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nasa
2 months ago

5 Unpredictable Things Swift Has Studied (and 1 It’s Still Looking For)

Our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory — Swift for short — is celebrating its 20th anniversary! The satellite studies cosmic objects and events using visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray light. Swift plays a key role in our efforts to observe our ever-changing universe. Here are a few cosmic surprises Swift has caught over the years — plus one scientists hope to see.

This sequence shows X-rays from the initial flash of GRB 221009A that could be detected for weeks as dust in our galaxy scattered the light back to us. This resulted in the appearance of an extraordinary set of expanding rings, here colored magenta, with a bright yellow spot at the center. The images were captured over 12 days by the X-ray Telescope aboard NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. Credit: NASA/Swift/A. Beardmore (University of Leicester)

#BOAT

Swift was designed to detect and study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. These bursts occur all over the sky without warning, with about one a day detected on average. They also usually last less than a minute – sometimes less than a few seconds – so you need a telescope like Swift that can quickly spot and precisely locate these new events.

In the fall of 2022, for example, Swift helped study a gamma-ray burst nicknamed the BOAT, or brightest of all time. The image above depicts X-rays Swift detected for 12 days after the initial flash. Dust in our galaxy scattered the X-ray light back to us, creating an extraordinary set of expanding rings.

This gif illustrates what happens when an unlucky star strays too close to a monster black hole. Gravitational forces create intense tides that break the star apart into a stream of gas. The trailing part of the stream escapes the system, while the leading part swings back around, surrounding the black hole with a disk of debris. This cataclysmic phenomenon is called a tidal disruption event. This image is watermarked “Artist’s concept.” Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA/GESTAR)

Star meets black hole

Tidal disruptions happen when an unlucky star strays too close to a black hole. Gravitational forces break the star apart into a stream of gas, as seen above. Some of the gas escapes, but some swings back around the black hole and creates a disk of debris that orbits around it.

These events are rare. They only occur once every 10,000 to 100,000 years in a galaxy the size of our Milky Way. Astronomers can’t predict when or where they’ll pop up, but Swift’s quick reflexes have helped it observe several tidal disruption events in other galaxies over its 20-year career.

This gif illustrates various features of a galaxy's outburst. The black hole in the center is surrounded by a puffy orange disk of gas and dust. Above and below the center of the disk are blue cones representing the corona. At the start of the sequence, a flash of purple-white light travels from the edges of the disk inward, until the whole thing is illuminated. That light fades and then there is a flare of blue light above and below the center. This image is watermarked “Artist’s concept.” Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Active galaxies

Usually, we think of galaxies – and most other things in the universe – as changing so slowly that we can’t see the changes. But about 10% of the universe’s galaxies are active, which means their black hole-powered centers are very bright and have a lot going on. They can produce high-speed particle jets or flares of light. Sometimes scientists can catch and watch these real-time changes.

For example, for several years starting in 2018, Swift and other telescopes observed changes in a galaxy’s X-ray and ultraviolet light that led them to think the galaxy’s magnetic field had flipped 180 degrees.

This animation depicts a giant flare on the surface of a magnetar. The object’s glowing surface, covered in swirls of lighter and darker blue, fills the lower right corner of the image. The powerful magnetic field surrounding this stellar corpse is represented by thin white speckled loops that arc off the surface and continue past the edges of the image. A starquake rocks the surface of the magnetar, abruptly affecting its magnetic field and producing a quick, powerful pulse of X-rays and gamma rays, represented by a magenta glow. The event also ejects electrons and positrons traveling at about 99% the speed of light. These are represented by a blue blob, which follows the gamma rays heading towards the upper left and off-screen. The image is watermarked “Artist’s concept.” Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (USRA/GESTAR)

Magnetic star remnants

Magnetars are a type of neutron star, a very dense leftover of a massive star that exploded in a supernova. Magnetars have the strongest magnetic fields we know of — up to 10 trillion times more intense than a refrigerator magnet and a thousand times stronger than a typical neutron star’s.

Occasionally, magnetars experience outbursts related to sudden changes in their magnetic fields that can last for months or even years. Swift detected such an outburst from a magnetar in 2020. The satellite’s X-ray observations helped scientists determine that the city-sized object was rotating once every 10.4 seconds.

This gif shows six snapshots of comet 2I/Borisov as it traveled through our solar system. They were captured with the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope aboard NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The first four images are a dark purple color with streaks of white traveling across them. Borisov is a faint white smudge in the center. The fifth image has a blue background with the same white streaks. The last image is just the blue background. The image is watermarked with “Ultraviolet” on the left side. On the right are rotating labels showing the date of each snapshot: Sept 27, Nov 1, Dec 1, Dec 21, Jan 14, Feb 17. Credit: NASA/Swift/Z. Xing et al. 2020

Comets

Swift has also studied comets in our own solar system. Comets are town-sized snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust. When one gets close to our Sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a giant glowing halo.

In 2019, Swift watched a comet called 2I/Borisov. Using ultraviolet light, scientists calculated that Borisov lost enough water to fill 92 Olympic-size swimming pools! (Another interesting fact about Borisov: Astronomers think it came from outside our solar system.)

This animation shows a spacecraft, NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, in orbit above Earth. Swift is composed of a long cylinder at the center, wrapped in golden foil. At the front of the cylinder is a silver sunshade protruding over several telescopes. Two black solar arrays are attached on either side of the cylinder, extending like wings. The animation begins with a view of Swift with Earth in the background. Then the camera pans along one side of the spacecraft until Swift is seen looking out into space. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

What's next for Swift?

Swift has studied a lot of cool events and objects over its two decades, but there are still a few events scientists are hoping it’ll see.

Swift is an important part of a new era of astrophysics called multimessenger astronomy, which is where scientists use light, particles, and space-time ripples called gravitational waves to study different aspects of cosmic events.

A cartoon of different cosmic messengers. On top are particles, which show as four different colored dots that have trails appearing behind them, evoking movement. In the middle is light, which is shown as a wave moving through space. On the bottom are gravitational waves. These are shown as a series of ovals that expand and contract in sequence to evoke the feeling of an elastic tube that is growing and shrinking in width. The image is watermarked “Artist’s concept.” Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

In 2017, Swift and other observatories detected light and gravitational waves from the same event, a gamma-ray burst, for the first time. But what astronomers really want is to detect all three messengers from the same event.

As Swift enters its 20th year, it’ll keep watching the ever-changing sky.

Keep up with Swift through NASA Universe on X, Facebook, and Instagram. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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nasa
5 months ago

Warm yourself by the fire, NASA style!

Look no further than this cozy and relaxing fireplace – complete with four RS-25 rocket engines to fill your hearth with light. (And 8.8 million pounds of thrust to power your party to the Moon.)

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nasa
9 months ago
Long shadows highlight Buzz Aldrin’s bootprint in the fine, gray lunar soil on the surface of the Moon. The bootprint looks somewhat rectangular, but is rounded at the toe and heel, with several parallel tread lines. Even in this small portion of the Moon’s surface, we can see that it’s pitted. This photo was taken during Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic moonwalk on July 20, 1969. Credit: NASA

One Giant Leap for Mankind

Millions of people around the globe will come together for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games later this month to witness a grand event—the culmination of years of training and preparation.

Fifty-five years ago this July, the world was watching as a different history-changing event was unfolding: the Apollo 11 mission was landing humans on the surface of another world for the first time. An estimated 650 million people watched on TV as Neil Armstrong reached the bottom of the ladder of the lunar module on July 20, 1969, and spoke the words, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

While the quest to land astronauts on the Moon was born from the space race with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, this moment was an achievement for the whole of humanity. To mark the world-embracing nature of the Moon landing, several tokens of world peace were left on the Moon during the astronauts’ moonwalk.

View of the commemorative plaque attached to the leg of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module (LM), Eagle under the LM’s ladder, engraved with the following words: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all of mankind.” It bears the signatures of the Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, Command Module pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., LM pilot along with the signature of the U.S. President Richard M. Nixon. Credit: NASA

“We came in peace for all mankind”

These words, as well as drawings of Earth’s western and eastern hemispheres, are etched on a metal plaque affixed to a leg of the Apollo 11 lunar lander. Because the base of the lander remained on the Moon after the astronauts returned, it is still there today as a permanent memorial of the historic landing.

Close-up of the small silicon disc left on the surface of the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts. Messages in several languages are imprinted into the disc. Around its outer edge are the words “From Planet Earth” and “July 1969.” Credit: NASA

Microscopic messages from kings, queens, and presidents

Another artifact left on the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts is a small silicon disc etched with goodwill messages from leaders of 74 countries around the world. Each message was reduced to be smaller than the head of a pin and micro-etched on a disc roughly 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) in diameter. Thailand’s message, translated into English, reads: "The Thai people rejoice in and support this historic achievement of Earth men, as a step towards Universal peace."

Curious to read what else was inscribed on the disk? Read the messages.

An olive branch made of gold that was left on the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts as a symbol of peace. Credit: NASA

An ancient symbol

The olive branch, a symbol of peace and conciliation in ancient Greek mythology, also found its way to the Moon in July 1969. This small olive branch made of gold was left on the lunar surface during Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s 2.5-hour moonwalk. The olive branch also featured on the Apollo 11 mission patches sewed on the crew’s spacesuits. Designed in part by command module pilot Michael Collins, the insignia shows a bald eagle landing on the Moon holding an olive branch in its talons.

In the blackness of space, the Earth is ¾ illuminated in this photo taken on July 17, 1969. Africa and the Arabian Peninsula are visible in this spectacular photo taken by the Apollo 11 astronauts on their trans-lunar coast toward the Moon. Credit: NASA

We go together

As NASA’s Artemis program prepares to again land astronauts on the Moon, including the first woman and the first person of color, this time we’re collaborating with commercial and international partners. Together we will make new scientific discoveries, establish the first long-term presence on the Moon, and inspire a new generation of explorers.

Is aerospace history your cup of tea? Be sure to check out more from NASA’s past at www.nasa.gov/history.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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nasa
1 year ago
This image shows a small spacecraft on a table enclosed on all sides except the one facing the camera. The sides of the enclosure are clear while the top has two dark gray panels with a light gray frame. The backside is also gray and reflects a strip of light from the room. The spacecraft’s body is a vertical golden rectangle. Shiny black solar panels extend to either side and are much wider than the spacecraft itself. There are a few wires connected to the table, which are visible underneath it. It’s watermarked, “Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

Tiny BurstCube's Tremendous Travelogue

Meet BurstCube! This shoebox-sized satellite is designed to study the most powerful explosions in the cosmos, called gamma-ray bursts. It detects gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.

BurstCube may be small, but it had a huge journey to get to space.

Julie Cox, a mechanical engineer at Goddard, presses aluminized tape to the BurstCube instrument in a laboratory. Julie is wearing a mask, blue lab coat, and gloves, and is holding silver tweezers in one hand. The instrument, which is sitting on a table covered in hardware and tools, has raised silver-colored metal cylinders on top of a flat plate with triangular and rectangular cutouts. A roll of tape sits on the table in the foreground. The image is watermarked with “Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

First, BurstCube was designed and built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Here you can see Julie Cox, an early career engineer, working on BurstCube’s gamma-ray detecting instrument in the Small Satellite Lab at Goddard.

BurstCube is a type of spacecraft called a CubeSat. These tiny missions give early career engineers and scientists the chance to learn about mission development — as well as do cool science!

This image shows a woman wearing a long-sleeved blue jacket and blue gloves. Her hair is bound up in a clip. She leans over a table, filling out a form. To the right, on the same table, is a shiny box within another clear box — the BurstCube satellite in its protective case. The dim room behind the woman is full of gray beams that cast shadows against the walls. There is an old white barn door in the far wall. The image is watermarked, “Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

Then, after assembling the spacecraft, the BurstCube team took it on the road to conduct a bunch of tests to determine how it will operate in space. Here you can see another early career engineer, Kate Gasaway, working on BurstCube at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

She and other members of the team used a special facility there to map BurstCube’s magnetic field. This will help them know where the instrument is pointing when it’s in space.

Three men in long-sleeved blue jackets, blue gloves, and red hard hats stand around a thermal vacuum chamber. The chamber has a square silver base and a conical white top. The man on the left is handing a wrench to a man standing on the base of the chamber. On the right, the third man looks up at the top of the chamber. They are in a lab with a high ceiling and lots of electrical equipment. An American flag hangs from the ceiling. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

The next stop was back at Goddard, where the team put BurstCube in a vacuum chamber. You can see engineers Franklin Robinson, Elliot Schwartz, and Colton Cohill lowering the lid here. They changed the temperature inside so it was very hot and then very cold. This mimics the conditions BurstCube will experience in space as it orbits in and out of sunlight.

A man in a long-sleeved blue jacket, khaki pants, striped socks, and blue shoes sits on a rooftop. In front of him sits a small, shiny, rectangular spacecraft on top of a black case. Bundles of cables connect to the spacecraft and snake off to the right. He’s looking up at a dusky sky, which behind him is streaked with puffy pink and purple clouds. The horizon shows a line of treetops. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

Then, up on a Goddard rooftop, the team — including early career engineer Justin Clavette — tested BurstCube’s GPS. This so-called open-sky test helps ensure the team can locate the satellite once it’s in orbit.

A black hard-shell box containing the tiny BurstCube satellite sits on a blue economy-class airplane seat by the window. The case has a blue circular NASA sticker, as well as a yellow square sticker, and three other multicolored stickers on the upper half of the case. It is strapped into the seat by a seatbelt. Outside of the window, the wing of the plane is visible, and beyond that, a faint view of the airport. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA/Julie Cox.”

The next big step in BurstCube’s journey was a flight to Houston! The team packed it up in a special case and took it to the airport. Of course, BurstCube got the window seat!

In this image, a figure in a checkered clean suit and blue gloves loads the BurstCube satellite into a long, gray, rectangular container on a blue table. BurstCube is a smaller rectangle, with gray sides and a shiny black top, where its solar panels rest. In the background, there’s another figure in a clean suit and gloves. There’s a slight reflection that shows this picture was taken through a window. The image is watermarked, “Credit: NASA/Lucia Tian.”

Once in Texas, the BurstCube team joined their partners at Nanoracks (part of Voyager Space) to get their tiny spacecraft ready for launch. They loaded the satellite into a rectangular frame called a deployer, along with another small satellite called SNoOPI (Signals of Opportunity P-band Investigation). The deployer is used to push spacecraft into orbit from the International Space Station.

This photograph shows a rocket launching. The bottom of the image is filled with green vegetation interspersed with blue water. The sky is blue, with white clouds visible in the distance. The rocket is in the air, about two-thirds of the way to the top, followed by a fiery tail. Directly below it, at ground level, is white and gray plume of smoke. This image is watermarked, “Credit: NASA/Glenn Benson”

From Houston, BurstCube traveled to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, where it launched on SpaceX’s 30th commercial resupply servicing mission on March 21, 2024. BurstCube traveled to the station along with some other small satellites, science experiments, as well as a supply of fresh fruit and coffee for the astronauts.

In this photograph, the CRS-30 cargo mission is shown docking with the International Space Station. Against a black background, a white cone — the cargo mission — is attached to a cylinder with a whitish top. There are boxes in the foreground. The image is watermarked, “Credit: NASA.”

A few days later, the mission docked at the space station, and the astronauts aboard began unloading all the supplies, including BurstCube!

In this animated GIF, a boxy white tube extends at a 45-degree angle from the bottom right-hand corner. After a moment, two small, dark, rectangular objects come out of the tube. These are the BurstCube and SNoOPI CubeSats. They’re very close together initially, but as they move out of frame, they start to separate. In the background is the blue marble of Earth streaked with white clouds, as seen from the International Space Station. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA.”

And finally, on April 18, 2024, BurstCube was released into orbit. The team will spend a month getting the satellite ready to search the skies for gamma-ray bursts. Then finally, after a long journey, this tiny satellite can embark on its big mission!

This is a photo of nine members of the BurstCube team. BurstCube is the shoebox-sized satellite sitting behind a clear case in the middle of the group. In the photo are three women and six men. Four people standing form a back row, and the remaining five kneel in front of them on a tile floor. Each wears a brightly colored protective jacket and some are attached by gray cords to the surfaces to help them avoid accumulating static electricity. On the ground in front of the team members is bright yellow caution tape. To the left of the image is additional equipment. The photo is watermarked “Credit NASA/Sophia Roberts.”

BurstCube wouldn’t be the spacecraft it is today without the input of many early career engineers and scientists. Are you interested in learning more about how you can participate in a mission like this one? There are opportunities for students in middle and high school as well as college!

Keep up on BurstCube’s journey with NASA Universe on X and Facebook. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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nasa
1 year ago
Chloe Mehring, a woman with shoulder length brown hair, stands for an official portrait in front of the United States (left) and NASA (right) flags. She wears a black blazer and a black top. Credit: NASA
Diane Dailey, a woman with long brown hair, stands for an official portrait in front of the United States (left) and NASA (right) flags. She wears a black blazer and a white top with lace detailing. Credit: NASA

And that’s a wrap! Thank you for all the great questions. We hope you learned a little bit about what it takes to work in mission control as a flight director.

If you’re hungry for more, you can read the latest installment of our First Woman graphic novel series, where fictional character Commander Callie Rodriguez embarks on the next phase of her trailblazing journey and leaves the Moon to take the helm at Mission Control.

Keep up with the flight directors, the Space Station, and the Artemis missions at the links below.

Flight directors: X

Artemis: Facebook: Facebook, Instagram, X

Space Station: Facebook, Instagram, X (@Space_Station), X( @ISS_Research)

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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nasa
1 year ago

How did you get to where you are now? and di you always know that this is where you wanted to end up?

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nasa
1 year ago
Chloe Mehring, a woman with shoulder-length brown hair, poses for a picture in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She wears a black blazer, and her arms are crossed as she smiles. Behind her are several desks lining an aisle. On the desks are many computer screens. Large screens line the walls with the logos of NASA and other space agencies, times, maps, and more information. Credit: NASA
Diane Dailey, a woman with brown hair, poses for a picture in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She wears a black blazer, and her arms are crossed as she smiles. Dailey stands at a desk with three monitors on it, as well as a telephone and several cords. Her nameplate, reading “Flight Director” is visible at the center of the photo. Behind her are several large screens lining the walls. Various information is displayed on those screens, but a map of the world and the Horizon Flight logo are most prominent. There are also people working at other desks in the room. Credit: NASA

Tumblr, this is Houston speaking! The flight directors Answer Time with Chloe Mehring and Diane Dailey is live. Stay tuned to learn about what happens in mission control, how to become a flight director, and what Hollywood sometimes gets wrong about the job. View ALL the answers HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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nasa
1 year ago
At top is Chloe Mehring, a woman with shoulder-length brown hair, poses for a picture in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She wears a black blazer, and her arms are crossed as she smiles. The words "Chloe Mehring" are underneath her arms. Behind her are several desks lining an aisle. On the desks are many computer screens. Large screens line the walls with the logos of NASA and other space agencies, times, maps, and more information. Diane Dailey (bottom), a woman with brown hair, poses for a picture in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. She wears a black blazer, and her arms are crossed as she smiles. Her name, "Diane Dailey" is written below her. Dailey stands at a desk with three monitors on it, as well as a telephone and several cords. Her nameplate, reading “Flight Director” is visible at the center of the photo. Behind her are several large screens lining the walls. Various information is displayed on those screens, but a map of the world and the Horizon Flight logo are most prominent. There are also people working at other desks in the room. In the center of the image is an orange many-pointed star shape. The text in the sticker says "Tumblr answer time." Credit: NASA, Tumblr

What’s It Like to Work in NASA’s Mission Control Center?

In the latest installment of our First Woman graphic novel series, we see Commander Callie Rodriguez embark on the next phase of her trailblazing journey, as she leaves the Moon to take the helm at Mission Control.

Two panels from the second issue of First Woman, NASA’s graphic novel series following fictional astronaut Callie Rodriguez. In the first panel, Callie, dressed in a suit, speaks to an astronaut while working at Mission Control. She says, “Commander! We’re getting updated readings from the surface. The weather’s changing rapidly. There’s a new dust storm at the landing site. You may have to assume manual control as you approach the surface. The decision will be yours.” The speech bubble overlaps into the second panel, which shows the many desks and computer monitors in Mission Control. On the screen, we can see the astronaut Callie is speaking to. Credit: NASA

Flight directors work in Mission Control to oversee operations of the International Space Station and Artemis missions to the Moon. They have a unique, overarching perspective focused on integration between all the systems that make a mission a success – flight directors have to learn a little about a lot.

Diane Dailey and Chloe Mehring were selected as flight directors in 2021. They’ll be taking your questions about what it’s like to lead teams of flight controllers, engineers, and countless professionals, both agencywide and internationally, in an Answer Time session on Nov. 28, 2023, from noon to 1 p.m. EST (9-10 a.m. PST) here on our Tumblr!

Like Callie, how did their unique backgrounds and previous experience, prepare them for this role? What are they excited about as we return to the Moon?

🚨 Ask your questions now by visiting https://nasa.tumblr.com/ask.

Diane Dailey started her career at NASA in 2006 in the space station Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) group. As an ECLSS flight controller, she logged more than 1,700 hours of console time, supported 10 space shuttle missions, and led the ECLSS team. She transitioned to the Integration and System Engineering (ISE) group, where she was the lead flight controller for the 10th and 21st Commercial Resupply Services missions for SpaceX. In addition, she was the ISE lead for NASA’s SpaceX Demo-1 and Demo-2 crew spacecraft test flights. Dailey was also a capsule communicator (Capcom) controller and instructor.

She was selected as a flight director in 2021 and chose her call sign of “Horizon Flight” during her first shift in November of that year. She has since served as the Lead Flight director for the ISS Expedition 68, led the development of a contingency spacewalk, and led a spacewalk in June to install a new solar array on the space station. She is currently working on development of the upcoming Artemis II mission and the Human Lander Systems which will return humanity to the moon. Dailey was raised in Lubbock, Texas, and graduated from Texas A&M University in College Station with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering. She is married and a mother of two. She enjoys cooking, traveling, and spending time outdoors.

Chloe Mehring started her NASA career in 2008 in the Flight Operations’ propulsion systems group and supported 11 space shuttle missions. She served as propulsion support officer for Exploration Flight Test-1, the first test flight of the Orion spacecraft that will be used for Artemis missions to the Moon. Mehring was also a lead NASA propulsion officer for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and served as backup lead for the Boeing Starliner spacecraft. She was accepted into the 2021 Flight Director class and worked her first shift in February 2022, taking on the call sign “Lion Flight”. Since becoming certified, she has worked over 100 shifts, lead the NG-17 cargo resupply mission team, and executed two United States spacewalks within 10 days of each other. She became certified as a Boeing Starliner Flight Director, sat console for the unmanned test flight in May 2022 (OFT-2) and will be leading the undock team for the first crewed mission on Starliner in the spring of next year. She originally is from Mifflinville, Pennsylvania, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from The Pennsylvania State University in State College. She is a wife, a mom to one boy, and she enjoys fitness, cooking and gardening.

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nasa
1 year ago
Space provides a dark backdrop for this image, with small twinkling stars dotting the background. At the center of the image is the artist’s illustration of the Psyche asteroid with deep craters and metal all around. The Psyche spacecraft is in the front, with the main body in the middle of large solar arrays on each side. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Let's Explore a Metal-Rich Asteroid 🤘

Between Mars and Jupiter, there lies a unique, metal-rich asteroid named Psyche. Psyche’s special because it looks like it is part or all of the metallic interior of a planetesimal—an early planetary building block of our solar system. For the first time, we have the chance to visit a planetary core and possibly learn more about the turbulent history that created terrestrial planets.

Here are six things to know about the mission that’s a journey into the past: Psyche.

Artist’s concept of the Psyche spacecraft orbiting the metal asteroid Psyche. At the center of the image is the spacecraft with large solar arrays on each side of the main body. At the bottom-right is the metal asteroid with peaks sticking out of the surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State Univ./Space Systems Loral/Peter Rubin

1. Psyche could help us learn more about the origins of our solar system.

After studying data from Earth-based radar and optical telescopes, scientists believe that Psyche collided with other large bodies in space and lost its outer rocky shell. This leads scientists to think that Psyche could have a metal-rich interior, which is a building block of a rocky planet. Since we can’t pierce the core of rocky planets like Mercury, Venus, Mars, and our home planet, Earth, Psyche offers us a window into how other planets are formed.

ALT text: Artist’s concept of the asteroid Psyche. The darkness of space takes up the entire background with small twinkly stars. Two large craters are at the center of the asteroid. The asteroid is mostly silvery with a few spots of copper on the surface. The word "Illustration" is printed at the bottom to the right of the asteroid. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Peter Rubin

2. Psyche might be different than other objects in the solar system.

Rocks on Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Earth contain iron oxides. From afar, Psyche doesn’t seem to feature these chemical compounds, so it might have a different history of formation than other planets.

If the Psyche asteroid is leftover material from a planetary formation, scientists are excited to learn about the similarities and differences from other rocky planets. The asteroid might instead prove to be a never-before-seen solar system object. Either way, we’re prepared for the possibility of the unexpected!

Two engineers, John Goldsten (left) and Sam Fix (right), work on the Gamma Ray/Neutron Spectrometer instrument at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Credit: Johns Hopkins APL/Craig Weiman

3. Three science instruments and a gravity science investigation will be aboard the spacecraft.

The three instruments aboard will be a magnetometer, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, and a multispectral imager. Here’s what each of them will do:

Magnetometer: Detect evidence of a magnetic field, which will tell us whether the asteroid formed from a planetary body

Gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer: Help us figure out what chemical elements Psyche is made of, and how it was formed

Multispectral imager: Gather and share information about the topography and mineral composition of Psyche

The gravity science investigation will allow scientists to determine the asteroid’s rotation, mass, and gravity field and to gain insight into the interior by analyzing the radio waves it communicates with. Then, scientists can measure how Psyche affects the spacecraft’s orbit.

A Hall-effect thruster emits a blue glow trailing behind the spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

4. The Psyche spacecraft will use a super-efficient propulsion system.

Psyche’s solar electric propulsion system harnesses energy from large solar arrays that convert sunlight into electricity, creating thrust. For the first time ever, we will be using Hall-effect thrusters in deep space.

Pictured in front of the spacecraft is Lindy Elkins-Tanton, being interviewed by a member of the media at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

5. This mission runs on collaboration.

To make this mission happen, we work together with universities, and industry and NASA to draw in resources and expertise.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the mission and is responsible for system engineering, integration, and mission operations, while NASA’s Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Services Program manages launch operations and procured the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Working with Arizona State University (ASU) offers opportunities for students to train as future instrument or mission leads. Mission leader and Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton is also based at ASU.

Finally, Maxar Technologies is a key commercial participant and delivered the main body of the spacecraft, as well as most of its engineering hardware systems.

Members of the Psyche team pose for a photo at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

6. You can be a part of the journey.

Everyone can find activities to get involved on the mission’s webpage. There's an annual internship to interpret the mission, capstone courses for undergraduate projects, and age-appropriate lessons, craft projects, and videos.

You can join us for a virtual launch experience, and, of course, you can watch the launch with us on Oct. 12, 2023, at 10:16 a.m. EDT!

For official news on the mission, follow us on social media and check out NASA’s and ASU’s Psyche websites.

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A scattering of red-orange and blue stars fill the frame of the black background in space. Interstellar gas and dust at the center-right of the image is covering the star cluster and altering the view to see more red wavelengths. Credit: NASA, ESA, ESA/Hubble, Roger Cohen (RU)

Pumpkin space latte, anyone? ☕

Hubble captured this festive array of stars, Terzan 12, found in the Milky Way about 15,000 light-years from Earth. The stars in this cluster are bound together by gravity in a sphere-like shape and are shrouded in gas and dust. As the starlight travels through that gas and dust to Earth, blue light scatters, leaving the redder wavelengths to come through.

Download the full-resolution image here.

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In this multiwavelength image, the central object resembles a semi-transparent, spinning toy top in shades of purple and magenta against a black background. The top-like structure appears to be slightly falling toward the right side of the image. At its center is a bright spot. This is the pulsar that powers the nebula. A stream of material is spewing forth from the pulsar in a downward direction, constituting what would be the part of a top that touches a surface while it is spinning. Wispy purple light accents regions surrounding the object. This image combines data from NASA's Chandra, Hubble, and Spitzer telescopes. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: NASA-JPL-Caltech

Navigating Deep Space by Starlight

On August 6, 1967, astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell noticed a blip in her radio telescope data. And then another. Eventually, Bell Burnell figured out that these blips, or pulses, were not from people or machines.

This photograph shows astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell smiling into a camera. She is wearing glasses, a pink collared shirt, and a black cardigan. She is holding a yellow pencil above a piece of paper with a red line across it. There is a tan lampshade and several books in the background. The image is watermarked “Copyright: Robin Scagell/Galaxy Picture Library.”

The blips were constant. There was something in space that was pulsing in a regular pattern, and Bell Burnell figured out that it was a pulsar: a rapidly spinning neutron star emitting beams of light. Neutron stars are superdense objects created when a massive star dies. Not only are they dense, but neutron stars can also spin really fast! Every star we observe spins, and due to a property called angular momentum, as a collapsing star gets smaller and denser, it spins faster. It’s like how ice skaters spin faster as they bring their arms closer to their bodies and make the space that they take up smaller.

This animation depicts a distant pulsar blinking amidst a dark sky speckled with colorful stars and other objects. The pulsar is at the center of the image, glowing purple, varying in brightness and intensity in a pulsating pattern. As the camera pulls back, we see more surrounding objects, but the pulsar continues to blink. The image is watermarked “Artist’s concept.” Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

The pulses of light coming from these whirling stars are like the beacons spinning at the tops of lighthouses that help sailors safely approach the shore. As the pulsar spins, beams of radio waves (and other types of light) are swept out into the universe with each turn. The light appears and disappears from our view each time the star rotates.

A small neutron star spins at the center of this animation. Two purple beams of light sweep around the star-filled sky, emanating from two spots on the surface of the neutron star, and one beam crosses the viewer’s line of sight with a bright flash. The image is watermarked “Artist’s concept.” Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

After decades of studying pulsars, astronomers wondered—could they serve as cosmic beacons to help future space explorers navigate the universe? To see if it could work, scientists needed to do some testing!

First, it was important to gather more data. NASA’s NICER, or Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer, is a telescope that was installed aboard the International Space Station in 2017. Its goal is to find out things about neutron stars like their sizes and densities, using an array of 56 special X-ray concentrators and sensitive detectors to capture and measure pulsars’ light.

This time-lapse of our Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) shows how it scans the skies to study pulsars and other X-ray sources from its perch aboard the International Space Station. NICER is near the center of the image, a white box mounted on a platform with a shiny panel on one side and dozens of cylindrical mirrors on the opposite side. Around it are other silver and white instruments and scaffolding. NICER swivels and pans to track objects, and some other objects nearby move as well. The station’s giant solar panels twist and turn in the background. Movement in the sequence, which represents a little more than one 90-minute orbit, is sped up by 100 times. Credit: NASA.

But how can we use these X-ray pulses as navigational tools? Enter SEXTANT, or Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology. If NICER was your phone, SEXTANT would be like an app on it.  

During the first few years of NICER’s observations, SEXTANT created an on-board navigation system using NICER’s pulsar data. It worked by measuring the consistent timing between each pulsar’s pulses to map a set of cosmic beacons.

This photo shows the NICER payload on the International Space Station. Against a black background, tall rectangular solar panels that appear as a golden mesh rise from the bottom of the photo, passing through its middle area. In front of that are a variety of gray and white shapes that make up instruments and the structure of the space station near NICER. Standing above from them, attached to a silver pole, is the rectangular box of the NICER telescope, which is pointing its concentrators up and to the right. Credit: NASA.

When calculating position or location, extremely accurate timekeeping is essential. We usually rely on atomic clocks, which use the predictable fluctuations of atoms to tick away the seconds. These atomic clocks can be located on the ground or in space, like the ones on GPS satellites. However, our GPS system only works on or close to Earth, and onboard atomic clocks can be expensive and heavy. Using pulsar observations instead could give us free and reliable “clocks” for navigation. During its experiment, SEXTANT was able to successfully determine the space station’s orbital position!

A photo of the International Space Station as seen from above. The left and right sides of the image are framed by the station's long, rectangular solar panels, with a complex array of modules and hardware in the middle. The background is taken up fully by the surface of the Earth; lakes, snow-capped mountains, and a large body of water are faintly visible beneath white clouds. Credit: NASA

We can calculate distances using the time taken for a signal to travel between two objects to determine a spacecraft’s approximate location relative to those objects. However, we would need to observe more pulsars to pinpoint a more exact location of a spacecraft. As SEXTANT gathered signals from multiple pulsars, it could more accurately derive its position in space.

This animation shows how triangulating the distances to multiple pulsars could help future space explorers determine their location. In the first sequence, the location of a spaceship is shown in a blue circle in the center of the image against a dark space background. Three pulsars, shown as spinning beams of light, appear around the location. They are circled in green and then connected with dotted lines. Text on screen reads “NICER data are also used in SEXTANT, an on-board demonstration of pulsar-based navigation.” The view switches to the inside of a futuristic spacecraft, looking through the windshield at the pulsars. An illuminated control panel glows in blues and purples. On-screen text reads “This GPS-like technology may revolutionize deep space navigation through the solar system and beyond.” Credit: NASA’s Johnson Space Center

So, imagine you are an astronaut on a lengthy journey to the outer solar system. You could use the technology developed by SEXTANT to help plot your course. Since pulsars are reliable and consistent in their spins, you wouldn’t need Wi-Fi or cell service to figure out where you were in relation to your destination. The pulsar-based navigation data could even help you figure out your ETA!

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launched on the Artemis I flight test. With Artemis I, NASA sets the stage for human exploration into deep space, where astronauts will build and begin testing the systems near the Moon needed for lunar surface missions and exploration to other destinations farther from Earth. This image shows a SLS rocket against a dark, evening sky and clouds of smoke coming out from the launch pad. This is all reflected on the water in the foreground of the photo. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

None of these missions or experiments would be possible without Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s keen eye for an odd spot in her radio data decades ago, which set the stage for the idea to use spinning neutron stars as a celestial GPS. Her contribution to the field of astrophysics laid the groundwork for research benefitting the people of the future, who yearn to sail amongst the stars.  

Keep up with the latest NICER news by following NASA Universe on X and Facebook and check out the mission’s website. For more on space navigation, follow @NASASCaN on X or visit NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation website.  

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The first anniversary image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays star birth like it’s never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. It is a relatively small, quiet stellar nursery, but you’d never know it from Webb’s chaotic close-up. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red. Some stars display the telltale shadow of a circumstellar disk, the makings of future planetary systems. The young stars at the center of many of these disks are similar in mass to the Sun, or smaller. The heftiest in this image is the star S1, which appears amid a glowing cave it is carving out with its stellar winds in the lower half of the image. The lighter-colored gas surrounding S1 consists of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a family of carbon-based molecules that are among the most common compouds found in space. Download the full-resolution version from the Space Telescope Science Institute. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and K. Pontoppidan (STScI). Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)

The James Webb Space Telescope has just completed a successful first year of science. Let’s celebrate by seeing the birth of Sun-like stars in this brand-new image from the Webb telescope!

This is a small star-forming region in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. At 390 light-years away, it's the closest star-forming region to Earth. There are around 50 young stars here, all of them similar in mass to the Sun, or smaller. The darkest areas are the densest, where thick dust cocoons still-forming protostars. Huge red bipolar jets of molecular hydrogen dominate the image, appearing horizontally across the upper third and vertically on the right. These occur when a star first bursts through its natal envelope of cosmic dust, shooting out a pair of opposing jets into space like a newborn first stretching her arms out into the world. In contrast, the star S1 has carved out a glowing cave of dust in the lower half of the image. It is the only star in the image that is significantly more massive than the Sun.

Thanks to Webb’s sensitive instruments, we get to witness moments like this at the beginning of a star’s life. One year in, Webb’s science mission is only just getting started. The second year of observations has already been selected, with plans to build on an exciting first year that exceeded expectations. Here’s to many more years of scientific discovery with Webb.

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Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI)

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1 year ago
The background is mostly dark. At the center is a dark orange-brownish circle, surrounded by several blazing bright, thick, horizontal whiteish rings. This is Saturn and its rings. There are three tiny organ-like dots in the image—one to the upper left of the planet, one to the direct left of the planet, and the lower left of the planet. These are some of Saturn’s moons: Dione, Enceladus, and Tethys, respectively. There is a slightly darker tint at the northern and southern poles of the planet. The rings surrounding Saturn are mostly broad, with a few singular narrow gaps between the broader rings. The innermost, darkest band is the C ring. Next to that is the brighter, wider B ring. Traveling farther outward, a small dark gap, the Cassini division creates a space before another thicker ring called the A ring. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. Tiscareno (SETI Institute), M. Hedman (University of Idaho), M. El Moutamid (Cornell University), M. Showalter (SETI Institute), L. Fletcher (University of Leicester), H. Hammel (AURA); image processing by J. DePasquale (STScI)

Of course Saturn brought its ring light.

On June 25, 2023, our James Webb Space Telescope made its first near-infrared observations of Saturn. The planet itself appears extremely dark at this infrared wavelength, since methane gas absorbs almost all the sunlight falling on the atmosphere. The icy rings, however, stay relatively bright, leading to Saturn’s unusual appearance in this image.

This new image of Saturn clearly shows details within the planet’s ring system, several of the planet’s moons (Dione, Enceladus, and Tethys), and even Saturn’s atmosphere in surprising and unexpected detail.

These observations from Webb are just a hint at what this observatory will add to Saturn’s story in the coming years as the science team delves deep into the data to prepare peer-reviewed results.

Download the full-resolution image, both labeled and unlabeled, from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

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This image shows an image of Earth from space. It was taken by the crew of the final Apollo mission as the crew made its way to the Moon. The Earth is round. At the bottom, while clouds surround the continent of Antarctica. As you move up, the landmass appears in the land is brown in color. The ocean appears in dark blue colors. Credit: NASA

Ways NASA Studies the Ocean

We live on a water planet. The ocean covers a huge part of the Earth's surface – earning it the name Blue Marble.

The ocean is one of Earth’s largest ecosystems and helps moderate Earth’s climate. NASA scientists spend a lot of time studying the ocean and how it is changing as Earth’s climate changes.

In the last few years, NASA has launched an array of missions dedicated to studying this precious part of our planet, with more to come. For World Oceans Month, which starts in June, here are new ways NASA studies the ocean.

1. Seeing the colors of the ocean 🎨

A new NASA mission called PACE will see Earth’s oceans in more color than ever before. The color of the ocean is determined by the interaction of sunlight with substances or particles present in seawater.

Scheduled to launch in 2024, PACE will help scientists assess ocean health by measuring the distribution of phytoplankton, tiny plants and algae that sustain the marine food web. PACE will also continue measuring key atmospheric variables associated with air quality and Earth's climate.

This moving image shows the SWOT satellite moving over a 75-mile swath of Earth. The background is black. The satellite moves from left to right in the upper part of if the illustration. The satellite is a gold cylinder with blue solar panels and a T-shaped piece extending from it. As it moves in a straight line from to back it beams down pink and green light to show how it collects measurements. Below the beams, a rainbow light appears to show data collection. At the bottom of the moving image, a square image of Earth appears, circling. The square contains clouds and blue water. In the middle, a landmass is covered in dark green patches. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

2. Surveying surface water around the globe 💧

The SWOT satellite, launched in late 2022, is studying Earth’s freshwater – from oceans and coasts to rivers, lakes and more – to create the first global survey of Earth’s surface water.

SWOT is able to measure the elevation of water, observing how major bodies of water are changing and detecting ocean features. The data SWOT collects will help scientists assess water resources, track regional sea level changes, monitor changing coastlines, and observe small ocean currents and eddies.

This illustration shows ocean currents around North and South America from space. The shape is a half-circle with a black background. To the left of the image, North and South American are a light brown color. North America is tilted to the left while South America is seen partially at the bottom center. From left to right, white circles cover earth showing the motion of a current. Under these white swirls, Earth’s Atlantic Ocean is signified in a light blue color. Credit: NASA

3. Setting sail to understand interactions between the ocean and atmosphere 🚢

With research aircraft, a research ship, and autonomous ocean instruments like gliders, NASA’s S-MODE mission is setting sail to study Earth’s oceans up close. Their goal? To understand ocean whirlpools, eddies and currents.

These swirling ocean features drive the give-and-take of nutrients and energy between the ocean and atmosphere and, ultimately, help shape Earth’s climate.

This image, taken from the HawkEye instrument, shows Baltimore and the Eastern Shore. The land is colored light brown and green. In the middle of the image, blue and green colored water shows the Atlantic Ocean to the right. The water comes in between the land, branching out to form the Chesapeake Bay itself. Credit: NASA; University of North Carolina, Wilmington; Cloudland Instruments; AAC-Clyde Space

4. Building ocean satellites the size of a shoebox 📦

NASA’s HawkEye instrument collects ocean color data and captures gorgeous images of Earth from its orbit just over 355 miles (575 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. It’s also aboard a tiny satellite measuring just 10cm x 10 cm x 30 cm – about the size of a shoebox!

​​This image shows dense blooming of phytoplankton. The plankton are represented in light and dark shades of green surrounding the island Svenskøya in the Svalbard archipelago located in the center of the image. The landmass is in the center of the image, colored in a light gray. Surrounding it is the plankton and blue water. Credit: NASA

5. Designing new missions to study Earth’s oceans! 🌊

NASA is currently designing a new space-based instrument called GLIMR that will help scientists observe and monitor oceans throughout the Gulf of Mexico, the southeastern U.S. coastline and the Amazon River plume that stretches to the Atlantic Ocean. GLIMR will also provide important information about oil spills, harmful algae blooms, water quality and more to local agencies.

This illustration shows animated movement of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite. At the bottom of the image, the Earth appears moving in a circular pattern. The planet is depicted with brown and green landmasses with water surrounding it. Above Earth, the satellite appears moving from left to right. The satellite is shaped in a triangle, colored in purple and gold. It beams down circular beams which simulate data collection. Credit: NASA/JPL

6. Taking the ocean to new heights ⬆️

The U.S.-European Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite is helping researchers measure the height of the ocean - a key component in understanding how Earth’s climate is changing.

This mission, which launched in 2020, has a serious job to do. It’s not only helping meteorologists improve their weather forecasts, but it’s helping researchers understand how climate change is changing Earth’s coastlines in real time.

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1 year ago

Behold—the space station of the future! (…from 1973)

An artist's concept illustrating a cutaway view of the Skylab 1 Orbital Workshop (OWS). The OWS is a circular space with several vertical layers with floors that look like golden honeycombs. Different parts of the workshop are labeled, like the control and display panel where an astronaut in an orange jumpsuit works, film vaults, experiment support system, and the shower. Credit: NASA

This artist’s concept gives a cutaway view of the Skylab orbital workshop, which launched 50 years ago on May 14, 1973. Established in 1970, the Skylab Program's goals were to enrich our scientific knowledge of Earth, the sun, the stars, and cosmic space; to study the effects of weightlessness on living organisms; to study the effects of the processing and manufacturing of materials in the absence of gravity; and to conduct Earth-resource observations.

Three crews visited Skylab and carried out 270 scientific and technical investigations in the fields of physics, astronomy, and biological sciences. They also proved that humans could live and work in outer space for extended periods of time, laying the groundwork for the International Space Station.

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2 years ago

Caution: Universe Work Ahead 🚧

We only have one universe. That’s usually plenty – it’s pretty big after all! But there are some things scientists can’t do with our real universe that they can do if they build new ones using computers.

The universes they create aren’t real, but they’re important tools to help us understand the cosmos. Two teams of scientists recently created a couple of these simulations to help us learn how our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope sets out to unveil the universe’s distant past and give us a glimpse of possible futures.

Caution: you are now entering a cosmic construction zone (no hard hat required)!

A black square covered in thousands of tiny red dots and thousands more slightly larger, white and yellow fuzzy blobs. Each speck is a simulated galaxy. Credit: M. Troxel and Caltech-IPAC/R. Hurt

This simulated Roman deep field image, containing hundreds of thousands of galaxies, represents just 1.3 percent of the synthetic survey, which is itself just one percent of Roman's planned survey. The full simulation is available here. The galaxies are color coded – redder ones are farther away, and whiter ones are nearer. The simulation showcases Roman’s power to conduct large, deep surveys and study the universe statistically in ways that aren’t possible with current telescopes.

One Roman simulation is helping scientists plan how to study cosmic evolution by teaming up with other telescopes, like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. It’s based on galaxy and dark matter models combined with real data from other telescopes. It envisions a big patch of the sky Roman will survey when it launches by 2027. Scientists are exploring the simulation to make observation plans so Roman will help us learn as much as possible. It’s a sneak peek at what we could figure out about how and why our universe has changed dramatically across cosmic epochs.

This video begins by showing the most distant galaxies in the simulated deep field image in red. As it zooms out, layers of nearer (yellow and white) galaxies are added to the frame. By studying different cosmic epochs, Roman will be able to trace the universe's expansion history, study how galaxies developed over time, and much more.

As part of the real future survey, Roman will study the structure and evolution of the universe, map dark matter – an invisible substance detectable only by seeing its gravitational effects on visible matter – and discern between the leading theories that attempt to explain why the expansion of the universe is speeding up. It will do it by traveling back in time…well, sort of.

Seeing into the past

Looking way out into space is kind of like using a time machine. That’s because the light emitted by distant galaxies takes longer to reach us than light from ones that are nearby. When we look at farther galaxies, we see the universe as it was when their light was emitted. That can help us see billions of years into the past. Comparing what the universe was like at different ages will help astronomers piece together the way it has transformed over time.

The animation starts with a deep field image of the universe, showing warm toned galaxies as small specks dusted on a black backdrop. Then the center is distorted as additional layers of galaxies are added. The center appears to bulge toward the viewer, and galaxies are enlarged and smeared into arcs. Credit: Caltech-IPAC/R. Hurt

This animation shows the type of science that astronomers will be able to do with future Roman deep field observations. The gravity of intervening galaxy clusters and dark matter can lens the light from farther objects, warping their appearance as shown in the animation. By studying the distorted light, astronomers can study elusive dark matter, which can only be measured indirectly through its gravitational effects on visible matter. As a bonus, this lensing also makes it easier to see the most distant galaxies whose light they magnify.

The simulation demonstrates how Roman will see even farther back in time thanks to natural magnifying glasses in space. Huge clusters of galaxies are so massive that they warp the fabric of space-time, kind of like how a bowling ball creates a well when placed on a trampoline. When light from more distant galaxies passes close to a galaxy cluster, it follows the curved space-time and bends around the cluster. That lenses the light, producing brighter, distorted images of the farther galaxies.

Roman will be sensitive enough to use this phenomenon to see how even small masses, like clumps of dark matter, warp the appearance of distant galaxies. That will help narrow down the candidates for what dark matter could be made of.

Three small squares filled with bluish dots emerge from a black screen. The black background is then filled with bluish dots too, and then the frame zooms out to see a much larger area of the dots. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and A. Yung

In this simulated view of the deep cosmos, each dot represents a galaxy. The three small squares show Hubble's field of view, and each reveals a different region of the synthetic universe. Roman will be able to quickly survey an area as large as the whole zoomed-out image, which will give us a glimpse of the universe’s largest structures.

Constructing the cosmos over billions of years

A separate simulation shows what Roman might expect to see across more than 10 billion years of cosmic history. It’s based on a galaxy formation model that represents our current understanding of how the universe works. That means that Roman can put that model to the test when it delivers real observations, since astronomers can compare what they expected to see with what’s really out there.

A cone shaped assortment of blue dots is on a grid. The tip of the cone is labeled "present day," and the other end is labeled "13.4 billion years ago." Three slices from the middle are pulled out and show the universe's structure developing over time. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and A. Yung

In this side view of the simulated universe, each dot represents a galaxy whose size and brightness corresponds to its mass. Slices from different epochs illustrate how Roman will be able to view the universe across cosmic history. Astronomers will use such observations to piece together how cosmic evolution led to the web-like structure we see today.

This simulation also shows how Roman will help us learn how extremely large structures in the cosmos were constructed over time. For hundreds of millions of years after the universe was born, it was filled with a sea of charged particles that was almost completely uniform. Today, billions of years later, there are galaxies and galaxy clusters glowing in clumps along invisible threads of dark matter that extend hundreds of millions of light-years. Vast “cosmic voids” are found in between all the shining strands.

Astronomers have connected some of the dots between the universe’s early days and today, but it’s been difficult to see the big picture. Roman’s broad view of space will help us quickly see the universe’s web-like structure for the first time. That’s something that would take Hubble or Webb decades to do! Scientists will also use Roman to view different slices of the universe and piece together all the snapshots in time. We’re looking forward to learning how the cosmos grew and developed to its present state and finding clues about its ultimate fate.

Thousands of small, light and deep blue dots cover a black background representing galaxies in a simulated universe. A tiny white square is labeled "Hubble." A set of 18 much larger squares, oriented in three curved rows, are labeled "Roman." Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and A. Yung

This image, containing millions of simulated galaxies strewn across space and time, shows the areas Hubble (white) and Roman (yellow) can capture in a single snapshot. It would take Hubble about 85 years to map the entire region shown in the image at the same depth, but Roman could do it in just 63 days. Roman’s larger view and fast survey speeds will unveil the evolving universe in ways that have never been possible before.

Roman will explore the cosmos as no telescope ever has before, combining a panoramic view of the universe with a vantage point in space. Each picture it sends back will let us see areas that are at least a hundred times larger than our Hubble or James Webb space telescopes can see at one time. Astronomers will study them to learn more about how galaxies were constructed, dark matter, and much more.

The simulations are much more than just pretty pictures – they’re important stepping stones that forecast what we can expect to see with Roman. We’ve never had a view like Roman’s before, so having a preview helps make sure we can make the most of this incredible mission when it launches.

Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on Twitter and Facebook.

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2 years ago

Celebrate Earth Day with NASA

In the lower portion of the photo, the gray uneven cratered surface of the Moon runs diagonally descending from right to left. In the center-right of the photo, the half-illuminated Earth shines bright blue, and partially visible land hides behind swirling white clouds. Credit: NASA

"We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth." - Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders

On Dec. 24, 1968, Anders snapped this iconic photo of "Earthrise" during the historic Apollo 8 mission. As he and fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell became the first humans to orbit the Moon, they witnessed Earth rising over the Moon's horizon. The image helped spark the first #EarthDay on April 22, 1970.

Anders sat down with Dr. Kate Calvin, our chief scientist and senior climate advisor, to chat about the photo, and NASA’s role in studying our home.

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2 years ago

5 Years, 8 Discoveries: NASA Exoplanet Explorer Sees Dancing Stars & a Star-Shredding Black Hole

TESS images build in vertical strips of four individual squares. Each square shows a small section of sky. They come together to form a flattened look at Earth’s sky as seen through the TESS telescope. It is an area shown in black-and-white with the bright, dusty Milky way curving through the center of the image. The north and south ecliptic poles lie at the top and bottom of the image. The Andromeda galaxy is the small, bright oval near the upper right edge. The Large Magellanic Cloud can be seen along the bottom edge just left of center. Above and to the left of it shine the Small Magellanic Cloud and the bright star cluster 47 Tucanae. Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (University of Maryland College Park)

This all-sky mosaic was constructed from 912 Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) images. Prominent features include the Milky Way, a glowing arc that represents the bright central plane of our galaxy, and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds – satellite galaxies of our own located, respectively, 160,000 and 200,000 light-years away. In the northern sky, look for the small, oblong shape of the Andromeda galaxy (M 31), the closest big spiral galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. The black regions are areas of sky that TESS didn’t image. Credit: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse (University of Maryland College Park)

On April 18, 2018, we launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, better known as TESS. It was designed to search for planets beyond our solar system – exoplanets – and to discover worlds for our James Webb Space Telescope, which launched three years later, to further explore. TESS images sections of sky, one hemisphere at a time. When we put all the images together, we get a great look at Earth’s sky!

In its five years in space, TESS has discovered 326 planets and more than 4,300 planet candidates. Along the way, the spacecraft has observed a plethora of other objects in space, including watching as a black hole devoured a star and seeing six stars dancing in space. Here are some notable results from TESS so far:

An infographic with a blue line drawing of the TESS spacecraft is headlined, “TESS, By the Numbers”. It is followed by large numbers with explanations: 329 exoplanets discovered, 4,300 plus exoplanet candidates; 1,500 research papers; 93 percent of sky observed; 5 years in space; 251 terabytes of image data; 467,768 objects observed at high precision; 50 nations contributing science. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

During its first five years in space, our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has discovered exoplanets and identified worlds that can be further explored by the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

1. TESS’ first discovery was a world called Pi Mensae c. It orbits the star Pi Mensae, about 60 light-years away from Earth and visible to the unaided eye in the Southern Hemisphere. This discovery kicked off NASA's new era of planet hunting.

2. Studying planets often helps us learn about stars too! Data from TESS & Spitzer helped scientists detect a planet around the young, flaring star AU Mic, providing a unique way to study how planets form, evolve, and interact with active stars.

A vintage style travel poster shows giant flares from a giant, bright young star in oranges, reds and bright yellow burst from the star, affecting a nearby planet. You can see the planet’s atmosphere being blasted away by the energy. It says, Located less than 32 light-years from Earth, AU Microscopii is among the youngest planetary systems ever observed by astronomers, and its star throws vicious temper tantrums! You’ve heard of the “terrible twos”? Well, AU Mic is in the midst of its terrible 22 … millions! This devilish young system holds planet AU Mic b captive inside a looming disk of ghostly dust and ceaselessly torments it with deadly blasts of X-rays and other radiation, thwarting any chance of life… as we know it! Beware! There is no escaping the stellar fury of this system. The monstrous flares of AU Mic will have you begging for eternal darkness. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Ubicado a menos de 32 años luz de la Tierra, AU Microscopii se encuentra entre los sistemas planetarios más jóvenes jamás observados por los astrónomos, ¡y su estrella tiene unas brutales rabietas! ¿Has oído hablar de los "terribles dos años"? Pues AU Mic está en medio de sus terribles 22… ¡millones de años! Este sistema joven diabólico mantiene cautivo a su planeta, AU Mic b, dentro de un disco de polvo fantasmal y lo atormenta incesantemente con explosiones mortales de rayos X y otras radiaciones, frustrando cualquier posibilidad de vida ... ¡tal como la conocemos! ¡Cuidado! No hay escapatoria a la furia estelar de este sistema. Las llamaradas monstruosas de AU Mic te harán rogar por la oscuridad eterna. Crédito de imagen: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Located less than 32 light-years from Earth, AU Microscopii is among the youngest planetary systems ever observed by astronomers, and its star throws vicious temper tantrums. This devilish young system holds planet AU Mic b captive inside a looming disk of ghostly dust and ceaselessly torments it with deadly blasts of X-rays and other radiation, thwarting any chance of life… as we know it! Beware! There is no escaping the stellar fury of this system. The monstrous flares of AU Mic will have you begging for eternal darkness. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

3. In addition to finding exoplanets on its own, TESS serves as a pathfinder for the James Webb Space Telescope. TESS discovered the rocky world LHS 3844 b, but Webb will tell us more about its composition. Our telescopes, much like our scientists, work together.

4. Though TESS may be a planet-hunter, it also helps us study black holes! In 2019, TESS saw a ‘‘tidal disruption event,’’ otherwise known as a black hole shredding a star.

An animated illustration shows a tidal disruption, which occurs when a passing star gets too close to a black hole and is torn apart into a stream of gas. Some of the gas eventually settles into a structure around the black hole called an accretion disk. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

When a star strays too close to a black hole, intense tides break it apart into a stream of gas. The tail of the stream escapes the system, while the rest of it swings back around, surrounding the black hole with a disk of debris. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

5. In 2020, TESS discovered its first Earth-size world in the habitable zone of its star – the distance from a star at which liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Earlier this year, a second rocky planet was discovered in the system.

In an animation, four planets are shown orbiting a red dwarf star labeled TOI 700. Planets b and c orbit well within a region overlaid in green and labeled optimistic habitable zone and overlaid in yellow and labeled optimistic habitable zone. Planet d orbits consistently in the conservative habitable zone, while planet e moves between the conservative and optimistic habitable zone. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

You can see the exoplanets that orbit the star TOI 700 moving within two marked habitable zones, a conservative habitable zone, and an optimistic habitable zone. Planet d orbits within the conservative habitable zone, while planet e moves within an optimistic habitable zone, the range of distances from a star where liquid surface water could be present at some point in a planet’s history. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

6. Astronomers used TESS to find a six-star system where all stars undergo eclipses. Three binary pairs orbit each other, and, in turn, the pairs are engaged in an elaborate gravitational dance in a cosmic ballroom 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.

This diagram depicts six stars that interact with each other in complex orbits. The stars are arranged in pairs: Systems A, B, and C, are each shown with one larger white star and one smaller orange star. The two stars of System A, in the upper left, are connected by a red oval and labeled "1.3-day orbit." The two stars of System C, just below System A, are connected by a teal oval and labeled "1.6-day orbit." These two systems orbit each other, shown as a larger blue oval connecting the two and labeled "A and C orbit every 4 years." In the bottom right of the image, the two stars of System B are connected by a green oval and labeled "8.2-day orbit." System B orbits the combined AC system, shown as a very large lilac oval labeled "AC and B orbit every 2,000 years." A caption at the bottom of the image notes, "Star sizes are to scale, orbits are not." The image is watermarked with “Illustration” and “Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.” Credit: NASA

7. Thanks to TESS, we learned that Delta Scuti stars pulse to the beat of their own drummer. Most seem to oscillate randomly, but we now know HD 31901 taps out a beat that merges 55 pulsation patterns.

An animation shows a bright blue-white star pulsing with vibrations. In a cutaway that reveals the star’s inner workings, waves are represented by blue arrows and they radiate from the center outward to the star’s surface and back again. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Sound waves bouncing around inside a star cause it to expand and contract, which results in detectable brightness changes. This animation depicts one type of Delta Scuti pulsation — called a radial mode — that is driven by waves (blue arrows) traveling between the star's core and surface. In reality, a star may pulsate in many different modes, creating complicated patterns that enable scientists to learn about its interior. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

8. Last is a galaxy that flares like clockwork! With TESS and Swift, astronomers identified the most predictably and frequently flaring active galaxy yet. ASASSN-14ko, which is 570 million light-years away, brightens every 114 days!

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2 years ago

Meet the Four Artemis Astronauts Who Will Fly Around the Moon

The Artemis II crew sits for an official portrait in front of a dark background. They wear orange suits with various patches noting their names, nationalities, and NASA or CSA. From left to right, are NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover (top), and Reid Wiseman (bottom), and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Koch holds a helmet in her hand. Credit: NASA

Today, we revealed the four astronauts who will fly around the Moon during the Artemis II mission, scheduled to launch in 2024. Get to know them:

Christina Koch

NASA astronaut Christina Hammock Koch poses for a portrait in her orange Artemis flight suit. The suit has blue trim around the neck and shoulders, with three patches: one with the U.S. flag on her left shoulder, one with her name and a pair of wings on her chest, and one with the NASA “meatball” insignia faintly visible beneath the second. The background is dark, and the photo is lit to focus on Koch’s face, which is facing the camera with a dignified expression. Credit: NASA

Meet the first member of our Artemis II crew: mission specialist Christina Koch. Koch visited the International Space Station in 2019, where she participated in the first all-woman spacewalk with Jessica Meir. She began her NASA career as an electrical engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Jeremy Hansen

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen poses for a portrait in his orange Artemis flight suit. The suit has blue trim around the neck and shoulders, with three patches: one with the Canadian flag on his left shoulder, one with his name and a pair of wings on his chest, and one bearing the logo of the Canadian Space Agency faintly visible beneath the second. The background is dark, and the photo is lit to focus on Hansen’s face, which is facing the camera with a dignified expression. Credit: NASA

Representing the Canadian Space Agency is Jeremy Hansen from London, Ontario. Col. Hansen was a fighter pilot with Canadian Armed Forces before joining the Canadian Space Agency, and currently works with NASA on astronaut training and mission operations. This will be Col. Hansen’s first mission in space.

Victor Glover

NASA astronaut Victor Glover poses for a portrait in his orange Artemis flight suit. The suit has blue trim around the neck and shoulders, with three patches: one with the U.S. flag on his left shoulder, one with his name and a pair of wings on his chest, and one with the NASA “meatball” insignia faintly visible beneath the second. The background is dark, and the photo is lit to focus on Glover’s face, which is facing the camera with a dignified expression. Credit: NASA

Victor Glover is our Artemis II pilot. Glover is part of our 2013 class of NASA astronauts and was the pilot for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission. He’s logged 3,000 flight hours in more than 40 different aircraft.

Reid Wiseman

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman poses for a portrait in his orange Artemis flight suit. The suit has blue trim around the neck and shoulders, with three patches: one with the U.S. flag on his left shoulder, one with his name and a pair of wings on his chest, and one with the NASA “meatball” insignia faintly visible beneath the second. The background is dark, and the photo is lit to focus on Wiseman's face, which is facing the camera with a dignified expression. Credit: NASA

...and rounding out our Artemis II crew: mission commander Reid Wiseman. Wiseman lived and worked aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer in 2014. He also commanded the undersea research mission NEEMO21, and most recently served as Chief of the NASA astronauts.

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A long-exposure image of a rocket launching to space. The image, which resembles a gigantic beam of light or a lightsaber, was taken several seconds after liftoff. The black launch tower is still visible at the bottom of the image. The background is the clear blue sky. The photo is of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina onboard, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Digital Creators: Apply to Watch Astronauts Launch to Space with NASA

Do you spend a lot of time online? Would you like to see our next crew of astronauts lift off to the International Space Station?

We're looking for digital content creators of all backgrounds to join us at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for our Crew-6 mission to the space station, set to lift off no earlier than Sunday, Feb. 26. Applications close Friday, Jan. 27 at 3 p.m. EST (2000 UTC)—we'd love to see you there! Apply now.

Can't make this one? Click here to stay updated about future opportunities.

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2 years ago

12 Great Gifts from Astronomy

This is a season where our thoughts turn to others and many exchange gifts with friends and family. For astronomers, our universe is the gift that keeps on giving. We’ve learned so much about it, but every question we answer leads to new things we want to know. Stars, galaxies, planets, black holes … there are endless wonders to study.

In honor of this time of year, let’s count our way through some of our favorite gifts from astronomy.

Our first astronomical gift is … one planet Earth

So far, there is only one planet that we’ve found that has everything needed to support life as we know it — Earth. Even though we’ve discovered over 5,200 planets outside our solar system, none are quite like home. But the search continues with the help of missions like our Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). And even you (yes, you!) can help in the search with citizen science programs like Planet Hunters TESS and Backyard Worlds.

This animated visualization depicts Earth rotating in front of a black background. Land in shades of tan and green lay among vast blue oceans, with white clouds swirling in the atmosphere. The image is watermarked with the text “Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio” and “visualization.”

Our second astronomical gift is … two giant bubbles

Astronomers found out that our Milky Way galaxy is blowing bubbles — two of them! Each bubble is about 25,000 light-years tall and glows in gamma rays. Scientists using data from our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope discovered these structures in 2010, and we're still learning about them.

This image captures the majestic “Fermi bubbles” that extend above and below our Milky Way galaxy, set against the black background of space. A glowing blue line horizontally crosses the center of the image, showing our perspective from Earth of our galaxy’s spiral arms and the wispy clouds of material above and below it. Cloudy bubbles, colored deep magenta to represent Fermi’s gamma-ray vision, extend above and below the galactic plane. These bubbles are enormous, extending roughly half of the Milky Way's diameter and filling much of the top and bottom of the image. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration.”

Our third astronomical gift is … three types of black holes

Most black holes fit into two size categories: stellar-mass goes up to hundreds of Suns, and supermassive starts at hundreds of thousands of Suns. But what happens between those two? Where are the midsize ones? With the help of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, scientists found the best evidence yet for that third, in between type that we call intermediate-mass black holes. The masses of these black holes should range from around a hundred to hundreds of thousands of times the Sun’s mass. The hunt continues for these elusive black holes.

This cartoon depicts two black holes as birds, with a small one representing a stellar-mass black hole on the left and an enormous one representing a supermassive black hole on the right. These two birds appear on a tan background and flap their wings, and then a circle with three question marks pops up between them to represent the intermediate-mass black holes that scientists are hunting for. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.”

Our fourth and fifth astronomical gifts are … Stephan’s Quintet

When looking at this stunning image of Stephan’s Quintet from our James Webb Space Telescope, it seems like five galaxies are hanging around one another — but did you know that one of the galaxies is much closer than the others? Four of the five galaxies are hanging out together about 290 million light-years away, but the fifth and leftmost galaxy in the image below — called NGC 7320 — is actually closer to Earth at just 40 million light-years away.

A group of five galaxies that appear close to each other in the sky: two in the middle, one toward the top, one to the upper left, and one toward the bottom. Four of the five appear to be touching. One is somewhat separated. In the image, the galaxies are large relative to the hundreds of much smaller (more distant) galaxies in the background. All five galaxies have bright white cores. Each has a slightly different size, shape, structure, and coloring. Scattered across the image, in front of the galaxies are a number of foreground stars with diffraction spikes: bright white points, each with eight bright lines radiating out from the center. The image is watermarked with the text “Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI.”

Our sixth astronomical gift is … an eclipsing six-star system

Astronomers found a six-star system where all of the stars undergo eclipses, using data from our TESS mission, a supercomputer, and automated eclipse-identifying software. The system, called TYC 7037-89-1, is located 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus and the first of its kind we’ve found.

This diagram shows the sextuple star system TYC 7037-89-1, a group of six stars that interact with each other in complex orbits. The stars are arranged in pairs: System A, System B, and System C, each of which is shown as having one larger white star and one smaller yellow star. The two stars of System A, in the upper left, are connected by a red oval and labeled "1.3-day orbit." The two stars of System C, just below System A, are connected by a turquoise oval and labeled "1.6-day orbit." Additionally, these two systems orbit each other, shown as a larger blue oval connecting the two and labeled "A and C orbit every 4 years." On the other side of the image, in the bottom right, the two stars of System B are connected by a green oval and labeled "8.2-day orbit." Lastly, Systems A, B and C all interact with System B orbiting the combined A-C system, shown as a very large lilac oval labeled "AC and B orbit every 2,000 years." A caption at the bottom of the image notes, "Star sizes are to scale, orbits are not." The image is watermarked with the text “Illustration” and “Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.”

Our seventh astronomical gift is … seven Earth-sized planets

In 2017, our now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope helped find seven Earth-size planets around TRAPPIST-1. It remains the largest batch of Earth-size worlds found around a single star and the most rocky planets found in one star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on a planet’s surface.

Further research has helped us understand the planets’ densities, atmospheres, and more!

his animated image shows an artist's concept of the star TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool dwarf, and the seven Earth-size planets orbiting it. TRAPPIST-1 is large and glows bright orange, while the planets are smaller and in shades of cool gray-blue. The image is highly stylized to look like glowing balls sitting on a shiny surface, and neither the sizes nor distances are to scale. The planets closer to TRAPPIST-1 have droplets of water standing on the surface around them, indicating that they may have liquid water. Planets further away have frost around them, indicating that those are more likely to have significant amounts of ice, especially on the side that faces away from the star. Our view pans across the system, from the center outward, and faint tan rings depict the orbits of each planet. The image is watermarked with the text “Illustration” and “Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC).”

Our eighth astronomical gift is … an (almost) eight-foot mirror

The primary mirror on our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is approximately eight feet in diameter, similar to our Hubble Space Telescope. But Roman can survey large regions of the sky over 1,000 times faster, allowing it to hunt for thousands of exoplanets and measure light from a billion galaxies.

Side profile of a man standing in front of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Primary mirror. The man wears a long white coat, hair net, facemask, and glasses. The man is standing to the left of the mirror, and looking at it. The mirror faces the man, so it appears to be looking back at him. The mirror is a flat, smooth, silver disk with a black cylinder protruding from its center. Behind the mirror, a black square houses hardware for the mirror. The image is watermarked “Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn.”

Our ninth astronomical gift is … a kilonova nine days later

In 2017, the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and European Gravitational Observatory’s Virgo detected gravitational waves from a pair of colliding neutron stars. Less than two seconds later, our telescopes detected a burst of gamma rays from the same event. It was the first time light and gravitational waves were seen from the same cosmic source. But then nine days later, astronomers saw X-ray light produced in jets in the collision’s aftermath. This later emission is called a kilonova, and it helped astronomers understand what the slower-moving material is made of.

This animated illustration shows what happened in the nine days following a neutron star merger known as GW170817, detected on Aug. 17, 2017. In the first part of the animation, a pair of glowing blue neutron stars spiral quickly towards each other and merge with a bright flash. The merger creates gravitational waves (shown as pale arcs rippling out from the center), a near-light-speed jet that produced gamma rays (shown as brown cones and a rapidly-traveling magenta glow erupting from the center of the collision), and a donut-shaped ring of expanding blue debris around the center of the explosion. A variety of colors represent the many wavelengths of light produced by the kilonova, creating violet to blue-white to red bursts at the top and bottom of the collision. In the second part of the animation, we see the collision as it would appear from Earth, looking like a burst of red light in the lower left and a huge umbrella-shaped cascade of blue light in the upper right, representing X-rays. The image is watermarked with the text “Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab” and “Illustration.”

Our tenth astronomical gift is … NuSTAR’s ten-meter-long mast

Our NuSTAR X-ray observatory is the first space telescope able to focus on high-energy X-rays. Its ten-meter-long (33 foot) mast, which deployed shortly after launch, puts NuSTAR’s detectors at the perfect distance from its reflective optics to focus X-rays. NuSTAR recently celebrated 10 years since its launch in 2012.

This animation shows an artist’s concept of the NuSTAR X-ray observatory orbiting above the blue marble of Earth and deploying its 10-meter-long (33 foot) mast shortly after launch in 2012. NuSTAR is roughly cylindrical, with a shiny silver covering and a pair of blue solar panels on each of its sides. As we pan around the spacecraft, silver scaffolding extends from inside, separating the ends of the telescope to the right distance to begin observing the universe in X-rays. The image is watermarked with the text “Illustration” and “Credit: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.”

Our eleventh astronomical gift is … eleven days of observations

How long did our Hubble Space Telescope stare at a seemingly empty patch of sky to discover it was full of thousands of faint galaxies? More than 11 days of observations came together to capture this amazing image — that’s about 1 million seconds spread over 400 orbits around Earth!

This animated image zooms into the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, showing how a tiny patch of “empty” sky turned out to contain about 10,000 galaxies. The sequence begins with a starry backdrop, then we begin to zoom into the center of this image. As we travel, larger and brighter objects come into view, including dazzling spiral and elliptical galaxies in reds, oranges, blues, and purples. The image is watermarked with the text “Credit: NASA, G. Bacon and Z. Levay (STScI).”

Our twelfth astronomical gift is … a twelve-kilometer radius

Pulsars are collapsed stellar cores that pack the mass of our Sun into a whirling city-sized ball, compressing matter to its limits. Our NICER telescope aboard the International Space Station helped us precisely measure one called J0030 and found it had a radius of about twelve kilometers — roughly the size of Chicago! This discovery has expanded our understanding of pulsars with the most precise and reliable size measurements of any to date.

In this simulation of a pulsar’s magnetic fields, dozens of thin lines dance around a central gray sphere, which is the collapsed core of a dead massive star. Some of these lines, colored orange, form loops on the surface of the sphere. Others, colored blue, arc away from two spots on the lower half of the sphere and vanish into the black background. The image is watermarked with the text “Simulation” and “Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.”

Stay tuned to NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with what’s going on in the cosmos every day. You can learn more about the universe here.

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2 years ago

50 Years Ago: Apollo 17

Not long after midnight on Dec. 7, 1972, the last crewed mission to the Moon, Apollo 17, lifted off with three astronauts: Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, and Ronald Evans.

Experience the Apollo 17 launch and follow the mission in real time.

The Apollo 17 Space Vehicle sits poised beneath a full moon on Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center during the launch countdown. The Saturn V rocket is mostly white, with several black patches, American flags, and the letters “USA” on its side. It is connected to an orange launch tower on the left. Credit: NASA

Meet the Crew

Let’s meet the astronauts who made the final Apollo trip to the Moon, including the first scientist-astronaut.

Gene Cernan: In 1972, Apollo 17 Mission Commander Eugene A. Cernan had two space flights under his belt, Gemini 9 in June 1966, and Apollo 10 in May 1969. He was a naval aviator, electrical and aeronautical engineer and fighter pilot.

Ron Evans: Apollo 17 Command Module Pilot Ronald E. Evans was selected as a member of the 4th group of NASA astronauts in 1966. Like Cernan, he was an electrical and aeronautical engineer, and naval aviator before his assignment to the Apollo 17 crew.

Harrison (Jack) Schmitt: Lunar Module Pilot Dr. Harrison (Jack) Schmitt joined NASA as a member of the first group of scientist-astronauts in 1965. Before working for NASA, Schmitt was a geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Center. He was on the backup crew for Apollo 15 before being selected for the prime crew of Apollo 17. He became the first of the scientist-astronauts to go to space and the 12th human to walk on the Moon.

The Apollo 17 prime astronaut crew observes pre-launch activity at Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center while participating in Emergency Egress Test. They are, left to right, Ronald E. Evans, Harrison H. Schmitt, and Eugene A. Cernan. Credit: NASA

The Blue Marble

“The Blue Marble,” one of the most reproduced images in history, was taken 50 years ago on Dec. 7, 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew as they made their way to the Moon.

This view of Earth was seen by the Apollo 17 crew as they traveled toward the moon on their NASA lunar landing mission. This outstanding trans-lunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the coast of Africa is the Malagasy Republic. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast. Credit: NASA

Bag of Soup, Anyone?

NASA astronauts have an array of menu items to stay well fed and hydrated on missions. For Apollo 17, the menus allocated around 2,500 calories per day for each astronaut. They included:

Bacon Squares

Peanut Butter Sandwiches

Frankfurters

Lobster Bisque

Like anything going to space, weight and containment matter. That's why the Apollo 17 menu included plenty of soups and puddings.

Ron Evans smiles as he holds up a packet of soup during the outbound trip of Apollo 17. Credit: NASA

Synchronicity

On Dec. 11, 2022,  the Artemis I mission will be splashing down on Earth after its 25.5-day mission. At 2:55 p.m. 50 years prior, the Apollo 17 lunar module (LM) landed on the Moon, with Commander Gene Cernan and LM Pilot Harrison Schmitt on board. Ron Evans remained in the Command and Service Module (CSM) orbiting the Moon.

Experience the landing.

The half Earth appears in the black sy over the Lunar Module on the lunar surface. The spacecraft has a radio dish, black thermal blankets, and a tubular metal support structure. Credit: NASA

Planting the Flag

One of the first tasks the Apollo 17 crew did on their first moonwalk was to plant the American flag. There’s no wind on the Moon, but that doesn’t mean the flag has to droop. Did you know that a horizontal rod with a latch makes the flag appear to be flying in the wind? Gene Cernan carefully composed this photo to get Schmitt, the flag, and the Earth in a single shot.

So, is the flag still there? Images of the Apollo 17 landing site from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera show that in 2011 the flag was still standing and casting a shadow!

Astronaut Harrison Schmitt poses in a bulky white spacesuit on the Lunar surface next to an American flag. The Earth hangs in the black sky in the background, and fellow astronaut Eugene Cernan is seen in the reflection of Schmitt's golden visor. Credit: NASA

Moon Buggy

During Apollo 17, the Lunar Rover Vehicle (LRV), nicknamed the Moon buggy, logged the farthest distance from the Lunar Module of any Apollo mission, about 4.7 miles (7.5 km). 

As a precaution, the LRV had a walk-back limit in the event of an issue; astronauts had to have enough resources to walk back to the lunar module if need be.

Astronaut Gene Cernan wears a bulky white space suit with a gold visor. He is sitting in the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), a car-like open vehicle with large, round tires and red-orange fenders. It sits on the surface of the gray, dusty Moon. The mountain sloping upward in the right background is the east end of South Massif. Credit: NASA

Grab the Duct Tape!

The right rear fender extension of the LRV (Moon buggy) was torn off, kicking up dust as the crew drove, reducing visibility. The crew made a resourceful repair using duct tape and maps.

For LRV fans, visiting an LRV driven on the Moon is a bit difficult since all three LRVs used on the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions were left on the Moon. But you can find an LRV used for training at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Read more about the LRV.

A close-up view of the rear right wheel of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) at the Taurus-Littrow. Note the makeshift repair arrangement on the fender of the LRV; a folded map is held in place parallel to the wheel with several strips of gray duct tape. Below the wheel, sunlight casts stark shadows on the dusty lunar surface. Credit: NASA

The Perils of Lunar Dust

After the first lunar EVA, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt reported that he suffered from “lunar hay fever” in reaction to the lunar dust. Unlike Earth’s dust particles which are rounded, Moon dust particles are sharp and abrasive, irritating astronaut eyes, nasal passages, and lungs.

Curious about how Moon dust feels and smells? Find out!

Scientist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 lunar module pilot, uses an adjustable sampling scoop to retrieve lunar samples during the second Apollo 17 extravehicular activity (EVA), at Station 5 at the Taurus-Littrow landing site. A gnomon is atop the large rock in the foreground. The gnomon is a stadia rod mounted on a tripod, and serves as an indicator of the gravitational vector and provides accurate vertical reference and calibrated length for determining size and position of objects in near-field photographs. The color scale of blue, orange and green is used to accurately determine color for photography. Credit: NASA

So What’s it Like?

After his return to Earth, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt (on the right) described his time on the Moon:

“Working on the Moon is a lot of fun. It’s like walking around on a giant trampoline all the time and you’re just as strong as you were here on Earth, but you don’t weigh as much.”

Astronaut Gene Cernan (left) and scientist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt wear white flight suits with Apollo patches on the left chest. Behind them is a gray metal hatch decorated with a small American flag. Credit: NASA

Splashdown! 

After 12 days and 14 hours in space, the Apollo 17 astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 2:25 p.m. EST on Dec. 19, 1972. It was the longest of all the Apollo missions, with the most photos taken. A recovery team was waiting on the USS Ticonderoga just 4 miles (6.4 km) away to pick up the astronauts, the lunar samples, and the Crew Module.

The Apollo 17 Command Module (CM), with astronauts Gene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt aboard appears as a small conical spaceship.The capsule nears splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean with three enormous red-and-white striped parachutes. This overhead view was taken from a recovery aircraft seconds before the spacecraft hit the blue water. Later, the three crewmen were picked up by a helicopter from the prime recovery ship, USS Ticonderoga. Credit: NASA

When Are We Going Back?

NASA’s Artemis Program has taken its first steps to sending humans back to the Moon with Artemis I, currently on its way back to Earth. The program plans to land humans, including the first women and person of color, on the Moon’s south polar region with its Artemis III mission, currently slated to launch in 2025.

Is aerospace history your cup of tea? Be sure to check out more from NASA’s past missions at www.nasa.gov/history.

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2 years ago

A Laboratory for Star Formation

Alt text: In this image of NGC 3603, a bright cluster of stars shining in red, orange, and yellow hues dominates the center. The stars become more sporadic throughout the rest of the image, glittering against a black backdrop of space and nebulous indigo clouds that glow in the picture’s lower half. Credit: NASA, ESA, R. O'Connell (University of Virginia), F. Paresce (National Institute for Astrophysics, Bologna, Italy), E. Young (Universities Space Research Association/Ames Research Center), the WFC3 Science Oversight Committee, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Location: In the Carina spiral arm of our Milky Way Galaxy

Distance from Earth: About 20,000 light-years

Object type: Nebula and open star cluster

Discovered by: Sir John Herschel in 1834

Imaged here by the Hubble Space Telescope, NGC 3603 is a collection of thousands of large, hot stars, including some of the most massive stars known to us. Scientists categorize it as an “open cluster” because of its spread-out shape and low density of stars. Surrounding the bright star cluster are plumes of interstellar gas and dust, which comprise the nebula part of this cosmic object. New stars are formed from the gaseous material within these clouds! NGC 3603 holds stars at a variety of life stages, making it a laboratory for scientists to study star evolution and formation. Astronomers estimate that star formation in and around the cluster has been occurring for 10 to 20 million years.

Read more information about NGC 3603 here.

Right now, the Hubble Space Telescope is delving into its #StarrySights campaign! Find more star cluster content and breathtaking new images by following along on Hubble’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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2 years ago
A long exposure shot captures the rocket’s trail from launch pad into the distance. Several branches near the bottom of the image frame the body of water that divides the space between the photographer and the launch pad. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber

We are going to the Moon!

At 1:47 a.m. EST on Nov. 16, 2022, our Orion spacecraft launched aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from historic Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a path to the Moon, officially beginning the Artemis I mission.

This mission is the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, the SLS rocket, and Kennedy ground systems. This is the very first time this rocket and spacecraft have flown together, and it’s the first of many Artemis missions to the Moon. Artemis I is uncrewed, but it lays the groundwork for increasingly complex missions that will land humans on the lunar surface, including the first woman and the first person of color to do so.

With Artemis, we will build a long-term human presence on the Moon and prepare humanity for future exploration plans to Mars and beyond.

See more photos of Artemis I on our Flickr.

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2 years ago

What Makes the Artemis Moon Mission NASA's Next Leap Forward?

From left to right: A grey hollow pyramid-shaped lightning tower, the white Orion spacecraft and the top of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket in orange, the Moon in faint white and gray, the Mobile Launcher with many pipes and levels in gray and red. The background is blue skies. Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

When NASA astronauts return to the Moon through Artemis, they will benefit from decades of innovation, research, and technological advancements. We’ll establish long-term lunar science and exploration capabilities at the Moon and inspire a new generation of explorers—the Artemis Generation.

Cloudy skies are the backdrop behind the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, which is reflected in the windows of a vehicle to the left of the photo. The SLS is orange with two white boosters on either side, and the spacecraft is white, next to a gray pyramid-shaped lightning tower and Mobile Launcher with many pipes and levels in gray and red. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

Meet the Space Launch System rocket, or SLS. This next-generation super heavy-lift rocket was designed to send astronauts and their cargo farther into deep space than any rocket we’ve ever built. During liftoff, SLS will produce 8.8 million pounds (4 million kg) of maximum thrust, 15 percent more than the Saturn V rocket.

The SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft sit inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center. The rocket is orange, with two white boosters on either side. The Orion Spacecraft is at the top and white. The VAB has many levels with walkways, pipes, and structures around the rocket. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

SLS will launch the Orion spacecraft into deep space. Orion is the only spacecraft capable of human deep space flight and high-speed return to Earth from the vicinity of the Moon. More than just a crew module, Orion has a launch abort system to keep astronauts safe if an emergency happens during launch, and a European-built service module, which is the powerhouse that fuels and propels Orion and keeps astronauts alive with water, oxygen, power, and temperature control.

The Space Launch System rocket stands upright on the launchpad. The background is the sky dominated by clouds. The rocket has an orange central fuel tank with two white rocket boosters on either side. The Crawler-Transporter 2 is in the foreground with its massive tread-like wheels. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Orion and SLS will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with help from Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) teams. EGS operates the systems and facilities necessary to process and launch rockets and spacecraft during assembly, transport, launch, and recovery.

An artist's depiction of Gateway, the Moon-orbiting space station. Gateway is seen in gray with red solar arrays; behind it, the Moon is gray, black, and white, as well as the blackness of space. Credit: NASA/Alberto Bertolin

The knowledge we've gained while operating the International Space Station has opened new opportunities for long-term exploration of the Moon's surface. Gateway, a vital component of our Artemis plans, is a Moon-orbiting space station that will serve as a staging post for human expeditions to the lunar surface. Crewed and uncrewed landers that dock to Gateway will be able to transport crew, cargo, and scientific equipment to the surface.

An artist's depiction of astronauts working on the Moon. The astronaut suits are white with silver helmets; they work on the gray lunar surface. Credit: NASA

Our astronauts will need a place to live and work on the lunar surface. Artemis Base Camp, our first-ever lunar science base, will include a habitat that can house multiple astronauts and a camper van-style vehicle to support long-distance missions across the Moon’s surface. Apollo astronauts could only stay on the lunar surface for a short while. But as the Artemis base camp evolves, the goal is to allow crew to stay at the lunar surface for up to two months at a time.

Astronaut Mark Vande Hei takes a selfie in front of Earth during the first spacewalk of 2018. His suit is white, the reflective helmet silver, and Earth is blue with white clouds. Credit: NASA

The Apollo Program gave humanity its first experience traveling to a foreign world. Now, America and the world are ready for the next era of space exploration. NASA plans to send the first woman and first person of color to the lunar surface and inspire the next generation of explorers.

An artist's depiction of Orion traversing above the surface of the Moon, with Earth in the background. Orion is white and gray, the Moon's shadowy surface is white and black, and the Earth is surrounded by the blackness of space and is faintly blue and black. Credit: NASA/Liam Yanulis

Our next adventure starts when SLS and Orion roar off the launch pad with Artemis I. Together with commercial and international partners, NASA will establish a long-term presence on the Moon to prepare for missions to Mars. Everything we’ve learned, and everything we will discover, will prepare us to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.

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2 years ago

What is Artemis I?

The SLS and Orion spacecraft can be seen in the foreground with a full Moon to the left of the spacecraft. The SLS is orange, Orion is white, and the Moon is grey and white. A lightning tower is to the left of the Moon. Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

On November 14, NASA is set to launch the uncrewed Artemis I flight test to the Moon and back. Artemis I is the first integrated flight test of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and Exploration Ground Systems at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. These are the same systems that will bring future Artemis astronauts to the Moon.

The Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), mobile launcher, and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket can all be seen from a low-angle perspective. The VAB is a large grey and white cube-shaped building with large doors. The mobile launcher is grey, black, and white, with many pipes and levels, and the SLS rocket is orange with two white boosters on either side. Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

Standing 322 feet (98 meters) tall, the SLS rocket comprises of a core stage, an upper stage, two solid boosters, and four RS-25 engines. The SLS rocket is the most powerful rocket in the world, able to carry 59,500 pounds (27 metric tons) of payloads to deep space — more than any other vehicle. With its unprecedented power, SLS is the only rocket that can send the Orion spacecraft, astronauts, and cargo directly to the Moon on a single mission.

The massive Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) is a large grey and white cube-shaped building with large doors. It has an American flag on it, along with the NASA meatball logo and the Artemis mission logo. The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket stands to the right of the VAB. The SLS is orange with two white boosters on either side. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Before launch, Artemis I has some big help: the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC is the largest single-story building in the world. The VAB was constructed for the assembly of the Apollo/Saturn V Moon rocket, and this is where the SLS rocket is assembled, maintained, and integrated with the Orion spacecraft. 

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with the Orion capsule atop, slowly rolls out of the Vehicle Assembly Building on the crawler-transporter 2. The crawler is grey with treads and walkways, and the SLS is orange with two white boosters on either side. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

The mobile launcher is used to assemble, process, and launch the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. The massive structure consists of a two-story base and a tower equipped with a number of connection lines to provide the rocket and spacecraft with power, communications, coolant, and fuel prior to launch.

The crawler-transporter 2 is on the left, with the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on the right of this photo. The crawler is grey with treads and walkways, and the SLS is orange with two white boosters on either side. The sky is blue with fluffy white clouds in the background. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Capable of carrying 18 million pounds (8.2 million kg) and the size of a baseball infield, crawler-transporter 2 will transport SLS and Orion the 4.2 miles (6.8 km) to Launch Pad 39B. This historic launch pad was where the Apollo 10 mission lifted off from on May 18, 1969, to rehearse the first Moon landing.

An artist’s rendition of the Orion flight shows a portion of a blue and white Earth in a semi-circle at the bottom of this photo; at the center, a white and grey Orion heads towards a semi-lit Moon in grey. The rest of the image is black, with some small stars dotted throughout. Credit: NASA/Liam Yanulis

During the launch, SLS will generate around 8.8 million pounds (~4.0 million kg) of thrust, propelling the Orion spacecraft into Earth’s orbit. Then, Orion will perform a Trans Lunar Injection to begin the path to the Moon. The spacecraft will orbit the Moon, traveling 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the Moon — farther than any human-rated spacecraft has ever flown.

An artist’s rendition of the Orion spacecraft is in the foreground in front of the Moon. The perspective is from one of the spacecraft’s solar arrays. The solar array is black, with white and orange dots throughout. The spacecraft has a large NASA logo in red and is grey, white, and black overall. Credit: NASA/Liam Yanulis

The Orion spacecraft is designed to carry astronauts on deep space missions farther than ever before. Orion contains the habitable volume of about two minivans, enough living space for four people for up to 21 days. Future astronauts will be able to prepare food, exercise, and yes, have a bathroom. Orion also has a launch abort system to keep astronauts safe if an emergency happens during launch, and a European-built service module that fuels and propels the spacecraft.

Commander Moonikin Campos, a manikin, sits aboard the Orion spacecraft in the Orion Crew Survival suit, which is orange with blue straps. The helmet is white with a black tinted visor. A black hose connects to the suit, and the blue background shows NASA and Artemis logos. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

While the Artemis I flight test is uncrewed, the Orion spacecraft will not be empty: there will be three manikins aboard the vehicle. Commander Moonikin Campos will be sitting in the commander’s seat, collecting data on the vibrations and accelerations future astronauts will experience on the journey to the Moon. He is joined with two phantom torsos, Helga and Zohar, in a partnership with the German Aerospace Center and Israeli Space Agency to test a radiation protection vest.

Seen from above is the upside-down, open interior of the Orion capsule with 10 CubeSats secured onto its walls. The interior is yellowish-green and textured, and the exterior of the capsule segment is white with a few black panels. It sits in a processing facility with white walls and servicing platforms surrounding the spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Cory Huston

A host of shoebox-sized satellites called CubeSats help enable science and technology experiments that could enhance our understanding of deep space travel and the Moon while providing critical information for future Artemis missions.

An artist’s rendition of the Orion spacecraft reentering Earth’s atmosphere. Orion is an orange streak coming from the top right to the left center of the photo, and Earth is seen at night with city lights as dots and a thin strip of atmosphere beneath the Sun. Credit: NASA/Liam Yanulis

At the end of the four-week mission, the Orion spacecraft will return to Earth. Orion will travel at 25,000 mph (40,000 km per hour) before slowing down to 300 mph (480 km per hour) once it enters the Earth’s atmosphere. After the parachutes deploy, the spacecraft will glide in at approximately 20 mph (32 km per hour) before splashdown about 60 miles (100 km) off the coast of California. NASA’s recovery team and the U.S. Navy will retrieve the Orion spacecraft from the Pacific Ocean.

A large gray ship in the background is deploying small boats, with the Orion spacecraft has large inflatable balloons on top. Credit: NASA

With the ultimate goal of establishing a long-term presence on the Moon, Artemis I is a critical step as NASA prepares to send humans to Mars and beyond.

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2 years ago
Bright orange active spots make the shape of two eyes and a grin, making the Sun look like a jack-o'-lantern. The rest of the Sun is dark in comparison, with an orange outline distinguishing the star from the darkness of space. Credit: NASA/SDO

Boo! Did we get you? 🎃

This solar jack-o-lantern, captured by our Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in October 2014, gets its ghoulish grin from active regions on the Sun, which emit more light and energy than the surrounding dark areas. Active regions are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere.

The SDO has kept an unblinking eye on the Sun since 2010, recording phenomena like solar flares and coronal loops. It measures the Sun’s interior, atmosphere, magnetic field, and energy output, helping us understand our nearest star.

Grab the high-resolution version here.

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2 years ago

Scary Space Stories to Tell in the Dark

The universe is full of dazzling sights, but there’s an eerie side of space, too. Nestled between the stars, shadowy figures lurk unseen. The entire galaxy could even be considered a graveyard, full of long-dead stars. And it’s not just the Milky Way – the whole universe is a bit like one giant haunted house! Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will illuminate all kinds of spine-chilling cosmic mysteries when it launches in 2027, but for now settle in for some true, scary space stories.

This comic style animation shows the front of the Roman spacecraft with a cartoon eye staring ahead and a lit candle in the foreground. The comic shifts back and forth between two frames with different lighting, making it appear as though the flame is flickering.

Flickering Lights

One of the first signs that things are about to get creepy in a scary movie is when the lights start to flicker. That happens all the time in space, too! But instead of being a sinister omen, it can help us find planets circling other stars.

A faint grid pattern is overlaid on a black background. In the upper-middle, a yellow orb appears to sink into this grid. Lines extend outward from it in every direction. A smaller yellow orb and an even smaller green one pass from the left to the right of the center of the screen together. As they move across, they bend the yellow lines of the farther star's light. A faint green circle in the lower-middle of the screen briefly brightens when all of the objects are aligned in the middle of the screen.

Roman will stare toward the heart of our galaxy and watch to see when pairs of stars appear to align in the sky. When that happens, the nearer star – and orbiting planets – can lens light from the farther star, creating a brief brightening. That’s because every massive object warps the fabric of space-time, changing the path light takes when it passes close by. Roman could find around 1,000 planets using this technique, which is called microlensing.

The mission will also see little flickers when planets cross in front of their host star as they orbit and temporarily dim the light we receive from the star. Roman could find an additional 100,000 planets this way!

Two objects in the foreground of this comic style graphic are each covered in a white sheet with black eyes, giving them a ghostly appearance. The parts that stick out hint at each object's true identity; the smaller Roman "ghost" has a communications antenna sticking out from the top while the Webb "ghost" has its primary mirror poking out of one eye and bits of the sunshield showing out of the bottom edges of the sheet. A jack-o-lantern trick-or-treat basket hangs from one corner of the Webb spacecraft. A swirl of stars decorates the gray background of the image.

Galactic Ghosts

Roman is going to be one of the best ghost hunters in the galaxy! Since microlensing relies on an object’s gravity, not its light, it can find all kinds of invisible specters drifting through the Milky Way. That includes rogue planets, which roam the galaxy alone instead of orbiting a star…

This animation starts with a star-studded sky in which the band of the Milky Way is prominent. A small, dark, circular object grows larger as it moves closer, eventually nearly filling the image. Its close approach reveals it to be a spinning gas giant world, covered in bands of clouds. The animation pans to watch the world fly by. The planet grows smaller as it recedes.

…and solo stellar-mass black holes, which we can usually only find when they have a visible companion, like a star. Astronomers think there should be 100 million of these black holes in our galaxy.

This comic style graphic shows a skeletal Roman spacecraft with a tattered deployable aperture cover on a dark gray background.

Stellar Skeletons

Black holes aren’t the only dead stars hiding in the sky. When stars that aren’t quite massive enough to form black holes run out of fuel, they blast away their outer layers and become neutron stars. These stellar cores are the densest material we can directly observe. One sugar cube of neutron star material would weigh about 1 billion tons (or 1 trillion kilograms) on Earth! Roman will be able to detect when these extreme objects collide.

This infographic shows how the life cycle of stars depend on their mass. At the top left, there is a small, yellow, Sun-like star. An arrow points from it to a slightly larger orange star, and another arrow then points to a very small white dwarf star. Beneath this row, a medium-sized orb labeled "massive star" glows blue. An arrow points from it to a larger orange star, and another points to a tiny white neutron star. The bottom row starts with a large, very massive blue star. An arrow points to an even larger orange star, and another points to a small black hole - a tiny black circle with a faintly glowing ring around it. The bottom of the graphic says "The fate of a star depends on its mass (size not to scale)."

Smaller stars like our Sun have less dramatic fates. After they run out of fuel, they swell up and shrug off their outer layers until only a small, hot core called a white dwarf remains. Those outer layers may be recycled into later generations of stars and planets. Roman will explore regions where new stars are bursting to life, possibly containing the remnants of such dead stars.

Silvery threads form a hexagonal, web-like pattern on a dark gray background in this comic-style graphic. The Roman spacecraft appears to be caught in the web.

Cosmic Cobwebs

If we zoom out far enough, the structure of space looks like a giant cobweb! The cosmic web is the large-scale backbone of the universe, made up mainly of a mysterious substance known as dark matter and laced with gas, upon which galaxies are built. Roman will find precise distances for more than 10 million galaxies to map the structure of the cosmos, helping astronomers figure out why the expansion of the universe is speeding up.

This animation starts with a network of glowing purple galaxies. The screen is almost completely covered by them. Then the view shifts as though we are moving forward through space. Bright clumps of galaxies connected by faint, smoky tendrils pass by on every side.

Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on Twitter and Facebook.

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2 years ago

Comin’ in Hot: Seven Things to Know About our New Heat Shield

What goes up, must come down, and from space, without burning up in an atmosphere. That’s why we’re pumped for the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator, or LOFTID. Launching on Nov. 1, 2022, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Joint Polar Orbiting Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2) mission, this technology demonstration marks the next step in advancing an innovative heat shield design that could one day be used to land heavy payloads – including humans – on Mars!

Animated GIF of an animation of mission highlights for the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID). We see the upper stage of the ULA Atlas V rocket reorient and position LOFTID for entry into Earth's atmosphere. The re-entry vehicle spins and separates from the upper stage. The inflated heat shield is scene descending toward Earth and motion lines behind the technology indicate the transmission of data during its flight.

Here are seven things to know about this innovative re-entry system: 

1. LOFTID is the first-ever in-orbit test of this technology. 

Inflatable heat shields, called Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators (HIADs), have been in the works for more than a decade. In 2012, the third of the Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiments (IRVE) launched on a suborbital sounding rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility, demonstrating a 3-meter (10-foot) diameter inflatable heat shield.

Engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center are standing next to an orange stack of inflated test rings atop a stand during the final test of the inflation system in Jan. 2022. The inflation system is one component of the LOFTID re-entry vehicle demonstration.

But the LOFTID re-entry vehicle, at 19.7 feet (6 meters) in diameter, will be the largest blunt body aeroshell to ever go through atmospheric entry. Designed to withstand temperatures as high as 2900°F (1600°C), this first-ever in-orbit test of this technology will prove if it can successfully slow down large payloads – such as crewed spacecraft, robotic explorers, and rocket components – enabling them to survive the heat of re-entry at planetary destinations with an atmosphere.

2. You can find out how this tech works in real-time.  

LOFTID is unique in that all operations will happen within a few hours of launch. After the JPSS-2 satellite safely reaches orbit, the LOFTID vehicle will separate from the upper stage of the Atlas V rocket and begin re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. If all goes as planned, the technology will help the vehicle decelerate from hypersonic (more than 25 times faster than the speed of sound) down to subsonic flight, less than 609 miles per hour for a safe splash down and recovery from the Pacific Ocean. 

While in flight, engineers at NASA’s Langley Research Center will receive location data every 20 seconds and onboard sensors and cameras will record more comprehensive data about the technology’s performance. You can get a behind-the-scenes look at Langley’s Flight Mission Support Center where the LOFTID project team will be monitoring the flight test at NASA.gov/live following the launch.

Graphic of the LOFTID Mission Timeline and Flight Path illustrating the important milestones in the technology demonstration. The background imagery on the left is the launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. From the launchpad, the stages of the launch sequence and separation are identified by different icons and timelines starting with the booster separation, and moving through payload spacecraft separation, the aeroshell inflation and the Centaur upper stage orientation and spin. We see a rendering of the heat shield separating at L+70 minutes and LOFTID beginning its descent toward Earth. We see LOFTID's parachute deployed and its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean depicted at the L+125 minute mark.

3. A lemon-sized capsule ejected into the Pacific Ocean will hold key flight data. 

The LOFTID re-entry vehicle will record both sensor and camera data during its flight. The data will include the temperatures and pressures experienced by the heat shield and will illustrate how well the technology performed during the demonstration.

Although the goal is to retrieve the LOFTID re-entry vehicle after it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, the team wanted a back-up option just in case they can’t recover it. Enter the tiny yellow package called an ejectable data module (EDM) which will also record flight data. The EDM will be released from the spacecraft at an altitude of about 50,000 feet. It will free fall into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii and should land within 10 miles of the spacecraft’s splash down location. A recovery team, that has practiced hide-and-seek of the EDM on land and sea, will use GPS to search an approximately 900-mile area of the Pacific Ocean to find their “lemon.”

Four men are pictured wearing life vests aboard a U.S. Army Landing Craft Utility boat as they conducted a water recovery test of the ejectable data module for the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID).

4. This heat shield packs a punch. 

Although NASA has historically relied on rigid aeroshells, parachutes, and retro-propulsion (rockets) to decelerate people, vehicles, and hardware during entry, descent, and landing operations, a benefit of inflatable heat shields is that they take up less space in a rocket, allowing more room for other hardware or payloads. LOFTID’s aeroshell has been folded and tightly packed down to 4 by 1.5 feet for launch and stacked in the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket payload fairing.

Close up of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V payload fairing containing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Joint Polar Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2) as it arrived at the vertical integration facility at Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California. We see the hand-painted JPSS-2 mission patch on the top of the fairing, the NOAA and NASA logos beneath, and then LOFTID mission patch underneath.

5. LOFTID is dedicated in honor of one of its innovators.  

LOFTID was developed as a partnership with ULA and is dedicated to the memory of Bernard Kutter, ULA manager of advanced programs, who passed away in August 2020. Kutter was instrumental in advancing the inflatable heat shield design and developing the plan to test the system on an Atlas V rocket. He was an advocate for both space technology and expanding access to space. Kutter’s NASA and ULA counterparts agree that LOFTID is unlikely to have made it to space without his vision and passion.

6. LOFTID is made of tough stuff. 

Synthetic fibers make up the inflatable structure, braided into tubes that are, by weight, 10 times stronger than steel. The tubes are coiled so that they form the shape of a blunt cone when inflated. The thermal protection system that covers the inflatable structure can survive searing entry temperatures up to 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit. Researchers used the same heat-shielding materials to create a fire shelter prototype for firefighters battling forest fires.

7. You can make your own LOFTID Halloween costume! 

Still looking for an out-of-this world Halloween costume? With a few commonly found materials, like orange pool noodles and duct tape, you can create your own LOFTID costume. However, we make no promises of protecting or slowing you down from becoming the life of the party.

In front of the NASA worm logo on the stone wall outside the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington, is a woman wearing the make-your-own LOFTID Halloween costume. She wears black long-sleeved shirt, gloves and pants, and has yellow suspenders holding up a stack of orange pool noodles in the shape of rings meant to represent the inflatable heat shield technology.

Follow @NASA_Technology for the latest updates on LOFTID. Don’t miss our live coverage leading up to launch from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The NASA Edge JPSS-2 Tower Rollback Show airs live on NASA TV and YouTube on Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 12 a.m. EDT, and NASA TV live launch coverage will begin at 4:45 a.m. EDT. 

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2 years ago

A Dusty Fingerprint in Space

An image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a bright dot at the center of star-filled black space. The bright dot is actually two stars meeting, as their orbits bring them together every 8 years. The stellar pair are surrounded by 17 rings of gas and dust that appear orangish gray. The rings have a slight rectangular shape and are very clear and defined starting at about 1 o’clock on a clockface. The rings start to break up a bit to our view traveling clockwise around the image. As you arrive at the 12:40 position, only parts of about six rings can be seen as they disappear from view.

A new image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals a remarkable cosmic sight: at least 17 concentric dust rings emanating from a pair of stars. Just 5,300 light-years from Earth, the star duo are collectively known as Wolf-Rayet 140. Each ring was created when the two stars came close together and their stellar winds (streams of gas they blow into space) collided so forcefully that some of the gas was compressed into dust. The stars' orbits bring them together about once every eight years, and forms a half-shell of dust that looks like a ring from our perspective. Like a cosmic fingerprint, the 17 rings reveal more than a century of stellar interactions—and the "fingerprint" belonging to Wolf-Rayet 140 may be equally unique. Other Wolf-Rayet stars produce dust, but no other pair are known to produce rings quite like Wolf-Rayet 140.

Learn more about Wolf-Rayet 140.

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