1 00:00:00,020 --> 00:00:04,200 [Voice off Screen] NASA is celebrating the tenth anniversary of the STEREO mission 2 00:00:04,200 --> 00:00:08,200 STEREO are twin satellites and they look at the sun 3 00:00:08,200 --> 00:00:12,390 and it's returned a lot of really important information about the sun and here to tell us 4 00:00:12,390 --> 00:00:16,580 more about this mission is Dr. Georgia del 5 00:00:16,580 --> 00:00:20,580 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, thanks for joining us. [Georgia] Thanks for having me 6 00:00:20,580 --> 00:00:24,760 [Voice off Screen] So start by telling us, what is space weather and why does it matter 7 00:00:24,760 --> 00:00:28,770 to us on Earth? [Georgia] So that's a great question, we're very 8 00:00:28,770 --> 00:00:32,780 familiar with the weather we have on the Earth obviously and we do want to 9 00:00:32,780 --> 00:00:36,960 actually be able to predict it and watch the patterns and the same thing 10 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:41,140 is true for space weather, space weather is largely produced by the Sun it 11 00:00:41,140 --> 00:00:45,340 has storms so it has solar flares and coronal mass ejections. 12 00:00:45,340 --> 00:00:49,340 and these reach the Earth and sometimes they can be manifested in really beautiful ways 13 00:00:49,340 --> 00:00:53,350 like the aurora we see in the northern and southern hemispheres 14 00:00:53,350 --> 00:00:57,540 but other times it's a little bit more of a concern. It can disrupt communications 15 00:00:57,540 --> 00:01:01,620 and navigation systems, it can bring down power systems 16 00:01:01,620 --> 00:01:05,630 and it causes radiation to our astronauts that are traveling 17 00:01:05,630 --> 00:01:09,650 so we really want to be able to have some predictive capabilities so that we can safeguard 18 00:01:09,650 --> 00:01:13,730 against space weather. [Voice off Screen] Now let's talk a little bit about STEREO 19 00:01:13,730 --> 00:01:17,730 how has it changed our understanding of the sun? 20 00:01:17,730 --> 00:01:21,750 [Georgia] So that's a great question, STEREO is two missions 21 00:01:21,750 --> 00:01:25,760 and it actually moves- one of the spacecraft moves 22 00:01:25,760 --> 00:01:29,760 STEREO-B moves ahead of the Earth and the other moves behind the Earth 23 00:01:29,760 --> 00:01:33,780 and as it progresses in it's trajectory we're able to see and map 24 00:01:33,780 --> 00:01:37,780 out the entire sun in 360 degrees for the first time. 25 00:01:37,780 --> 00:01:41,960 So this is really exciting because we can see an event on the backside of the sun 26 00:01:41,960 --> 00:01:45,970 and watch it as it progresses to the front side of the sun where we're used 27 00:01:45,970 --> 00:01:49,980 to looking at it and helping us to predict more weather- space weather. The other 28 00:01:49,980 --> 00:01:53,980 thing is that we have two spacecrafts so it's as if you have two eyes 29 00:01:53,980 --> 00:01:57,990 on the sun, and you can see the objects in three dimensions 30 00:01:57,990 --> 00:02:02,130 and that has been transformative in terms of how we've learned how the sun 31 00:02:02,130 --> 00:02:06,320 works. [Voice off Screen] Now we're gearing up for the solar event 32 00:02:06,320 --> 00:02:10,320 of the century in the U.S., the august 2017 solar eclipse 33 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:14,420 How does an eclipse like this help us understand the sun? 34 00:02:14,420 --> 00:02:18,460 So I just want to start out by saying if you have an opportunity to 35 00:02:18,460 --> 00:02:22,460 see it, you should, it's a very breathtaking event. 36 00:02:22,460 --> 00:02:26,470 But you know, the other things is that it is going to be the path of 37 00:02:26,470 --> 00:02:30,660 totality will be going across the entire country from Oregon all the way to 38 00:02:30,660 --> 00:02:34,840 the Carolinas. So many people will have an opportunitty to see it. 39 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:38,880 Scientifically speaking for us at NASA because the moon acts as 40 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:42,890 an occulter, it blocks out the sun, almost all of the light 41 00:02:42,890 --> 00:02:47,070 So what you're left with is the corona, it's the atmosphere 42 00:02:47,070 --> 00:02:51,070 of the sun and we can really study what's going on in the atmosphere 43 00:02:51,070 --> 00:02:55,090 of the sun, we do have those kinds of instruments called "corona graphs" 44 00:02:55,090 --> 00:02:59,250 in space and on the ground that studies the sun, but the moon is just 45 00:02:59,250 --> 00:03:03,300 the right size so we can look very deep down in the atmosphere for the first time. 46 00:03:03,300 --> 00:03:07,310 the other thing is that we can test our instrumentation 47 00:03:07,310 --> 00:03:11,510 both the ground based instruments and those instruments that we'd like to fly on future missions 48 00:03:11,510 --> 00:03:15,650 So i really hope that all of us will try to get involved in this next 49 00:03:15,650 --> 00:03:19,740 2017 solar eclipse. [Voice off Screen] Speaking of future missions, NASA 50 00:03:19,740 --> 00:03:23,850 has an upcoming mission that will for the first time touch the sun which is 51 00:03:23,850 --> 00:03:28,040 just incredible, tell us more about this mission. [Georgia] So this is so 52 00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:32,050 solar pro plus, and it will be launched in 2018, and 53 00:03:32,050 --> 00:03:36,070 it's really exciting because right for the solar eclipse we were able to actually 54 00:03:36,070 --> 00:03:40,070 see the atmosphere. Now we're going to send a spacecraft right in 55 00:03:40,070 --> 00:03:44,080 to the atmosphere, we'll be four million miles right next to the surface 56 00:03:44,080 --> 00:03:48,180 of the sun. 25 times closer than we are to the Earth 57 00:03:48,180 --> 00:03:52,190 and we'll be able to see these eruptions right up close for the first time 58 00:03:52,190 --> 00:03:56,200 and that's really very exciting.So we'll be able to actually tell 59 00:03:56,200 --> 00:04:00,240 how these eruptions propagate from the Sun to the Earth 60 00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:04,300 and that again will help us to understand and have better predicative capabilities 61 00:04:04,300 --> 00:04:08,300 for space weather. [Voice off Screen] Now we heard that 62 00:04:08,300 --> 00:04:12,500 STEREO-B was giving NASA the silent treatment for a while. Can you 63 00:04:12,500 --> 00:04:16,520 tell us what happened? [Georgia] So STEREO-A and STEREO-B were 64 00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:20,540 progressing towards the backside of the sun, and we knew that it would be very 65 00:04:20,540 --> 00:04:24,560 difficult to communicate with it when it was behind the sun, so we were preparing these 66 00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:28,740 spacecraft for that maneuver and unfortunately during the preparation 67 00:04:28,740 --> 00:04:32,770 STEREO-B had an anomaly, it began to spin, and we lost 68 00:04:32,770 --> 00:04:36,960 the pointing of the antenna to the Earth so we communication. 69 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:41,150 But what's remarkable is that 22 months later 70 00:04:41,150 --> 00:04:45,250 we actually heard something from STEREO-B, that was only a few months ago 71 00:04:45,250 --> 00:04:49,430 and we tried to stabilize the spacecraft but we weren't able to 72 00:04:49,430 --> 00:04:53,450 but we are still trying to recover STEREO-B, and it's important to know that 73 00:04:53,450 --> 00:04:57,560 STEREO-B had 8 years of great data, and 74 00:04:57,560 --> 00:05:01,570 STEREO-A is continuing to give us good coverage and in fact it's- we- between 75 00:05:01,570 --> 00:05:05,750 STEREO-A and spacecraft at Earth, we can see a great part of the sun 76 00:05:05,750 --> 00:05:09,840 [Voice off Screen] And where can we learn more 77 00:05:09,840 --> 00:05:13,850 about this mission and some of NASA's other heliophysics missions? 78 00:05:13,850 --> 00:05:18,030 So NASA has a lot of information on the website 79 00:05:18,030 --> 00:05:22,130 nasa.gov, and you can find out more about STEREO with 80 00:05:22,130 --> 00:05:26,210 backslash stereo @nasa.gov and i'm also going to recommend you 81 00:05:26,210 --> 00:05:30,230 go to our Twitter handle which is @NASASunEarth 82 00:05:30,230 --> 00:05:34,410 There's a lot of information that you can find out about all the missions we're doing at NASA 83 00:05:34,410 --> 00:05:38,154 [Voice off Screen] Great, thanks so much for joining us. [Georgia] Thanks for having me.