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NASA came up with an amazing idea. They encourage people to apply for working with them and become astronauts. Want a career that’ll take you full circle? Adventure. Commitment. Leadership. Achievement. These are the core values of NASA’s distinguished astronaut corps. They’re also the rewards of fulfilling work. The 21st century astronaut will serve on long-duration missions aboard the International Space Station – and future deep space missions. NASA is going places where there are no boundaries. Your unique talents and experiences can take you there too.Because NASA understands it is what makes us different that makes us successful as a nation, it seeks fresh perspectives to take us out of this world.
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Voyage to Mars!

Florida,United States

NASA began a historic travel to Mars with the November 26 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, which carries a car-sized rover named Curiosity. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard an Atlas V rocket occurred at 10:02 a.m. EST.

"We are very excited about sending the world's most advanced scientific laboratory to Mars," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "MSL will tell us critical things we need to know about Mars, and while it advances science, we'll be working on the capabilities for a human mission to the Red Planet and to other destinations where we've never been."

Three days ago I went to visit this location of NASA and I think was my best experience ever!

I really recommend it!

Solar Orbiter in 2017 !!!

On October 4, 2011, the European Space Agency announced it's two next science missions, including Solar Orbiter, a spacecraft geared to study the powerful influence of the sun. Solar Orbiter will be an ESA-led mission, with strong NASA contributions managed from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Solar Orbiter will use multiple gravity assists from Venus to tilt its orbit until it can see the poles of the Sun, and that's never been done before," said Chris St. Cyr, NASA's project scientist for Solar Orbiter at Goddard. "A full view of the solar poles will help us understand how the sun's magnetic poles reverse direction every 11 years, causing giant eruptions and flares, called space weather, that can affect the rest of the solar system. The mission's launch is planned for 2017 from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard a NASA provided launch vehicle. Solar Orbiter will be placed into an elliptical orbit around the sun. Its closest approach will be near the orbit of Mercury, 75% of the distance between Earth and the sun, around 21,000,000 miles away from the sun's surface. This is awesome!!!

Earth newest satellite!

 The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder on board NASA's newest Earth-observing satellite, NPP, acquired its first measurements on November 8, 2011. The image shows the ATMS channel 18 data, which measures water vapor in the lower atmosphere. Tropical Storm Sean is visible in the data, as the patch of blue, in the Atlantic off the coast of the Southeastern United States. The data were processed at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Md.

"NPP data will improve our forecast skills out to 5 to 7 days in advance of extreme weather events, including hurricanes, and severe weather outbreaks," said Dr. Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction. "With NPP, our goal is to make the accurate forecasts achieved for this year’s events even better in the future." 

  

Solar Cycle

It was not until the first half of the 20th century that scientists began to understand what causes the sunspot cycle. Researchers determined that the sunspots were a magnetic phenomenon and that, indeed, the entire sun was magnetized with a north and a south magnetic pole just like a bar magnet. The comparison to a simple bar magnet ends there, however, as the sun's interior is constantly on the move. This cycle may peak in late 2013, or early 2014, and should reach a minimum around 2020, eventhough predictions about the sun's cycle are still quite uncertain. This has been the slowest sunspot cycle of the space age, which is the time frame during which we have the most detailed observations.

Asteroid 2005 YU55 near Earth!

Asteroid 2005 YU55 is one of about 8,500 near-Earth objects to be catalogued to date. What makes this space rock special is that its orbital path carries it safely past Earth within the moon's orbit in early November 2011. The trajectory of 2005 YU55 is well understood. At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than 201,700 miles, or 0.85 the distance from the moon to Earth. The last time a space rock as big as 2005 YU55 came as close to Earth was in 1976, although astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time. The next known approach of an asteroid this large will be in 2028. This is really close if we take a look at this imagine!

Giant structure in Milky Way

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has unveiled a previously unseen structure centered in the Milky Way. The feature spans 50,000 light-years and may be the remnant of an eruption from a supersized black hole at the center of our galaxy.One possibility includes a particle jet from the supermassive black hole at the galactic center. In many other galaxies, astronomers see fast particle jets powered by matter falling toward a central black hole. While there is no evidence the Milky Way's black hole has such a jet today, it may have in the past. The bubbles also may have formed as a result of gas outflows from a burst of star formation, perhaps the one that produced many massive star clusters in the Milky Way's center several million years ago.

Ozone layer stretched to 10.05 million square miles

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use balloon-borne instruments, ground-based instruments and satellites to monitor the annual Antarctic ozone hole, global levels of ozone in the stratosphere and the manmade chemicals that contribute to ozone depletion.
The Antarctic ozone hole, which yawns wide every Southern Hemisphere spring, reached its annual peak on Sept. 12. It stretched to 10.05 million square miles.

The ozone layer helps protect the planet's surface from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Ozone depletion results in more incoming radiation that can hit the surface, elevating the risk of skin cancer and other harmful effects.
"The manmade chemicals known to destroy ozone are slowly declining because of international action, but there are still large amounts of these chemicals doing damage," said James Butler, director of NOAA's Global Monitoring Division in Boulder, Colo.