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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA is bringing the world of planetary defense to the public with its new documentary, “Planetary Defenders.”
Dr. Shantanu Naidu, Asteroid Radar Researcher, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory points toward the Goldstone Solar System Radar in Barstow, CA – the most powerful planetary radar on Earth.Credit: NASA What would humanity do if an asteroid were headed for Earth? The documentary takes viewers inside the real-life efforts of scientists and engineers working to detect, track, and mitigate potential asteroid threats. Featuring firsthand accounts from experts on the front lines, the film reveals the science, technology, and personal dedication behind planetary defense. The film also showcases the teamwork that drives this critical global effort.
Debuting on NASA+ Wednesday, April 16, NASA is inviting the public to participate in a special YouTube Premiere event at 4:30 p.m. EDT. During this interactive screening, viewers can watch the first public showing of the film together and ask questions to NASA planetary defense experts.
To engage audiences further, NASA is providing digital creators with a toolkit that includes resources, activities, and ways to join the mission of planetary defense.
Established in 2016, NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office leads the agency’s mission to find, track, and understand asteroids and comets that could pose a risk to Earth.
Stay up to date on NASA’s planetary defense efforts: https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense
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Emily Furfaro
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Last Updated Apr 09, 2025 Related Terms
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2 min read Welcome to the Mission Support Directorate
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By NASA
4 Min Read Career Spotlight: Scientist (Ages 14-18)
What does a scientist do?
Science is about exploring answers to questions. A scientist uses research and evidence to form hypotheses, test variables, and then share their findings.
NASA scientists conduct groundbreaking research to answer some of humanity’s most profound questions. Most scientists start as project scientists in their early careers. They spend a lot of time publishing their peer-reviewed literature and presenting scientific research. Senior-level scientists provide leadership in the NASA community, actively publish research group work, and take on management roles.
What are some of the different types of scientists that work at NASA?
Many types of scientists work at NASA to support its wide variety of missions. The agency’s scientists research the foods we send to space, the habitability of other planets, the weather in space, and so much more. Here are a few examples of types of scientists at NASA.
Planetary scientist: Discovers and studies the planetary objects in our solar system. These efforts shed light on the history of the solar system and the distribution of life within it.
Astrobiologist: Studies the origins of life, how life evolves, and where it might be found in the universe.
Astrophysicist: Studies the physical and chemical structures of stars, planets, and other natural objects found in space.
Biological/physical scientist: Studies how biological and physical processes work in challenging environments like space. This information helps NASA design longer human space missions and also benefits life on Earth.
Earth scientist: Uses observations and data from satellites and other sources to study Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, land cover, and land use.
Heliophysicist: Studies the Sun and its behaviors, such as magnetic fields, solar wind, and space weather. This knowledge helps us better understand and predict the Sun’s effects on Earth and in space.
How can I become a scientist?
Focus on building your scientific knowledge and skills. You can do this by taking challenging academic courses, participating in science fairs, and joining extracurricular activities that have a scientific focus. This is also a good time to research what types of sciences you’re most interested in, possible careers in those fields, and academic degrees required for those jobs.
Scientists typically need at least a four-year degree. Most pursue a master’s degree or even a doctorate (Ph.D.) to become experts in their field.
How can I start preparing today to become a scientist?
Interested in applying some science skills right away? NASA provides a variety of hands-on activities for a range of skill levels. The space agency also offers student challenges, competitions, and activities that provide authentic experience in a variety of science fields. For up-to-date opportunities, visit:
NASA STEM Opportunities and Activities for Students NASA Science Learning Opportunities NASA also offers paid internships for U.S. citizens aged 16 and up. Interns work on real projects with the guidance of a NASA mentor. Internship sessions are held each year in spring, summer, and fall; visit NASA’s Internships website to learn about important deadlines and current opportunities.
Advice from NASA scientists
“Take advantage of opportunities in different fields like attending summer classes, volunteering on the weekends, visiting museums, attending community lectures, and reading introductory books at the library. These are a few ways to expand your scope of possibility within the sciences, while simultaneously narrowing your focus in a field.” – Angela Garcia, exploration geologist
“The key to being a scientist is to love asking questions. If you are fascinated about how and why things work — you are already a scientist.”
Nicola Fox
NASA Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate
“One general skill that is often overlooked is the ability to write well and clearly. There’s a misconception that being a scientist means using big words and writing in ways that no one understands, when it’s actually the opposite. The ability to communicate your thoughts and ideas so that a child can understand is not easy, but it’s essential for good scientific writing.” – Matt Mickens, NASA horticulturist
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This team from University High School in Irvine, California, won the 2025 regional Oceans Science Bowl, hosted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. From left: Nethra Iyer, Joanne Chen, Matthew Feng, Avery Hexun, Angelina Yan, and coach David Knight.NASA/JPL-Caltech The annual regional event puts students’ knowledge of ocean-related science to the test in a fast-paced academic competition.
A team of students from University High School in Irvine earned first place at a fast-paced regional academic competition focused on ocean science disciplines and hosted by NASA’S Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Eight teams from Los Angeles and Orange counties competed at the March 29 event, dubbed the Los Angeles Surf Bowl. It was the last of about 20 regional competitions held across the U.S. this year in the lead-up to the virtual National Ocean Sciences Bowl finals event in mid-May.
Santa Monica High School earned second place; Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School in Los Angeles came in third. With its victory, University repeated its winning performance from last year. The school also won the JPL-hosted regional Science Bowl earlier this month.
Teams from all eight schools that participated in the JPL-hosted 2025 regional Ocean Sciences Bowl pose alongside volunteers and coaches.NASA/JPL-Caltech For the Ocean Sciences Bowl, teams are composed of four to five students and a coach. To prepare for the event, team members spend months answering multiple-choice questions with a “Jeopardy!”-style buzzer in just five seconds. Questions come in several categories, including biology, chemistry, geology, and physics along with related geography, technology, history, policy, and current events topics.
A question in the chemistry category might be “What chemical is the principal source of energy at many of Earth’s hydrothermal vent systems?” (It’s hydrogen sulfide.) Other questions can be considerably more challenging.
When a team member buzzes in and gives the correct answer to a multiple-choice question, the team earns a bonus question, which allows teammates to consult with one another to come up with an answer. More complicated “team challenge questions” prompt students to work together for a longer period. The theme of this year’s competition is “Sounding the Depths: Understanding Ocean Acoustics.”
University High junior Matthew Feng, a return competitor, said the team’s success felt like a payoff for hours of studying together, including on weekends. He keeps coming back to the competition partly for the sense of community and also for the personal challenge, he said. “It’s nice to compete and meet people, see people who were here last year,” Matthew added. “Pushing yourself mentally — the first year I was shaking so hard because I wasn’t used to that much adrenaline.”
Since 2000, JPL’s Public Services Office has coordinated the Los Angeles regional contest with the help of volunteers from laboratory staff and former Ocean Sciences Bowl participants in the local community. JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech.
The National Ocean Sciences Bowl is a program of the Center for Ocean Leadership at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of colleges and universities focused in part on Earth science-related education.
News Media Contact
Melissa Pamer
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-314-4928
melissa.pamer@jpl.nasa.gov
2025-044
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Last Updated Mar 31, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
9 min read
Interview with Michiharu Hyogo, Citizen Scientist and First Author of a New Scientific Paper
Peer-reviewed scientific journal articles are the bedrock of science. Each one represents the culmination of a substantial project, impartially checked for accuracy and relevance – a proud accomplishment for any science team.
The person who takes responsibility for writing the paper must inevitably and repeatedly write, edit, and rewrite its content as they receive comments and constructive criticism from colleagues, peers, and editors. And the process involves much more than merely re-writing the words. Implementing feedback and polishing the paper regularly involves reanalyzing data and conducting additional analyses as needed, over and over again. The person who successfully climbs this mountain of effort can then often earn the honor of being named the first author of a peer-reviewed scientific publication. To our delight, more and more of NASA’s citizen scientists have taken on this demanding challenge, and accomplished this incredible feat.
Michiharu Hyogo is one of these pioneers. His paper, “Unveiling the Infrared Excess of SIPS J2045-6332: Evidence for a Young Stellar Object with Potential Low-Mass Companion” (Hyogo et al. 2025) was recently accepted for publication in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. He conceived of the idea for this paper, performed most of the research using of data from NASA’s retired Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, and submitted it to the journal. We asked him some questions about his life and he shared with us some of the secrets to his success.
Q: Where do you live, Michi?
A: I have been living in Tokyo, Japan since the end of 2012. Before that, I lived outside Japan for a total of 21 years, in countries such as Canada, the USA, and Australia.
Q: Which NASA Citizen Science projects have you worked on?
A: I am currently working on three different NASA-sponsored projects: Disk Detective, Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, and Planet Patrol.
Q: What do you do when you’re not working on these projects?
A: Until March of last year, I worked as a part-time lecturer at a local university in Tokyo. At the moment, I am unemployed and looking for similar positions. My dream is to work at a community college in the USA, but so far, my job search has been unsuccessful. In the near future, I hope to teach while also working on projects like this one. This is my dream.
Q: How did you learn about NASA Citizen Science?
A: It’s a very long story. A few years after completing my master’s degree, around 2011, a friend from the University of Hawaii (where I did my bachelor’s degree) introduced me to one of the Zooniverse projects. Since it was so long ago, I can’t remember exactly which project it was—perhaps Galaxy Zoo or another one whose name escapes me.
I definitely worked on Planet Hunters, classifying all 150,000 light curves from (NASA’s) Kepler observatory. Around the time I completed my classifications for Planet Hunters, I came across Disk Detective as it was launching. A friend on Facebook shared information about it, stating that it was “NASA’s first sponsored citizen science project aimed at publishing scientific papers”.
At that time, I was unemployed and had plenty of free time, so I joined without giving much thought to the consequences. I never expected that this project would eventually lead me to write my own paper — it was far beyond anything I had imagined.
Q: What would you say you have gained from working on these NASA projects?A: Working on these NASA-sponsored projects has been an incredibly valuable experience for me in multiple ways. Scientifically, I have gained hands-on experience in analyzing astronomical data, identifying potential celestial objects, and contributing to real research efforts. Through projects like Disk Detective,Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, and Planet Patrol, I have learned how to systematically classify data, recognize patterns, and apply astrophysical concepts in a practical setting.
Beyond the technical skills, I have also gained a deeper understanding of how citizen science can contribute to professional research. Collaborating with experts and other volunteers has improved my ability to communicate scientific ideas and work within a research community.
Perhaps most importantly, these projects have given me a sense of purpose and the opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge discoveries. They have also led to unexpected opportunities, such as co-authoring scientific papers — something I never imagined when I first joined. Overall, these experiences have strengthened my passion for astronomy and my desire to continue contributing to the field.
Q: How did you make the discovery that you wrote about in your paper?
A: Well, the initial goal of this project was to discover circumstellar disks around brown dwarfs. The Disk Detective team assembled more than 1,600 promising candidates that might possess such disks. These objects were identified and submitted by volunteers from the same project, following the physical criteria outlined within it.
Among these candidates, I found an object with the largest infrared excess and the fourth-latest spectral type. This was the moment I first encountered the object and found it particularly interesting, prompting me to investigate it further.
Although we ultimately did not discover a disk around this object, we uncovered intriguing physical characteristics, such as its youth and the presence of a low-mass companion with a spectral type of L3 to L4.
Q: How did you feel when your paper was accepted for publication?
A: Thank you for asking this question—I truly appreciate it. I feel like the biggest milestone of my life has finally been achieved!
This is the first time I genuinely feel that I have made a positive impact on society. It feels like a miracle. Imagine if we had a time machine and I could go back five years to tell my past self this whole story. You know what my past self would say? “You’re crazy.”
Yes, I kept dreaming about this, and deep down, I was always striving toward this goal because it has been my purpose in life since childhood. I’m also proud that I accomplished something like this without being employed by a university or research institute. (Ironically, I wasn’t able to achieve something like this while I was in grad school.)
I’m not sure if there are similar examples in the history of science, but I’m quite certain this is a rare event.
Q: What would you say to other citizen scientists about the process of writing a paper?
A: Oh, there are several important things I need to share with them.
First, never conduct research entirely on your own. Reach out to experts in your field as much as possible. For example, in my case, I collaborated with brown dwarf experts from the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 team. When I completed the first draft of my paper, I sent it to all my collaborators to get their feedback on its quality and to check if they had any comments on the content. It took some time, but I received a lot of helpful suggestions that ultimately improved the clarity and conciseness of my paper.
If this is your first time receiving extensive feedback, it might feel overwhelming. However, you should see it as a valuable opportunity—one that will lead you to stronger research results. I am truly grateful for the feedback I received. This process will almost certainly help you receive positive feedback from referees when you submit your own paper. That’s exactly what happened to me.
Second, do not assume that others will automatically understand your research for you. This seems to be a common challenge among many citizen scientists. First, you must have a clear understanding of your own research project. Then, it is crucial to communicate your progress clearly and concisely, without unnecessary details. If you have questions—especially when you are stuck — be specific.
For example, I frequently attend Zoom meetings for various projects, including Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 and Disk Detective. In every meeting, I give a brief recap of what I’ve been working on — every single time — to refresh the audience’s memory. This helps them stay engaged and remember my research. (Screen sharing is especially useful for this.) After the recap, I present my questions. This approach makes it much easier for others to understand where I am in my research and, ultimately, helps them provide potential solutions to the challenges I’m facing.
Lastly, use Artificial Intelligence (AI) as much as possible. For tasks like editing, proofreading, and debugging, AI tools can be incredibly helpful. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I find it surprising that some people still do these things manually. In many cases, this can be a waste of time. I strongly believe we should rely on machines for tasks that we either don’t need to do ourselves or simply cannot do. This approach saves time and significantly improves productivity.
Q: Thank you for sharing all these useful tips! Is there anything else you would like to add?
A: I would like to sincerely thank all my collaborators for their patience and support throughout this journey. I know we have never met in person, and for some of you, this may not be a familiar way to communicate (it wasn’t for me at first either). If that’s the case, I completely understand. I truly appreciate your trust in me and in this entirely online mode of communication. Without your help, none of what I have achieved would have been possible.
I am now thinking about pushing myself to take on another set of research projects. My pursuit of astronomical research will not stop, and I hope you will continue to follow my journey. I will also do my best to support others along the way.
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Last Updated Mar 18, 2025 Related Terms
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