: Ram Ramaswamy/NOAA/GFDL Bibhuti Kumar Jha [SWRI], Bernhard Hofer [Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany], and Serena Criscuoli [National Solar Observatory] discussed long-term solar measurements from the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory and showed that the chromospheric plages (Ca K images) have 1.6% faster solar rotation rate than sunspots (white light images). Timothy Jull [University of Arizona (UA)], Fusa Miyake [Nagoya University, Japan], Georg Fueulner [Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany], and Dan Lubin discussed the impact that solar influences (i.e., solar flares, solar energetic particles) have had on Earth’s climate over hundreds of years through their impact on phenomena such as the natural distribution of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and fluctuations in the North Atlantic Oscillation.
Hisashi Hayawawa [Nagoya University] and Kalevi Mursula [University of Oulu, Finland] discussed the influence that ever-changing sunspots and magnetic fields on the Sun are having on climate – with a focus on the Maunder Minimum period. Irina Panyushkina [UA] and Timothy Jull presented tree ring radioisotope information as it relates to climate change trends as well as long-term, solar variability trends. According to Lubin, if a reduction in solar input similar to what happened during the Maunder Minimum would happen today, the resulting reduction in temperature would be muted due to the higher concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere.
Session 4: Evidence of Short-term Variability in Climate Change
Session 4 focused on discussions that examined shorter-term variations of solar irradiance and climate change. Bill Collins [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)] started off the session with a presentation on Earth albedo asymmetry across the hemispheres from Nimbus-7 observations, and then showed some important differences when looking at the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) record – shown in Figure 5. Lon Hood [UA] discussed the changes in atmospheric circulation patterns which might be the consequence of Arctic sea ice loss increasing the sea level pressure over northern Eurasia. Alexi Lyapustin [GSFC] described how higher temperatures are causing an extension of the wildfire season in the Northern hemisphere by 1–3 months.
Figure 5. The albedo difference between the visible and near-infrared bands are shown for the southern hemisphere (red line) and the northern hemisphere (blue lines) for CERES [left] and Nimbus 7 [right]. The southern hemisphere albedo difference is higher than the northern hemisphere albedo difference, both for the 1980s as measured by Nimbus-7 and for the recent two decades as measured by CERES. These hemispheric differences are related mostly to differences in cloud coverage. The seasonal effect on the albedo difference values is about 2%, but the changes from 1980s to 2010s appear to be about 10%. Figure credit: Bill Collins/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Jae Lee [GSFC/University of Maryland, Baltimore County] discussed changes in the occurrence and intensity of the polar mesosphere clouds (PMCs), showing high sensitivity to mesospheric temperature and water, and fewer PMCs for this solar cycle. In addition, some presenters discussed naturally driven climate changes. Luiz Millan [JPL], whose research has found that the water-laden plume from the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai (HT-HH) volcano eruption in January 2022 has had a warming effect on the atmosphere as well as the more typical cooling effect at the surface from the volcanic aerosols. In another presentation, Jerry Raedar [University of New Hampshire, Space Science Center] showed results from his work indicating about 5% reductions in temperature and pressure following major solar particle storms, but noted differences in dependence between global and regional effects.
Session 5: Trending of Solar Variability and Climate Change for Solar Cycle 25 (present and future)
Session 5 focused on trends during Solar cycle 25 (SC-25), which generated lively discussions about predictions. It appears the SC-25 maximum sunspot number could be about 15% higher than the original SC-25 maximum predictions. Those differences between the sunspot observations and this prediction may be related to the timing of SC-25 ramp up. Lisa Upton started off Session 5 by presenting both the original and latest predictions from the NASA–NOAA SC-25 Prediction Panel. Her assessment of the Sun’s polar magnetic fields and different phasing of magnetic fields over the Sun’s north and south poles suggests that the SC-25 maximum will be larger than the prediction – see Figure 6.
The next several speakers – Matt DeLand [Science Systems and Applicatons Inc. (SSAI)], Sergey Marchenko [SSAI], Dave Harber [LASP], Tom Woods [LASP], and Odele Coddington [LASP] – showed a variety of TSI and SSI (NUV, visible, and NIR) variability observations during SC-25. The group consensus was that the difference between the SC-24 and SC-25 maxima may be due to the slightly higher solar activity during SC-25 as compared to the time of the SC-24 maximum – which was an anomalously low cycle. The presenters all agreed that SC-25 maximum may not have been reached yet (and SC-25 maximum may not have occurred yet in 2024).
Figure 6. The sunspot number progression (black) during solar cycle 25 is higher than predicted (red). The original NASA–NOAA panel prediction was for a peak sunspot number of 115 in 2025. Lisa Upton’s updated prediction is for a sunspot number peak of 134 in late 2024. Figure credit: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center On the climate change side, Don Wuebbles [University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign] provided a thorough overview of climate change science showing that: the largest impacts result from the activities of humans, land is warming faster than the oceans, the Arctic is warming two times faster than rest of the world, and 2023 was the hottest year on record with an unprecedented number of severe weather events.
There were several presentations about the solar irradiance observations. Leah Ding [American University] presented new analysis techniques using machine learning with Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) solar images to study irradiance variability. Steve Penton [LASP] discussed new SIM algorithm improvements for TSIS-1 SIM data product accuracy. Margit Haberreiter [Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos (PMOD), Switzerland] discussed new TSI observations from the Compact Lightweight Absolute Radiometer (CLARA) on the Norwegian NorSat-1 microsatellite. Marty Snow [South African National Space Agency] discussed a new TSI-proxy from the visible light (green filter) Solar Position Sensor (SPS) flown on the NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-R). (The first of four satellites in the GOES-R series launched in 2016 (GOES-16) followed by GOES-17 and GOES-18 in 2018 and 2022 respectively. The final satellite in the series – GOES-U – launched June 25, 2024 will become GOES-19 after checkout is complete.)
Peter Pilewskie [LASP] discussed future missions, focusing on the Libera mission for radiative energy budget, on which he is Principal Investigator. Selected as the first Earth Venture Continuity mission (EVC-1), Libera will record how much energy leaves our planet’s atmosphere on a day-by-day basis providing crucial information about how Earth’s climate is evolving. In Roman mythology, Libera was Ceres’ daughter. The mission name is thus fitting as Libera will act as a follow-on mission to maintain the decades long data record of observation from NASA’s suite of CERES instruments. Figure 7 shows the CERES climate data record trends over the past 20 years.
Figure 7. The CERES Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) climate data record shows a positive trend for the absorbed solar radiation [left] and the net radiation [right] and a small negative trend for the emitted terrestrial radiation [middle]. Figure credit: Peter Pilewskie/adapted from a 2021 paper in Geophysical Research Letters Susan Breon [GSFC] discussed the plans for and status of TSIS-2 , and Tom Patton [LASP] discussed CTSIS as an option for TSIS-3 – both of these topics were discussed earlier in this article in the section on “NASA’s Current and Planned Solar Irradiance Missions.”
Angie Cookson [California State University, San Fernando Observatory (SFO)] shared information about the SFO’s 50-year history, and how analyses of solar image observations taken at SFO are used to derive important indicators of solar irradiance variability – see Figure 8.
Figure 8. The San Fernando Observatory (SFO) [left] has been making visible [middle] and near ultraviolet (NUV) [right] solar images from the ground for more than 50 years. Those solar images have been useful for understanding the sources of solar irradiance variability. Figure credit: Angie Cookson/SFO Sun-Climate Symposium Banquet Special Presentation on the Grand Canyon National Park
At the Thursday evening banquet, two speakers – Mark Nebel and Anne Millar – from the National Park Service (NPS) presented some of their geological research on the nearby Grand Canyon. Nebel discussed the water drainage systems surrounding the Grand Canyon while Millar described the many different fossils that have been found in the surrounding rocks. Nebel explained how the Grand Canyon’s water drainage system into the Colorado River is complex and has evolved over the past few decades – see map and photo below. Millar brought several samples of the plant and insect fossils found in the Grand Canyon to share with banquet participants. Those fossils ranged in time from the Bright Angel Formation ocean period 500 million years ago to the Hermit Formation period 285 million years ago – when the Grand Canyon was semi-arid land with slow-moving rivers.
Map and photo credit: Mark Nebel/NPS Conclusion
Altogether, 80 presentations during the 2023 Sun–Climate Symposium spread across 6 sessions about solar analogs, exoplanets, long-term climate change, short-term climate change, and solar/climate recent trending. The multidisciplinary group of scientists attending made for another exciting conference for learning more about the TSIS solar irradiance observations. Sun–Climate recent results have improved perception of our Sun’s variability relative to many other Sun-like stars, solar impact on Earth and other planets and similar type impacts of stellar variability on exoplanets, and better characterization of anthropogenic climate drivers (e.g., increases in GHG) and natural climate drivers (Sun and volcanoes).
The next Sun–Climate Symposium will be held in spring 2025 with a potential focus on polar climate records, including polar ice trends and long-term solar variabilities derived from ice-core samples. Readers who may be interested in participating in the 2025 science organizing committee should contact Tom Woods and/or Dong Wu [GSFC].
Acknowledgments
The three co-authors were all part of the Science Organizing Committee for this meeting and wish to acknowledge the other members for their work in planning for and participating in another successful Sun–Climate Symposium. They include: Odele Coddington, Greg Kopp, and Ed Thiemann [all at LASP]; Jae Lee, Doug Rabin, and Dong Wu [all at GSFC]; Jeff Hall, Joe Llama, and Tyler Ryburn [all at Lowell Observatory]; Dan Lubin [UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO)]; and Tom Stone [U.S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center]. The authors and other symposium participants are also deeply grateful to Kelly Boden [LASP] for organizing the logistics and management of the conference, and to the Lowell Observatory, the Drury Inn conference center staff, and the LASP data system engineers for their excellent support in hosting this event.
Tom Woods
University of Colorado, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Research
tom.woods@lasp.colorado.edu
Peter Pilewskie
University of Colorado, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Research
peter.pilewskie@lasp.colorado.edu
Erik Richard
University of Colorado, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Research
erik.richard@lasp.colorado.edu
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Last Updated Jul 18, 2024 Related Terms
Earth Science Uncategorized View the full article
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By NASA
23 Min Read The Next Full Moon is the Buck or Thunder Moon
Mule deer buck, Yellowstone National Park The Next Full Moon is the Buck or Thunder Moon; the Hay or Mead Moon; Guru Purnima; Asalha Puja (aka Dharma Day or Esala Poya); and the start of Vassa.
The next full Moon will be Sunday morning, July 21, 2024, appearing opposite the Sun (in Earth-based longitude) at 6:17 AM EDT. For the International Date Line West and the American Samoa and Midway time zones this will be late Saturday night. For Line Islands Time this will be early Monday morning. The Moon will appear full for about three days around this time, from Friday evening through Monday morning, making this a full Moon weekend.
The Maine Farmers’ Almanac began publishing “Indian” names for full Moons in the 1930s and these names are now widely known and used. According to this almanac, as the full Moon in June the Algonquin tribes of what is now the northeastern United States called this the Buck Moon. Early summer is normally when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. They also called this the Thunder Moon because of early Summer’s frequent thunderstorms.
Europeans called this the Hay Moon for the haymaking of early summer, and sometimes the Mead Moon (although this name was also used for the previous full Moon). Mead is created by fermenting honey mixed with water, sometimes adding fruits, spices, grains, or hops.
For Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains, this is the Guru Full Moon (Guru Purnima), celebrated as a time for clearing the mind and honoring the guru or spiritual master.
For Theravada Buddhists this full Moon is Asalha Puja, also known as Dharma Day or Esala Poya, an important festival celebrating the Buddha’s first sermon after reaching nirvana, which started Buddhism. This sermon became the core of Buddhist teachings and includes the four noble truths. In addition, with this full Moon the Buddhist Monks start Vassa, the annual three-month retreat during the rainy season.
In many traditional lunisolar and lunar calendars full Moons fall on or near the middle of the lunar months. This full Moon is near the middle of the sixth month of the Chinese year of the Dragon, Tammuz in the Hebrew calendar, and Muharram in the Islamic calendar. Muharram is one of the four sacred months during which warfare is forbidden.
Since this is the Thunder Moon, a quick note on lightning safety. Most of the lightning that strikes the ground arcs from the negatively charged bottom of the storm to the ground underneath the storm. Much rarer is positive lightning, which arcs from the top of a thunderstorm to strike much farther away. Positive lightning can sometimes strike areas where the sky is clear (hence the term “bolt out of the blue”). NOAA’s Lightning FAQ Page says that almost all lightning will occur within 10 miles of its parent thunderstorm, but that lightning detection equipment has confirmed bolts striking up to almost 50 miles away. Because positive lightning arcs across a greater distance it tends to be 5 to 10 times more powerful than regular ground strikes. It can strike dry areas outside of the storm’s rainfall, so positive lightning tends to start more fires than negative lightning. Although positive lightning is rare (less than 5% of all lightning strikes), the lack of warning and its greater power make it more lethal. A good rule to follow is, if you can hear the thunder, you can be struck by lightning. As a bicycle enthusiast and daily commuter (before I retired) I am well aware that the inch or so of rubber tire between my metal bicycle and the ground will make little difference to a bolt that can arc across miles of air from the top of a thunderstorm to where I am riding.
As usual, the wearing of suitably celebratory celestial attire is encouraged in honor of the full Moon. Be safe (especially during thunderstorms), avoid starting wars, and take a moment to clear your mind.
As for other celestial events between now and the full Moon after next (with specific times and angles based on the location of NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.):
As summer continues the daily periods of sunlight continue to shorten from their longest on the summer solstice on June 20, 2024. On Sunday, July 21, (the day of the full Moon), morning twilight will begin at 4:52 AM, sunrise will be at 6:00 AM, solar noon at 1:15 PM when the Sun will reach its maximum altitude of 71.4 degrees, sunset will be at 8:28 PM, and evening twilight will end at 9:37 PM. By Monday, Aug. 21, (the day of the full Moon after next), morning twilight will begin at 5:24 AM, sunrise will be at 6:26 AM, solar noon at 1:11 PM when the Sun will reach its maximum altitude of 63.6 degrees, sunset will be at 7:57 PM, and evening twilight will end at 8:58 PM.
Six meteor showers are predicted to peak during this lunar cycle, including one of the best meteor showers of the year for the Southern Hemisphere and one of the best meteor showers of the year for the Northern Hemisphere.
On July 31, 2024, the Southern Delta Aquariids (005 SDA) meteor shower is predicted to peak at 25 meteors per hour (under ideal conditions). This shower is one of the most active annual sources for the Southern Hemisphere, but viewing it from our more northern latitudes will be difficult. As reported by the International Meteor Organization, this shower has a broad peak, and in past years observers from Australia (in 1977) and Crete (in 2003) have reported outbursts of 40 meteors per hour several days before the predicted peak. On the morning of the predicted peak (July 31), the best time to look (from the Washington, D.C. area) will likely be from after midnight until about 2 AM. The radiant (the point from which the meteors appear to radiate out from) will rise on the east-southeastern horizon on July 30 at about 10:15 PM. Since half of the meteors are hidden by the horizon at radiant rise, waiting until the radiant is higher in the sky should make more meteors visible. But moonrise will be at 1:58 AM (when the radiant will be about 30 degrees above the south-southeastern horizon). After moonrise moonlight will interfere with seeing these meteors, making our window for seeing these meteors fairly short. The parent body for this meteor shower is not certain, but they are caused by dust entering our atmosphere at 41 kilometers per second (92,000 miles per hour), so fast that air gets compressed and heated until it glows white-hot.
This should be a good year for the annual Perseid meteor shower. The Perseids (007 PER) meteor shower is predicted to peak on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, between 9 AM and Noon EDT (when we can’t see them). At its peak (under ideal conditions) the Perseids can produce about 100 visible meteors per hour, making it one of the three best meteor showers of the year for the Northern Hemisphere (the others being the Quadrantids in early January and the Geminids in mid December). The time closest to the predicted peak that we can see will be the early morning of Aug. 12. Moonset will be a little before midnight on Aug. 11, and the radiant will rise higher in the north-northeastern sky until the sky shows the first signs of dawn (before morning twilight begins at 5:16 AM). The peak is broad, and in past years high activity has been reported well after the peak, so keep an eye on the sky between moonset and the first hints of dawn for the nights before and after the predicted peak. The Perseid meteor shower is caused by dust from the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle entering our atmosphere at 59 kilometers per second (132,000 miles per hour) – as previously noted, so fast that air gets compressed and heated until it glows white-hot.
The best conditions for viewing these meteors would be if the weather is clear with no clouds or high hazes, you go to a place far from any light sources or urban light pollution, and you have a clear view of a wide expanse of the sky. Be sure to give your eyes plenty of time to adapt to the dark. The rod cells in your eyes are more sensitive to low light levels but play little role in color vision. Your color-sensing cone cells are concentrated near the center of your view with more of the rod cells on the edge of your view. Since some meteors are faint, you will tend to see more meteors from the “corner of your eye” (which is why you need a view of a large part of the sky). Your color vision (cone cells) will adapt to darkness in about 10 minutes, but your more sensitive night vision will continue to improve for an hour or more (with most of the improvement in the first 35 to 45 minutes). The more sensitive your eyes are, the more chance you have of seeing meteors. Even a short exposure to light (from passing car headlights, etc.) will start the adaptation over again (so no turning on a light or your cell phone to check what time it is).
The other four meteor showers, the July Gamma Draconids (184 GDR), Alpha Capricornids (001 CAP), Eta Eridanids (191 ERI), and Kappa Cygnids (012 KCG), are all expected to produce less than five meteors per hour under ideal conditions (which most of us don’t have in our urban and suburban environs) but if you happen to be out with a clear sky late at night or in the early morning, your odds of spotting a meteor are a little higher than usual.
No comets are expected to be visible this lunar cycle.
Evening Sky Highlights
On the evening of Sunday, July 21, 2024 (the evening of the day of the full Moon), as twilight ends (at 9:37 PM EDT), the rising Moon will be 3 degrees above the east-southeastern horizon. The bright planet Mercury will be 1 degree above the west-northwestern horizon and six minutes away from setting. The planet Venus will set 22 minutes before twilight ends, but will be bright enough to see in the glow of dusk, low on the west-northwestern horizon before it sets. The bright object appearing closest to overhead will be Vega, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra the lyre, at 65 degrees above the eastern horizon. Vega is one of the three bright stars in the “Summer Triangle,” along with Deneb and Altair. It is the fifth-brightest star in our night sky, about 25 light-years from Earth, has twice the mass of our Sun, and shines 40 times brighter than our Sun.
As this lunar cycle progresses the background of stars will appear to shift westward each evening (as the Earth moves around the Sun), while the planet Mercury will initially dwell low on the west-northwestern horizon, shifting towards the left. On July 24 Mercury will be 2 degrees below the bright star Regulus, and this will be the last evening Mercury will be above the horizon as twilight ends (although it may remain visible in the glow of dusk before twilight ends into early August). The bright planet Venus will also be visible in the glow of dusk, gradually shifting away from the Sun, but will not be above the horizon as twilight ends until late August. The bright star Regulus will appear about 1 degree to the lower right of Venus on Aug. 4, low on the west-northwestern horizon, with Regulus setting 17 minutes before evening twilight ends. The waxing Moon will pass by Venus and Regulus on Aug. 5 (setting before evening twilight ends), Spica on Aug. 9 and 10, and Antares on Aug. 13. Aug. 16 will be the first evening that the planet Saturn will be above the eastern horizon as evening twilight ends.
By the evening of Monday, Aug. 19 (the evening of the day of the full Moon after next), as twilight ends (at 8:58 PM), the rising Moon will be 7 degrees above the east-southeastern horizon. The only visible planet in the sky will be Saturn at 1.5 degrees above the eastern horizon. The planet Venus will set four minutes before twilight ends but will be bright enough to see in the glow of dusk, low on the western horizon before it sets. The bright object appearing closest to overhead will still be Vega at 80 degrees above the eastern horizon.
Morning Sky Highlights
On the morning of Sunday, July 21, 2024 (the morning of the day of the full Moon), as twilight begins (at 4:52 AM EDT), the setting Moon will be 7 degrees above the southwestern horizon. The brightest planet in the sky will be Jupiter at 25 degrees above the eastern horizon. Mars will be 33 degrees above the eastern horizon and Saturn 45 degrees above the southern horizon. The bright object appearing closest to overhead will be the star Deneb at 56 degrees above the west-northwestern horizon. Deneb is the 19th brightest star in our night sky and is the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus the swan. Deneb is one of the three bright stars of the Summer Triangle (along with Vega and Altair). It is about 20 times more massive than our Sun but has used up its hydrogen, becoming a blue-white supergiant about 200 times the diameter of the Sun. If Deneb were where our Sun is, it would extend to about the orbit of Earth. Deneb is about 2,600 light-years from us.
As this lunar cycle progresses, Jupiter, Saturn, and the background of stars will appear to shift westward each evening, with Mars shifting more slowly and to the left toward Jupiter. The waning Moon will pass by Saturn on July 25, Mars on July 30, Jupiter on July 31, and Pollux on Aug. 2 and 3. Jupiter and Mars will appear at their closest on Aug. 14, after which they will separate again.
By the morning of Monday, Aug. 19 (the morning of the day of the full Moon after next), as twilight begins (at 5:24 AM), the setting full Moon will be 5 degrees above the southwestern horizon. The brightest planet in the sky will be Jupiter at 49 degrees above the eastern horizon. Near Jupiter will be Mars at 47 degrees above the eastern horizon. Saturn will be 29 degrees above the southwestern horizon. The bright object appearing closest to overhead will be the star Capella, the brightest star in the constellation Auriga the charioteer, at 55 degrees above the east-northeastern horizon. Although we see Capella as a single star (the sixth-brightest in our night sky), it is actually four stars (two pairs of stars orbiting each other). Capella is about 43 light-years from us.
Detailed Daily Guide
Here for your reference is a day-by-day listing of celestial events between now and the full Moon after next. The times and angles are based on the location of NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and some of these details may differ for where you are (I use parentheses to indicate times specific to the D.C. area).
Wednesday night into early Thursday morning, July 17 to 18, 2024, the bright star Antares will appear near the waxing gibbous Moon. As evening twilight ends (at 9:40 PM EDT) Antares will be 3 degrees to the upper right of the Moon. The Moon will reach its highest in the sky 27 minutes later (at 10:07 PM). As Antares sets (at 2:21 AM) it will be 5 degrees to the lower right of the Moon. For much of the southern part of Africa the Moon will pass in front of Antares earlier on Wednesday. See http://lunar-occultations.com/iota/bstar/0717zc2366.htm (external link) for a map and information on the locations that will see this occultation.
As mentioned above, the full Moon will be Sunday morning, July 21, 2024, appearing opposite the Sun (in Earth-based longitude) at 6:17 AM EDT. This will be late Saturday night in the International Date Line West and the American Samoa and Midway time zones, and early Monday morning in the Line Islands Time zone. The Moon will appear full for about three days around this time, from Friday evening through Monday morning, making this a full Moon weekend.
Early Monday morning, July 22, 2024, will be when the planet Mercury reaches its greatest angular separation from the Sun as seen from Earth for this apparition (called greatest elongation). Because the angle between the line from the Sun to Mercury and the line of the horizon changes with the seasons, the date when Mercury and the Sun appear farthest apart as seen from Earth is not always the same as when Mercury appears highest above the horizon as evening twilight ends (which occurred on July 13).
Early Wednesday morning, July 24, 2024, at 1:43 AM EDT, the Moon will be at perigee, its closest to Earth for this orbit.
Wednesday evening, July 24, 2024, will be the last evening that the planet Mercury will be above the west-northwestern horizon as evening twilight ends (at 9:34 PM EDT), setting one minute later. This will also be the evening when Mercury will appear closest to the bright star Regulus, which will be 2 degrees above Mercury on the horizon.
Wednesday night into Thursday morning, July 24 to 25, 2024, the planet Saturn will appear near the waning gibbous Moon. At moonrise on the eastern horizon (at 10:45 PM EDT) Saturn will be 4 degrees to the upper right of the Moon. By the time the Moon reaches its highest (at 4:42 AM) Saturn will be 7 degrees to the lower right, with morning twilight beginning 14 minutes later. See http://lunar-occultations.com/iota/planets/0724saturn.htm (external link) for a map and information on where the Moon will block Saturn from view.
Saturday evening July 27, 2024, the waning Moon will appear half-full as it reaches its last quarter at 10:52 PM EDT (when we can’t see it).
Tuesday, July 30, 2024, the planet Mars will appear 4 degrees to the lower right of the waning crescent Moon with the Pleiades star cluster to the upper right of the Moon. Mars will rise on the east-northeastern horizon (at 1:39 AM EDT) with the Pleiades star cluster 5 degrees to the upper right of the Moon. Morning twilight will begin more than three hours later (at 5:01 AM) with the Pleiades 7 degrees to the upper right.
As described earlier in this posting, early Wednesday morning, July 31, 2024, from about midnight until moonrise (at 1:58 AM EDT) will likely be the best time to look toward the southeast for the Southern Delta Aquariids (005 SDA) meteor shower. Although viewing from our more northern latitudes will be limited, this shower is one of the most active annual sources for the Southern Hemisphere (with a predicted peak of 25 meteors per hour under ideal conditions). This shower has a broad peak, and rare outbursts of up to 40 meteors per hour have been reported days before the predicted peak (in 1977 and 2003). You might have an increased chance of seeing meteors in the early mornings from after midnight to before moonrise around this date.
Friday morning, Aug. 2, 2024, the bright star Pollux (the brighter of the twin stars in the constellation Gemini) will appear 8 degrees to the lower left of the waning crescent Moon. Pollux will rise after the Moon on the northeastern horizon (at 4:24 AM EDT) and morning twilight will begin 41 minutes later (at 5:05 AM).
The next morning, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, the thin, waning crescent Moon will have shifted to 7 degrees below Pollux. The Moon will rise (at 4:59 AM EDT) on the east-northeastern horizon just six minutes before morning twilight begins.
Throughout this lunar cycle the planet Mars will be passing above the bright star Aldebaran as it moves towards the bright planet Jupiter. Sunday morning, Aug. 4, 2024, will be when Mars and Aldebaran will be at their closest, about 5 degrees apart. Jupiter, Mars, and Aldebaran will form a triangle, with Mars above, Aldebaran to the lower right (matching Mars in brightness), and bright Jupiter to the lower left. Aldebaran will rise last (at 1:53 AM EDT) on the east-northeastern horizon and will be 37 degrees above the eastern horizon as morning twilight begins (at 5:07 AM). The constellation Orion will appear on the horizon below this triangle.
Sunday morning, Aug. 4, 2024, at 7:13 AM EDT, will be the new Moon, when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and will not be visible from the Earth. The day of, or the day after the New Moon marks the start of the new month for most lunisolar calendars. Aug. 4 is the start of the seventh month of the Chinese Year of the Dragon. Sundown on Aug. 4 is the start of Av in the Hebrew calendar. In the Islamic calendar the months traditionally start with the first sighting of the waxing crescent Moon. Many Muslim communities now follow the Umm al-Qura Calendar of Saudi Arabia, which uses astronomical calculations to start months in a more predictable way. Using this calendar, sundown on Sunday, Aug. 4, will probably mark the start of Safar, the second month of the Islamic calendar.
Monday evening, Aug. 5, 2024, if you have a very clear view of the western to west-northwestern horizon (particularly with binoculars), you might be able to see the thin, waxing crescent Moon less than a degree above the bright planet Venus, with the bright star Regulus 1.5 degrees below Venus. The planet Mercury (less bright than Regulus) will be 6 degrees to the lower left of Venus. There may only be a short window between when dusk will have faded enough to see Mercury and when Mercury sets 36 minutes after sunset (at 8:50 PM EDT). Regulus will set next nine minutes after Mercury (45 minutes after sunset), followed by Venus eight minutes later (53 minutes after sunset), and the Moon six minutes after that (59 minutes after sunset), six minutes before evening twilight ends (at 9:19 PM). Venus and Regulus will have been at their closest (1 degree apart) the evening before and Mercury and Venus will be at their closest (6 degrees apart) two evenings later, but these will be hard to spot, low on the horizon in the glow of dusk.
Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, at 9:32 PM EDT, the Moon will be at apogee, its farthest from the Earth for this orbit.
Friday evening, Aug. 9, 2024, the bright star Spica will appear 5 degrees to the upper left of the waxing crescent Moon. The Moon will be 14 degrees above the west-southwestern horizon as evening twilight ends (at 9:13 PM EDT). The Moon will set first a little more than an hour later (at 10:35 PM). Saturday morning, for part of the western Pacific north of Australia and Indonesia, the Moon will block Spica from view. See http://lunar-occultations.com/iota/bstar/0810zc1925.htm (external link) for a map and information on locations that can see this occultation.
By Saturday evening, Aug. 10, 2024, the waxing crescent Moon will have shifted to 7 degrees to the left of the star Spica as evening twilight ends and the pair will separate as the night progresses.
Saturday night, Aug. 10, 2024, will be the night of the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, known as the double seventh festival, Qixi in China, Chilseok in Korea, and Thất Tịch in Vietnam. The double seventh festival is sometimes called the Chinese Valentine’s Day. There are many variations on the legend, but basically they involve the Milky Way and the three bright stars we know as the Summer Triangle. The star Vega represents the weaver girl and the star Altair represents the cowherd. They fall in love and neglect their duties, so the Goddess of Heaven puts a wide river in the sky, the Milky Way, to keep them apart. They are allowed to meet only one night a year, on the seventh night of the seventh month, when the star Deneb forms a bridge across the Milky Way. In some versions of the legend, the bridge is formed by magpies, so another name is the Magpie Festival. The Japanese Tanabata or Star Festival is related, but is no longer tied to the lunisolar date (it is now celebrated on July 7, the double seventh of the Gregorian Calendar). On average there are a little more than seven days between each quarter of the Moon, so the first quarter Moon tends to occur a day or two after the seventh day of the lunisolar month.
As described earlier in this post, this should be a good year for the annual Perseids (007 PER) meteor shower, which can peak at more than 100 meteors per hour (under ideal conditions). The time closest to the predicted peak that we can see (from the Washington, D.C. area) will be the early morning of Monday, Aug. 12, 2024. Moonset will be a little before midnight on Aug. 11 and the radiant will rise higher in the north-northeastern sky until the sky shows the first signs of dawn (before morning twilight begins at 5:16 AM). The peak is broad, and in past years high activity has been reported well after the peak, so keep an eye on the sky from moonset to the first hints of dawn on the nights before and after as well. See the meteor shower summary near the beginning of this post for more information on viewing these meteors.
Monday morning, Aug. 12, 2024, the Moon will appear half-full as it reaches its first quarter at 11:19 AM EDT (when we can’t see it).
Tuesday night, Aug. 13, 2024, the bright star Antares will appear near the waxing gibbous Moon. Antares will be 2.5 degrees to the upper left as evening twilight ends (at 9:08 PM EDT). By the time of moonset on the southwestern horizon (Wednesday morning at 12:30 AM) Antares will be 1 degree above the Moon. Viewers in the southern part of South America and the Antarctic Peninsula will see the Moon pass in front of Antares. See http://lunar-occultations.com/iota/bstar/0814zc2349.htm (external link) for a map and information on areas that can see this occultation.
Throughout this lunar cycle the planet Mars will drift toward the bright planet Jupiter. They will be at their closest on Wednesday morning, Aug. 14, 2024, just a third of a degree apart, which should be a good show! Bright Jupiter will rise early in the morning (at 1:18 AM EDT) on the east-northeastern horizon below Mars. They will be 45 degrees above the eastern horizon as morning twilight begins four hours later (at 5:18 AM).
Friday evening, Aug. 16, 2024, will be the first evening that the planet Saturn will be above the eastern horizon as evening twilight ends (at 9:03 PM EDT).
Sunday evening, Aug. 18, 2024, the planet Mercury will be passing between Earth and the Sun as seen from Earth, called inferior conjunction. Planets that orbit inside of the orbit of Earth can have two types of conjunctions with the Sun, inferior (when passing between the Earth and the Sun) and superior (when passing on the far side of the Sun as seen from the Earth). Mercury will be shifting from the evening sky to the morning sky and will begin emerging from the glow of dawn on the east-northeastern horizon at the end of August.
The full Moon after next will be Monday afternoon, Aug. 19, 2024, at 2:26 PM EDT. This will be Tuesday morning from Nepal Standard Time eastward across the rest of Asia and Australia to the International Date Line. The Moon will appear full for about three days around this time, from Sunday morning through early Wednesday morning. As the third full Moon in a season with four full Moons, this will be a Blue Moon (by the older, more traditional definition).
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By Space Force
More than 75 middle and high school students attended the "Fly Like a Girl" event designed to inspire attendees to pursue careers in aviation, military, science, technology, engineering or math.
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