#01

Astronaut Christina Koch returned safe to earth this week, which is notable since her 328 day mission was the longest ever by a woman. Her extended time in orbit gave researchers an opportunity to study the effects of long duration spaceflight on a woman. She also completed three spacewalks (the first of which was the first all-female spacewalk) with fellow astronaut Jessica Meir to fix a science experiment called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. Hear more about Koch's record breaking journey in the astronauts own words.

#02

"Doing science of this scale in such an extreme environment is not just about flying a few scientists to a remote location. They need tonnes of specialist equipment and tens of thousands of litres of fuel, as well as tents and other camping supplies and food. I camped on the ice for a month, some of the scientists will be out there for far longer..." Learn more about the ongoing effort to drill through the ice of Theaites glacier in Antarctica, and explore underneath it. "Glaciologists have described Thwaites as the "most important" glacier in the world, the "riskiest" glacier, even the "doomsday" glacier. Yet, until this year, no-one has attempted a large-scale scientific survey on the glacier." (Also, you should scroll about halfway down that first link and look for a picture of someone in a blue parka hunched next to an ice auger. That's Lizzie! She interned with me at JPL and its great to see her and others off doing amazing research.)

And while we're talking about arctic exploration, this explorer was one tent pole away from death. Learn about Colin O'Brady, who somehow managed to complete the first solo crossing of the Antarctic continent with his own power and no resupplies en route.

#03

On January 30th, NASA officially shut down the 16 year old Spitzer Space Telescope. The telescope is one of NASA's Four Great Observatories, intended to observe in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum and piece together knowledge of the cosmos. Spitzer viewed the stars in a wavelength called thermal infrared (which is just outside of the band of the spectrum humans can see). "Thanks to more than 2 million images captured by Spitzer, astronomers have assembled an enormous map of the Milky Way that illuminates its spiral structure and its central bar of aging stars. These observations have helped us better understand our own galactic home." The telescope is named after Lyman Spitzer Jr., who in 1947 wrote a paper called Astronomical Advantages of an Extra-Terrestrial Observatory." This early work is often credited as the first serious study of putting astronomical telescopes in space. Ahead of his time, Spitzer pushed for large space observatories his whole life, an effort that would eventually culminate in the venerable Hubble Space Telescope. Spitzer (both the man and the telescope) was truly a space explorer.

In other telescope news, the European CHEOPS (CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite) successfully opened its telescope cover, exposing the optics to the sky for the first time. Hopefully you'll see many new exoplanet discoveries coming from this little satellite in the near future. 

#04

It hasn't been a great week for Voyager 2. The spacecraft was launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets and is still the only spacecraft to ever visit Uranus and Neptune. On January 25th, Voyager 2 failed to phone home. Fortunately, engineers on the ground seem to have things sorted out. The problem happened when two power hungry systems were left running at the same time, exceeding the amount of power available on the spacecraft. It was fixed on January 28th when engineers were able to turn off one of the systems, not an easy thing to when the spacecraft is 11.5 billion miles away and a one way transmission takes 17 hours. The good news is that Voyager 2 appears to be stable and is slowly returning to normal operations.

#05

"First, we launched the ROV and almost right away, we found not one but three Deiopea comb jellies! ... We were busy well into the night, photographing and dissecting our precious samples. Days like today remind me how lucky we are to work on such interesting, amazing creatures." I love listening when scientists get excited about their work. Learn more about the Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's recently completed expedition called the Biodiversity and Biooptics 2020 Expedition, including firsthand accounts from the scientists on board.

#06

On the launch manifest this weekend is the aptly named Solar Orbiter (no contrived acronyms here!). "The $1.5 billion mission will travel as close as 26 million miles from the sun..., where it will use 10 different instruments to measure magnetic fields, waves, energetic particles and plasma escaping the sun while they are still in a pristine state." The spacecraft will launch aboard an Atlas V rocket from the Florida coast no earlier than 11:03pm EST on Sunday night.

The Bookshelf

To some extent, every explorer ends up being a creator, and there's very few people better at creating than Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame. Adam published a book last year called Every Tool's a Hammer: Life is What You Make It. The master maker turned author takes the reader through his own journey and shares various tips and tricks on how to get started, follow through, and stay organized. Adam's eccentric and often times endearing personalty comes through each and every page, making this one well worth the read for beginners and experts alike. 

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This newsletter was produced as a private venture and not in the author's capacity as an employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology or of Griffith Observatory. Any views and opinions expressed herein or on exploreandobserve.com are his own and not those of his employers.

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