NASA has huge plans for 2017: Missions to Mars, Saturn and Jupiter; monitoring total Eclipse and more
NASA has major projects to develop and execute in 2017. Some of them have never been attempted before.
Mars, Saturn and Jupiter Missions
According to Huffington Post, NASA will continue to work on transporting humans to Mars. The agency is currently building the infrastructure and vehicles that will take the humans to the red planet.
NASA is building the SLS or the Space Launch System, which will be the next heavy-lift rocket, to replace the older Saturn V.
Apart from Mars, NASA has already planned more ventures to Saturn and Jupiter. The Cassini spacecraft, which was launched on October 15, 1997, sent amazing pictures of Saturn and Jupiter. This has led to new revelations and helped the scientists answer some questions.
Since the spacecraft is set to self destruct in 2017, NASA has already started planning its next step with the help of decade long data and information.
2017 Total Solar Eclipse
As per Inverse, U.S. will get to witness a total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. Most popularly known as the "the Great American Eclipse", the best viewpoint will be in the city of Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
However, a partial eclipse will be visible all over the country. Since the astronomers believe that such situation will not take place again for 375 years, NASA is planning to monitor this phenomenon very closely.
Earth Science Observations
NASA has collaborated with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to monitor earth sciences and weather phenomena, specifically to understand the effect of climate change more thoroughly.
In 2017, both the agencies will be looking in depth into the storms and hurricanes so that in future an accurate prediction can be provided to people.
Digging deep into the Universe
Apart from exploring the solar system planets, NASA will launch two missions to dig deep into the universe and search for transiting exoplanets. This is basically other solar systems apart from our own where a bunch of planets orbit around a star, in our case the star is the sun.
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