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Ionosphere | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids


Ionosphere | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids

ionosphere

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Ionosphere

The Short Answer:
What is the ionosphere?

	The ionosphere is a very active part of the atmosphere, and it grows and shrinks depending on the energy it absorbs from the Sun. The name ionosphere comes from the fact that gases in these layers are excited by solar radiation to form ions, which have an electrical charge.
	

The active, changing layer
An interesting layer called the ionosphere overlaps the mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere. It’s a very active part of the atmosphere, and it grows and shrinks depending on the energy it absorbs from the sun. Its name comes from the fact that gases in these layers are excited by solar radiation to form “ions,” which have an electrical charge.

Parts of the ionosphere overlap with Earth’s magnetosphere. That’s the area around Earth where charged particles feel Earth’s magnetic field.
In the ionosphere, charged particles are affected by the magnetic fields of both Earth and the sun. This is where auroras happen. Those are the bright, beautiful bands of light that you sometimes see near Earth’s poles. They’re caused by high-energy particles from the sun interacting with the atoms in this layer of our atmosphere.

Visit other layers in Earth's atmosphere.
Where would you like to go?

Go in to the mesosphere.
Go out to the thermosphere.

        	article last updated June 28, 2019
        

Exosphere(This is only part of the exosphere. It's actually 12 times bigger than this!)

Thermosphere

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Troposphere

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Education News & Blogs – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Bring GUSTO Into the Classroom

What the GUSTO Mission Will Do
Though many people think of space as empty except for things like stars, planets, moons, asteroids, meteors, and comets, it’s anything but. Typically, there is one molecule of matter in every cubic centimeter of the space between stars known as the interstellar medium. In more dense clouds of interstellar gas, there could be as many as 1,000,000 molecules per cubic centimeter. It might not seem like much compared with the 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules in every cubic centimeter of air we breathe, but the interstellar medium can tell us a lot about how stars and planets form and what role gases and dust play in our galaxy and others.
 This diagram shows the life cycles of Sun-like and massive stars. Credit: NASA, Night Sky Network | › Learn more about star life cycles

Like plants and animals, stars have a life cycle that scientists want to better understand. Gases and dust grains that make up a dense interstellar cloud, known as a nebula, can become disturbed, and under the pull of their own gravity, begin collapsing in on themselves. Eventually stars form from the gas and planets form from the dust. As a star goes through its life, it eventually runs out of sources of energy. When this happens, the star dies, expelling gases – sometimes violently, as in a supernova – into a new gas cloud. From here, the cycle can start again. Scientists want to know more about the many factors at play in this cycle. This is where GUSTO comes in.
GUSTO – short for Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory – is a balloon-based telescope that will study the interstellar medium, the small amount of gas and dust between the stars. From its vantage point high above almost all of the Earth’s atmosphere, GUSTO will measure carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen emissions in the far-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, focusing its sights on the Milky Way galaxy and the nearby galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud.
 Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has hundreds of billions of stars and enough gas and dust to make billions more stars.
NASA SVS | Earth Observing Fleet (October 2018)
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	fleet201810_hd01.07410_thm.png (80x40) [4.8 KB]
	

NASA's Earth Science Fleet as of October 2018

This animation shows the orbits of NASA's fleet of Earth observing spacecraft that are considered operational as of October 2018. New elements in this version include the ICESat-2 and Cloudsat/CALIPSO in new orbits. The clouds used in this version are from a high resolution GEOS model run at 10 minute time steps interpolated down to the per-frame level.Spacecraft included:AquaAuraCALIPSO: Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite ObservationCYGNSS-1: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 1CYGNSS-2: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 2CYGNSS-3: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 3CYGNSS-4: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 4CYNGSS-5: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 5CYGNSS-6: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 6CYGNSS-7: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 7CYGNSS-8: Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System 8CloudsatDSCOVR: Deep Space Climate ObservatoryGPM: Global Precipitation MeasurementGRACE-FO-1: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On-1GRACE-FO-2: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On-2ICESat-2ISS: International Space StationJason 2Jason 3Landsat 7Landsat 8OCO-2: Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2SMAP: Soil Moisture Passive ActiveSORCE: Solar Radiation and Climate ExperimentSuomi NPP: Suomi National Polar-orbiting PartnershipTerra

 Earth
	

Fleet

Hyperwall

Orbit

Credits

Please give credit for this item to: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

	
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Ernie Wright (USRA)

	

Release date

	
	This page was originally published on Sunday, December 9, 2018.
	
	
	This page was last updated on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 12:12 AM EST.
	

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Earth Science in Action - NASA Science
Universe ExoplanetsThe Search for Life in the UniverseStarsGalaxiesBlack HolesThe Big BangDark Matter &amp; Dark EnergyThe Solar System The SunMercuryVenusEarthThe MoonMarsJupiterSaturnUranusNeptunePluto &amp; Dwarf PlanetsAsteroids, Comets &amp; MeteorsThe Kuiper BeltThe Oort CloudSkywatchingEspañol CienciaAeronáuticaCiencias TerrestresSistema SolarUniversoScience All NASA ScienceEarth SciencePlanetary ScienceAstrophysics & Space ScienceThe Sun & HeliophysicsBiological & Physical SciencesLunar ScienceCitizen ScienceAstromaterialsAeronautics ResearchHuman Space Travel ResearchExploreSearchSubmitNews & EventsMultimediaNASA+Earth and ClimateExploreClimate ChangeScience in ActionMultimediaDataFor Researchers Explore This SectionEarth and ClimateExploreClimate ChangeScience in ActionMultimediaDataFor Researchers Science in ActionNASA’s projects advance what’s possible here on Earth.Putting NASA Science to WorkNASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future. The end-to-end capability of NASA Earth Science Division – from developing new technology to delivering actionable science –makes it unique among U.S. government science agencies. NASA’s Earth science measurements, research, models, and applications form the basis for the operational services of other public agencies, such as the U.S. EPA, National Weather Service, FEMA, USDA, and more. Article5 min readNASA Selects New Aircraft-Driven Studies of Earth and Climate ChangeQuantifying Bangladesh’s Vast Water ResourcesBangladesh is a small country with a huge amount of water that moves over its surface. The Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers form the world’s largest river delta as they flow south to the Bay of Bengal and ultimately into the Indian Ocean. Just how much water fills these vast floodplains?Read MoreHow NASA Helps Fight Mosquitoes from SpaceMosquitoes are sometimes hard to spot, even with the human eye. But NASA can help track these disease-spreading insects with satellite data.
What Is El Niño? | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids
The fishermen call this condition of warm coastal waters and poor fishing "El Niño" meaning "the Christ Child," because in the occasional years it comes, it comes at Christmas time.

In El Niño years, lots of rain clouds forms over this warm part of the ocean. These clouds move inland and dump much more rain than usual in South and Central America and in the United States. Meanwhile, other parts of the world can suffer drought. Weather patterns all over the world may be unusual, making lakes out of deserts and charcoal heaps out of rain forests.

 

How do we know what is happening to the ocean temperatures around the Earth? The best way is to go up into space!
How do you take the ocean's temperature from space?
Where the ocean is warmer, sea level is slightly higher. In 2008, the Jason-2 satellite (also called the Ocean Surface Topography Mission) was launched into orbit around Earth. It continued the measurements being made by Jason-1, launched in 2001. Both satellites have a sensitive altimeter onboard. An altimeter measures height from itself down to the Earth's surface (land or water). 

 Jason-1 uses radar to measure the small hills and valleys of the ocean's surface. This information helps scientists understand ocean circulation and predict climate events such as El Niño. Jason-1 was launched in 2001 and is still working!
Jason-2, also called the Ocean Surface Topography Mission, continues the work begun by Jason-1. Jason-2 was launched in 2008 and is still orbiting and collecting data.
Using information from Jason-1 and Jason-2, scientists make topographical maps of the hills and valleys on the ocean's surface. The different heights of the ocean are shown on flat maps using different colors.

In these maps, purple, blue, and green are the colder parts of the ocean where the sea level is a little lower. Red, pink, and white are the warmer parts where the surface of the ocean bulges upward a bit. The surface of the water where the ocean is warmest is only about 2 meters (a bit less than 7 feet) higher than in the coldest areas.

 	article last updated June 27, 2019
Catalog of Earth Satellite Orbits
Now, the satellite is moving through this thicker layer of the atmosphere instead of the thin layer it was in when the Sun was less active. Since the satellite moves through denser air at solar maximum, it faces more resistance. When the Sun is quiet, satellites in low Earth orbit have to boost their orbits about four times per year to make up for atmospheric drag. When solar activity is at its greatest, a satellite may have to be maneuvered every 2-3 weeks.
The third reason to move a satellite is to avoid space junk, orbital debris, that may be in its path. On February 11, a communication satellite owned by Iridium, a U.S. company, collided with a non-functioning Russian satellite. Both satellites broke apart, creating a field of debris that contained at least 2,500 pieces. Each piece of debris was added to the database of more than 18,000 manmade objects currently in Earth orbit and tracked by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network.
NASA satellite mission controllers carefully track anything that may enter the path of their satellites. As of May 2009, Earth Observing satellites had been moved three separate times to avoid orbital debris.

Thousands of manmade objects—95 % of them “space junk”— occupy low Earth orbit. Each black dot in this image shows either a functioning satellite, an inactive satellite, or a piece of debris. Although the space near Earth looks crowded, each dot is much larger than the satellite or debris it represents, and collisions are extremely rare. (NASA illustration courtesy Orbital Debris Program Office.)

Orbiting objects are concentrated in low Earth orbit (nearly obscuring the Earth’s surface in this illustration) and geostationary orbit (revealed by the ring of satellites along the outer edges). (NASA illustration courtesy Orbital Debris Program Office.)

The debris field generated by the Iridium collision is of particular concern to the Earth Observing System because the center of the debris field will eventually drift through the EOS satellites’ orbits. The Iridium and Russian satellites were 790 kilometers above the Earth, while EOS satellites orbit at 705 kilometers. Many pieces of debris from this collision were propelled to lower altitudes and are already causing issues at 705 kilometers.
NASA Visible Earth - Home
The glaciers of Patagonia are some of the fastest and most erosive on Earth. 
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New Studies Get to the Bottom of Antarctic Melting

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New Studies Get to the Bottom of Antarctic Melting
Published October 30, 2016
Researchers from NASA and the University of California, Irvine (UCI) have gained an unprecedented view of ice melting on the floating undersides of glaciers. In the process, they detected the fastest ongoing rates of glacier retreat ever observed in West Antarctica. 
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New Studies Get to the Bottom of Antarctic Melting

720 x 603
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New Studies Get to the Bottom of Antarctic Melting
Published October 30, 2016
Researchers from NASA and the University of California, Irvine (UCI) have gained an unprecedented view of ice melting on the floating undersides of glaciers. In the process, they detected the fastest ongoing rates of glacier retreat ever observed in West Antarctica. 
Related images:

720 x 536
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1377 x 963
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720 x 405
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New Studies Get to the Bottom of Antarctic Melting

720 x 405
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New Studies Get to the Bottom of Antarctic Melting
Published October 30, 2016
Researchers from NASA and the University of California, Irvine (UCI) have gained an unprecedented view of ice melting on the floating undersides of glaciers. In the process, they detected the fastest ongoing rates of glacier retreat ever observed in West Antarctica. 
Related images:

720 x 536
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1377 x 963
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720 x 603
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Decline of West Antarctic Glaciers Appears Irreversible

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Decline of West Antarctic Glaciers Appears Irreversible
Published May 16, 2014
The Amundsen Sea segment of the ice sheet has begun a melting process that will result in its loss, possibly within the next few hundred years.
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Home › 2013 › NovemberMonth: November 2013

NASA’s REEL Science Communication Contest: High School Video and Animation Contest

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Paul Przyborski 
	Posted in Uncategorized	

NASA Earth Science missions are kicking off a new video contest engaging high school age students to produce a video communicating NASA Earth Science to younger students. Students are consuming over 10 hours of media a day and video is increasingly important to communicate and inform about science. NASA is looking for talented High School students to create videos that engage students in Earth Science.
Winners will have their videos posted on NASA’s website. They will also get the opportunity to be a NASA Producer working with NASA scientists and communication experts in July 2014 to produce an Earth Science feature video.
Find out more

Flash Floods in Central Texas

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Tassia Owen 
	Posted in News and Events 

A large storm system brought more than a foot of rain to parts of Central Texas on October 30 and 31, 2013. Up to 14 inches (36 cm) of rain fell in the Austin region, according to the National Weather Service. The rain triggered flash floods that left two people dead, forced evacuations, and closed roads.
Weather | Terra
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Weather

Weather–day-to-day temperature and rainfall–plays an important role in human activities. Weather controls crop growth. It can impact transportation infrastructure and destroy homes and other structures. Accurate weather predictions can help decision makers save lives and property.
NASA develops new technologies that offer unique insight into weather and the processes that generate it. NASA scientists study weather processes to gain a more complete understanding of the Earth system. Advanced technology and greater scientific understanding of weather processes together improve weather forecasts made by operational agencies like the NOAA National Weather Service.
Terra and Weather
Terra data contribute to understanding and predicting weather phenomena. MODIS and MISR provide observations of water vapor, winds and cloud movement that are used to track motion in the atmosphere (atmospheric motion vectors) and improve weather forecasts.
Polar Winds
MODIS provides the only high-resolution satellite measurement of water vapor, which can be used with MODIS infrared measurements to observe winds in polar regions. Since Terra is in a polar orbit, MODIS collects observations over the poles every 100 minutes. By tracking how water vapor and clouds move between orbits, scientists can determine wind speed and direction. Such measurements increase the accuracy of numerical weather models used to make 10-day forecasts.
See Polar wind data blow new life into forecasts.
Wind Fields
MISR’s multi-angle stereo view can be used to track cloud motion and deduce wind speed and direction. In particular, MISR measurements provide insight into how wind speeds vary inside hurricanes of different sizes.
Terra Science on Weather in the News
Virtual Vocabulary | NASA eClips
topplanet - A planet is a celestial body that orbits the sun, is round because of its own gravity, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbital path topplanetary volcanoe - Planetary volcanoes are volcanoes that are found on the planets (including Earth) and their moons. topPlasma - A fourth state of matter (in addition to solid, liquid, and gas) that exists in space. In this state, atoms are positively charged and share space with free negatively charged electrons. toppolar orbit - A polar orbit is an orbit in which the satellite passes over the North and South Poles on each orbit, and eventually passes over all points on Earth. toppolariscope - A polariscope is an instrument used for measuring or exhibiting the polarization of light or for examining substances in polarized light, often to determine stress and strain in glass and other substances. toppolarized light - Polarized light waves are vibrating in one direction as they pass through or are reflected by certain media. toppolarizing lens - Polarizing lenses filter out some of the light waves at particular angles, but let waves at other angles through. The waves of light that pass through a polarizing filter tend to be aligned in one plane. toppole - A pole is one of the two ends of a magnet where the magnetic force is the strongest. toppolitical map - A political map shows the location of cities and the borders of countries and states. toppolymer - A polymer is long or large molecule consisting of a chain or network formed by chemically bonding many repeating units, or monomers, together. topposition - The point or area occupied by a physical object. topPPE - PPE stands for personal protective equipment. Personal protective equipment is worn to minimize exposure to hazards that cause serious injuries and illnesses. PPE for firefighters includes a fire helmet; fire-resistant pants, jackets and gloves; and steel-toed, waterproof boots. topprecipitation - Precipitation is water in the atmosphere that falls to Earth as rain, snow, hail, sleet, or freezing rain. topprecision - Precision is the condition of being exact and accurate. toppressure - Pressure is the force per unit area. Even though you can't feel it, air has pressure.
Where Does the Sun's Energy Come From? | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids
In fact, the pressure is so intense, and the density so great, that the hydrogen atoms collide with enough force that they literally meld into a new 	element—helium.
This process—called nuclear fusion—releases energy while creating a chain reaction that allows it to occur over and over and over again.
That energy builds up. It gets as hot as 27 million degrees Fahrenheit in the sun’s core. The energy travels outward through a large area called the 	convective zone. Then it travels onward to the photosphere, where it emits heat, charged particles, and light.
That heat powers the chemical reactions that make life possible on Earth, allows gases and liquids to exist on many planets and moons, and causes icy 	comets to form fiery halos.
Those particles create a ‘solar wind’ that pushes against the fabric of interstellar space billions of miles away.
And that light travels far out into the cosmos—just one star among billions and billions.
Not too bad for a big ball of gas, no?

 	article last updated August 29, 2022
 

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