Science

The second Artemis mission took four astronauts around the moon and back – the first crewed deep-space flight since 1972. Not everyone gets a chance to put on a space suit, but you can still be an important part of NASA’s human space exploration story by doing NASA science!

Volunteers with NASA’s citizen science projects have tested chili pepper plant varieties to grow in space, monitored active regions on the Sun, and analyzed data from experiments on how life adapts to the low-gravity, high-radiation environment of space. Participation does not require citizenship in any particular country – you only need a love of science and a desire to help. Join one of the projects below and help NASA make space travel safer and healthier.

Only a few minutes to spare? Space Umbrella is a great project for you. The brief online project tutorial will teach you how to read data collected by NASA’s Magnetosphere Multiscale (MMS) mission, which has been flying back and forth across Earth’s magnetosphere since 2015. By sorting data into in-magnetosphere and out-of-magnetosphere readings, you will help scientists learn more about how solar storms interact with our magnetosphere. Solar storms can pose a serious threat to astronauts, so this work can help missions minimize risks from radiation in space.