One of the two assembled critical sections of NASAβs Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in the cleanroom at NASAβs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This assembly consists of Romanβs optics, primary science instruments, and spacecraft bus.
Happy Birthday, Dr. Nancy Grace Roman!
Today marks what would have been the 100th birthday of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman βΒ NASAβs first chief astronomer and the namesake for NASAβs nearly complete Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.Β
Dr. Roman championed NASAβs Hubble Space Telescope and paved the way for other major space-based telescopes like NASAβs James Webb Space Telescope and now the upcoming Roman telescope β currently assembled into two large structures technicians will soon connect.
Key assessments at NASAβs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland are ensuring that both Romanβs critical sections are ready for integration and additional tests as a complete observatory. HavingΒ recently passedΒ a space environment test, Roman remains on schedule for launch by May 2027, with the team aiming for launch as early as fall 2026.
Learn more about Dr. Roman and stay up to date on the mission at nasa.gov/roman.
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Star formation can be messy. To help find out just how messy,Β ESA's newΒ Sun-orbitingΒ Euclid telescopeΒ recently captured the most detailed image ever of the bright star forming region M78. Near the image center,Β M78Β lies at a distance of only about 1,300Β light-years away and has a main glowing core that spans about 5 light-years.
Setting Sail to Travel Through Space: 5 Things to Know about our New Mission
Our Advanced Composite Solar Sail System will launch aboard Rocket Labβs Electron rocket from the companyβs Launch Complex 1 in MΔhia, New Zealand no earlier than April 23, at 6 p.m. EDT. This mission will demonstrate the use of innovative materials and structures to deploy a next-generation solar sail from a CubeSat in low Earth orbit.
Here are five things to know about this upcoming mission:
1. Sailing on Sunshine
Solar sails use the pressure of sunlight for propulsion much like sailboats harness the wind, eliminating the need for rocket fuel after the spacecraft has launched. If all goes according to plan, this technology demonstration will help us test how the solar sail shape and design work in different orbits.
2. Small Package, Big Impact
The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft is a CubeSat the size of a microwave, but when the package inside is fully unfurled, it will measure about 860 square feet (80 square meters) which is about the size of six parking spots. Once fully deployed, it will be the biggest, functional solar sail system β capable of controlled propulsion maneuvers β to be tested in space.
3. Second NASA Solar Sail in Space
If successful, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System will be Β the second NASA solar sail to deploy in space, and not only will it be much larger, but this system will also test navigation capabilities to change the spacecraftβs orbit. This will help us gather data for future missions with even larger sails.
4. BOOM: Stronger, Lighter Booms
Just like a sailboat mast supports its cloth sails, a solar sail has support beams called booms that provide structure. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System missionβs primary objective is to deploy a new type of boom. These booms are made from flexible polymer and carbon fiber materials that are stiffer and 75% lighter than previous boom designs. They can also be flattened and rolled like a tape measure. Two booms spanning the diagonal of the square (23 feet or about 7 meters in length) could be rolled up and fit into the palm of your hand!
5. Itβs a bird...itβs a plane...itβs our solar sail!
About one to two months after launch, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft will deploy its booms and unfurl its solar sail. Because of its large size and reflective material, the spacecraft may be visible from Earth with the naked eye if the lighting conditions and orientation are just right!
To learn more about this mission that will inform future space travel and expand our understanding of our Sun and solar system, visit https://www.nasa.gov/mission/acs3/.
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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.
First, BurstCube was designed and built at NASAβs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Here you can see Julie Cox, an early career engineer, working on BurstCubeβs 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 β as well as do cool science!
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 NASAβs Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
She and other members of the team used a special facility there to map BurstCubeβs magnetic field. This will help them know where the instrument is pointing when itβs in space.
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.
Then, up on a Goddard rooftop, the team β including early career engineer Justin Clavette β tested BurstCubeβs GPS. This so-called open-sky test helps ensure the team can locate the satellite once itβs in orbit.
The next big step in BurstCubeβs 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!
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.
From Houston, BurstCube traveled to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, where it launched on SpaceXβs 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.
A few days later, the mission docked at the space station, and the astronauts aboard began unloading all the supplies, including BurstCube!
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!
BurstCube wouldnβt 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 BurstCubeβs journey with NASA Universe on X and Facebook. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Get dazzled by the true spectrum of solar beauty. From fiery reds to cool blues, explore the vibrant hues of the Sun in a mesmerizing color order. The images used to make this gradient come from our Solar Dynamics Observatory. Taken in a variety of wavelengths,Β they give scientists a wealth of data about the Sun.
Don't miss the total solar eclipse crossing North America on April 8, 2024. (It's the last one for 20 years!) Set a reminder to watch with us.
Watch live with us as a total solar eclipse moves across North America on April 8, 2024, traveling through Mexico, across the United States
Roman's primary structure hangs from cables as it moves into the big clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
What Makes the Clean Room So Clean?
When you picture NASAβs most important creations, you probably think of a satellite, telescope, or maybe a rover. But what about the room theyβre made in? Believe it or not, the room itself where these instruments are put togetherβa clean roomβis pretty special.Β
A clean room is a space that protects technology from contamination. This is especially important when sending very sensitive items into space that even small particles could interfere with.
There are two main categories of contamination that we have to keep away from our instruments. The first is particulate contamination, like dust. The second is molecular contamination, which is more like oil or grease. Both types affect a telescopeβs image quality, as well as the time it takes to capture imagery. Having too many particles on our instruments is like looking through a dirty window. A clean room makes for clean science!
Two technicians clean the floor of Goddardβs big clean room.
Our Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland has the largest clean room of its kind in the world. Itβs as tall as an eight-story building and as wide as two basketball courts.
Goddardβs clean room has fewer than 3,000 micron-size particles per cubic meter of air. If you lined up all those tiny particles, theyβd be no longer than a sesame seed. If those particles were the size of 16-inch (0.4-meter) inflatable beach balls, weβd find only 3,000 spread throughout the whole body of Mount Everest!
A clean room technician observes a sample under a microscope.
The clean room keeps out particles larger than five microns across, just seven percent of the width of an average human hair. It does this via special filters that remove around 99.97% of particles 0.3 microns and larger from incoming air. Six fans the size of school buses spin to keep air flowing and pressurize the room. Since the pressure inside is higher, the clean air keeps unclean air out when doors open.
A technician analyzes a sample under ultraviolet light.
In addition, anyone who enters must wear a βbunny suitβ to keep their body particles away from the machinery. A bunny suit covers most of the person inside. Sometimes scientists have trouble recognizing each other while in the suits, but they do get to know each otherβs mannerisms very well.
This illustration depicts the anatomy of a bunny suit, which covers clean room technicians from head to toe to protect sensitive technology.
The bunny suit is only the beginning: before putting it on, team members undergo a preparation routine involving a hairnet and an air shower. Fun fact β youβre not allowed to wear products like perfume, lotion, or deodorant. Even odors can transfer easily!
Six of Goddardβs clean room technicians (left to right: Daniel DaCosta, Jill Bender, Anne Martino, Leon Bailey, Frank DβAnnunzio, and Josh Thomas).
It takes a lot of specialists to run Goddardβs clean room. There are 10 people on the Contamination Control Technician Team, 30 people on the Clean Room Engineering Team to cover all Goddard missions, and another 10 people on the Facilities Team to monitor the clean room itself. They check on its temperature, humidity, and particle counts.
A technician rinses critical hardware with isopropyl alcohol and separates the particulate and isopropyl alcohol to leave the particles on a membrane for microscopic analysis.
Besides the standard mopping and vacuuming, the team uses tools such as isopropyl alcohol, acetone, wipes, swabs, white light, and ultraviolet light. Plus, they have a particle monitor that uses a laser to measure air particle count and size.
The team keeping the clean room spotless plays an integral role in the success of NASAβs missions. So, the next time you have to clean your bedroom, consider yourself lucky that the stakes arenβt so high!
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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.
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. Itβs like how ice skaters spin faster as they bring their arms closer to their bodies and make the space that they take up smaller.
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.
After decades of studying pulsars, astronomers wonderedβcould 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. NASAβs 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 pulsarsβ light.
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.Β Β
During the first few years of NICERβs observations, SEXTANT created an on-board navigation system using NICERβs pulsar data. It worked by measuring the consistent timing between each pulsarβs pulses to map a set of cosmic beacons.
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 βclocksβ for navigation. During its experiment, SEXTANT was able to successfully determine the space stationβs orbital position!
We can calculate distances using the time taken for a signal to travel between two objects to determine a spacecraftβs 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.
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 wouldnβt 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!
None of these missions or experiments would be possible without Jocelyn Bell Burnellβs 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.Β Β
Keep up with the latest NICER news by following NASA Universe on X and Facebook and check out the missionβs website. For more on space navigation, follow @NASASCaN on X or visit NASAβs Space Communications and Navigation website.Β Β
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i find it so unfair that i cant do all the science. like what do you MEAN I can't study bio and chem and biochem and atrophysics and physics and geology and climate science. what do you MEAN i have a limited lifespan and need to get out of school at some point to get a job. i want to collect the science fields like pokemon, this isn't fair
Fornax A is a giant elliptical galaxy about to consume a spiral galaxy NGC 1317. It's located 62 million light years away in the constellation of Fornax.
The centre of this galaxy has been snacking ! so much so, much of the dust and gas from previous galaxies still remains towards the core, an area normally completely vacant of anything but old stars, due to the interaction with the supermassive black hole.
NGC 1317 is a much smaller spiral galaxy, about to get the same treatment by Fornax A.
A close up on NGC 1317 still shows an area of star birth surrounding the barred core, with darker dust lanes reaching outwards and beginning to feed Fornax A.
One fascinating feature of Fornax A is the massive radio lobes that span out from the centre of the galaxy, in what is most likely a similar cause as the much closer Centauri A.
A very active supermassive black hole, producing huge jets from the poles, so much so, they are far larger than the actual galaxy itself.
At first glance you'd be forgiven for thinking this was two galaxies merging, but they are actually 23 million light years from one another, and just happen to be overlapping due to our perspective.
The closest galaxy is 117 million light years away with the other 140 in the constellation of Hydra.
