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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Aug 22

Three science highlights we’ve been able to do with 500+ days of PACE so far:
1. terrestrial productivity measurements (w spectral reflectance)
2. advanced aerosol identification
3. started the HUGE endeavor of reconstructing clouds in 3D

LET’S GOO PACE 🌎🛰️

pace.oceansciences.org/pace_result_...

NASA PACE - Spotlight on PACE Result

News related to the NASA PACE mission

pace.oceansciences.org

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Aug 22

This week we celebrated the #NASAPACEMission “500 Days (And Counting) In Orbit” milestone, hosted by the #HARP2 team at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. I’ve been on the mission 3 yrs but the it’s been going on 10+ yrs and it was a well-earned day to enjoy w colleagues 🍻

A picture of one of the presentations by the HARP2 team, which is one of the payloads on PACE. It’s a polarimeter developed at UMBC and the presentation was a lighthearted story about the struggles of the concept, development, testing, and delivery of the instrument to Goddard prior to integrating it to the PACE observatory. Very timely!

Fun little scale model of PACE on a standard sized Earth globe. The PACE model is not to proportional scale though.. it would dwarf us and violate at least 12 laws of physics. And likely not enough precious metals in the world to build it. BUT it would keep our hardware ppl busy :)

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Aug 21

A belated but HAPPY #NationalLatinaDay for those who celebrate 😌 🇲🇽 Also wanna plug the #Latinsky community ✨

CA Latino Legislative Caucus @calatinocaucus.bsky.social · Aug 20

✨¡Feliz National Latina Day! ✨Today we celebrate the amazing Latina moms, daughters, sisters, workers, community leaders, and changemakers who strengthen and uplift our communities every single day.

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Jul 9

That’s a really helpful analogy, I’ll be using it!

Reposted by Corrine 🌎🛰️

Christian Elliott @christianelliott.me · Jun 30

NASA just won an Emmy for our live broadcast of the total solar eclipse last year. We produced a documentary film about the James Webb Space Telescope that's out in theaters and on Netflix. We have podcasts, we write feature stories. People wear the agency logo on t-shirts. We're still getting cut.

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · Jun 30

You hear this a lot on the left but it isn't true. USAID did not "fail to tell its story to Americans," the right targeted the agency with lies and misinformation.

Ultimately this narrative turns conservative attacks into even more calls for the left to reform.
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/o...

I Worked at U.S.A.I.D. for Over 8 Years. This Is Our Biggest Failure.

I worked for U.S.A.I.D. in East Africa over the past eight and a half years, selling the story of American foreign aid to people in Rwanda, Ethiopia and Kenya. Our inability to tell this same story to Americans is our great failure. It is what put the agency into the Department of Government Efficiency’s wood chipper first. It’s what allows Secretary of State Marco Rubio to get away with insisting that lifesaving humanitarian aid would continue while the administration drastically slashed its funding. And it’s what I fear will let this presidency cast the deaths from the next preventable catastrophe as unstoppable or inevitable.

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Jun 28

Words fail to describe how heartbroken I am after reading this post.

NOAA Climate.gov @climate.noaa.gov · Jun 27

Our final updates have been posted to the Climate.gov website, and this will be our final post to our social media channels.

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 25

So what about earth and planetary science makes the US so special? These iconic images were made possible by Americans for all humans on earth in the name of science. NASA science is facing a 50% cut in funding and is at risk of losing its role as the leading space science agency. Unfathomable.

The photograph, taken on December 7, 1972 onboard the Apollo 17 spacecraft on its way to the Moon, is one of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence. Source: NASA

Hubble Space Telescope’s “Pillars of Creation” image is so familiar that many people can call it by name without so much as a glance at their phone. Source: NASA

“Taken by Voyager 1 on 14 February 1990 as it departed our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, it turned it around for one last look at its home planet and captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size.”
Excerpt from planetarysociety.org

“On April 19, 2021, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made history when it completed the first powered, controlled flight on the Red Planet. Here is a “selfie” shortly after it deployed from the belly of the Perseverance Rover days before that flight.

would make no more than five test flights in 30 days, the helicopter eventually completed 72 flights in just under 3 years, soaring higher and faster than previously imagined. Ingenuity embarked on a new mission as an operations demonstration, serving as an aerial scout for scientists and rover planners, and for engineers ready to learn more about Perseverance’s landing gear debris.

In its final phase, the helicopter entered a new engineering demonstration phase where it executed experimental flight tests that further expanded the team’s knowledge of the vehicle’s aerodynamic limits.

It flew for the last time on January 18, 2024.”

Source: nasa.gov (a little sazon by me lol)

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 25

I took the day off yesterday to advocate for planetary science with new and old friends at @planetarysociety.bsky.social. One of my fave things about earth and planetary science is also something that makes the US special, so any proposed cut to science is very concerning to me as an American.

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 23

A huge privilege and very grateful for it 😊🌔

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 23

Truly one of the best. It reflects the best of humanity, imo.

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 22

For those who may not know… this camera took this pic btw

One of the most famous pictures ever taken… Earthrise.

From the nasa website:

This iconic picture shows Earth peeking out from beyond the lunar surface as the first crewed spacecraft circumnavigated the Moon.

Taken aboard Apollo 8 by Bill Anders, this iconic picture shows Earth peeking out from beyond the lunar surface as the first crewed spacecraft circumnavigated the Moon, with astronauts Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell aboard.

Image Credit: NASA

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 22

finally got around to collecting the annual special edition cherry blossom metro card loot drop 🌸

picture of the annual WMATA SmarTrip National Cherry Blossom Festival design metro card. It’s a pretty water colored theme with bright colors and big flowers, and purples, blues, and yellows in the background leading to the Jefferson memorial and the Washington monument.

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 22

Some Mars fun: Curiosity Cold Brew at the Mars Cafe. Which has gratuitous Mastcam-z landscapes of the Jezero crater rim on the walls—including my favorite outcrop in the entire solar system, Kodiak! The line was too long to try the cold brew but I’ll try it next time 🙂

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 22

I saw a version of an old dear friend of mine, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is the 1st NASA mission I worked on and kicked off my NASA career almost a decade ago (😳😅). I was a moon mapper!

Fun fact: the LRO control room at Goddard is now the PACE control room, the mission I work on now.

Photos of the LRO Control room at NASA GSFC

Selfie of me and the LRO Structural Verification Unit that was used to test the spacecraft structure during the severe vibrations of launch (vibe testing!).

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 22

I went to the National Air and Space Museum today, which was nicely timed after a particularly hard work week, and it felt like a reminder of what we’re fighting for. And BOY what a great reminder. I got to see THE Apollo 8 Hasselblad camera… yep, I fangirled out in the corner a bit.

This Camera Captured the World

Using this Hasselblad camera, astronauts photographed Earth on the first crewed round-the-Moon space journey—the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968.
An astonishing image taken by William Anders was soon immortalized as Earthrise, becoming a profound symbol for humanity of Earth's place in the cosmos. The photo was adopted as an icon of the environmental movement.
Hasselblad 500EL 70 mm Camera, 1968
Transferred from Kansas Cosmosphere
Remember to Take Photos!
This detailed checklist reminded astronaut William Anders to take photographs-for scientific purposes and to convey the story of space travel to everyone back home.
William Anders' Checklist Apollo 8, 1968

This detailed checklist reminded astronaut William Anders to take photographs-for scientific purposes and to convey the story of space travel to everyone back home.
William Anders' Checklist Apollo 8, 1968

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 22

Iconic pic. A great day on Mars

Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 18

Outside of the perimeter but what’s your take on Lucky Buns?

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 18

The RIFs at NASA began last week but haven’t reach us in the Science Mission Directorate yet. They will soon. Very few words can describe how devastated we already are.

nasawatch.com/personnel-ne...

NASA RIF Tiger Team Rollout Meeting (Update)

There is going to be a "Tiger Team Rollout" meeting

nasawatch.com

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 18

A mini Curiosity Rover with Henry my office neighbor—a crossover episode I didn’t realize I needed!

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 14

odds weren’t great for clear skies in DC tonight BUT I went out anyway. during the tiniest window of opportunity I snapped one clear-ish phone pic of the blood moon eclipse in front of National Air and Space Museum 🥹🌖

not great pic of a very cloudy sky with one clearing between clouds where you can see a total lunar eclipse, which has a red-color appearance. I took it in front of the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 13

mmm lunar eclipse peach (what I thought I saw at first)

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 13

I really only listen to a few people when it comes to day to day economics and one of them is Kai Ryssdal and boy this is VERY concerning

Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · Mar 13

I'm honestly running out of words I can use on the air to describe what's happening in and to this economy

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Corrine 🌎🛰️ @corrinerojas.bsky.social · Mar 13

To put it lightly, I’ve been on edge this week. Tonight I took a long walk around campus and caught this view of the moonrise over Healy Hall. Tomorrow will bring us a full moon’s total eclipse with a coppery hue — a blood moon. And the date is the eve of the Ides of March. Poetry.

A photo of Georgetown University’s Healy Hall looking east towards a moonrise at dusk with an almost full moon.

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Reposted by Corrine 🌎🛰️

Andrew Jones @andrewjonesspace.bsky.social · Mar 11

The NASA LRO team has spotted the IM-2 Athena lander, near the center of Mons Mouton. Centre of the image, with the box showing an enlarged view. www.lroc.asu.edu/images/1409

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Reposted by Corrine 🌎🛰️

James Tuttle Keane @jtuttlekeane.bsky.social · Mar 7

**This would end space science as we know it.**

I’d probably be out of a job.

Successful ongoing missions would be turned off.

Future missions would be axed.

Some research centers (NASA & non-NASA) would likely dissolve.

The Planetary Society @planetarysociety.bsky.social · Mar 7

There are reports The White House is considering a 50% cut to NASA’s science programs, and 25% of its overall budget, which would be catastrophic for both current and planned missions. But, there is still time for the administration to reconsider. Read our full statement ⬇️

The Planetary Society: reported cuts to NASA would amount to an…

The Planetary Society, the world’s largest independent space interest organization, issued a statement in response to recent reports that the White House…

www.planetary.org

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