Station Science Top News: Jan. 31, 2025

Seeds survive space

Researchers found that plant seeds exposed to space germinated at the same rate as those kept on the ground. This finding shows that plant seeds can remain viable during long-term space travel and plants could be used for food and other uses on future missions.

Materials International Space Station Experiment-14 exposed a variety of materials to space, including 11 types of plant seeds. The work also evaluated the performance of a new sample containment canister as a method of exposing biological samples to space while protecting their vigor.

Examining mechanisms of immune issues in space

Using genetic analyses, researchers identified molecular mechanisms that cause changes in mitochondrial and immune system function seen during spaceflight. The findings provide insight into how the human body adapts in space and could guide countermeasures for protecting immune function on future missions.

International Space Station Medical Monitoring collects a variety of health data from crew members before, after, and at regular intervals during spaceflight. Evaluations fall into broad categories of medical, occupational, physical fitness, nutrition, and psychological or behavioral and include blood tests. Mitochondria are cell organelles that produce energy.

Reducing vision changes in space

Microgravity can cause changes in eye structure and function. Researchers found that artificial gravity may reduce these changes and could serve as a countermeasure to protect the vision of crew members on future missions.

Previous studies provide evidence that artificial gravity may protect against or mitigate negative effects of microgravity. An investigation from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in collaboration with NASA’s Human Research and Space Biology Programs, Mouse Habitat Unit-8 looked at the long-term effects of spaceflight on gene expression patterns in mammals. More research is needed to identify the effects of other spaceflight stressors and determine what level and duration of gravitational force is needed to prevent or reduce damage to the retina or optic nerve.

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Sumer Loggins

Stacking Artemis II

NASA’s iconic “worm” insignia stands out in this photo taken on Jan. 24, 2025, as engineers and technicians prepared to lift the left center center booster segment for the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. The boosters will help support the remaining rocket components and the Orion spacecraft during final assembly of the Artemis II Moon rocket and provide more than 75 percent of the total SLS thrust during liftoff from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Get more Artemis II news.

Image credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

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Monika Luabeya

How Does the Sun Behave? (Grades K-4)

3 Min Read

How Does the Sun Behave? (Grades K-4)

This article is for students grades K-4.

The Sun is a star. It is the biggest object in our solar system. The Sun is about 93 million miles away from Earth and about 4.5 billion years old. The Sun affects Earth’s weather, seasons, climate, and more. Let’s learn about how the Sun behaves.

Why is the Sun warm and bright?

The Sun is a giant ball made of hydrogen and helium gases. Deep in the center of the Sun, hydrogen atoms are pressed together. This forms helium. When this happens, energy is released. That energy is the heat and light we feel and see all the way here on Earth.

Does the Sun ever change?

Sometimes, the Sun is very active. It gives off a lot of energy. Other times, it is quieter. It gives off less energy. This pattern is called the solar cycle. One solar cycle lasts about 11 years.

Scientists call the time when the Sun is active “solar maximum.” During this time, we see darker, cooler spots on the Sun’s surface. These are called sunspots. When the Sun is less active, scientists call that “solar minimum.”

Does the Sun have a north pole?

Yes! Just like Earth, the Sun has north and south magnetic poles. But every 11 years, the Sun’s poles flip. North becomes south and south becomes north.

What is space weather?

Space weather includes things like solar wind, solar storms, and solar flares. When the Sun is active, these things can have an impact on Earth and in space.

Let’s learn more about space weather and how it affects our planet.

What is solar wind?

The solar wind is a constant wave of particles flowing out into space from the Sun’s surface. It travels deep into space. When the solar wind reaches Earth, its particles interact with Earth’s magnetic field. This causes colorful streams of moving light at Earth’s north and south poles. These are called auroras or the northern and southern lights.

What are solar storms and solar flares?

The Sun’s magnetic fields are always moving. They twist and stretch. Sometimes they snap and reconnect. When this happens, it releases a burst of energy. This can cause a solar storm.

Solar storms can include solar flares. A solar flare is a blast of light and energy from the Sun’s surface. They usually erupt near sunspots. Solar flares happen more often during solar maximum and less often during solar minimum.  

How does space weather affect Earth?

Earth is protected from most space weather. Our atmosphere and magnetic field act like a shield. But strong solar storms can still cause problems. Areas might lose electricity. Radios might not work. Satellites can be damaged. NASA keeps an eye on space weather. If strong storms are predicted, teams work to protect spacecraft and astronauts in space.

How are we learning more about the Sun?

A space probe is a robot that explores space. They often visit other planets, moons, or asteroids and comets that also orbit the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launched to the Sun in 2018. The Parker Solar Probe is on a special mission. It flies very close to the Sun to collect information. This will help scientists learn new things about the Sun and how it affects life on Earth.

Visit these websites to read more about the Sun:

• https://science.nasa.gov/sun/facts/
• https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/menu/sun/
• https://www.nasa.gov/stem-content/our-very-own-star-the-sun/

Read NASA Knows: How Does the Sun Behave? (Grades 5-8).

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Sandra May

NASA Ames Stars of the Month: February 2025

The NASA Ames Science Directorate recognizes the outstanding contributions of (pictured left to right) Michael Flynn, Ross Beyer, and Matt Johnson. Their commitment to the NASA mission represents the entrepreneurial spirit, technical expertise, and collaborative disposition needed to explore this world and beyond.

Space Biosciences Star: Michael Flynn

Michael Flynn, a senior scientist and engineer in the Bioengineering Branch, has over 35 years of groundbreaking contributions to life support systems and space technologies, including over 120 peer-reviewed publications. He is being recognized for his leadership in advancing water recycling technologies and his dedication to fostering innovation and mentorship within his team.

Space Science and Astrobiology Star: Ross Beyer

Ross Beyer is a planetary scientist in the Planetary Systems Branch for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, with scientific expertise in geomorphology, surface processes, and remote sensing of the solid bodies in the Solar System.  He is recognized for exemplifying leadership and teamwork through his latest selected 5-year proposal to support the Ames Stereo Pipeline, implementing open science processes, and serving as a Co-Investigator on several flight missions.

Earth Science Star: Matthew Johnson

Matthew Johnson is a research scientist in the Biospheric Science Branch. He is recognized for his exemplary productivity in publishing in high-impact journals and success at leading and co-developing competitive proposals, while serving as a mentor and leader.  Matt recently expanded his leadership skills by assuming the position of Assistant Branch Chief and as an invited lead co-author of the December PANGEA white paper, which could lead to a new NASA HQ Terrestrial Ecology campaign.

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Aaron McKinnon

NASA’s InSight Finds Marsquakes From Meteoroids Go Deeper Than Expected

With help from AI, scientists discovered a fresh crater made by an impact that shook material as deep as the Red Planet’s mantle.

Meteoroids striking Mars produce seismic signals that can reach deeper into the planet than previously known. That’s the finding of a pair of new papers comparing marsquake data collected by NASA’s InSight lander with impact craters spotted by the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The papers, published on Monday, Feb. 3, in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), highlight how scientists continue to learn from InSight, which NASA retired in 2022 after a successful extended mission. InSight set the first seismometer on Mars, detecting more than 1,300 marsquakes, which are produced by shaking deep inside the planet (caused by rocks cracking under heat and pressure) and by space rocks striking the surface.

By observing how seismic waves from those quakes change as they travel through the planet’s crust, mantle, and core, scientists get a glimpse into Mars’ interior, as well as a better understanding of how all rocky worlds form, including Earth and its Moon.

Researchers have in the past taken images of new impact craters and found seismic data that matches the date and location of the craters’ formation. But the two new studies represent the first time a fresh impact has been correlated with shaking detected in Cerberus Fossae, an especially quake-prone region of Mars that is 1,019 miles (1,640 kilometers) from InSight.

The impact crater is 71 feet (21.5 meters) in diameter and much farther from InSight than scientists expected, based on the quake’s seismic energy. The Martian crust has unique properties thought to dampen seismic waves produced by impacts, and researchers’ analysis of the Cerberus Fossae impact led them to conclude that the waves it produced took a more direct route through the planet’s mantle.

InSight’s team will now have to reassess their models of the composition and structure of Mars’ interior to explain how impact-generated seismic signals can go that deep.

“We used to think the energy detected from the vast majority of seismic events was stuck traveling within the Martian crust,” said InSight team member Constantinos Charalambous of Imperial College London. “This finding shows a deeper, faster path — call it a seismic highway — through the mantle, allowing quakes to reach more distant regions of the planet.”

Spotting Mars Craters With MRO

A machine learning algorithm developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to detect meteoroid impacts on Mars played a key role in discovering the Cerberus Fossae crater. In a matter of hours, the artificial intelligence tool can sift through tens of thousands of black-and-white images captured by MRO’s Context Camera, detecting the blast zones around craters. The tool selects candidate images for examination by scientists practiced at telling which subtle colorations on Mars deserve more detailed imaging by MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.

“Done manually, this would be years of work,” said InSight team member Valentin Bickel of the University of Bern in Switzerland. “Using this tool, we went from tens of thousands of images to just a handful in a matter of days. It’s not quite as good as a human, but it’s super fast.”

Bickel and his colleagues searched for craters within roughly 1,864 miles (3,000 kilometers) of InSight’s location, hoping to find some that formed while the lander’s seismometer was recording. By comparing before-and-after images from the Context Camera over a range of time, they found 123 fresh craters to cross-reference with InSight’s data; 49 of those were potential matches with quakes detected by the lander’s seismometer. Charalambous and other seismologists filtered that pool further to identify the 71-foot Cerberus Fossae impact crater.

Deciphering More, Faster

The more scientists study InSight’s data, the better they become at distinguishing signals originating inside the planet from those caused by meteoroid strikes. The impact found in Cerberus Fossae will help them further refine how they tell these signals apart.

“We thought Cerberus Fossae produced lots of high-frequency seismic signals associated with internally generated quakes, but this suggests some of the activity does not originate there and could actually be from impacts instead,” Charalambous said.

The findings also highlight how researchers are harnessing AI to improve planetary science by making better use of all the data gathered by NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) missions. In addition to studying Martian craters, Bickel has used AI to search for landslides, dust devils, and seasonal dark features that appear on steep slopes, called slope streaks or recurring slope linae. AI tools have been used to find craters and landslides on Earth’s Moon as well.

“Now we have so many images from the Moon and Mars that the struggle is to process and analyze the data,” Bickel said. “We’ve finally arrived in the big data era of planetary science.”

More About InSight

JPL managed InSight for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. InSight was part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supported spacecraft operations for the mission.

A number of European partners, including France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), supported the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP³) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain’s Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors.

A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado. The Context Camera was built by, and is operated by, Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. 

For more about Insight, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/insight/

For more about MRO, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter/

News Media Contacts

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
|karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov

2025-013

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Anthony Greicius