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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
By Jessica Barnett
From Earth, one might be tempted to view the Sun as a unique celestial object like no other, as it’s the star our home planet orbits and the one our planet relies on most for heat and light. But if you took a step back and compared the Sun to the other stars NASA has studied over the years, how would it compare? Would it still be so unique?
The Full-sun Ultraviolet Rocket SpecTrograph (FURST) aims to answer those questions when it launches aboard a Black Brant IX sounding rocket Aug. 11 at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
“When we talk about ‘Sun as a star’, we’re treating it like any other star in the night sky as opposed to the unique object we rely on for human life. It’s so exciting to study the Sun from that vantage point,” said Adam Kobelski, institutional principal investigator for FURST and a research astrophysicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The Full-sun Ultraviolet Rocket SpecTrograph (FURST) undergoes testing at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in preparation for launch on Aug. 11. FURST will be launched aboard a Black Bryant IX sounding rocket and will observe the Sun in vacuum ultraviolet (VUV). The instrument was designed and built at Montana State University. NASA Marshall provided the camera, supplied avionics, and designed and built its calibration system. Credit: Montana State University FURST will obtain the first high-resolution spectra of the “Sun as a star” in vacuum ultraviolet (VUV), a light wavelength that is absorbed in Earth’s atmosphere meaning it can only be observed from space. Astronomers have studied other stars in the vacuum ultraviolet with orbiting telescopes, however these instruments are too sensitive to be pointed to the Sun. The recent advancements in high-resolution VUV spectroscopy now allow for the same observations of our own star, the Sun.
“These are wavelengths that Hubble Space Telescope is really great at observing, so there is a decent amount of Hubble observations of stars in ultraviolet wavelengths, but we don’t have comparable observations of our star in this wavelength range,” said Kobelski. Marshall was the lead field center for the design, development, and construction of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Because Hubble is too sensitive to point at Earth’s Sun, new instruments were needed to get a spectrum of the entire Sun that is of a similar quality to Hubble’s observations of other stars. Marshall built the camera, supplied avionics, and designed and built a new calibration system for the FURST mission. Montana State University (MSU), which leads the FURST mission in partnership with Marshall, built the optical system, which includes seven optics that will feed into the camera that will essentially create seven exposures, covering the entire ultraviolet wavelength range.
Charles Kankelborg, a heliophysics professor at MSU and principal investigator for FURST, described the mission as a very close collaboration with wide-ranging implications.
“Our mission will obtain the first far ultraviolent spectrum of the Sun as a star,” Kankelborg said. “This is a key piece of information that has been missing for decades. With it, we will place the Sun in context with other stars.”
Kobelski echoed the sentiment.
“How well do the observations and what we know about our Sun compare to our observations or what we know of other stars?” Kobelski said. “You’d expect that we know all this information about the Sun – it’s right there – but it turns out, we actually don’t. If we can get these same observations or same wavelengths as we’ve observed from these other sources, we can start to connect the dots and connect our Sun to other stars.”
Montana State University alumnus Jake Davis, left, Professor Charles Kankelborg, and doctoral students Catharine “Cappy” Bunn and Suman Panda, pose at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where they are preparing for the launch of the FURST rocket mission to observe the sun in far ultraviolet.Credit: Montana State University FURST will be the third launch led by Marshall for NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program within five months, making 2024 an active year for the program. Like the Hi-C Flare mission that launched in April, the sounding rocket will launch and open during flight to allow FURST to observe the Sun for approximately five minutes before closing and falling back to Earth’s surface. Marshall team members will be able to calibrate the instruments during launch and flight, as well as retrieve data during flight and soon after landing.
Kobelski and Kankelborg each said they’re grateful for the opportunity to fill the gaps in our knowledge of Earth’s Sun.
The launch will be livestreamed on Sunday, Aug. 11, with a launch window of 11:40 a.m.– 12:40 p.m. CDT. Tune in on NASA’s White Sands Test Facility Launch Channel.
The FURST mission is led by Marshall in partnership with Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, with additional support from the NASA’s Sounding Rockets Office and the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research’s High Altitude Observatory. Launch support is provided at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico by NASA’s Johnson Space Center. NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program is managed by the agency’s Heliophysics Division.
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Aug 09, 2024 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
Learn Home Celebrate Heliophysics Big… Heliophysics Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Stories Science Activation Highlights Citizen Science 2 min read
Celebrate Heliophysics Big Year: Free Monthly Webinars on the Sun Touches Everything
Once a month (usually on the first Tuesday), the Heliophysics Education Community meets online to share knowledge and opportunities. During the Heliophysics Big Year (HBY) – a global celebration of the Sun’s influence on Earth and the entire solar system, beginning with the Annular Solar Eclipse on October 14, 2023, continuing through the Total Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024, and concluding with the Parker Solar Probe’s closest approach to the Sun in December, 2024 – the meetings are structured to include short presentations by subject matter experts both inside and outside NASA.
Challenged by the NASA Heliophysics Division to participate in as many Sun-related activities as possible, the NASA Heliophysics Education community has been hosting these short monthly presentations for formal and informal educators, science communicators, and other heliophysics enthusiasts to promote the understanding of heliophysics in alignment with monthly HBY themes. Presenters and team members from the NASA Science Activation program’s NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (NASA HEAT) connect these themes with the Framework of Heliophysics Education in mind, mapping them directly to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) – a set of research-based science content standards for grades K–12. Using the three main questions that heliophysicists investigate as a foundation, NASA HEAT cross-references heliophysics topics with the NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas to create NGSS-aligned “heliophysics big ideas.” These community meetings welcome an average of 30 attendees, but NASA celebrated a record-breaking 234 attendees for the July meeting, which explored the Sun’s impact on physical and mental health.
Everyone is welcome to participate in upcoming presentations and topics on the following dates at 1 p.m. EDT:
8/6/24 Youth/Informal Education – NASA PUNCH Mission
9/02/24 Environment and Sustainability – Solar Sail
10/15/24 Solar Cycle and Solar Max – National Solar Observatory
11/19/24 Bonus Science
12/03/24 Parker’s Perihelion
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NASA HEAT is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn
Dr. Erin Flynn-Evans of NASA Ames Research Center gave a short presentation of her research on how sunlight affects the behavioral health of astronauts. Share
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Last Updated Aug 06, 2024 Editor NASA Science Editorial Team Related Terms
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By NASA
The summer months are usually a time for teachers to take a break from the classroom and enjoy some well-earned rest. But at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, two experienced educators dedicated their summer vacations to learning how to enrich their students’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and inspire them to achieve their dreams.
Johnson’s Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM) welcomed Jerry “Denise” Dunn and Shawnda Folsom as full-time interns for the summer. Both women came to Johnson through the Oklahoma Space Grant Consortium, which not only supports students pursuing STEM careers but also provides curriculum enhancement and professional development opportunities for educators. Dunn and Folsom were invited to become interns after completing STELLAR, the consortium’s yearlong mentorship program that immerses educators in hands-on STEM-based activities for classroom application.
Denise Dunn (left) and Shawnda Folsom. For Dunn, a middle school special education teacher in the small town of Checotah, Oklahoma, participating in STELLAR opened several doors that ultimately led to her internship. Dunn works primarily with students who have severe and profound disabilities and is fiercely passionate about increasing their access to STEM education and opportunities.
“If you look at the research, there’s been a big push for STEM for everyone except kids with disabilities. The number of people with disabilities in STEM-related fields hasn’t changed in a decade,” she said. “We need to promote that more.”
Dunn suggested that she and her STELLAR colleagues support Challenge Air, a program that teaches children with disabilities about aviation and lets them co-pilot a plane. The STELLAR group set up activity tables at a Challenge Air event where kids could build rockets or make Moon craters and learn about space exploration. That experience inspired the Oklahoma Space Grant Consortium to create an annual STEM engagement event specifically for kids with disabilities and their families.
Denise Dunn (left) helps a family build a foam rocket at a Challenge Air event.Image courtesy of Denise Dunn Dunn subsequently attended the Space Exploration Educators Conference where she connected with Tracy Minish, a former Johnson employee with more than 30 years of experience in the Space Shuttle Program and Mission Control Center who is also legally blind. Minish met virtually with Dunn’s students to encourage them to pursue their dreams, then invited her to Johnson to learn about the accommodations and support NASA provides to employees with disabilities. Dunn used what she learned to create a teacher workshop that shared practical strategies for STEM special education. These efforts and the connections she made at Johnson paved the way for her internship.
“I want to know more about what NASA does to support its employees with disabilities. I also want to know more about those employees and their stories so that I can share that with my students,” she said. Dunn also appreciated connecting with Johnson’s No Boundaries Employee Resource Group because they have the power to provide representation for kids with disabilities.
“Kids with disabilities are just natural problem solvers and they have unique perspectives, and they need to see their value,” she said. “And NASA – what a great place for them to see that.”
For Folsom, an elementary-level science and social studies teacher for Velma-Alma Public Schools, the internship offer came at a time of personal and professional change. In addition to planning her upcoming wedding and a move, juggling her kids’ schedules, and pursuing a master’s degree in education, Folsom was also preparing to take on a new, school district-wide role. “I am ecstatic to take on a new challenge – building, implementing, and teaching a comprehensive STEM program for students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” she said. She saw the internship as a chance to immerse herself in NASA’s work and bring new opportunities for STEM learning and engagement back to her students. “I was not aware of all of the student design challenges that NASA has, so I am super excited to share these and have future classes participate in them,” she said.
Shawnda Folsom leads an Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM) activity for youth during Bring Youth to Work Day at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Image courtesy of Shawnda Folsom Folsom is also determined to see more NASA interns from her school district, which is extremely rural and qualifies for Title I support. “My goal is to shake the right hands and make the connections that will allow me to set my students up for their future, which hopefully will include an internship for many of them,” she said. “I want my ‘small town’ mindset students to realize how much talent and potential they each have. I want them to know they can do anything.” She noted that her own story – which involves a nontraditional career path and now, at 41, an internship – could help inspire her students.
Together with their OSTEM mentors and teammates, Dunn and Folsom spent their summer creating hands-on activities for children who attended events like Johnson’s Bring Youth to Work Day and the Dorothy Vaughan Center in Honor of the Women of Apollo dedication. They prepared an aerodynamics lesson plan and STEM activity for the MLB Players STEM League Global Championship in July, supported and participated in NASA-led professional development programs for teachers, and worked on a new camp experience resource to complement OSTEM’s ‘First Woman’ camp experience.
Denise Dunn and Shawnda Folsom present a remote sensing activity for local scouts who attended the Dorothy Vaughan Center in Honor of the Women of Apollo event at Johnson Space Center on July 19, 2024. NASA/Robert Markowitz Both women look forward to returning to their schools later this month and to sharing what they learned with their students.
“I want to expose my students to higher-level thinking and new STEM challenges,” said Folsom. “I want them to have those ‘a ha’ moments that will possibly launch their lives down a path they never fathomed could happen.”
“This internship has made me more aware of opportunities, not only to continue to advocate for my students, but for myself,” Dunn said. “Keep going. Keep dreaming.”
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By NASA
5 Min Read NASA Returns to Arctic Studying Summer Sea Ice Melt
NASA's Gulfstream III aircraft taxis on the runway at Pituffik Space Base as it begins one of its daily science flights for the ARCSIX mission. Credits: NASA/Gary Banziger What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic, and a new NASA mission is helping improve data modeling and increasing our understanding of Earth’s rapidly changing climate. Changing ice, ocean, and atmospheric conditions in the northernmost part of Earth have a large impact on the entire planet. That’s because the Arctic region acts like Earth’s air conditioner.
Much of the Sun’s energy is transported from tropical regions of our planet by winds and weather systems into the Arctic where it is then lost to space. This process helps cool the planet.
The NASA-sponsored Arctic Radiation Cloud Aerosol Surface Interaction Experiment (ARCSIX) mission is flying three aircraft over the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland to study these processes. The aircraft are equipped with instruments to gather observations of surface sea ice, clouds, and aerosol particles, which affect the Arctic energy budget and cloud properties. The energy budget is the balance between the energy that Earth receives from the Sun and the energy the Earth loses to outer space.
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This highlight video gives viewers a front row seat to a typical day on the ARCSIX mission from Pituffik Space Base as NASA's research scientists, instrument operators, and flight crews fly daily routes observing sea ice and clouds 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Greenland.NASA/Gary Banziger “More sea ice makes that air conditioning effect more efficient. Less sea ice lessens the Arctic’s cooling effect,” says Patrick Taylor, a climate scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “Over the last 40 years, The Arctic has lost a significant amount of sea ice making the Arctic warm faster. As the Arctic warms and sea ice melts, it can cause ripple effects that impact weather conditions thousands of miles away, how fast our seas are rising, and how much flooding we get in our neighborhoods.”
As the Arctic warms and sea ice melts, it can cause ripple effects…thousands of miles away.
Patrick Taylor
NASA Climate Research Scientist
The first series of flights took place in May and June as the seasonal melting of ice started. Flights began again on July 24 during the summer season, when sea ice melting is at its most intense.
“We can’t do this kind of Arctic science without having two campaigns,” said Taylor, the deputy science lead for ARCSIX. “The sea ice surface in the spring was very bright white and snow covered. We saw some breaks in the ice. What we will see in the second campaign is less sea ice and sea ice that is bare, with no snow. It will be covered with all kinds of melt ponds – pooling water on top of the ice – that changes the way the ice interacts with sunlight and potentially changes how the ice interacts with the atmosphere and clouds above.”
Sea ice and the snow on top of the ice insulate the ocean from the atmosphere, reflecting the Sun’s radiation back towards space, and helping to cool the planet. Less sea ice and darker surfaces result in more of the Sun’s radiation being absorbed at the surface or trapped between the surface and the clouds.
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A pilot's view of Arctic sea ice from NASA's P-3 Orion aircraft during NASA's ARCSIX airborne science mission flights in June.NASA/Gary Banziger Understanding this relationship, and the role clouds play in the system, will help scientists improve satellite data and better predict future changes in the Arctic climate.
“This unique team of pilots, engineers, scientists, and aircraft can only be done by leveraging expertise from multiple NASA centers and our partners,” said Linette Boisvert, cryosphere lead for the mission from NASA’s Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We gathered great data of the snow and ice pre-melt and at the onset of melt. I can’t wait to see the changes at the height of melt as we measure the same areas covered with melt ponds.”
NASA partnered with the University of Colorado Boulder for the ARCSIX mission, and the research team found some surprises in their early data analysis from the spring campaign. One potential discovery is something Taylor is calling a “sea ice sandwich”, when a younger layer of sea ice is caught in between two layers of older sea ice. Scientists also found more drizzle within the clouds than expected. Both observations will need further investigating once the data is fully processed.
A research scientist monitors data measurements in-flight during the spring campaign of the ARCSIX mission.NASA/Gary Banziger “A volcano erupted in Iceland, and we believe the volcanic aerosol plume was indicated by our models four days later,” Taylor said. “Common scientific knowledge tells us volcanic particles, like ash and sulfate, would have already been removed from the atmosphere. More work needs to be done, but our initial results suggest these particles might live in the atmosphere much longer than previously thought.”
Previous studies suggest that aerosol particles in clouds can influence sea ice melt. Data collected during ARCSIX’s spring flights showed the Arctic atmosphere had several aerosol particle layers, including wildfire smoke, pollution, and dust transported from Asia and North America.
“We got everything we hoped for and more in the first campaign,” Taylor added. “The data from this summer will help us better understand how clouds and sea ice behave. We’ll be able to use these results to improve predictive models. In the coming years, scientists will be able to better predict how to mitigate and adapt to the rapid changes in climate we’re seeing in the Arctic.”
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Last Updated Jul 26, 2024 EditorCharles G. HatfieldContactCharles G. Hatfieldcharles.g.hatfield@nasa.govLocationLangley Research Center Related Terms
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
By Wayne Smith
Investigators at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will use observations from a recently-launched sounding rocket mission to provide a clearer image of how and why the Sun’s corona grows so much hotter than the visible surface of Earth’s parent star. The MaGIXS-2 mission – short for the second flight of the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer – launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on Tuesday, July 16.
NASA’s MaGIXS-2 sounding rocket mission successfully launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on July 16. United States Navy The mission’s goal is to determine the heating mechanisms in active regions on the Sun by making critical observations using X-ray spectroscopy.
The Sun’s surface temperature is around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit – but the corona routinely measures more than 1.8 million degrees, with active regions measuring up to 5 million degrees.
Amy Winebarger, Marshall heliophysicist and principal investigator for the MaGIXS missions, said studying the X-rays from the Sun sheds light on what’s happening in the solar atmosphere – which, in turn, directly impacts Earth and the entire solar system.
X-ray spectroscopy provides unique capabilities for answering fundamental questions in solar physics and for potentially predicting the onset of energetic eruptions on the Sun like solar flares or coronal mass ejections. These violent outbursts can interfere with communications satellites and electronic systems, even causing physical drag on satellites as Earth’s atmosphere expands to absorb the added solar energy.
“Learning more about these solar events and being able to predict them are the kind of things we need to do to better live in this solar system with our Sun,” Winebarger said.
The NASA team retrieved the payload immediately after the flight and has begun processing datasets.
“We have these active regions on the Sun, and these areas are very hot, much hotter than even the rest of the corona,” said Patrick Champey, deputy principal investigator at Marshall for the mission. “There’s been a big question – how are these regions heated? We previously determined it could relate to how often energy is released. The X-rays are particularly sensitive to this frequency number, and so we built an instrument to look at the X-ray spectra and disentangle the data.”
The MaGIXS-2 sounding rocket team stand on the launchpad in White Sands, New Mexico prior to launch on July 16, 2024. United States Navy Following a successful July 2021 launch of the first MaGIXS mission, Marshall and its partners refined instrumentation for MaGIXS-2 to provide a broader view for observing the Sun’s X-rays. Marshall engineers developed and fabricated the telescope and spectrometer mirrors, and the camera. The integrated instrument was exhaustively tested in Marshall’s state-of-the-art X-ray & Cryogenic Facility. For MaGIXS-2, the team refined the same mirrors used on the first flight, with a much larger aperture and completed the testing at Marshall’s Stray Light Test Facility.
A Marshall project from inception, technology developments for MaGIXS include the low-noise CCD camera, high-resolution X-ray optics, calibration methods, and more.
Winebarger and Champey said MaGIXS many of the team members started their NASA careers with the project, learning to take on lead roles and benefitting from mentorship.
“I think that’s probably the most critical thing, aside from the technology, for being successful,” Winebarger said. “It’s very rare that you get from concept to flight in a few years. A young engineer can go all the way to flight, come to White Sands to watch it launch, and retrieve it.”
NASA routinely uses sounding rockets for brief, focused science missions. They’re often smaller, more affordable, and faster to design and build than large-scale satellite missions, Winebarger said. Sounding rockets carry scientific instruments into space along a parabolic trajectory. Their overall time in space is brief, typically five minutes, and at lower vehicle speeds for a well-placed scientific experiment.
The MaGIXS mission was developed at Marshall in partnership with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Sounding Rockets Program Office, located at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility, provides suborbital launch vehicles, payload development, and field operations support to NASA and other government agencies.
Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.932.1940
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 18, 2024 LocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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