Career Guidance, Meet JPL Interns | October 4, 2018
Rolling on the Science of an Atmospheric River
In the science world, publishing a paper is a big deal; it’s how scientists share their discoveries with the world. So it’s no small feat that Vicky Espinoza published her first science paper as an intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In the paper, her team takes a look at the effects of climate change on global atmospheric rivers, which bring an onslaught of snow and rain to affected areas and have serious implications for people who live there. The Earth science student from the University of California, Merced, met with us this summer to share how she’s helping her team take the research further and what it’s like to be an intern at JPL.
What are you working on at JPL?
We're studying how atmospheric rivers – which are long jets of water vapor – move through the Earth system and identifying key physical properties that characterize their frequency and magnitude. We’re doing this by taking what we currently know about atmospheric rivers and contrasting it with “aqua planet” model simulations, changing one physical parameter at a time. An aqua planet is a theoretical planet that has the same dynamic and thermodynamic properties as Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, but with the continents removed. We’re also observing how climate change and these parameter changes combine to impact the physical characteristics, frequency and magnitude of atmospheric rivers in these aqua-planet scenarios.
Tell me more about atmospheric rivers and the impacts that they have on our climate.
There is a certain geometry to them that separates them from other storm types. They often tap moisture in the tropics and transport it toward the poles and into and across mid-latitudes. An important feature of them is that they often make landfall on the western coasts of continents – so the mountainous regions like the Sierras and the Andes. When the warm, moist air rises to cross the mountains, it cools down and precipitates out as either snow or rain, depending on the temperature. Just to give you a sense of how much water they can hold, a single atmospheric river can transport 25 Mississippi Rivers of water as water vapor. So the implications are that they can cause severe flooding, or in their absence, they can cause drought periods. So they're very important for water management, especially for regions like California that depend on precipitation for water.
This graphic shows what happens when atmospheric rivers make landfall. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | + Expand image
You were the lead author on a science paper published recently on this topic.
Yes. It’s a global analysis of climate-change projection effects on atmospheric rivers. It was the first paper that performed such an analysis on atmospheric rivers on a global scale. My mentors, Bin Guan and Duane Waliser here at JPL, created an atmospheric-river detection algorithm, which we used to identify and compare atmospheric rivers globally. We found that with climate change, these atmospheric rivers will occur 10 percent less, but they will be 25 percent wider and stronger. Because the rivers will be more expansive, a given area will experience atmospheric-river conditions up to 50 percent more often despite there being fewer atmospheric river events. Also, the frequency of the strongest of these atmospheric rivers is going to double. It has so many implications for water managers and those living in atmospheric-river-prone regions who will need to start preparing or start thinking about the implications of these large storms.
Is this the first time that you've been an author on a paper?
Yes, it's the first time I've published a paper. My mentors made me first author, which was such a great experience. It was a lot of work. As a Ph.D. student now, it's fruitful to know what it means to be an author of a paper.
What did it mean for you to be able to publish a paper as an intern?
Just being so passionate about a topic, putting your hard work and soul into a paper and then seeing it become reality is – it's something different. I can't even describe it. It makes me feel like I've accomplished something.
What are you studying for your doctorate?
I'm taking a look at water management and sustainable water uses in agricultural regions in California.
Are you hoping to eventually work at JPL?
Yes. JPL has been a dream. I actually applied to JPL three times before I got an internship. I applied as an undergrad, and then during my master's I was, like, “Let me try one more time. Let's give it a go.”
It's been such a great experience to intern here. One of the things that I love about JPL is that everyone is so passionate and creative. It's like Disneyland for scientists. It's very motivating to meet people in line for coffee and be like, “Oh, you work on the Hubble Space Telescope? No big deal.” And they're just so grounded and so passionate, and everyone's willing to talk to you. So it's been a great experience.
Meet JPL Interns
Read stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
What's the most unique JPL or NASA experience that you've had?
I think the overall experience has been unique. I haven't been in a work environment where the majority of people are so happy to be here and everyone is just so passionate and driven.
What's a typical day like for you?
A typical day for me is behind the computer, so taking a lot of data and running it through a detection algorithm and running a statistical analysis on the data, creating figures and analyzing these atmospheric-river trends.
How do you think that what you're working on might help the average person one day?
Taking a look at this theoretical aqua planet, [a simulated version of Earth with the continents removed], and changing differing parameters of these atmospheric rivers is bringing fundamental insight into how they function, develop and move across the globe. I think that this work will inform citizens, stakeholders, policy makers and water managers on the future of California water.
What got you interested in science in the first place?
I feel like I've been doing science for a long time. My dad works in hydrology, so I've always been exposed to that. But I've always been someone very curious, especially about climate change. I started with air quality and how climate change is impacting the atmosphere. The atmosphere and ocean are connected in some ways, so I started exploring the ocean through an internship. Just being curious about our planet has led me to where I am now.
If you could travel to any place in space, where would you go and what would you do there?
I am a fan of rogue planets, or floating planets. There's an [Exoplanet Travel Bureau] poster that imagines them as planets where people would go dancing. I would want to go to a rogue planet just to figure out what it's like. They don't have a parent star, so they're just out there on their own and there's something so serene and somewhat romantic about that.
Learn more about how and why NASA is studying Earth on the agency's Global Climate Change website.
Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/intern
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
Career Guidance, Meet JPL Interns | September 13, 2018
Imaging Planets Beyond Our Solar System
The Starshade project aims to do pretty much what the name suggests: suppress the light from distant stars so scientists can learn more about the planets that surround them – including whether they’re likely to support life. In practice, it requires building a giant, precisely shaped structure that can unfurl from a relatively tiny package and fly in perfect sequence with a space telescope. Interns have been key to making the idea a reality. The team has brought in more than 40 interns in the past seven years. We already caught up with three-time Starshade intern Christopher Esquer-Rosas, who is using his origami skills to help a full-scale model of the giant sunflower-shaped structure unfurl. Meanwhile, intern Allison Ayad, a mechanical engineering student at Pasadena City College, is creating a working miniature model to narrow in on the design. Fellow intern Evan Kramer met up with Ayad to find out how she’s contributing to the project and how she’s bringing what she’s learning back to school.
Meet JPL Interns
Read stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
What are you working on at JPL?
I'm working on a project called Starshade, which is a 26-meter diameter, flower-shaped structure we want to send to space to help us get images of exoplanets, [planets outside our solar system]. With these images, we could learn more about exoplanets and see if they could potentially harbor life.
So Starshade is a sort of spacecraft?
Yeah, it is! Starshade would fly out and position itself between a space telescope and a star. Its shape would suppress the light from the star so the spacecraft could get direct images of the exoplanets around it. It's similar to when you try to take a picture outside, and the Sun washes out the image. If you block the light from the Sun, then you can see everything in more detail. That's pretty much what Starshade would do.
What’s a typical day like for you?
Every day is very different. What I am working on is making a mini, fully deployable Starshade for interactive purposes, so we can show all the different stages of deployment. It will sort of be the first of its kind.
When I come in, I usually do work on my computer with [software] like Solidworks. Then, I do a lot of rapid prototyping with the use of 3D printers and laser cutters to test out all the little, moving components that are going into the real model.
I spend some of my time helping with the big structure that's out here. [She points to the warehouse-like space where the team is assembling a full-scale version of Starshade, which is about the size of a baseball diamond fully unfurled.] But most of the time, I'm working on the mini one. At least once a day, I’ll talk with my mentor, David Webb, about the ideas that I have on how to make things work. We'll bounce ideas off each other, then I'll have stuff to think about for the next day.
Ayad stands under the support structure for the full-scale model of Starshade. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Evan Kramer | + Expand image
What's been the most JPL- or NASA-unique experience you've had so far?
I’ve been here for a year and a half now, and I think the Starshade lab is the coolest at JPL, but I'm a little bit biased. It's really cool because we have a bunch of prototypes everywhere, so you get to see what Starshade would look like in real life. And there are a bunch of interactive models that you can play with to see all the different deployment stages.
How do you think you're contributing to NASA/JPL missions and science?
The full Starshade isn’t really finished being designed yet, so a lot of the problems that [the team that is building the full-scale model] is facing, I'm also facing with the mini one. The ideas that I'm thinking through could potentially help with the real flight-model design.
How has the work you’ve done here influenced you back at school?
When I first started interning here, I actually didn't have a lot of the core class requirements [for my major] done. So a lot of the terms and concepts that people were using at JPL were still new to me. Then when I took the classes, all [the lessons from my internship] came back, and I was like, whoa, I already kind of learned this stuff and got a hands-on approach to it. I'm a very hands-on learner, so having that previous experience and then learning more of the math behind it helped with that learning process.
If you could travel to any place in space, where would you go? And what would you do there?
I’d like to go to Mars just because we're so close to doing it. It'd be cool to see what's there. I personally think there's a really good chance there was once life on Mars. If I could go and see for myself, that would be pretty awesome.
Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/intern
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
Career Guidance, Meet JPL Interns | September 6, 2018
Shining Light on the Science of Earth’s Auroras
There is still a lot of mystery around what exactly causes aurora, the swirling spectacles of light that grace Earth’s southern and northern high-latitude skies. So, this summer, Jasmine Cameron, a JPL intern and computer science major at Howard University, helped push aurora science further by developing an algorithm to detect the phenomena in video taken from a weather balloon. Fellow intern Evan Kramer caught up with Cameron to ask how learning about aurora might help the average person and what it’s like to work with NASA scientists and engineers.
What are you working on at JPL?
My project is in computer science. What we’re trying to do is image aurora, so your northern and southern lights, during the day time. A near-infrared camera goes up on a weather balloon and takes a video of the sky at up to 30 frames per second. It stores the collected data and sends back video containing auroras. What we want to do is develop an efficient, real-time algorithm based on machine learning technology that can identify frames with aurora in them so that we can collect science data about these phenomena. Our algorithm needs to give the scientists as many true-positives, or useful images with auroras in them, as possible so they can better understand what they are. It also needs to fit on the computer aboard the balloon so that it will be power efficient and high performance.
Meet JPL Interns
Read stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
How might understanding aurora help the average person one day?
Auroras are the result of a complicated interaction between the Sun and Earth. This interaction is a fundamental cosmic process that will affect space weather, which in turn will affect our daily life in terms of radiation exposure, satellite and radio communication, power systems, and so on. Studying aurora could help us better understand and forecast space weather.
What’s a typical day like for you?
I come in and check my email to see if my mentor has sent me any new data to process. Then I’ll get to work on algorithms I think would work as a detection system for identifying the presence of aurora in images. There are a lot of different machine-learning algorithms out there that we can test.
How does the algorithm work?
The algorithm is based on machine learning technology. You create a model with unknown parameters. You then take the data and set it up between training data and testing data. Your training data is a bunch of base images with aurora in them and defined parameters used to detect aurora. Then, you develop the algorithm to look for those parameters in your test data, and it will conclude if there is an aurora or not in each of the test images. Then, you use a validation directory with only true-positives to compare the images in your test data that were identified as having aurora in them to actual aurora images to see how well your algorithm is working. My job is to see what algorithm works the best in identifying aurora in the test images.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Evan Kramer | + Expand image
Did you have to do any research or special preparation before you started on the project?
Yes, I had to read a lot, especially about the motivations behind why we’re doing this work and how we’re going to accomplish our goals. I had to read the technical documentation about different algorithms and different systems that are used to process the images and identify aurora. There’s definitely a lot of reading involved every day, and I frequently ask the people I work with questions.
What’s the most JPL- or NASA-unique experience you’ve had so far?
I got to see different hardware and test beds and even mission control where they control the Deep Space Network, [a system of antennas around the world that are used to communicate with spacecraft]. That was really cool.
What about the people here? What’s the environment like at JPL?
Everybody is kind of a nerd. Usually when I’m talking about my internship experience to friends back home, I have to edit out things I’d normally say because most of them would find it boring, but here I’m frequently asked what I work on in a genuine way. I know I can always ask anyone anything about their project and for help on my own project. It’s a great environment and I’m learning a lot.
How do you feel you’re contributing to NASA/JPL missions and science?
Just being able to do this type of work on aurora detection – it has never been done before. Being able to contribute to making data collection and analysis more efficient makes scientists’ lives a lot easier and helps us learn more about these phenomena.
If you could travel to any place in space, where would you go and what would you do there?
A black hole, just to see what happens. I’d want to see how destructive it is and how dark it is.
Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/intern
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
Career Guidance, Meet JPL Interns | August 23, 2018
Connecting Satellites in Space
Using a test bed that looks like something out of a sci-fi movie, Becca Foust is exploring ways to bring spacecraft components together in space. Here’s how the NASA Space Technology Research Fellow, who’s earning her Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is helping create spacecraft of the future.
What are you working on at JPL?
I like to call it space K’nex, like the toys. We're using a bunch of component satellites and trying to figure out how to bring all of the pieces together and make them fit together in orbit. Then, once they're together, can you pop them apart and make something new? Using many satellites allows for much more versatility than with a conventional single satellite, plus some structures you need are simply too big to fit into the rockets we have today. So this summer, I'm testing my algorithm for assembling satellites on some actual robots in our new test bed.
Meet JPL Interns
Read stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
Tell me about the test bed.
We have five spacecraft simulators that “fly” in a specially designed flat-floor facility. The spacecraft simulators use air bearings to lift the robots off the floor, kind of like a reverse air hockey table. The top part of the spacecraft simulators can move up and down and rotate all around in a similar way to real satellites. All these things combine to let the robots move around using the same components used on real satellites in space. The floor has to be very precisely flat and we have to clean frequently because, if a single hair is on the ground, it will affect the motion of the simulators. We also have two rails with highly articulated robot arms on the side and the back of the room to interact with the simulators as other satellites or as a comet to be mapped.
What happens during the simulations?
Most of what our group does is guidance and control, so telling spacecraft where to go and how to get there. When we're testing those algorithms, it's really important that we know where our spacecraft is because we can't tell it where to go if we don't know where it is. So, in the test bed, our robots are all tracked using a motion capture system. It's sort of like CGI. The system tracks these little reflective dots and tells us very precisely the position and orientation of the object.
So if we're testing a guidance and control algorithm, we will turn on the motion capture system, make sure everything is working, and then we just turn on the robots and press go. Our simulators are autonomous and everything runs on board, so we do a lot of legwork before running experiments to make sure things will run as expected.
What is it that you're looking for during these simulations in the test bed?
Before we had this test bed, we did a ton of simulations on the computer, but it's very different having it work on an actual robot. So we're trying to see that when we run things on the robots, it works the way it did in the simulations. Is it tracking the expected trajectory nicely? Is it computing properly? Is everything working?
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Evan Kramer + Expand image
We'll probably end up adding some safeguards in case a command goes astray. We'll probably need to make our algorithms be able to handle issues and faults that come up. That's actually one of the problems we're working on with JPL, increasing satellite autonomy by looking at failures that happen within satellites, trying to figure out what they are and recover from them.
What's the goal of your research?
I hope my research leads to smarter, more efficient satellites for in-space construction and assembly. The algorithm that I'm using is very fuel-efficient and it finds trajectories that aren't really being considered and haven’t been tried yet in space. By watching it in our version of space, we can show that these paths can actually be executed in real space. So maybe we can actually start using these more efficient trajectories and then all of our satellites can live longer, go farther and do more.
What's an average day like for you?
I try to work on some mathematical proofs in the morning when I'm still sharp-ish. So I work on that until I get frustrated. After that, I'll wander over to our lab and do some hands-on robotics-type things, like working on the spacecraft simulators and making them work more efficiently. Then, I'll spend a while teaching our undergraduate interns how to use the Robot Operating System, which runs on all of our robots.
What's the most JPL- or NASA-unique experience you've had so far?
I would say meeting people at JPL. There are so many experts in so many different fields. The first summer I was at JPL, there was a presentation on almost exactly my topic. So I got to meet with that speaker, and we set up a meeting time and talked more about it. He had a bunch of really good ideas for my topic and some other people to talk to. One connection sort of leads to another.
If you could go anywhere in space, where would you go and what would you do there?
We're talking imaginary, right? Because I would like to go to space eventually, if I can. I think I would go to – this is probably a really popular answer but – Jupiter’s moon Europa. I’d just want to figure out what on Earth is going on there.
Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/intern
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
Career Guidance, Meet JPL Interns | August 16, 2018
Getting New Perspectives on a Potential Ocean World
There’s no telling what the first spacecraft to land on Jupiter’s ice-covered moon Europa could encounter – but this summer, JPL intern Maya Yanez is trying to find out. As part of a team designing the potential Europa Lander, a mission concept that would explore the Jovian moon to search for biosignatures of past or present life, Yanez is combing through images, models, analogs, anything she can find to characterize a spot that’s “less than a quarter of a pixel on the highest-resolution image we have of Europa.” We caught up with Yanez, an undergraduate student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, to find out what inspired her to get involved in space exploration and ask about her career ambition to discover alien life.
Meet JPL Interns
Read stories from interns pushing the boundaries of space exploration and science at the leading center for robotic exploration of the solar system.
What are you working on at JPL?
I'm working on what may be a robot that we would land on Europa's icy surface. Europa is a moon of Jupiter that has this thick ice shell that we estimate is 25 kilometers [15.5 miles] thick, and there’s evidence that underneath that is a huge global ocean. If we're going to find life beyond Earth, it's probably going to be wherever there's water. So this mission concept would be to put a lander on Europa to try to figure out if there are signs of life there. I’m looking at an area on Europa about two square meters [about 7 feet] and about a meter [3 feet] deep. For perspective, we've only explored a few kilometers into our own Earth's surface. What I'm doing is trying to figure out what we might expect is going on in that little tiny area on Europa. What light is interacting with it, what processes might be going on, what little micrometeorites are hitting the surface, what's the ice block distribution? I'm looking at places like Mars, the Moon and Earth to try to put constraints and understanding around what types of variation we might see on Europa and what might be going on underneath the surface.
What's an average day like for you?
A lot of it is looking up papers and trying to get an idea of what information exists about Europa. My first couple of weeks here, I read this thing that we call the "Big Europa Book.” It's a 700-page textbook that covers basically all of our knowledge of Europa.
One of the other things that I've been working on is a geologic map, trying to look at what geologic variation exists in a couple of meters on Europa because we don't know. It's kind of crazy to think that when Viking [the first Mars lander] landed, we had no clue what another surface would look like except for the Moon. We had no idea. And then we got those first amazing images and it looked kind of like Earth, except Europa probably won't look like Earth because it's not rock; it's all ice. So even though we're trying, we still have nothing to compare it to.
If it gets selected as an official mission, a Europa lander would come after NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft. How might data from Europa Clipper contribute to what you're working on now?
This image of Jupiter's moon Europa was acquired by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft on July 9, 1979, from a distance of about 240,000 kilometers (150,600 miles). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | › Full image and caption
This image is the most detailed view of Europa, obtained by NASA's Galileo mission on Dec. 16, 1997, at a distance of 560 kilometers (335 miles) from the surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | › Full image and caption
Europa Clipper could be really beneficial in that it's going to do more than 40 flybys where it goes around Europa in a bunch of different ways and at different proximities. It’s going to curve into the moon’s atmosphere and get really close to the surface, about 25 kilometers [15.5 miles] close to the surface. Right now, some of the best data we have is from hundreds of kilometers away, so the images Europa Clipper will take will be pretty nicely resolved. If you look at the current highest resolution image of Europa as compared to one from Voyager [which flew by Jupiter and its moons in 1979], the amount of detail that changes, the amount of cracks and complexity you can see on the surface is huge. So having more images like that can be really beneficial to figure out where we can land and where we should land.
Before this project, you spent a summer at JPL studying the chemistry of icy worlds, such as Pluto. What’s it been like working on such different projects and getting experience in fields outside your major, like chemistry and geology?
[Laughs] Yeah, one day I'll get back to astronomy. That's one of the things I love about JPL. Overall, I'd say what I want to do is astrobiology because I want to find life in the solar system. I mean, everyone does. It would be really cool to find out that there are aliens. But one of the great things about astrobiology is it takes chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy and all of these different sciences that you don't always mix together. And that's kind of why I like JPL. So much of the work involves an interdisciplinary approach.
What's the most JPL- or NASA-unique experience you've had so far?
I have one from last summer and one from this summer.
I really want to find life out in space. I'm curious about bacteria and microbes and how they react in space, but it's not something I've ever really done work in. A couple of weeks ago, I got to see astronaut Kathleen Rubins give a talk, meet her afterward and take a picture with her. She was the first person to sequence DNA in space. I would have never met someone like that if it weren’t for my internship at JPL. I wouldn't have been able to go up to her and say, “This is really cool! I'd love to talk to you more and get your email” – and get an astronaut's email! Who would ever expect that?
And then last year, I had something happen that was completely unexpected. I was sitting alone in the lab, running an experiment and, throughout the summer, we had a couple of different tours come through. A scientist asked if he could bring in a tour. It was two high-school-age kids and, presumably, their moms. I showed them around and explained what my experiment was doing. It was great. It was a really good time. They left and a couple hours later, Mike Malaska, the scientist who was leading the tour, came back and said, “Thank you so much for doing that tour. Do you know the story of that one? I said no. He said, “Well the boy, he has cancer. This is his Make-a-Wish.” His Make-a-Wish was to tour JPL. I had never felt so grateful to be given the opportunity that I was given, to realize that someone’s wish before they may or may not die is to visit the place that I'm lucky enough to intern at. It was a very touching moment. It really made me happy to be at JPL.
What was your own personal inspiration for going into astronomy?
I was the nerdy kid. I had a telescope, but I also had a microscope. So it was destined. But in middle school, I started to get this emphasis on life sciences. I'd always really liked biology so I sort of clung to it. We never really talked about space, so I just kind of forgot about it. But my senior year, I took this really cool class in astrobiology taught by an amazing teacher, who I still talk to. After the first week in her class, I was like, I have to do this. At the end of the academic year, that same teacher took me to JPL and gave me a private tour with some of the other scientists. I actually met Morgan Cable, the mentor I worked with last summer and this summer, on that tour. It was definitely a combination of being in this really great class and having that perspective change, realizing that we’ve learned a lot about life on our own planet, but there's so much to learn about finding it elsewhere.
Did you know about JPL before that?
No. I'm the first generation in my family to go to college, so I'm the one who teaches science to everyone else. I didn't even think science was a career because, when you're a kid, you don't often interact with a lot with scientists. So I didn't realize what JPL was or how cool it was until that tour put everything into perspective. I wasn't a space kid, but I found my own path, and it worked.
Yanez hosted a takeover of the @NASAJPL_Edu Twitter account during the NASA Internships Town Hall with Administrator Jim Bridenstine. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kim Orr | + Expand image
For National Intern Day on July 26, NASA held a special town hall for interns with Administrator Jim Bridenstine. Your question about how the agency prioritizes the search for extraterrestrial life was selected as a finalist to appear during the broadcast. What made you want to ask that particular question?
So it was a little self-serving [laughs]. Part of it is that it’s central to my career path, but I also want to run for office one day at some level, and I think it's important that there's this collaboration between science and politics. Without it, science doesn't get funded and politicians aren’t as well informed.
How do you feel you're contributing to NASA/JPL missions and science?
What I'm doing requires a lot of reading and putting things together and knowing rocks and putting scales into perspective, so it's not particularly specialized work. But the end goal of my project will be a table that says here's what processes are happening on Europa, here's what depth they govern and here's what it means if biosignatures are caught in these processes. I'm also going to be remaking an old graphic, including more information and trying to better synthesize everything that we know about Europa. Those two products will continue to be used by anyone who’s thinking about landing on Europa, for anyone who’s thinking about what surface processes govern Europa. Those two products that I'm producing are going to be the best summaries that we have of what's going on there.
OK, so now for the fun question: If you could travel to any place in space, where would you go and what would you do there?
Europa. Obviously [laughs]. Or [Saturn’s moon] Titan. Titan is pretty cool, but it scares me a little bit because there's definitely no oxygen. There's not a lot of oxygen on Europa, but what's there is oxygen. I would probably go to Europa and find some way to get through those 25 kilometers of ice, hit that ocean and see what's going on.
Explore JPL’s summer and year-round internship programs and apply at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/intern
The laboratory’s STEM internship and fellowship programs are managed by the JPL Education Office. Extending the NASA Office of Education’s reach, JPL Education seeks to create the next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists and space explorers by supporting educators and bringing the excitement of NASA missions and science to learners of all ages.
Teachable Moments | August 10, 2017
Get Students Excited About Science With This Month’s Total Solar Eclipse
Update – Aug. 17, 2017: Two new lessons ("Measuring Solar Energy During an Eclipse" and "Modeling the Earth-Moon System") were added to the Teach It section below.
In the News
The Moon casts a shadow on Earth during a total solar eclipse over Europe in this image taken by a French astronaut on the Mir Space Station. Credit: CNES
This month marks the first time in 38 years that one of nature’s most awe-inspiring sights, a total solar eclipse, will be visible from the continental United States. And unlike the 1979 eclipse, the one on August 21 can be seen from coast to coast – something that hasn’t happened since 1918.
Millions of people are expected to travel to the 14 states that are in the path of totality – where the Moon will completely cover the disk of the Sun – while hundreds of millions more in every other state of the U.S. will be able to see a partial eclipse.
Whether you live in or are traveling to the path of totality, or will be able to step outside and view the partial eclipse from the comfort of your own home or school, the eclipse provides both an inspiring reason to look to the sky and opportunities to engage in scientific observations and discovery.
Teach It
Use these standards-aligned lessons and related activities to get your students excited about the eclipse and the science that will be conducted during the eclipse.
How it Works
Eclipses occur as the result of an alignment between the Sun, the Moon and Earth. Solar eclipses can only happen during the new moon phase, when the Moon’s orbit brings it between Earth and the Sun. At this time, the shadow cast by the moon could land on Earth, resulting in an eclipse. But most of the time, because the moon’s orbit is slightly titled, the moon’s shadow falls above or below Earth.
The time period when the Moon, Earth and the Sun are lined up and on the same plane is called an eclipse season. Eclipse seasons last about 34 days and occur just shy of every six months. A new moon during an eclipse season will cause the Moon’s shadow to fall on Earth, creating a solar eclipse.
In addition to the proper alignment required for an eclipse, the distance between Earth, the Moon and the Sun also plays an important role. Even though the Moon is much smaller than the Sun (about 400 times smaller in diameter), the Sun and Moon appear about the same size from Earth because the Sun is about 400 times farther away than the Moon. If the Moon were farther from Earth, it would appear smaller and not cover the disk of the Sun. Similarly, if the Sun were closer to Earth, it would appear larger and the Moon would not completely cover it.
Why It’s Important
Total solar eclipses provide a unique opportunity for scientists to study the Sun and Earth from land, air and space, and allow the public to engage in citizen science!
The sun's outer atmosphere (corona) and thin lower atmosphere (chromosphere) can be seen streaming out from the covered disk of the sun during a solar eclipse on March 20, 2015. Credit: S. Habbal, M. Druckmüller and P. Aniol
On a typical day, the bright surface of the Sun, called the photosphere, is the only part of the Sun we can see. During a total solar eclipse, the photosphere is completely blocked by the Moon, leaving the outer atmosphere of the Sun (corona) and the thin lower atmosphere (chromosphere) visible. Studying these regions of the Sun’s atmosphere can help scientists understand solar radiation, why the corona is hotter than the photosphere, and the process by which the Sun sends a steady stream of material and radiation into space.
Scientists measure incoming solar radiation on Earth, also known as insolation, to better understand Earth’s radiation budget – the energy emitted, reflected and absorbed by Earth. Just as clouds block sunlight and reduce insolation, the eclipse will block sunlight, providing a great opportunity to study how increased cloud cover can impact weather and climate. (Learn more about insolation during the 2017 eclipse here.)
Citizen scientists can get involved in collecting data and participating in the scientific process, too, through NASA’s Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, or GLOBE, program. During the eclipse, citizen scientists in the path of totality and in partial eclipse areas can measure temperature and cloud cover data and report it using the GLOBE Observer app to help further the study of how eclipses affect Earth’s atmosphere.
You can learn more about the many ways scientists are using the eclipse to improve their understanding of Earth, the Moon and the Sun here.
How to View It
Important! Do not look directly at the Sun or view the partial eclipse without certified eclipse glasses or a solar filter. For more information on safe eclipse viewing, visit the NASA Eclipse website.
When following proper safety guidelines, witnessing an eclipse is an unparalleled experience. Many “eclipse chasers” have been known to travel the world to see total eclipses.
The start time of the partial eclipse, when the edge of the Moon first crosses in front of the disk of the Sun, will depend on your location. You can click on your location in this interactive eclipse map to create a pin, which will show you the start and end time for the eclipse in Universal Time. (To convert from Universal Time to your local time, subtract four hours for EDT, five hours for CDT, six hours for MDT, or seven hours for PDT.) Clicking on your location pin will also show you the percent of Sun that will be eclipsed in your area if you’re outside the path of totality.
If you are inside the approximately 70-mile-wide strip known as the path of totality, where the shadow of the Moon, or umbra, will fall on Earth, the total eclipse will be visible starting about an hour to 1.5 hours after the partial eclipse begins.
Only when the eclipse is at totality – and the viewer is in the path of totality – can eclipse glasses be removed. Look at the eclipse for anywhere from a few seconds to more than 2.5 minutes to see the Sun’s corona and chromosphere, as well as the darkened near side of the Moon facing Earth. As before, your viewing location during the eclipse will determine how long you can see the eclipse in totality.
After totality ends, a partial eclipse will continue for an hour to 1.5 hours, ending when the edge of the Moon moves off of the disk of the Sun. Remember, wear eclipse glasses or use a pinhole camera for the entirety of the partial eclipse. Do not directly view the partial eclipse.
Make a Pinhole Camera
Find out how to make your very own pinhole camera to safely view the eclipse in action.
To get an idea of what the eclipse will look like from your location and explore the positions of the Moon, Sun and Earth throughout the eclipse, see this interactive simulation.
For more information about the start of the partial eclipse, the start and duration of totality, and the percentage of the Sun eclipsed outside the path of totality, find your location on this interactive eclipse map.
NASA Television will host a live broadcast beginning at 9 a.m. PDT on Aug. 21 showing the path of totality and featuring views from agency research aircraft, high-altitude balloons, satellites and specially-modified telescopes. Find out how and where to watch, here.
Teach It
Use these standards-aligned lessons and related activities to get your students excited about the eclipse and the science that will be conducted during the eclipse.
- Epic Eclipse – Students use the mathematical constant pi to approximate the area of land covered by the Moon’s shadow during the eclipse.
- Pinhole Camera – Learn how to make your very own pinhole camera to safely see a solar eclipse in action from anywhere the eclipse is visible, partial or full!
- Moon Phases - Students learn about the phases of the Moon by acting them out. In 30 minutes, they will act out one complete, 30-day, Moon cycle.
- NEW! Measuring Solar Energy During an Eclipse – Students use mobile devices to measure the impact a solar eclipse has on the energy received at Earth’s surface.
- NEW! Modeling the Earth-Moon System – Students learn about scale models and distance by creating a classroom-size Earth-Moon system.
- NASA GLOBE Observer – Students can become citizen scientists and collect data for NASA’s GLOBE Program using this app available for iOS and Android devices (eclipse update available starting August 18, 2017).
Explore More
- NASA TV Eclipse 2017 broadcast info
- NASA 2017 Eclipse website
- NASA Eyes Eclipse 2017 Interactive
- Interactive Eclipse Map
- NASA Eclipse website (for info about other eclipses)
- Eclipse Safety
- American Astronomical Society website (for info on reputable vendors of solar viewers and filters)
- Earth’s Radiation Budget
TAGS: Eclipse, Solar Eclipse, Science, Pinhole Camera, K-12, Students, Educators
