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By NASA
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA NASA’s Dawn spacecraft took this image of Ceres’ south polar region on May 17, 2017. Launched on Sept. 27, 2007, Dawn was NASA’s first truly interplanetary spaceship. The mission featured extended stays at two extraterrestrial bodies: giant asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, both in the debris-strewn main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The spacecraft’s name was meant to present a simple view of the mission’s purpose: to provide information on the dawn of the solar system. The three principal scientific drivers for the mission were to capture the earliest moments in the origin of the solar system, determine the nature of the building blocks from which the terrestrial planets formed, and contrast the formation and evolution of two small planets that followed very different evolutionary paths.
Dawn completed the first order exploration of the inner solar system, addressed NASA’s goal of understanding the origin and evolution of the solar system, and complemented investigations of Mercury, Earth, and Mars. Dawn’s mission ended on Nov. 1, 2018, after two extended missions.
Follow Dawn’s journey from Earth to deep space through the words of mission director and chief engineer, Dr. Marc Rayman.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
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By NASA
The NASA Ames Science Directorate recognizes the outstanding contributions of (pictured left to right) Jessica Kong, Josh Alwood, and Sam Kim. Their commitment to the NASA mission represents the entrepreneurial spirit, technical expertise, and collaborative disposition needed to explore this world and beyond.
Space Science and Astrobiology Star: Jessica Kong
Jessica Kong is serving as the Facility Service Manager (FSM) for the Astrobiology and Life Science Lab building for the Exobiology Branch while the FSM is away on parental leave. She has applied her expertise as a chemist to connect seamlessly and effectively with N239 staff, and safety, and facility personnel, as well as to coordinate repairs and building shutdowns while minimizing disruption to laboratory research.
Space Biosciences Star: Josh Alwood
Josh Alwood is a researcher for the Space Biosciences Research Branch, focusing on bone biology and biomechanics, reproductive biology, and the nervous system. His pioneering research on molecular mechanisms of skeletal adaptation during spaceflight has advanced the development of countermeasures to protect astronaut health on long-duration missions.
Earth Science Star: Sam Kim
Sam Kim, a systems administrator and deputy project manager with the Earth Science Project Office (ESPO), serves many roles and excels in each one of them. During the 2024 ASIA-AQ field mission, Sam deployed for over two months as a key member of the advanced staging team at each of the mission’s four overseas field sites, ensuring that the facilities were ready for the arrival of the ASIA-AQ science and instrument team, while still performing his mission-critical role as systems administrator.
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By NASA
Explore This Section Webb News Latest News Latest Images Blog (offsite) Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 6 Min Read NASA’s Webb Peers Deeper into Mysterious Flame Nebula
This collage of images from the Flame Nebula shows a near-infrared light view from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on the left, while the two insets at the right show the near-infrared view taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, M. Meyer (University of Michigan), A. Pagan (STScI) The Flame Nebula, located about 1,400 light-years away from Earth, is a hotbed of star formation less than 1 million years old. Within the Flame Nebula, there are objects so small that their cores will never be able to fuse hydrogen like full-fledged stars—brown dwarfs.
Brown dwarfs, often called “failed stars,” over time become very dim and much cooler than stars. These factors make observing brown dwarfs with most telescopes difficult, if not impossible, even at cosmically short distances from the Sun. When they are very young, however, they are still relatively warmer and brighter and therefore easier to observe despite the obscuring, dense dust and gas that comprises the Flame Nebula in this case.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope can pierce this dense, dusty region and see the faint infrared glow from young brown dwarfs. A team of astronomers used this capability to explore the lowest mass limit of brown dwarfs within the Flame Nebula. The result, they found, were free-floating objects roughly two to three times the mass of Jupiter, although they were sensitive down to 0.5 times the mass of Jupiter.
“The goal of this project was to explore the fundamental low-mass limit of the star and brown dwarf formation process. With Webb, we’re able to probe the faintest and lowest mass objects,” said lead study author Matthew De Furio of the University of Texas at Austin.
Image A: Flame Nebula: Hubble and Webb Observations
This collage of images from the Flame Nebula shows a near-infrared light view from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on the left, while the two insets at the right show the near-infrared view taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Much of the dark, dense gas and dust, as well as the surrounding white clouds within the Hubble image, have been cleared in the Webb images, giving us a view into a more translucent cloud pierced by the infrared-producing objects within that are young stars and brown dwarfs. Astronomers used Webb to take a census of the lowest-mass objects within this star-forming region.
The Hubble image on the left represents light at wavelengths of 1.05 microns (filter F105W) as blue, 1.3 microns (F130N) as green, and 1.39 microns (F129M) as red. The two Webb images on the right represent light at wavelengths of 1.15 microns and 1.4 microns (filters F115W and F140M) as blue, 1.82 microns (F182M) as green, 3.6 microns (F360M) as orange, and 4.3 microns (F430M) as red. NASA, ESA, CSA, M. Meyer (University of Michigan), A. Pagan (STScI) Smaller Fragments
The low-mass limit the team sought is set by a process called fragmentation. In this process large molecular clouds, from which both stars and brown dwarfs are born, break apart into smaller and smaller units, or fragments.
Fragmentation is highly dependent on several factors with the balance between temperature, thermal pressure, and gravity being among the most important. More specifically, as fragments contract under the force of gravity, their cores heat up. If a core is massive enough, it will begin to fuse hydrogen. The outward pressure created by that fusion counteracts gravity, stopping collapse and stabilizing the object (then known as a star). However, fragments whose cores are not compact and hot enough to burn hydrogen continue to contract as long as they radiate away their internal heat.
“The cooling of these clouds is important because if you have enough internal energy, it will fight that gravity,” says Michael Meyer of the University of Michigan. “If the clouds cool efficiently, they collapse and break apart.”
Fragmentation stops when a fragment becomes opaque enough to reabsorb its own radiation, thereby stopping the cooling and preventing further collapse. Theories placed the lower limit of these fragments anywhere between one and ten Jupiter masses. This study significantly shrinks that range as Webb’s census counted up fragments of different masses within the nebula.
“As found in many previous studies, as you go to lower masses, you actually get more objects up to about ten times the mass of Jupiter. In our study with the James Webb Space Telescope, we are sensitive down to 0.5 times the mass of Jupiter, and we are finding significantly fewer and fewer things as you go below ten times the mass of Jupiter,” De Furio explained. “We find fewer five-Jupiter-mass objects than ten-Jupiter-mass objects, and we find way fewer three-Jupiter-mass objects than five-Jupiter-mass objects. We don’t really find any objects below two or three Jupiter masses, and we expect to see them if they are there, so we are hypothesizing that this could be the limit itself.”
Meyer added, “Webb, for the first time, has been able to probe up to and beyond that limit. If that limit is real, there really shouldn’t be any one-Jupiter-mass objects free-floating out in our Milky Way galaxy, unless they were formed as planets and then ejected out of a planetary system.”
Image B: Low Mass Objects within the Flame Nebula in Infrared Light
This near-infrared image of a portion of the Flame Nebula from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope highlights three low-mass objects, seen in the insets to the right. These objects, which are much colder than protostars, require the sensitivity of Webb’s instruments to detect them. These objects were studied as part of an effort to explore the lowest mass limit of brown dwarfs within the Flame Nebula.
The Webb images represent light at wavelengths of 1.15 microns and 1.4 microns (filters F115W and F140M) as blue, 1.82 microns (F182M) as green, 3.6 microns (F360M) as orange, and 4.3 microns (F430M) as red. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. Meyer (University of Michigan) Building on Hubble’s Legacy
Brown dwarfs, given the difficulty of finding them, have a wealth of information to provide, particularly in star formation and planetary research given their similarities to both stars and planets. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has been on the hunt for these brown dwarfs for decades.
Even though Hubble can’t observe the brown dwarfs in the Flame Nebula to as low a mass as Webb can, it was crucial in identifying candidates for further study. This study is an example of how Webb took the baton—decades of Hubble data from the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex—and enabled in-depth research.
“It’s really difficult to do this work, looking at brown dwarfs down to even ten Jupiter masses, from the ground, especially in regions like this. And having existing Hubble data over the last 30 years or so allowed us to know that this is a really useful star-forming region to target. We needed to have Webb to be able to study this particular science topic,” said De Furio.
“It’s a quantum leap in our capabilities between understanding what was going on from Hubble. Webb is really opening an entirely new realm of possibilities, understanding these objects,” explained astronomer Massimo Robberto of the Space Telescope Science Institute.
This team is continuing to study the Flame Nebula, using Webb’s spectroscopic tools to further characterize the different objects within its dusty cocoon.
“There’s a big overlap between the things that could be planets and the things that are very, very low mass brown dwarfs,” Meyer stated. “And that’s our job in the next five years: to figure out which is which and why.”
These results are accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Image C (Animated): Flame Nebula (Hubble and Webb Comparison)
This animated image alternates between a Hubble Space Telescope and a James Webb Space Telescope observation of the Flame Nebula, a nearby star-forming nebula less than 1 million years old. In this comparison, three low-mass objects are highlighted. In Hubble’s observation, the low-mass objects are hidden by the region’s dense dust and gas. However, the objects are brought out in the Webb observation due to Webb’s sensitivity to faint infrared light. NASA, ESA, CSA, Alyssa Pagan (STScI) The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Matthew Brown – mabrown@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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Last Updated Mar 10, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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By NASA
Will you design the zero gravity indicator (ZGI) that accompanies the Artemis II mission around the Moon? If your design is one of the most compelling and resonates with the global community and the Artemis II astronauts, your design might fly into space aboard the Orion spacecraft and you could win US$1225. Zero gravity indicators are small items carried aboard spacecraft that provide a visual indicator for when a spacecraft has reached the weightlessness of microgravity. A plush Snoopy doll was the ZGI for the Artemis I mission. For that uncrewed mission, Snoopy floated around, tethered inside the vehicle to indicate when the Orion spacecraft had reached space. For this Challenge, we’re asking creatives from all over the world to design a new ZGI to be fabricated by NASA’s Thermal Blanket Lab and launched into space aboard the Artemis II mission.
Award: $23,275 in total prizes
Open Date: March 7, 2025
Close Date: May 27, 2025
For more information, visit: https://www.freelancer.com/contest/Moon-Mascot-NASA-Artemis-II-ZGI-Design-Challenge-2527909/details
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Ahead of launch, NASA’s SPHEREx is enclosed in a payload fairing at Vandenberg Space Force Base on March 2. The observatory is stacked atop the four small satellites that make up the agency’s PUNCH mission.NASA/BAE Systems/Benjamin Fry NASA’s latest space observatory is targeting a March 8 liftoff, and the agency’s PUNCH heliophysics mission is sharing a ride. Here’s what to expect during launch and beyond.
In a little over a day, NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope is slated to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The observatory will map the entire celestial sky four times in two years, creating a 3D map of over 450 million galaxies. In doing so, the mission will provide insight into what happened a fraction of a second after the big bang, in addition to searching interstellar dust for the ingredients of life, and measuring the collective glow from all galaxies, including ones that other telescopes cannot easily detect.
The launch window opens at 7:09:56 p.m. PST on Saturday, March 8, with a target launch time of 7:10:12 p.m. PST. Additional opportunities occur in the following days.
Launching together into low Earth orbit, NASA’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions will study a range of topics from the early universe to our nearest star. NASA/JPL-Caltech Sharing a ride with SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) is NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere), a constellation of four small satellites that will map the region where the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, transitions to the solar wind, the constant outflow of material from the Sun.
For the latest on PUNCH, visit the blog:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/punch
What SPHEREx Will Do
The SPHEREx observatory detects infrared light — wavelengths slightly longer than what the human eye can see that are emitted by warm objects including stars and galaxies. Using a technique called spectroscopy, SPHEREx will separate the infrared light emitted by hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies into 102 individual colors — the same way a prism splits sunlight into a rainbow. Observing those colors separately can reveal various properties of objects, including their composition and, in the case of galaxies, their distance from Earth. No other all-sky survey has performed spectroscopy in so many wavelengths and on so many sources.
The mission’s all-sky spectroscopic map can be used for a wide variety of science investigations. In particular, SPHEREx has its sights set on a phenomenon called inflation, which caused the universe to expand a trillion-trillionfold in a fraction of a second after the big bang. This nearly instantaneous event left an impression on the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe. The mission will map the distribution of more than 450 million galaxies to improve scientists’ understanding of the physics behind this extreme cosmic event.
SPHEREx Fact Sheet Additionally, the space telescope will measure the total glow from all galaxies, including ones that other telescopes cannot easily detect. When combined with studies of individual galaxies by other telescopes, the measurement of this overall glow will provide a more complete picture of how the light output from galaxies has changed over the universe’s history.
At the same time, spectroscopy will allow SPHEREx to seek out frozen water, carbon dioxide, and other key ingredients for life. The mission will provide an unprecedented survey of the location and abundance of these icy compounds in our galaxy, giving researchers better insight into the interstellar chemistry that set the stage for life.
Launch Sequence
But, first, SPHEREx has to get into space. Prelaunch testing is complete on the spacecraft’s various systems, and it’s been encapsulated in the protective nose cone, or payload fairing, atop the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will get it there from Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex-4 East.
NASA’s SPHEREx mission will lift off from Space Launch Complex-4 East at Vanden-berg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, just as the Sur-face Water and Ocean Topography mission, shown here, did in December 2022. NASA/Keegan Barber A little more than two minutes after the Falcon 9 lifts off, the main engine will cut off. Shortly after, the rocket’s first and second stages will separate, followed by second-stage engine start. The reusable first stage will then begin its automated boost-back burn to the launch site for a propulsive landing.
Once the rocket is out of Earth’s atmosphere, about three minutes after launch, the payload fairing that surrounds the spacecraft will separate into two halves and fall back to Earth, landing in the ocean. Roughly 41 minutes after launch, SPHEREx will separate from the rocket and start its internal systems so that it can point its solar panel to the Sun. After this happens, the spacecraft can establish communications with ground controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission for the agency. This milestone, called acquisition of signal, should happen about three minutes after separation.
About 52 minutes after liftoff, PUNCH should separate as well from the Falcon 9.
Both spacecraft will be in a Sun-synchronous low Earth orbit, where their position relative to the Sun remains the same throughout the year. Each approximately 98-minute orbit allows the SPHEREx telescope to view a 360-degree strip of the celestial sky. As Earth’s orbit around the Sun progresses, that strip slowly advances, enabling SPHEREx to image almost the entire sky in six months. For PUNCH, the orbit provides a clear view in all directions around the Sun.
About four days after launch, SPHEREx should eject the protective cover over its telescope lens. The observatory will begin science operations a little over a month after launch, once the telescope has cooled down to its operating temperature and the mission team has completed a series of checks.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based out of the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is providing the launch service for SPHEREx and PUNCH.
For more information about the SPHEREx mission, visit:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/spherex
More About SPHEREx
SPHEREx is managed by NASA JPL for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. The science analysis of the SPHEREx data will be conducted by a team of scientists located at 10 institutions in the U.S., two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA. The mission’s principal investigator is based at Caltech with a joint JPL appointment. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA-IPAC Infrared Science Archive.
Get the SPHEREx Press Kit How to Watch March 8 SPHEREx Launch 6 Things to Know About SPHEREx Why NASA’s SPHEREx Will Make ‘Most Colorful’ Cosmic Map Ever NASA’s SPHEREX Space Telescope Will Seek Life’s Ingredients News Media Contacts
Karen Fox / Alise Fisher
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-358-2546
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov
Calla Cofield, SPHEREx
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
Sarah Frazier, PUNCH
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Mar 07, 2025 Related Terms
SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe and Ices Explorer) Astrophysics Exoplanets Galaxies Heliophysics Jet Propulsion Laboratory Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) The Big Bang The Milky Way The Search for Life The Sun The Universe Explore More
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