space science

Thousands of years ago, on a small rocky planet orbiting a modest star in an ordinary spiral galaxy, our remote ancestors looked up and wondered about their place between Earth and sky. Today, after only the blink of an eye in cosmic time, we are beginning to answer these questions. Space probes and space observatories have played a central role in this process of discovery.

Our missions and research generate most of the coolest news coming out of nasa. We are responsible for all of nasa's programs relating to astronomy, the solar system, and the sun and its interaction with Earth. Our science stretches from the middle levels of Earth's atmosphere to the beginning of the universe, billions of light years away.

Astronomical methods are the equipment and techniques used to collect data about the objects in Space. Galileo's first astronomical method was to find and buy the best telescope of the time and then point that telescope to the heavens. Methods can be categorized according to the wavelength they are attempting to record.

Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope has found a bizarre ring of material around the magnetic remains of a star that blasted itself to smithereens. Although rings and spheres of material are common in the universe, this one is not like any ring astronomers have ever seen before.

Imagine a billion-ton cloud of gas launching itself off the surface of the sun and then ... doing a cartwheel. That's exactly what happened on April 9, 2008, when a coronal mass ejection pirouetted over the sun's limb in full view of an international fleet of spacecraft.
In September 1859, a solar flare erupted so intense that the explosion itself was visible to the human eye. A ferocious geomagnetic storm ensued in which Northern Lights descended as far south as Cuba, the Bahamas and Hawaii. Meanwhile, telegraph engineers disconnected their batteries and powered communications by electricity from the auroras!