As It Is: NASA Scientists Still Dream of, and Plan for, Human Travel to Mars

06/14/2013

The planet Mars

From VOA Learning English, this is As It Is.

Welcome back. I’m Caty Weaver.

On the show today, we look into the future of space exploration. The American space agency NASA has announced plans for a new effort to study the sun.

And, NASA scientists are considering new technologies for a possible human trip to the planet Mars. Newly released information about space radiation means the trip needs to take less time than is currently possible.

The American space agency is making final preparations for a project to study the sun. NASA scientists hope to observe the way solar material gathers energy and heats up as it moves through the sun’s lower atmosphere. Katherine Cole has more about the Interface Regional Imaging Spectrograph, also called IRIS.

The outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere, known as the corona, is thousands of times hotter than the surface of the sun. Solar material heats up as it rises through the inner atmosphere to the corona.

Researchers want to know why this is. So they are preparing a mission to study what scientists call the sun’s “interface region.” This is the area between the corona and the sun’s photosphere.

The energy and matter, called plasma, that flow through the interface region have a major effect on Earth. This area is the source of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. The radiation affects Earth’s climate. It also can influence the space environment near our planet. The energy that passes into the interface region is also responsible for solar wind.