In this week’s newsletter, celebrate Earth Day in person and online with NASA activities; NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are set to make history as the first crew aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station; and we explore a citizen science project that has helped professional scientists create a new census of more than 3,500 cosmic objects. Plus, more stories you might have missed.

EARTH AND CLIMATE

The Ocean Touches Everything

The ocean holds about 97 percent of Earth’s water and covers 70 percent of our planet’s surface. According to the United Nations, the ocean may be home to 50 to 80 percent of all life on Earth. Even if you live hundreds of miles from the coast, what happens in the ocean is fundamental to your life.

This Earth Day, join us in person and online to learn how NASA studies the ocean from space. Explore the complex connections between sea, air, land, and climate through a mix of in-person and virtual activities, talks, and trivia.

EARTH DAY ACTIVITIES

NASA Video

As the saying goes, “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure,” and at NASA, Annie Meier is that person! Annie is a space waste engineer working on technologies to convert waste into vital resources for human space travel.

WATCH

NASA Podcast

On the latest episode of Houston, We Have a Podcast, NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Commander Butch Wilmore and Pilot Suni Williams discuss their astronaut journeys and preparation to be the first humans to fly Starliner.  

LISTEN

A Solar Neighborhood Census

Through the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project, citizen scientists have helped professional scientists create a new census of more than 3,500 cosmic objects.

A new study in The Astrophysical Journal shows the results of that census within 65 light-years of the Sun. Researchers found that there are four times more stars than brown dwarfs—not quite stars and not quite planets—in this area.

The study supports the idea that the process of forming brown dwarfs is somehow different from the process of forming higher-mass stars. Both kinds of objects are thought to form when a cloud of gas and dust collapses, but there could be different “seeds” that determine whether one kind of object forms versus another.

READ MORE

From the Archives

This image was taken by the crew of the final Apollo mission as they made their way to the Moon.

Credits: NASA

One of the most widely known photographs of Earth, this image was taken by the crew of the final Apollo mission as they made their way to the Moon. Dubbed the “Blue Marble,” Earth is revealed as both a vast planet home to billions of creatures and a beautiful orb capable of fitting into the pocket of the universe.

EARTH FROM AFAR

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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