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NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory Begins Primary Science Mission - NASA Science
- Carruthers Geocorona Observatory begins its 24‑month primary science mission, studying Earth’s exosphere from the L1 point.
- Launched in September 2025, Carruthers reached the Sun-Earth L1 orbit on January 8 and now views Earth’s exosphere continuously.
- Two ultraviolet imagers on Carruthers will capture geocorona images, revealing details invisible to the naked eye.
- The mission will track exosphere expansion and contraction with solar activity to build a comprehensive outer-atmosphere record.
- The observatory will help compare Earth’s atmospheric loss with Mars to understand long-term planetary habitability.
- Lara Waldrop of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign leads the mission.
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center manages the mission for the agency’s Heliophysics Division.
- The observatory will study how space weather affects satellites and communications.
- The mission honors Dr. George R. Carruthers, linking to Apollo 16’s first geocorona image.
- The team includes the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley and Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory.
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