360 and VR Gallery

NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, will make a daring attempt to “TAG” asteroid Bennu on Oct. 20 – touch its surface and collect a sample for return to Earth. Experience the sample collection event in 360 and watch as OSIRIS-REx contacts the rocky surface of sample site Nightingale on Asteroid Bennu.

Tour Hurricane Maria in a whole new way! Late on September 17, 2017 (10:08 p.m. EDT) Category 1 Hurricane Maria was strengthening in the Atlantic Ocean when the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Core Observatory flew over it. The Dual Frequency Precipitation Radar, measuring in a narrow band over the storm center, shows 3-D estimates of rain, with snow at higher altitudes. The tall "hot towers" characteristic of deepening hurricanes are actually topped by snow! Surface rainfall rates estimated by the GPM Microwave Imager paint the surface over a wider swath. During the tour, you'll see the radar-observed rain intensities displayed three different ways in various parts of the storm. Then, for the first time you'll see estimates of the precipitation particle sizes, which the GPM DPR is uniquely capable of showing, and which provide important insights into storm processes. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.

Two days before Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the NASA-Japan Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory satellite captured a 3-D view of the storm. At the time Maria was a Category 1 hurricane. The 3-D view reveals the processes inside the hurricane that would fuel the storm’s intensification to a category 5 within 24 hours.

For the first time in 360-degrees, this data visualization takes you inside the hurricane. The precipitation satellite has an advanced radar that measures both liquid and frozen water. The brightly colored dots show areas of rainfall, where green and yellow show low rates and red and purple show high rates. At the top of the hurricane, where temperatures are colder, blue and purple dots show light and heavy frozen precipitation. The colored areas below the dots show how much rain is falling at the surface.

Created by: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Data Sources: • NASA/GPM Dual Precipitation Radar (DPR) precipitation rate and drop size distribution data • NASA/GPM GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) ground precipitation data • NASA/Bluemarble land imagery • NOAA/GOES16 cloud data • Hipparcos/Telescope/Tycho 2 Catalogue

A new model is bringing scientists a step closer to understanding the kinds of light signals produced when two supermassive black holes, which are millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun, spiral toward a collision. For the first time, a new computer simulation that fully incorporates the physical effects of Einstein’s general theory of relativity shows that gas in such systems will glow predominantly in ultraviolet and X-ray light. The new simulation shows three orbits of a pair of supermassive black holes only 40 orbits from merging. The models reveal the light emitted at this stage of the process may be dominated by UV light with some high-energy X-rays, similar to what’s seen in any galaxy with a well-fed supermassive black hole. Three regions of light-emitting gas glow as the black holes merge, all connected by streams of hot gas: a large ring encircling the entire system, called the circumbinary disk, and two smaller ones around each black hole, called mini disks. All these objects emit predominantly UV light. When gas flows into a mini disk at a high rate, the disk’s UV light interacts with each black hole’s corona, a region of high-energy subatomic particles above and below the disk. This interaction produces X-rays. When the accretion rate is lower, UV light dims relative to the X-rays. Based on the simulation, which ran on the National Center for Supercomputing Applications’ Blue Waters supercomputer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the researchers expect X-rays emitted by a near-merger will be brighter and more variable than X-rays seen from single supermassive black holes. The pace of the changes links to both the orbital speed of gas located at the inner edge of the circumbinary disk as well as that of the merging black holes.

The area of coastline where the glacier-laden mountains of Alaska meet the Pacific Ocean has some of the most stunning scenery on Earth. This 360 video takes you flying low over the landscape of Icy Bay from a vantage point just under the wing of a bright-red, single-engine De Havilland Otter, decked out with science instruments designed to measure changes Alaskan glaciers. A small team of NASA-funded researchers has been surveying dozens of glaciers in the region since 2009, and has put some dramatic numbers on the overall net loss of ice from the state: 75 billion tons of ice every year from 1994 to 2013. In 2018, Chris Larsen and Martin Truffer, both of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, conducted the science campaign along with the University of Arizona's Jack Holt and University of Texas student Michael Christoffersen, and NASA communicators were along to document their efforts. The team headed out again in August of 2020 to conduct its surveys as part of NASA's larger Operation IceBridge campaign.

IceBridge has been measuring Earth’s changing glaciers and ice sheets since 2009 using a range of large and small aircraft and a wide variety of scientific instruments, from laser altimeters, to radar, to magnetometers and gravimeters. IceBridge was conceived to avoid a gap in measurements of ice height between two satellite missions: NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), which stopped collecting data in 2009, and its ICESat-2, which launched in 2018. While scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, have managed the two larger yearly field campaigns in the Arctic and Antarctica, monitoring Alaskan glaciers fell on a smaller team based at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan aircraft is owned and piloted by Paul Claus, a bush pilot who’s logged more than 35,000 flight hours, mostly in the wilderness. Claus hand-flies all of IceBridge’s data collection lines along Alaskan glaciers, because the flight paths are often meandering and close to ridge lines, which does not allow for auto pilot. Claus’s intimate knowledge of Alaska’s tricky mountain weather is vital for the mission’s safety and efficiency.

For more about Operation IceBridge Alaska: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/a-decade-of-icebridge-alaska-flights

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Hubble careers are as wide-ranging and different as the people who hold the jobs. From the astronauts who fix the telescope to the engineers who work on its software, from the scientists who study the data to the people who spread the word about its discoveries, Hubble is supported by people who organize, budget, educate and more. Meet some of the people behind the telescope and learn about the unique paths they traveled to join the Hubble adventure. For more information, visit https://nasa.gov/hubble Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Georgina Chiou: Lead Producer Music credits: "The Power of Pride" by Matthew St Laurent [ASCAP]; Killer Tracks Production Music Videos must be uploaded to and played on a platform that supports 360-degree video in order to view in 360.

360 B-Roll footage of the James Webb Space Telescope inside NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Take a 360-degree, virtual tour of the Hubble Space Telescope’s home for mission operations, the Space Telescope Operations Control Center (STOCC) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Begin in the lobby to learn about the orbiting spacecraft. Visit the Mission Operations Room, where the flight operators command and monitor Hubble. Step into the Operations Support Room, where the flight team investigates spacecraft anomalies and verifies new procedures. Then explore the exhibit hallway to view hardware that once flew in space aboard Hubble as well as tools that astronauts used to repair and upgrade the observatory. Music credit for all videos: "Looking Forward" by Daniel Backes [GEMA] and Peter Moslener [GEMA]; Ed.Berlin Production Music/Universal Production Music GmbH GEMA; Berlin Production Music; Killer Tracks Production Music Videos must be uploaded to and played on a platform that supports 360-degree video in order to view in 360. You can view a playlist of these videos on YouTube in 360 here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_8hVmWnP_O0GvDYsfyr-4A3MWLfaHWnj

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope team broadcast live in 360 degrees on Facebook from the Space Telescope Operations Control Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center for Hubble's 28th anniversary on April 24, 2018.