CosmicCuriosity

NASA's missions (and therefore Goddard's missions) address a broad range of scientific questions generally classified around four key areas: Earth sciences, astrophysics, heliophysics, and the Solar System.

The sun is always changing and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is always watching. Launched on February 11, 2010, SDO keeps a 24-hour eye on the entire disk of the sun, with a prime view of the graceful dance of solar material coursing through the sun's atmosphere, the corona. SDO captures images of the sun in 10 different wavelengths, each of which helps highlight a different temperature of solar material. Different temperatures can, in turn, show specific structures on the sun such as solar flares, which are gigantic explosions of light and x-rays, or coronal loops, which are stream of solar material travelling up and down looping magnetic field lines. Scientists study these images to better understand the complex electromagnetic system causing the constant movement on the sun, which can ultimately have an effect closer to Earth, too. Flares and another type of solar explosion called coronal mass ejections can sometimes disrupt technology in space. Moreover, studying our closest star is one way of learning about other stars in the galaxy. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. built, operates, and manages the SDO spacecraft for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. All tracks are written and produced by Lars Leonhard. Credit: The SDO Team, Genna Duberstein and Scott Wiessinger, Producers

Perhaps more than all other federal agencies, NASA tells stories about big things: big places, big data, big ideas. Using extraordinarily high resolution data sets from some of the most innovative and powerful scientific instruments ever built, the media team at NASA Goddard presents PURSUIT OF LIGHT. The presentation showcases top level goals of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, with an eye toward capturing the imagination of mainstream audiences. Data visualizations at resolutions far greater than HDTV present NASA's science goals like never before. Interspersed with inventive live action footage also designed to make use of that vast canvas, this six and a half minute presentation captivates and moves viewers. PURSUIT OF LIGHT was designed expressly for a screen technology called The Hyperwall, a system largely perfected at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The Hyperwall itself is a platform best suited for big themes. With colossal screen resolution and an ultrawide presentational style, moving images played there take on a vast sense of scale and power. PURSUIT OF LIGHT employs the strength of this remarkable system and pushes it further than ever before, presenting stories about the Earth, The Moon, The Sun, The Planets, and the deep sky, wrapped in poetic implication about the humanity's imperative need to explore. This show will play prominently on touring Hyperwalls around the country as well as on the web. Credits: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC): Animator Alex Kekesi (GST): Animator Ernie Wright (USRA): Animator Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC): Animator Tom Bridgman (GST): Animator Victoria Weeks (HTSI): Video Editor, Videographer Michael Starobin (HTSI): Producer, Videographer, Writer

See Goddard in 3D This short promotional video highlights some of the best that the Goddard Space Flight Center has to offer - showcasing the science and technology born from the efforts of the dedicated Goddard family. Available here are left and right eye movies, as well as anaglyph (redcyan). To view the 3D version on Youtube httpyoutu.be08rMlpvUP3whd=1 To view the 2D version on Youtube httpyoutu.be2rb-u9cnQeI

When we feel The Earth beneath our feet, see it with our eyes, hear it when the wind blows, we perceive only the most obvious filaments of a far more complex place. Only with exquisite machines--spacecraft in orbit and powerful computers on the ground--can humanity begin to uncover the elegant nature of our complex home. Presented here are a collection of data visualizations based on observations gathered by a fleet of spacecraft. In various depictions we see the currents of the world's oceans, changes in temperature and land cover over time, and precipitation as it cycles energy and water around our living planet. But The Earth is only one part of a dynamic sphere, and with its companion The Moon nearby, we cannot hlep but remeber that our whole planet travels in a wider ocean. This video presents Earth's Moon with data gathered by the remarkable Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, an advanced probe designed to map our planetary companion in unprecedented detail. Finally, our place in space would be cold and lifeless if it were not for our omnipresent star, The Sun. Shining ceaselessly in the void, it bathes our home planet in life giving energy, and holds The Earth, The Moon, and everything else in the solar system in its gravitational thrall. The data used in the creation of this video come from a wide range of spacecraft, all part of NASA's broader Science Mission Directorate. Credit: Michael Starobin, Producer All data visualizations provided by the Scientific Visualization Studio

Bennu's Journey is a 6-minute animated movie about NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, asteroid Bennu, and the formation of our solar system. Born from the rubble of a violent collision, hurled through space for millions of years, asteroid Bennu has had a tough life in a rough neighborhood - the early solar system. Bennu's Journey shows what is known and what remains mysterious about the evolution of Bennu and the planets. By retrieving a sample of Bennu, OSIRIS-REx will teach us more about the raw ingredients of the solar system and our own origins. The animation was produced in an 8 x 3 aspect ratio at a resolution of 5760 x 2160 and is available in its full resolution, 4K Ultra HD, 1080HD and 720HD versions in letterboxed format. Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab Walt Feimer (HTSI): Lead Animator, Producer, Writer Michael Lentz (USRA): Lead Animator, Video Editor, Writer Chris Meaney (HTSI): Animator Rich Melnick (HTSI): Video Editor Jason Charles Miller: Narration Dan Gallagher (USRA): Producer, Writer Dante Lauretta (University of Arizona): Scientist Edward Beshore (University of Arizona): Scientist Aaron E Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Project Support Michael Starobin (HTSI): Writer Steven Archer: Music Composer

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center traverses the universe by having a hand in all aspects of space science. This music video showcases our exploration into the dark. Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel. This is the oldoriginal version

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center traverses the universe by having a hand in all aspects of space science. This music video showcases our exploration into the dark. This is an updated version with a new intro.

After a seven-year journey to asteroid Bennu and back, the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule landed in the Utah desert at the Utah Training and Testing Range on Sunday, September 24. Its journey did not end there. Bright and early Monday, September 25, the sample capsule hitched a ride in a C-17 aircraft to Houston. After landing at the Ellington airfield, the sample was driven to a facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Join NASA as we go forward to the Moon and on to Mars -- discover the latest on Earth, the Solar System and beyond with a weekly update in your inbox.

NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 1:45 a.m. EST Monday, Feb. 27, 2023, for the launch of the agency’s Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station. The four Crew-6 crewmates – Commander Stephen Bowen, Pilot Warren “Woody” Hoburg, Mission Specialist UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Mission Specialist Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev – will dock the Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, to the forward port on the space station’s Harmony module about 23 hours after liftoff. Crew-6’s science mission includes cutting edge research aimed at keeping astronauts and spacecraft safe during deep space exploration, and studies that could lead to improved medical treatments for humans back on Earth. Experiments will include studies of how particular materials burn in microgravity, tissue chip research on heart, brain, and cartilage functions, and an investigation that will collect microbial samples from the outside of the space station. These are just some of the more than 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations that will take place during their mission. You can watch the launch live on NASA TV, NASA.gov, the NASA app, and on social media (@NASA). Learn more about the Crew-6 mission here: https://blogs.nasa.gov/crew-6/ Music: Universal Production Music Video Producer: Sonnet Apple Credit: NASA

The moment has finally arrived, it's time for Felix Baumgartner to jump from the stratosphere. Subscribe to Earth Lab for more fascinating science videos - http://bit.ly/SubscribeToEarthLab Watch more videos from Earth Lab: Earth Lab Originals http://bit.ly/EarthLabOriginals Best Of BBC Earth Videos http://bit.ly/TheBestOfBBCEarthVideos The Doctors Are In The House http://bit.ly/TheDoctorsAreInTheHouse Best Of Earth Unplugged Videos http://bit.ly/BestOfEarthUnpluggedVideos Welcome to BBC Earth Lab! Here we answer all your curious questions about science in the world around you. If there’s a question you have that we haven’t yet answered let us know in the comments on any of our videos and it could be answered by one of our Earth Lab experts.

NASA’s Lucy mission tests the deployment of its solar arrays in the thermal vacuum chamber at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. Each of the two circular arrays is nearly 24 feet (7.3 m) wide. These arrays will power Lucy on its 12-year odyssey through the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, breaking records for a solar powered mission by traveling 530 million miles (853 million km) from the Sun. These large arrays will capture the sunlight needed to power the spacecraft as it travels through deep space. More: nasa.gov/lucy Music: "CSI," Anthony Edward Phillips, Atmosphere Music, Ltd. Video credit: Copyright Lockheed Martin, 2021; used with permission

From year to year, the moon never seems to change. Craters and other formations appear to be permanent now, but the moon didn't always look like this. Thanks to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we now have a better look at some of the moon's history

chronicles solar activity from Aug. 12 to Dec. 22, 2022, as captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). From its orbit in space around Earth, SDO has steadily imaged the Sun in 4K x 4K resolution for nearly 13 years. This information has enabled countless new discoveries about the workings of our closest star and how it influences the solar system. With a triad of instruments, SDO captures an image of the Sun every 0.75 seconds. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument alone captures images every 12 seconds at 10 different wavelengths of light. This 133-day time lapse showcases photos taken at a wavelength of 17.1 nanometers, which is an extreme-ultraviolet wavelength that shows the Sun’s outermost atmospheric layer: the corona. Compiling images taken 108 seconds apart, the movie condenses 133 days, or about four months, of solar observations into 59 minutes. The video shows bright active regions passing across the face of the Sun as it rotates. The Sun rotates approximately once every 27 days. The loops extending above the bright regions are magnetic fields that have trapped hot, glowing plasma. These bright regions are also the source of solar flares, which appear as bright flashes as magnetic fields snap together in a process called magnetic reconnection. While SDO has kept an unblinking eye pointed toward the Sun, there have been a few moments it missed. Some of the dark frames in the video are caused by Earth or the Moon eclipsing SDO as they pass between the spacecraft and the Sun. Other blackouts are caused by instrumentation being down or data errors. SDO transmits 1.4 terabytes of data to the ground every day. The images where the Sun is off-center were observed when SDO was calibrating its instruments. SDO and other NASA missions will continue to watch our Sun in the years to come, providing further insights about our place in space and information to keep our astronauts and assets safe. The music is a continuous mix from Lars Leonhard’s “Geometric Shapes” album, courtesy of the artist. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scott Wiessinger (PAO): Lead Producer Tom Bridgman (SVS): Lead Visualizer Scott Wiessinger (PAO): Editor This video can be freely shared and downloaded at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14263. While the video in its entirety can be shared without permission, the music and some individual imagery may have been obtained through permission and may not be excised or remixed in other products. Specific details on such imagery may be found here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14263. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit https://nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines. Video Description: On the left side of the frame is the full circle of the Sun. It appears in a golden yellow color, but splotchy and with thin yellow wisps extending from the surface. Some areas are very bright and others almost black. The whole Sun rotates steadily, with one full rotation taking 12 minutes in this time lapse. There are usually only a few bright regions visible at a time and they shift and flash like small fires. From these regions there are wispy loops reaching up above the surface that rapidly change shape and size. On the right side of the frame are two white-outlined squares with enlargements of interesting regions of the Sun. If you liked this video, subscribe to the this channel