Mission patches for Space Horizons.
The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) orbits the sun at the L1 Lagrange point where the gravity of the Sun and Earth cancel each other out. Its instruments watch the sunlit side of the Earth and the Sun simultaneously, collecting data on how the solar wind interacts with Earth's atmosphere. I chose to show only the Sun and Earth, with the name interacting with the planet using the yellow of the Sun and the blue of the Earth. Below the name is its COSPAR designation.
The Kepler space observatory was launched in 2009 to find earth size exoplanets in the habitable zone (where liquid water is possible) of other stars in our galaxy. By 2015, 1,000 exoplanets had been discovered using the transition method, where small drops in a star's output indicate a planet blocking light. The design shows a small planet transiting a star, as in a multiple exposure. Beneath the name is its COSPAR designation. Kepler's structure is hexagonal in shape, so I chose a hexagon for the patch outline.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) use three instruments to collect data at high speed that reveals to us what is happening inside the sun and the solar weather flowing out. I made an iconic sun with varying rays and circles inside because the data shows how variable the sun is. the small dots outside of the sun represent the charged particles of the solar wind.
