Post 2: JPL Trip #1

In our first trip to the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab we took a grand tour of the lab, into areas even long term workers have never been to. We first began our tour in the museum which had replicas of satellites and rovers, images of galaxies, and information about different planets. After that we went into a mission control room, just like in space movies, it was surreal because we were in an area where the public was not allowed to be in. Inside this room were computers and screens with information that 3 satellites transmit. Our tour guides later lead us to one of my favorite parts of the tour, which was the studio, where about 7 or 8 designers all work together to design and create sculptures, designs, and basically anything to do with art for the Jet Propulsion Lab. After that we had a quick lunch break and resumed back to the tour.
We walked up to what was a testing room where they were testing a rover of some kind to later be sent to Mars. The room needed different lighting and flooring to manipulate the terrain on Mars, it was an amazing experience to watch scientists test the spacecraft. Following that we were lead to the Star Shade Lab. Which is where mechanical engineers study planets orbiting other stars to find Earth like planets also known as “exoplanets”.
With the help of NASA mission Kepler, scientist have found approximately 3,509 exoplanets discovered since September 8. Kepler is a space telescope designed to look at a portion of the Milky Way galaxy in search of exoplanets. On average there is about 1 planet for each star. To find these exoplanets, pictures are taken to find earth sized planets and research if the gases are the same as Earth's. Small planets are the most common type found which is approximately .5 to 2 earth radii in size. Planets in the habitable zone are commonly found, being not too hot or cold.
Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched on March 7, 2009, into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. A heliocentric orbit, is an orbit around the center of mass of two or more bodies that are orbiting each other in the Solar System, which is usually located near the surface of the Sun. Kepler relies on a device called a photometer that continually monitors the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view. This information is sent to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that cross in front of their host star.
After we learned about the Kepler mission we continued onto the last segment of our tour, to a giant testing room where they test each spacecraft that is to be sent into space. Not only were we able to go inside it but, we had the access to go under it to see how it functions.

This first JPL experience was definitely a remarkable one, not only were we able to witness spacecrafts and testings, but had the opportunity to listen to scientist themselves talk about what they do at the lab. This tour definitely made everyone including myself excited for our next visit.

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