NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

September 1, 2024

The Moon Dressed Like Saturn

Why does Saturn appear so big? It doesn't – what is pictured are foreground clouds on Earth crossing in front of the Moon. The Moon shows a slight crescent phase with most of its surface visible by reflected Earthlight, known as Da Vinci glow. The Sun directly illuminates the brightly lit lunar crescent from the bottom, which means that the Sun must be below the horizon and so the image was taken before sunrise. This double take-inducing picture was captured on 2019 December 24, two days before the Moon slid in front of the Sun to create a solar eclipse. In the foreground, lights from small Guatemalan towns are visible behind the huge volcano Pacaya.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

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A partnership with NASA takes the State Department’s already successful air quality monitoring system to the next level.

Aug 31 2024

When The Foreign Service Journal published my article about air quality and the Greening Diplomacy Initiative (GDI) in 2021, the world was a different place.

We were one year into a global pandemic. Travel restrictions were in full effect. The race to create a vaccine for COVID-19 had begun. And the sky was clear.

Pandemic-related lockdowns had restricted many activities that ordinarily contribute to air pollution such as industry, transportation, and power generation.

A study done by The George Washington University showed significant decreases in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in major urban areas such as Detroit, New York, and Atlanta.

The major pollution sources in these areas were heavy commuter routes and international airports; decreases aligned with the reduced vehicle and flight traffic during the domestic lockdown.

There was also unprecedented temporary improvement in air quality around the world. In India, for example, data collected from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite indicated that the levels of air pollution in the northern region of the country were at a 20-year low.

Unfortunately, those temporary gains are now gone, and climate change is worsening air pollution through increased wildfires, drought, and energy demands.

And the world still faces massive data gaps, places where no reliable real-time data exists—data that could help forecast potential disasters and allow people to plan their response. (For more on data gaps, please see the article by Ruiz and Ober in this issue.)

And that’s why we are thrilled to announce a new partnership with NASA that makes the State Department’s ZephAir app, already a game changer in providing real-time air quality data, even more powerful.

The project represents a leap forward in data availability for those who do not have sufficient ground-based monitors and/or local expertise to develop forecasts.

Using historical, satellite, and model data, NASA can now produce an AI-generated air pollution forecast, not just for the 80 embassies and consulates that have ground-based monitors, but for all locations that have embassies and consulates.

The implementation of AI ushers in the potential to analyze vast amounts of data to identify pollution patterns and predict future trends. Thanks to machine learning and as we gather more data, the forecasts will improve over time.

In 2015 the Greening Diplomacy Initiative in State’s Office of Management Strategy and Solutions (M/SS) began tracking air quality at posts through our DOSAir monitoring program.

DOSAir collects data on pollutant levels in the air using U.S.-made ground-based monitors that have been tested and verified to return trusted data, referred to in the industry as “reference grade.”

The monitoring network provides information to the public in areas where there is otherwise a dearth of reliable, public air quality data.

In 2020 we built ZephAir, the department’s first air quality mobile application, to provide an instant look at air quality in the cities where we have air quality monitors.

The air quality monitoring program was a success, but GDI knew that there were still thousands of employees and millions of people who needed air quality information, and we knew we couldn’t meet the need alone.

So we turned to another agency with a global—even universal—purview: NASA.

We partnered with NASA Senior Scientist Dr. Pawan Gupta and the health and air quality applied sciences team to compete for a Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science grant to develop an air quality forecasting capability for more than 260 cities, including all our diplomatic mission locations.

The forecast uses artificial intelligence to pull from our ground monitors, satellite data, meteorological variables, and aerosol information to provide a three-day air quality forecast, similar to the ones we all use every day to monitor the weather.

According to Dr. Gupta: “The air quality forecast from NASA integrates cutting-edge global model outputs, satellite observations, and embassy air quality monitors into advanced machine learning algorithms.

These forecasts significantly enhance the Department of State’s existing monitoring program by offering near-term air quality predictions, aiding in practical planning efforts.

This collaboration exemplifies a robust partnership among federal agencies, leveraging NASA’s research and data to meet the needs of U.S. embassies and American citizens residing abroad.”

This is the first time that a government-developed air quality forecast is available at a global scale.

cont

https://afsa.org/ai-air-quality-forecasting-state-nasa-partnership

https://zephair.stategdi.cloud.

Touch the Sun With NASA’s Revolutionary “Solar Stones”

August 31, 2024

The exhibit features tactile versions of ancient petroglyphs believed to represent solar events, making space science tangible for the visually impaired.

Humans have been watching the Sun and stars for millennia, using the tools they had available to record naked-eye observations.

Sky-watching is generally a practice for the sighted — but it can now be a multisensory experience.

Students at the Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society (ATLAS) Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder are collaborating with NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission and the Colorado Center for the Blind to develop tactile representations of two ancient petroglyphs (rock carvings).

The students then created an exhibit titled “Solar Stones.”

In this video, the student creators describe the inspiration for the “Solar Stones” project and explain the design and construction process.

The “Solar Stones,” exhibit displays two petroglyphs found in Chaco Culture National Historical Park located in northwestern New Mexico.

One has peculiar curlicues emanating in all directions from a central disk, and the other is a spiral. The curlicue petroglyph is believed to represent the total solar eclipse that occurred on July 11, 1097. A large swirl in the upper left of the petroglyph could represent an eruption from the Sun. This petroglyph holds importance as some astronomers hypothesize this is the first known representation of a solar storm in the Sun’s outermost layer, called the corona.

The other petroglyph is around the corner from the curlicue petroglyph and marks a place to stand to observe and predict sunrises before and after the summer solstice — a culturally important time of year for ancient and contemporary Puebloan people.

In this video, the student creators describe the inspiration for the “Solar Stones” project and explain the design and construction process.

“My team really wanted to work on this project because space is normally such a visual medium and experience, but what if you can’t see?

How do you supplement that knowledge in an impactful way?” said Kai Hughes, an ATLAS student working on the project.

“We thought it would be really helpful to combine history, space science, and accessibility to create tactile versions of these petroglyphs related to ancient astronomy that open doors to people with low or no vision.”

“This project is important to me because I was never a traditional learner,” said Caileigh Hudson, another ATLAS student on the project.

“This is a great way to teach people about heliophysics through touch, which is different from the traditional learning we see in schools.”

Scheduled to launch in early 2025, NASA’s PUNCH mission includes four satellites that will study the Sun’s corona and how material in the corona accelerates to become the solar wind that fills the solar system.

The satellites will be in low Earth orbit and will produce continuous 3D images of the solar wind and solar storms as it travels from the Sun to Earth.

The PUNCH mission is also dedicated to outreach and student collaboration projects, such as this Solar Stones project.

PUNCH’s outreach program is implementing the theme of ancient and modern Sun-watching, which shows how NASA’s exploration of the Sun is a natural extension of humanity’s age-old dedication to observing and predicting the Sun’s behavior.

“Our outreach theme enables us to make NASA heliophysics more personally and culturally relevant to a much broader diversity of people,” said Cherilynn Morrow, outreach director for the PUNCH mission.

“This includes our Native American and blind collaborators who work with us to make enriching outreach products like the 3D petroglyph models that are beneficial to everyone.”

https://scitechdaily.com/touch-the-sun-with-nasas-revolutionary-solar-stones/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-_pSW5RFhs

Astrophotographer captures Comet 13P/Olbers and the Black Eye Galaxy M64 in stunning detail

September 1, 2024

In a race against the clock, before the entire scene set below the horizon, astrophotographer Greg Meyer managed to capture this incredible image of Comet 13P/Olbers zipping through space alongside The Black Eye Galaxy (M64).

"I had only 1 night to grab this shot, and only about 1 hour to do it. It was sinking fast below the horizon after sunset," Meyer told Space.com in an email.

On Aug. 25, Meyer was running his telescope remotely, having placed it at the Starfront Observatory located near Brady, Texas, just six weeks prior.

The entire experience was quite new for Meyer.

"I was quickly making changes on the fly in N.I.N.A. to frame it and rapidly grab sequential RGB using my mono camera," Meyer said.

His quick thinking paid off and due to the dark skies at the Starfront Observatory, Meyer tracked down the comet to just 12 degrees above the horizon.

Comet 13P/Olbers is currently hurtling through the depths of our solar system and is still visible within a pair of binoculars with a 40-50mm aperture or a small telescope, but hurry as it won't be around for much longer.

It made its closest approach to Earth on July 20 when it came within 176 million miles (283 million kilometers) of our planet.

Its next close approach isn't until 2094.

The comet is named after German astronomer Heinrich Olbers, who discovered it in 1815.

The "P" in its name stands for "Periodic," a label assigned to comets with orbits shorter than 200 years.

The number 13 indicates that it was the 13th comet to be classified as periodic.

Comet 13P/Olbers isn't the only impressive target in this photo.

Around 17 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) is a spiral galaxy, known as Messier 64, or the Black Eye Galaxy.

Meyer caught this galactic scene alongside Comet 13P/Olbers on the night of Aug. 25.

In the image you can make out the dark band of dust that sweeps across one side of the nucleus, giving the Black Eye Galaxy its name.

The galaxy has a strange internal motion whereby the gas in the outer regions rotates in the opposite direction from the gas and stars in the inner regions.

The bizarre behavior is thought to be the result of a merger between M64 and another galaxy over a billion years ago.

https://www.space.com/comet-13p-olbers-m64-black-eye-galaxy-photo-astrophotographer

https://www.astrobin.com/users/gmeyer/

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