Polar Tourists Give Positive Reviews to NASA Citizen Science in Antarctica
2 min read
Polar Tourists Give Positive Reviews to NASA Citizen Science in Antarctica
Citizen science projects result in an overwhelmingly positive impact on the polar tourism experience. That’s according to a new paper analyzing participant experiences in the first two years of FjordPhyto, a NASA Citizen Science project..
The FjordPhyto citizen science project invites travelers onboard expedition cruise vessels to gather data and samples during the polar summer season, helping researchers understand changes in microalgae communities in response to melting glaciers. Travelers in Antarctica from November to March help collect phytoplankton and ocean data from polar regions facilitated by trained expedition guides.
The new research found that ninety-seven percent of respondents reported that participating in citizen science enriched their travel experience. The paper provides a first understanding of the impact of citizen science projects on the tourism experience.
“I was worried that I would feel guilty being a tourist in a place as remote and untouched as Antarctica,” said one anonymous FjordPhyto participant. “But being able to learn and be a part of citizen science, whilst constantly being reminded of our environmental responsibilities, made me feel less like just a visitor and more a part of keeping the science culture that Antarctica is known for alive and well.”
Tuesday’s Station Research Advancing Crew Health as Crew Unpacks Cargo
Axiom Mission 4 private astronaut Tibor Kapu (at left) from Hungary loads research samples into a science freezer aboard the International Space Station with assistance from Expedition 73 Commander Takuya Onishi from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).
NASA
Biomedical research topped the science schedule aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday as the Expedition 73 and Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) crews explored cellular immunity and electrical muscle stimulation. Cargo transfers and exercise gear maintenance rounded out the day for the orbital residents.
Station Commander Takuya Onishi from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) began his shift continuing his space biology studies and collecting his blood and saliva samples for processing and stowage. He spun the specimens in a centrifuge then placed the blood samples in a science freezer. Next, he stowed the saliva samples in the Kubik incubator. The samples will be analyzed to understand microgravity’s effect on cellular immunity, monitor stress-related immune reactions in space, and learn how to treat space-caused immunity symptoms.
NASA Flight Engineers Jonny Kim, Nichole Ayers, and Anne McClain spent their day on a variety of orbital lab maintenance and crew support activities. Kim focused primarily on orbital plumbing as he drained and replaced tanks in the Tranquility module. Ayers checked power components and cables inside the Destiny laboratory module then deactivated and stowed a microscope. McClain took a cognition test on a laptop computer and continued supporting the Ax-4 crew during their busy research schedule.
Veteran astronaut Peggy Whitson and her Ax-4 crewmates Shubhanshu Shukla, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, and Tibor Kapu kept up their numerous space investigations throughout the orbital lab. The private astronauts in their second full week on the station explored electrical muscle stimulation to enhance space workouts and counter muscle atrophy in microgravity. Other Ax-4 experiments on Tuesday looked at suit fabrics that promote thermal comfort when exercising in weightlessness, crew behavioral health, and space agriculture.
Roscosmos Flight Engineers Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritskiy spent their Tuesday shift working together in the Zvezda service module repairing and placing components on a treadmill, one of two inside the space station including the COLBERT treadmill located in Tranquility. Flight Engineer Kirill Peskov started his day analyzing biological samples from his cosmonaut crewmates then serviced video recording gear. He wrapped up his shift transferring water from the newly arrived Progress 92 cargo craft and unloading some of its three tons of crew supplies and hardware.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image showing the target “Jigging Cove,” named by Make-A-Wish participant Madeline, located in the center of the image. Perseverance used its Left Mastcam-Z camera, one of a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast, to capture the image on June 27, 2025 (Sol 1547, or Martian day 1,547 of the Mars 2020 mission) at the local mean solar time of 11:26:04.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Written by Eleanor Moreland, Ph.D. Student Collaborator at Rice University
For the past month and a half, Perseverance has been exploring the Krokodillen plateau in search of clay-bearing rocks. An earlier blog discussed that these rocks could hold clues to Mars’ watery past, and Perseverance has been exploring multiple potential locations to find a suitable target to sample. When a coring target could not be found at the previous outcrop, the Science Team decided to return to the “Main Topsail” locality. In a single drive to this area, Perseverance drove 411.7 meters (1,350.7 feet, or just over a quarter mile) — the longest driving distance ever accomplished by a robotic vehicle on another planet. Go, Percy, go!
Back in the region near “Main Topsail” and “Salmon Point,” the team attempted to abrade and sample the clay-bearing rocks at a few different targets. These rocks, however, are proving very breakable and difficult to sample and abrade. Perseverance has experienced challenging fine-grained rocks before, such as during the fan front campaign inside Jezero crater. In that scenario and this one, the Science and Engineering teams work together diligently to find the highest priority targets and find rocks that could withstand the abrasion and coring processes. In this case, the team has decided to return to the site of a previous abrasion, “Strong Island,” to sample the rock we have already abraded and analyzed. This abrasion showed the strong clay signature the team is looking to sample, and we will make another coring attempt this week.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of the target “Gallants,” named by Make-A-Wish participant Joshua, located in the lower left quadrant of the image. Perseverance used its onboard Left Navigation Camera (Navcam), which is located high on the rover’s mast and aids in driving, to capture the image on July 1, 2025 (Sol 1551 or Martian day 1,551 of the Mars 2020 mission), at the local mean solar time of 13:10:08.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
This past week, the Perseverance team hosted two very special visitors, Madeline and Joshua, and had the unique honor of fulfilling their wishes through the Make-A-Wish foundation. During their visits to JPL, Madeline and Joshua were named honorary Mars 2020 Operations Team Members. They visited the test rovers in the JPL Mars Yard, watched data arrive from the rover with the Perseverance operations team, and attended a rover planning meeting, collaborating with the science and engineering team members on campus. Madeline and Joshua will forever be connected to the Mars 2020 mission, as each selected the name of one of our planning targets. Madeline’s target, “Jigging Cove,” was a target for Mastcam-Z and SuperCam “all techniques” analysis, including LIBS, VISIR, and RMI. Joshua’s selection, “Gallants,” will be used for the next coring target. Carrying forward the resilience shown by Madeline and Joshua, Perseverance will attempt to sample this clay-rich bedrock before continuing the investigation along the Jezero crater rim.
A satellite image showing the extent of the Northern Lights during part of the Mother’s Day 2024 solar storms.
Credits: NOAA
One year ago, solar storms lit up the night sky. Why?
The Sun is 93 million miles away from Earth, on average. Even though it’s far away, we can still see and feel its effects here. One of the most beautiful effects are the auroras – colorful lights that dance across the sky near the North and South Poles. These are also called the Northern and Southern Lights. They happen when tiny particles from the Sun hit gas molecules in our atmosphere and give off energy.
Sometimes the Sun becomes very active and sends out a lot more energy than normal. When this happens, we can see auroras in places much farther from the poles than normal. In May 2024, around Mother’s Day, the Sun sent powerful solar storms in the direction of Earth. These storms were also called the Gannon Storms, named after Jennifer Gannon, a scientist who studied space weather. The Northern Lights could be seen as far south as Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Mexico, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. The Southern Lights were also visible as far north as South Africa and New Zealand.
Aurora Borealis seen from British Columbia, Canada on May 10, 2024.
NASA/Mara Johnson-Groh
Scientists who study the Sun and its effects on our solar system work in a field called heliophysics. Their studies of the Sun have shown that it goes through cycles of being more active and less active. Each one of these cycles lasts about 11 years, but can be anywhere from 8 to 14 years long. This is called the Solar Cycle.
The middle of each cycle is called Solar Maximum. During this time, the Sun has more dark spots (called sunspots) and creates more space weather events. The big storms in May 2024 happened during the Solar Maximum for Solar Cycle 25.
On May 8 and 9, 2024, an active area on the Sun called AR3664 shot out powerful solar flares and several huge bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These CMEs headed straight for Earth. The first CME pushed aside the normal solar wind, making a clear path for the others to reach us faster. When all this energy hit our atmosphere, it created auroras much farther from the poles than usual. It was like the Sun gave the auroras a huge power boost!
Eruptions of Solar material into space as seen on May 7 (right) and May 8 (left), 2024. These types of eruptions often come just before a larger Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), including the ones which caused the Mother’s Day solar storms.
NASA/SDO
Auroras are beautiful to watch, but the space weather that creates them can also cause problems. Space weather can mess up radio signals, power grids, GPS systems, and satellites. During the May 2024 storms, GPS systems used by farmers were disrupted. Many farmers use GPS to guide their self-driving tractors. Since this happened during peak planting season, it may have cost billions of dollars in lost profit.
Because space weather can cause so many problems, scientists at NASA and around the world watch the Sun closely to predict when these events will happen. You can help too! Join local science projects at schools, teach others about the Sun, and help make observations in your area. All of this helps us to learn more about the Sun and how it affects our planet.
Here are some resources to connect you to the Sun and auroras
Lesson Plans & Educator Guides
Magnetic Mysteries: Sun-Earth Interactions
A 5E lesson for high school students to investigate the question of what causes aurora by using Helioviewer to examine solar activity.
Aurora Research and Heliophysics
Learn about aurora, how they form, and the different phases they go through, as well as heliophysics missions that study them.
How Earth’s Magnetic Field Causes Auroras
A 5E middle school lesson where students explore why our planet has a magnetic field (and other planets don’t) and what it is like.
Interactive Resources
Magnetic Earth
Introductory activity where users learn about the magnetic field that surrounds Earth and its role in creating the Northern Lights.
NOAA Aurora 30-Minute Forecast
An interactive aurora map for both hemispheres which allows users to predict the likelihood of auroras at different latitudes.
Webinars and Slide Decks
Space Weather Basics
A slide deck (41 slides) that offers an elementary introduction to the basic features of space weather and its interactions with Earth’s magnetosphere and various technologies.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a bright variable star, V 372 Orionis, and its companion in this festive image in this image released on Jan. 27, 2023. The pair lie in the Orion Nebula, a colossal region of star formation roughly 1,450 light-years from Earth.
V 372 Orionis is a particular type of variable star known as an Orion Variable. These young stars experience some tempestuous moods and growing pains, which are visible to astronomers as irregular variations in luminosity. Orion Variables are often associated with diffuse nebulae, and V 372 Orionis is no exception; the patchy gas and dust of the Orion Nebula pervade this scene.
Text credit:European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Bally, M. Robberto
