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Roman’s Heat-Vision Eyes Are Complete!
Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team recently flight-certified all 24 of the detectors the mission needs. When Roman launches in the mid-2020s, the detectors will convert starlight into electrical signals, which will then be decoded into 300-megapixel images of huge patches of the sky. These images will help astronomers explore all kinds of things, from rogue planets and black holes to dark matter and dark energy.
Eighteen of the detectors will be used in Roman’s camera, while another six will be reserved as backups. Each detector has 16 million tiny pixels, so Roman’s images will be super sharp, like Hubble’s.
The image above shows one of Roman’s detectors compared to an entire cell phone camera, which looks tiny by comparison. The best modern cell phone cameras can provide around 12-megapixel images. Since Roman will have 18 detectors that have 16 million pixels each, the mission will capture 300-megapixel panoramas of space.
The combination of such crisp resolution and Roman’s huge view has never been possible on a space-based telescope before and will make the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope a powerful tool in the future.
Learn more about the Roman Space Telescope!
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Who Was Mary W. Jackson?
On June 24, 2020, NASA announced the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., was to be named after Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA.
Jackson’s story — along with those of her colleagues Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Christine Darden — was popularized with the release of the “Hidden Figures” movie, based on Margot Lee Shetterly’s book by the same name.
Today, as the accomplishments of these women are brought to light, we celebrate them as Modern Figures — hidden no longer. Despite their recent recognition, we cannot forget the challenges that women and BIPOC faced and continue to face in the STEM fields.
Background
Jackson showed talent for math and science at an early age. She was born in 1921 in Hampton, Virginia, and attended the all-Black George P. Phenix Training School where she graduated with honors. She graduated from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in 1942 with a bachelor of science degree in both mathematics and physical sciences.
Jackson worked several jobs before arriving at the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), the precursor organization to NASA. She was a teacher, a receptionist, and a bookkeeper — in addition to becoming a mother — before accepting a position with the NACA Langley Aeronautical Laboratory’s segregated West Area Computers in 1951, where her supervisor was Dorothy Vaughan.
Accomplishments
After two years in West Computing, Jackson was offered a computing position to work in the 4-foot by 4-foot Supersonic Pressure Tunnel. She was also encouraged to enter a training program that would put her on track to become an engineer — however, she needed special permission from the City of Hampton to take classes in math and physics at then-segregated Hampton High School.
She completed the courses, earned the promotion, and in 1958 became NASA’s first African-American female engineer. That same year, she co-authored her first report, “Effects of Nose Angle and Mach Number on Transition on Cones at Supersonic Speeds.” By 1975, she had authored or co-authored 12 NACA and NASA technical publications — most focused on the behavior of the boundary layer of air around an airplane.
Legacy
Jackson eventually became frustrated with the lack of management opportunities for women in her field. In 1979, she left engineering to become NASA Langley’s Federal Women’s Program Manager to increase the hiring and promotion of NASA’s female mathematicians, engineers, and scientists.
Not only was she devoted to her career, Jackson was also committed to the advancement of her community. In the 1970s, she helped the students in the Hampton King Street Community Center build their own wind tunnel and run experiments. She and her husband Levi took in young professionals in need of guidance. She was also a Girl Scout troop leader for more than three decades.
Jackson retired from Langley in 1985. Never accepting the status quo, she dedicated her life to breaking barriers for minorities in her field. Her legacy reminds us that inclusion and diversity are needed to live up to NASA’s core values of teamwork and excellence.
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The First Man in Space
On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into space.
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Instrument Panel on Vostok 1
The instrument panel of the Vostok 3KA-3 (Vostok 1), journey into space with the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
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Mars Perseverance Rover Mission Landing Site
The Jezero crater (circle) on Mars was where the Mars Perseverance rover landed.
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Mars 2020 Perseverance
Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission is to search for signs of ancient life on the red planet.
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Mars Perseverance Rover Head Section
The Mars Perseverance rover with its several cameras: SuperCam (Remote Micro-Imager), Mastcam-Z and Navcam.
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july 7, 2021
one of those weeks where i set up the weekly spread on a wednesday
june 17, 2021
only took me half the semester, but i'm finally feeling a little more motivated to study!! + reminiscing over last summer when i could actually go places and not have to do schoolwork
january 10, 2021
sad that my winter break ends tomorrow but happy that there were snowy days & lots of reading. this semester i'm taking 2 computer science courses, engineering in society, design II, and greek & roman mythology.
november 4, 2020
managed to have a decent study day today despite all of the distractions right now; wish me luck on my midterm tomorrow!
What to do if you burn your microcontroler during finals week
Cry.
Way to go, dumbass
I feel kinda bad for NASA and SpaceX sincerely. Today they are writing a new chapter in the history of human space travel, an event that should be a shining beacon of hope for the future and pride for the US and for the STEM field in general, that is sadly overshadowed by the horrific murder of George Floyd by those heinous beasts disguised as cops.
yesterday i got vaccinated and i woke up with a headache and pain in my arm, now I'm feeling better and also, i spent all the morning finishing my chemistry report for Friday, I wrote like 4 pages of it and is almost finished, i still haven't finished the introduction and conclusion, but I think I can do that at night or tomorrow after my algebra exam.
Sup bby, are you up for some, body, fluid mechanics? 😏
Grown ass professors be beefing with students half their age and having a quarter of their qualification for the sake of entertainment.
Bitches take on 7 minor projects, 3 certification courses, the most complex of electives and 4 recently picked-up hobbies and then expect beauty sleep, mental stability and good GPA all in one semester.
It's me. I am bitches
My engineering course to me every two minutes :
A cheap solution to heat problems:
A dear friend is working a factory job and has had heat stroke several times due to the recent heat wave. Said friend is in a financial position that limits options and resources. Time to put my overpriced engineering education to work. Here's what we came up with.
Resources required:
Watter bottle, preferably plastic though any will work.
Long sleeve T shirt
Implementation:
Fill watter bottle with water and place in freezer with lid removed
Roll in T-shirt
Use sleeves to tie around body like a belt/fanny pack.
Limitations: This is a minimal, temporary solution. Once the ice is melted it will no longer help.
Benefits: Acess to a freezer, a bottle, water, and a shirt is all that is required.
“The College Experience” On Being the Sober Friend
Many people seem to think that the Sober Friend, the one who doesn’t party, but will come get you and fix you up misses out on some fundamental aspects of the college experience. And yet in looking back I believe I got to experience some of the highlights of being drunk and/or high without the expense of the traditional substances. Then again, there were still the health services fees and engineering textbooks cost more than boose so...?
1. Master of Vomiting.
Yep...Noro. I can vomit while practically laying down on the toilet. The trick is to strangle the piping. I’m also quite skilled at running while nauseated and, knock on wood, haven’t missed the toilet yet.
2. Waking up on the floor + awkward interactions with someone I barely know.
Whatever you do, don’t take a shower when you’re severely dehydrated.
3. Inability to walk a line
Albuterol after I had the flu
4. Memory Loss
Severe sleep deprivation will do that.
5. Bloodshot eyes
Sleep is for people who don’t have a major statics project and circuits and a thermo exam due the same day.
6. Anti-skunk smell procedures
The people across from me didn’t have to wash their laundry but I wasn’t about to get suspended for their lack of caution and found myself freebreeze-ing my room with the best of em’.
7. The munchies
No excuse for this one. Three weeks four boxes of marshmallow fruit loops.
“Torrefaction” and the Potato Principal
There comes a point at which my mind no longer wants to absorb new information and I become extremely distractible. Junk food and music become the primary motivators for staying at my desk. This is the point at which I consider my mind a fried potato.
Tonight that point was hit with the word “Torrefaction,” which describes a process of heating a biomass fuel in an inert atmosphere (like nitrogen) to make it into a more efficiently burning source. Pretty cool right?
I’m working on understanding some Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) techniques for something I’m writing and hence came across the word.
Today began at 9am with some light physics (literally physics regarding light)
Continued on with some dynamics that took way longer than it should have
Came back around to TGA hit “Torrefaction” and now my mind is burnt toast.
Aside from interuptions for food, hygene and laundry (bothersome repeated tasks we’ve yet to find ways out of) today has been dedicated to engineering and yet here we are nearing midnight, still with more to do and a fried potato of a mind.
One piece of information, a test of character.
If you could give the man on the tractor only one piece of information, and had to choose between the following, which would you choose?
a. the moment produced about the point at base of the tree is (-16.5i + 5.51j)kN-m
Or
b. Your distance from the tree is less than its height, if the tree falls faster than your tractor moves... you splat
Credit due to R.C. Hibbeler Statics&Dynamics 14ed
How to do engineering homework: An informative guide and window into life.
1) Procrastinate while convincing yourself you're being productive
2) Find a Location to work
3) Write down the problem
4) Get halfway through and go to staple something
5) Break stapler...
Spend the next, far too long period of time disassembling and reassembling your stapler until several things occur:
- you are fully confident that in an exam situation you could, completely disassemble and reassemble your stapler in less than 5 minutes
- the components of the stapler get so worn out from disassembly and reassembly that the stapler no longer functions quite right in spite of being once more reassembled
-it occurs to you that you will not be asked to reassemble your stapler during an exam and you will be asked to turn in this homework
Addendum: After this particular event occurs, admit it to other engineering students. Upon request demonstrate your ability to disassemble and reassemble your stapler completely and pass off the stapler to another engineering student who obtains an initial 30 minutes of joy from disassembly and reassembly of the stapler. The stapler which still worked marginally after first rounds of reassembly no longer functions from wear. Gift it to the other engineering student and resolve to purchase a new stapler.