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NASA Study Finds Life-Sparking Energy Source and Molecule at Enceladus
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By NASA
4 min read
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The mystery of why life uses molecules with specific orientations has deepened with a NASA-funded discovery that RNA — a key molecule thought to have potentially held the instructions for life before DNA emerged — can favor making the building blocks of proteins in either the left-hand or the right-hand orientation. Resolving this mystery could provide clues to the origin of life. The findings appear in research recently published in Nature Communications.
Proteins are the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes (catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions). Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acid building blocks in a huge variety of arrangements to make millions of different proteins. Some amino acid molecules can be built in two ways, such that mirror-image versions exist, like your hands, and life uses the left-handed variety of these amino acids. Although life based on right-handed amino acids would presumably work fine, the two mirror images are rarely mixed in biology, a characteristic of life called homochirality. It is a mystery to scientists why life chose the left-handed variety over the right-handed one.
A diagram of left-handed and right-handed versions of the amino acid isovaline, found in the Murchison meteorite.NASA DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the molecule that holds the instructions for building and running a living organism. However, DNA is complex and specialized; it “subcontracts” the work of reading the instructions to RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules and building proteins to ribosome molecules. DNA’s specialization and complexity lead scientists to think that something simpler should have preceded it billions of years ago during the early evolution of life. A leading candidate for this is RNA, which can both store genetic information and build proteins. The hypothesis that RNA may have preceded DNA is called the “RNA world” hypothesis.
If the RNA world proposition is correct, then perhaps something about RNA caused it to favor building left-handed proteins over right-handed ones. However, the new work did not support this idea, deepening the mystery of why life went with left-handed proteins.
The experiment tested RNA molecules that act like enzymes to build proteins, called ribozymes. “The experiment demonstrated that ribozymes can favor either left- or right-handed amino acids, indicating that RNA worlds, in general, would not necessarily have a strong bias for the form of amino acids we observe in biology now,” said Irene Chen, of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Samueli School of Engineering, corresponding author of the Nature Communications paper.
In the experiment, the researchers simulated what could have been early-Earth conditions of the RNA world. They incubated a solution containing ribozymes and amino acid precursors to see the relative percentages of the right-handed and left-handed amino acid, phenylalanine, that it would help produce. They tested 15 different ribozyme combinations and found that ribozymes can favor either left-handed or right-handed amino acids. This suggested that RNA did not initially have a predisposed chemical bias for one form of amino acids. This lack of preference challenges the notion that early life was predisposed to select left-handed-amino acids, which dominate in modern proteins.
“The findings suggest that life’s eventual homochirality might not be a result of chemical determinism but could have emerged through later evolutionary pressures,” said co-author Alberto Vázquez-Salazar, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar and member of Chen’s research group.
Earth’s prebiotic history lies beyond the oldest part of the fossil record, which has been erased by plate tectonics, the slow churning of Earth’s crust. During that time, the planet was likely bombarded by asteroids, which may have delivered some of life’s building blocks, such as amino acids. In parallel to chemical experiments, other origin-of-life researchers have been looking at molecular evidence from meteorites and asteroids.
“Understanding the chemical properties of life helps us know what to look for in our search for life across the solar system,” said co-author Jason Dworkin, senior scientist for astrobiology at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and director of Goddard’s Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory.
Dworkin is the project scientist on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which extracted samples from the asteroid Bennu and delivered them to Earth last year for further study.
“We are analyzing OSIRIS-REx samples for the chirality (handedness) of individual amino acids, and in the future, samples from Mars will also be tested in laboratories for evidence of life including ribozymes and proteins,” said Dworkin.
The research was supported by grants from NASA, the Simons Foundation Collaboration on the Origin of Life, and the National Science Foundation. Vázquez-Salazar acknowledges support through the NASA Postdoctoral Program, which is administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities under contract with NASA.
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Last Updated Nov 21, 2024 EditorWilliam SteigerwaldContactNancy N. Jonesnancy.n.jones@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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Hubble Space Telescope Home NASA’s Hubble Finds… Hubble Space Telescope Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts E-books Lithographs Fact Sheets Glossary Posters Hubble on the NASA App More Online Activities 5 Min Read NASA’s Hubble Finds Sizzling Details About Young Star FU Orionis
An artist’s concept of the early stages of the young star FU Orionis (FU Ori) outburst, surrounded by a disk of material. Credits:
NASA-JPL, Caltech In 1936, astronomers saw a puzzling event in the constellation Orion: the young star FU Orionis (FU Ori) became a hundred times brighter in a matter of months. At its peak, FU Ori was intrinsically 100 times brighter than our Sun. Unlike an exploding star though, it has declined in luminosity only languidly since then.
Now, a team of astronomers has wielded NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope‘s ultraviolet capabilities to learn more about the interaction between FU Ori’s stellar surface and the accretion disk that has been dumping gas onto the growing star for nearly 90 years. They find that the inner disk touching the star is extraordinarily hot — which challenges conventional wisdom.
The observations were made with the telescope’s COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph) and STIS (Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph) instruments. The data includes the first far-ultraviolet and new near-ultraviolet spectra of FU Ori.
“We were hoping to validate the hottest part of the accretion disk model, to determine its maximum temperature, by measuring closer to the inner edge of the accretion disk than ever before,” said Lynne Hillenbrand of Caltech in Pasadena, California, and a co-author of the paper. “I think there was some hope that we would see something extra, like the interface between the star and its disk, but we were certainly not expecting it. The fact we saw so much extra — it was much brighter in the ultraviolet than we predicted — that was the big surprise.”
A Better Understanding of Stellar Accretion
Originally deemed to be a unique case among stars, FU Ori exemplifies a class of young, eruptive stars that undergo dramatic changes in brightness. These objects are a subset of classical T Tauri stars, which are newly forming stars that are building up by accreting material from their disk and the surrounding nebula. In classical T Tauri stars, the disk does not touch the star directly because it is restricted by the outward pressure of the star’s magnetic field.
The accretion disks around FU Ori objects, however, are susceptible to instabilities due to their enormous mass relative to the central star, interactions with a binary companion, or infalling material. Such instability means the mass accretion rate can change dramatically. The increased pace disrupts the delicate balance between the stellar magnetic field and the inner edge of the disk, leading to material moving closer in and eventually touching the star’s surface.
This is an artist’s concept of the early stages of the young star FU Orionis (FU Ori) outburst, surrounded by a disk of material. A team of astronomers has used the Hubble Space Telescope’s ultraviolet capabilities to learn more about the interaction between FU Ori’s stellar surface and the accretion disk that has been dumping gas onto the growing star for nearly 90 years. They found that the inner disk, touching the star, is much hotter than expected—16,000 kelvins—nearly three times our Sun’s surface temperature. That sizzling temperature is nearly twice as hot as previously believed. NASA-JPL, Caltech
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The enhanced infall rate and proximity of the accretion disk to the star make FU Ori objects much brighter than a typical T Tauri star. In fact, during an outburst, the star itself is outshined by the disk. Furthermore, the disk material is orbiting rapidly as it approaches the star, much faster than the rotation rate of the stellar surface. This means that there should be a region where the disk impacts the star and the material slows down and heats up significantly.
“The Hubble data indicates a much hotter impact region than models have previously predicted,” said Adolfo Carvalho of Caltech and lead author of the study. “In FU Ori, the temperature is 16,000 kelvins [nearly three times our Sun’s surface temperature]. That sizzling temperature is almost twice the amount prior models have calculated. It challenges and encourages us to think of how such a jump in temperature can be explained.”
To address the significant difference in temperature between past models and the recent Hubble observations, the team offers a revised interpretation of the geometry within FU Ori’s inner region: The accretion disk’s material approaches the star and once it reaches the stellar surface, a hot shock is produced, which emits a lot of ultraviolet light.
Planet Survival Around FU Ori
Understanding the mechanisms of FU Ori’s rapid accretion process relates more broadly to ideas of planet formation and survival.
“Our revised model based on the Hubble data is not strictly bad news for planet evolution, it’s sort of a mixed bag,” explained Carvalho. “If the planet is far out in the disk as it’s forming, outbursts from an FU Ori object should influence what kind of chemicals the planet will ultimately inherit. But if a forming planet is very close to the star, then it’s a slightly different story. Within a couple outbursts, any planets that are forming very close to the star can rapidly move inward and eventually merge with it. You could lose, or at least completely fry, rocky planets forming close to such a star.”
Additional work with the Hubble UV observations is in progress. The team is carefully analyzing the various spectral emission lines from multiple elements present in the COS spectrum. This should provide further clues on FU Ori’s environment, such as the kinematics of inflowing and outflowing gas within the inner region.
“A lot of these young stars are spectroscopically very rich at far ultraviolet wavelengths,” reflected Hillenbrand. “A combination of Hubble, its size and wavelength coverage, as well as FU Ori’s fortunate circumstances, let us see further down into the engine of this fascinating star-type than ever before.”
These findings have been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The observations were taken as part of General Observer program 17176.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contacts:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Abigail Major, Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
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Last Updated Nov 21, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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ESI24 Nam Quadchart
SungWoo Nam
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Lunar dust may seem unimposing, but it presents a significant challenge for space missions. Its abrasive and jagged particles can damage equipment, clog devices, and even pose health risks to astronauts. This project addresses such issues by developing advanced coatings composed of crumpled nano-balls made from atomically thin 2D materials such as MoS₂, graphene, and MXenes. By crumpling these nanosheets—much like crumpling a piece of paper—we create compression and aggregation resistant particles that can be dispersed in sprayable solutions. As a thin film coating, these crumpled nano-balls form corrugated structures that passively reduce dust adhesion and surface wear. The deformable crumpled nano-ball (DCN) coating works by minimizing the contact area between lunar dust and surfaces, thanks to its unique nano-engineered design. The 2D materials exhibit exceptional durability, withstanding extreme thermal and vacuum environments, as well as resisting radiation damage. Additionally, the flexoelectric and electrostatically dissipative properties of MoS₂, graphene, and MXenes allow the coating to neutralize and dissipate electrical charges, making them highly responsive to the charged lunar dust environment. The project will be executed in three phases, each designed to bring the technology closer to real-world space applications. First, we will synthesize the crumpled nano-balls and investigate their adhesion properties using advanced microscopy techniques. The second phase will focus on fundamental testing in simulated lunar environments, where the coating will be exposed to extreme temperatures, vacuum, radiation, and abrasion. Finally, the third phase will involve applying the coating to space-heritage materials and conducting comprehensive testing in a simulated lunar environment, targeting up to 90% dust clearance and verifying durability over repeated cycles of dust exposure. This research aligns with NASA’s goals for safer, more sustainable lunar missions by reducing maintenance requirements and extending equipment lifespan. Moreover, the potential applications extend beyond space exploration, with the technology offering promising advances in terrestrial industries such as aerospace and electronics by providing ultra-durable, wear-resistant surfaces. Ultimately, the project contributes to advancing materials science and paving the way for NASA’s long-term vision of sustainable space exploration.
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By NASA
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The guitar shape in the “Guitar Nebula” comes from bubbles blown by particles ejected from the pulsar through a steady wind as it moves through space. A movie of Chandra (red) data taken in 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2021 has been combined with a single image in optical light from Palomar. X-rays from Chandra show a filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles, about two light-years long, blasting away from the pulsar (seen as the bright white dot). The movie shows how this filament has changed over two decades. X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./M. de Vries et al.; Optical full field: Palomar Obs./Caltech & inset: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare) Normally found only in heavy metal bands or certain post-apocalyptic films, a “flame-throwing guitar” has now been spotted moving through space. Astronomers have captured movies of this extreme cosmic object using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope.
The new movie of Chandra (red) and Palomar (blue) data helps break down what is playing out in the Guitar Nebula. X-rays from Chandra show a filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles, about two light-years or 12 trillion miles long, blasting away from the pulsar (seen as the bright white dot connected to the filament).
Astronomers have nicknamed the structure connected to the pulsar PSR B2224+65 as the “Guitar Nebula” because of its distinct resemblance to the instrument in glowing hydrogen light. The guitar shape comes from bubbles blown by particles ejected from the pulsar through a steady wind. Because the pulsar is moving from the lower right to the upper left, most of the bubbles were created in the past as the pulsar moved through a medium with variations in density.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./M. de Vries et al.; Optical: (Hubble) NASA/ESA/STScI and (Palomar) Hale Telescope/Palomar/CalTech; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare At the tip of the guitar is the pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star left behind after the collapse of a massive star. As it hurtles through space it is pumping out a flame-like filament of particles and X-ray light that astronomers have captured with Chandra.
How does space produce something so bizarre? The combination of two extremes — fast rotation and high magnetic fields of pulsars — leads to particle acceleration and high-energy radiation that creates matter and antimatter particles, as electron and positron pairs. In this situation, the usual process of converting mass into energy, famously determined by Albert Einstein’s E = mc2 equation, is reversed. Here, energy is being converted into mass to produce the particles.
Particles spiraling along magnetic field lines around the pulsar create the X-rays that Chandra detects. As the pulsar and its surrounding nebula of energetic particles have flown through space, they have collided with denser regions of gas. This allows the most energetic particles to escape the confines of the Guitar Nebula and fly to the right of the pulsar, creating the filament of X-rays. When those particles escape, they spiral around and flow along magnetic field lines in the interstellar medium, that is, the space in between stars.
The new movie shows the pulsar and the filament flying towards the upper left of the image through Chandra data taken in 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2021. The movie has the same optical image in each frame, so it does not show changes in parts of the “guitar.” A separate movie obtained with data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (obtained in 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2021) shows the motion of the pulsar and the smaller structures around it.
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Hubble Space Telescope data: 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2021.X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./M. de Vries et al.; Optical full field: Palomar Obs./Caltech & inset: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare) A study of this data has concluded that the variations that drive the formation of bubbles in the hydrogen nebula, which forms the outline of the guitar, also control changes in how many particles escape to the right of the pulsar, causing subtle brightening and fading of the X-ray filament, like a cosmic blow torch shooting from the tip of the guitar.
The structure of the filament teaches astronomers about how electrons and positrons travel through the interstellar medium. It also provides an example of how this process is injecting electrons and positrons into the interstellar medium.
A paper describing these results was published in The Astrophysical Journal and is available here.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description:
This release features two short videos and a labeled composite image, all featuring what can be described as a giant flame-throwing guitar floating in space.
In both the six second multiwavelength Guitar Nebula timelapse video and the composite image, the guitar shape appears at our lower left, with the neck of the instrument pointing toward our upper left. The guitar shape is ghostly and translucent, resembling a wispy cloud on a dark night. At the end of the neck, the guitar’s headstock comes to a sharp point that lands on a bright white dot. This dot is a pulsar, and the guitar shape is a hydrogen nebula. The nebula was formed when particles being ejected by the pulsar produced a cloud of bubbles. The bubbles were then blown into a curvy guitar shape by a steady wind. The guitar shape is undeniable, and is traced by a thin white line in the labeled composite image.
The pulsar, known as PSR B2224+65, has also released a long filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles approximately 12 trillion miles long. In both the composite image and the six second video, this energetic, X-ray blast shoots from the bright white dot at the tip of the guitar’s headstock, all the way out to our upper righthand corner. In the still image, the blast resembles a streak of red dots, most of which fall in a straight, densely packed line. The six second video features four separate images of the phenomenon, created with Chandra data gathered in 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2021. When shown in sequence, the density of the X-ray blast filament appears to fluctuate.
A 12 second video is also included in this release. It features four images that focus on the headstock of the guitar shape. These images were captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2021. When played in sequence, the images show the headstock shape expanding. A study of this data has concluded that the variations that drive the formation of bubbles in the hydrogen nebula also control changes in the pulsar’s blast filament. Meaning the same phenomenon that created the cosmic guitar also created the cosmic blowtorch shooting from the headstock.
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By NASA
Earth (ESD) Earth Home Explore Climate Change Science in Action Multimedia Data For Researchers 14 Min Read NASA’s Brad Doorn Brings Farm Belt Wisdom to Space-Age Agriculture
This image shows corn cultivation patterns across the U.S. Midwest in 2020, with lands planted in corn marked in yellow. Credits:
NASA Earth Observatory/ Lauren Dauphin Bradley Doorn grew up in his family’s trucking business, which hauled milk and animal feed across the sprawling plains of South Dakota. Home was Mitchell, a small town famous for its Corn Palace, where murals crafted from corn kernels and husks have adorned its facade since 1892—a tribute to the abundance of the surrounding farmland.
Trucking was often grueling work for the family, the day breaking early and ending in headlights. Like farming, driving a truck wasn’t just a job; it was the engine of daily life, thrumming through nearly every conversation and decision.
Brad loved the outdoors, and by the time he started college in the early 1980s, studying geological engineering felt like a natural fit. “I wanted to be out in the field somewhere, working under the big skies of the West,” Brad recalled. But in his sophomore year at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, the tuition money dried up.
Dean Doorn, Brad Doorn’s father, stands beside a milk truck used in the family’s business of hauling milk across South Dakota in the 1960s and ’70s. Credit: B. Doorn Doorn found himself at a crossroads familiar to many in rural America: return to the certainty of a family trade or chart a new route. “That’s when the Army stepped in,” he said. The ROTC program offered a way to continue with school and a path into the world of remote sensing—a field that would come to define his career.
Brad’s choice to join the Army would eventually place him at the forefront of a mapping revolution, equipping him to see and analyze Earth in ways never possible before the advent of satellites. But more than the technical skills, the military showed him the allure of a life anchored to mission and team.
Even as his career took him far from Mitchell, Doorn would remain connected to his rural America roots. Today, he leads NASA’s agriculture programs within the agency’s Earth Science Division. “My family wasn’t made up of farmers, but farming was a part of everything growing up,” said Brad. “Even now, working with NASA, that connection to the land—the sense of how weather, crops, and people are tied together—it’s still in everything I do.”
Amid the dazzle of NASA’s feats exploring the solar system and universe, it’s easy to miss the agency’s quiet work in fields of soy and wheat. But for more than 60 years, the agency has harnessed the power of its satellites to deliver crucial data on temperature, precipitation, crop yields, and more to farmers, policymakers, and food security experts worldwide.
The Landsat 9 satellite captured this false-color image of Louisiana rice fields in February 2023. Dark blue shows flooded areas, while green indicates vegetation. Grid-like levees separate fields pre-planting. Louisiana is the third largest producer of rice in the U.S. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/ Lauren Dauphin From orbit, satellites beam down streams of data—numbers and pixels that, when paired with farmers’ knowledge of the land, can guide growers as they adjust irrigation levels or plan for the next planting. But the satellites don’t just yield data; they tell stories that call for action, enabling nations to brace for droughts, floods, and the prospect of empty grain silos.
“Under Brad’s guidance, NASA’s agriculture program has become a global leader for satellite-driven solutions, tackling food security and sustainability head-on,” said Lawrence Friedl, the senior engagement officer for NASA Earth Science. Reflecting on years of collaboration, he added: “I am so impressed and grateful for what he and his teams have accomplished.”
Boots Meet Satellites in the First Gulf War
Long before Brad began guiding NASA’s agricultural initiatives, he was already navigating tricky terrain, both literal and figurative, with satellite imagery. His career in remote sensing didn’t start with crops, but with the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait.
As part of the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, Brad led a company at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty) in North Carolina that had just returned from operations in the First Gulf War, in the early 1990s. “I loved being part of a unit, part of something bigger than just me,” Brad recalled. “It felt good to have that purpose and mission.”
Far from the combat zone, Doorn’s company became cartographers of the invisible. Their task: merge data from the Landsat satellite with the gritty reality of desert warfare depicted on military maps.
Brad Doorn, then a U.S. Army officer, sits at his desk during his early career in remote sensing. His military experience would later shape his work at NASA, applying satellite technology to real-world challenges. Credit: B. Doorn Landsat, a civilian satellite built by NASA and operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, could see what the soldiers on the ground could not. Its thermal infrared sensor—a camera with a penchant for temperature and moisture—read the desert floor like an ancient script, picking out the cold, soggy signature of mud lurking beneath the desert’s deceptive crust. Each pixel of satellite data became a brushstroke in a new kind of map, keeping tanks out of the mire and the missions on track.
“It was so neat to see the remote sensing techniques I’d learned about in school actually making a difference,” Doorn said.
With this knowledge, he helped guide his unit’s shift from analog maps—paper grids and grease pencils—to the emerging world of digital mapping, a leap that sharpened the military’s ability to read the landscape and steer clear of trouble.
From Desert Muck to Farm Fields
Brad’s military experience gave him an early look at how satellite data could address tangible, on-the-ground challenges. In the Army, he saw how integrating satellite data into military maps could offer soldiers critical information. That experience set the foundation for his later work at NASA, where he would help develop technology with lasting, practical impacts.
Consider OpenET, a NASA-funded initiative that uses Landsat data to give farmers insights into water use and irrigation needs at field scale. The ET in OpenET stands not for the little alien who phoned home, but for evapotranspiration. It’s a combination of water evaporating from the ground and water released by plants into the air.
The program relies on the same thermal technology Doorn used during the Gulf War. Just as cooler, wetter areas in the desert hint at muddy spots, cooler patches in farm fields show where there’s more moisture or plants are releasing more water. These data are key to managing water resources wisely and keeping crops healthy.
“OpenET has transformed our understanding of water demand,” explained Doorn.
To better manage water, state officials and farmers in California are using satellite data through OpenET to track evapotranspiration. Here, the colors represent total evapotranspiration for 2023 as the equivalent depth of water in millimeters. Dark blue regions have higher evapotranspiration rates, such as in the Central Valley. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory using openetdata.org In the late 2000s, when a new generation of Landsat satellites was being planned, the thermal infrared imagers were initially left off the drawing board. “Landsat 8’s design caused a lot of consternation in some Western states that were beginning to use the instrument for measuring and monitoring water use,” said Tony Willardson, the executive director of the Western States Water Council, a government entity that advises western governors on water policy.
Brad played a key role in conveying to NASA the critical need for this technology, both for agriculture and water management, Willardson said. The thermal imager was eventually reinstated and has since “helped to close a gap in western water management.”
“A lot of the technologies that we are using more and more were developed by NASA,” said Willardson. “We need NASA to be doing even more in Earth science.”
Sowing Global Food Stability from Space
Brad ended up serving in the Army for nearly a decade. “You hit that 10-year mark in the military, and you sort of have to decide if you’re staying in for 20 or if you’re getting out,” said Brad. “My wife, Kristen, was able to manage her career as a registered dietician through the first four moves in six years, but eventually it was too much. So, I told her: ‘Your choice. You decide where we go next.’”
She chose southern Pennsylvania to be closer to her family. Brad was 32 years old, and the couple had two small children at the time—one of whom had had open-heart surgery at 6 weeks old to fix a heart defect. They would go on to have another child.
In the late 1990s, within a few years of leaving the military, Doorn found himself someplace he had never imagined: sitting behind a desk at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. For a boy who had grown up driving trucks across the plains of South Dakota—who had vowed never to work in an office, much less live east of the Mississippi—this was an unexpected detour. But he had long since learned that the best paths are often the ones you don’t see coming.
At USDA, he moved forward not with a grand plan, but with an instinctive trust in where curiosity and challenge might lead. He rose through the ranks, from a programmer to directing the agency’s international food production analysis program. He was increasingly driven by a conviction that satellite data, if used the right way, could transform how we see the land and the way we feed the world.
While at USDA, and later at NASA, which he joined in 2009, Brad was instrumental in developing and overseeing the Global Agricultural Monitoring (GLAM) system. This real-time interactive satellite platform delivers massive amounts of ready-to-use satellite data directly to USDA crop analysts, eliminating the burden of data processing and enabling them to focus on rapid crop analysis across the globe. It was a pioneering tool, said Inbal Becker-Reshef, a research professor at University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences, who played a central role in developing the GLAM system.
At a 2022 Kansas gathering, Brad Doorn presents to farmers about NASA’s Earth Science Division and its activities supporting agriculture. Credit: A. Whitcraft GLAM set the stage for GEOGLAM, a separate, international initiative launched in 2011 by agriculture ministers from the G20—a group of the world’s major economies—partly as a response to global food price volatility. GEOGLAM, which stands for Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring, uses satellite data to monitor global crop conditions, from drought stress to excessive rain, around the world.
Joseph Glauber, a former USDA chief economist, noted that there was initial uncertainty within USDA about the initiative’s longevity, but he credited Brad’s background with rallying support. Today, GEOGLAM’s monthly crop assessments, produced by over 40 organizations including USDA and NASA, serve as a global consensus on crop conditions, helping governments and humanitarian organizations anticipate food shortages.
“Even today, the G20 points to GEOGLAM and its sister initiative, the Agricultural Market Information System—which tracks how crop conditions affect markets—as major successes,” Glauber said.
Harvesting Data Amid Conflict
Doorn’s work crosses continents. When war broke out between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, it rattled global food markets. The Ukrainian government turned to NASA Harvest—a global food security and agriculture consortium led by the University of Maryland and funded by NASA—for help. As manager of NASA’s agriculture program, Brad was a driving force behind the launch of NASA Harvest in 2017, envisioning it as a program that would harness satellite data to provide timely, actionable insights for global agriculture.
From orbit, satellites could observe the sown and the harvested wheat, sunflowers, and barley, offering some of the only reliable estimates for fields in the war zone. Satellite imagery revealed that, despite the conflict, more cropland had been planted and harvested in Ukraine than anyone had expected, a finding that helped stabilize volatile global food prices.
“Brad and the team recognized that providing that type of rapid agricultural assessment for policy support is what NASA Harvest exists for,” said Becker-Reshef, who is the director of the consortium.
NASA Harvest’s reach stretches well beyond Europe. In sub-Saharan Africa, the consortium collaborates with local and international partners, tracking the health of crops and the creeping spread of drought. This information helps equip governments, aid organizations, and farmers to act before disaster strikes, making each data point a crucial defense against hunger.
NASA Harvest has since been joined by NASA Acres, founded in 2023 to provide satellite data and tools that help farmers make well-informed decisions for healthier crops and soil in the United States. One project, for example, involves working with farmers in Illinois to manage nitrogen use more effectively, leveraging satellite data to enhance crop yields while reducing environmental impact.
This image shows corn cultivation patterns across the U.S. Midwest in 2020, with lands planted in corn marked in yellow. The map was built from the Cropland Data Layer product provided by the National Agricultural Statistics Service, which includes data from the USGS National Land Cover Database and from satellites such as Landsat 8. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/ Lauren Dauphin Friedl noted that Doorn understands the missions of both NASA and the USDA, and with his agricultural roots, he knows the needs of farmers and agricultural businesses firsthand. “Often in meetings, Brad would remind us that the margins for a farmer are in the pennies,” Friedl said. “They wouldn’t be able to afford remote sensing,” so making sure NASA’s satellite information was free and accessible was that much more important.
“It’s hard to imagine that NASA would have the agriculture program it does without somebody like Brad continuing to advocate and push for this to exist,” said Alyssa Whitcraft, the director of NASA Acres. “He knows how critical it is for satellite data to be accessible and useful to those on the ground. He makes sure we never lose sight of that.”
An Emissary Between Worlds
Colleagues say Doorn’s strength lies in his ability to bridge worlds, whether it’s making connections between agencies like NASA and USDA, or connecting such agencies to state water councils or farming communities. His fluency in translating complex science into simple terms makes him equally at ease in whichever world he finds himself.
“There’s NASA language and there’s farm language,” says Lance Lillibridge, who farms about 1,400 acres of corn and soybeans in Benton County, Iowa, and has helped lead the Iowa Corn Growers Association. “Sometimes you need an interpreter, and Brad’s that guy.” He recalled a meeting where some farmers were skeptical, wary of NASA’s “big brother” eyes in the sky, “but Brad had a way of putting people at ease, keeping everyone focused on the shared goal of better data for better decisions.”
Brad Doorn speaks during NASA’s “Space for Ag” roadshow in Iowa, July 2023, highlighting NASA’s role in supporting sustainable farming practices. Credit: N. Pepper “One of my favorite memories of Brad,” said Forrest Melton, the OpenET project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, “is an afternoon spent visiting with farmers in western Nebraska, drinking iced tea and talking with them about the challenges facing their family farm.”
Colleagues describe Brad as a nearly unflappable guide, one who knows the agricultural landscape so well that he makes the impossible seem manageable. They say his calm, approachable style, paired with a ready smile, puts people at ease whether in Washington conference rooms or Midwestern barns. And he listens closely to understand where there may be opportunities to help.
“Few people in the water and agriculture communities, from the small-scale farmer to the federal government appointee, aren’t familiar with some aspect of the work Brad has enabled over the decades,” said Sarah Brennan, a former deputy program manager for NASA’s water resources programs. “He has supported the development of some of the greatest advancements in using remote sensing in these communities.”
It’s About the People and the Team
Doorn’s leadership is less about issuing directives, colleagues say, and more about cultivating growth—in crops, in data systems, and in people. Like a farmer tending to his fields, he nurtures the potential in every project and person he encounters. “Almost everyone who has worked for Brad can point back to the opportunities he provided them that launched their successful careers,” said Brennan.
Over the years, he’s added layers to this work of creating paths for others to succeed: as president of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, as an adjunct professor at Penn State, and as a youth basketball league director.
“What I’ve learned, probably in the military and I’ve carried it forward, is that it’s the people that matter,” Brad said. “I had great mentors who believed it’s just as important to help others grow as it is to meet the day’s demands. Those roles shift your focus toward the people around you, and often, the more you give of your time, the more you end up getting back.”
Young Brad Doorn (front center) stands with his siblings, capturing a family moment in 1960s South Dakota. His youngest brother isn’t pictured. Credit: B. Doorn It has been a long journey from hauling milk and animal feed across the South Dakota plains to surveying them now as a scientist. The tools of his career have changed—from truck routes to satellite orbits, from paper maps to digital data—but his mission remains the same: helping farmers feed the world.
“Growing up in South Dakota, I saw firsthand the challenges farmers face. Today, I’m proud to help provide the tools and data that can make a real difference in their lives,” Doorn added. “Whether it’s a farmer, an economist, or a military analyst, if you give them the right tools, they’ll take them to places you never even thought about. That’s what excites me—seeing where they go.”
By Emily DeMarco
NASA’s Earth Science Division, Headquarters
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