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Proba-3’s journey to see the Sun’s corona
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
How can I see the northern lights?
To see the northern lights, you need to be in the right place at the right time.
Auroras are the result of charged particles and magnetism from the Sun called space weather dancing with the Earth’s magnetic field. And they happen far above the clouds. So you need clear skies, good space weather at your latitude and the higher, more polar you can be, the better. You need a lot of patience and some luck is always helpful.
A smartphone can also really help confirm whether you saw a little bit of kind of dim aurora, because cameras are more sensitive than our eyes.
The best months to see aurorae, statistically, are March and September. The best times to be looking are around midnight, but sometimes when the Sun is super active, it can happen any time from sunset to sunrise.
You can also increase your chances by learning more about space weather data and a great place to do that is at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.
You can also check out my project, Aurorasaurus.org, where we have free alerts that are based on your location and we offer information about how to interpret the data. And you can also report and tell us if you were able to see aurora or not and that helps others.
One last tip is finding a safe, dark sky viewing location with a great view of the northern horizon that’s near you.
[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
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Last Updated Mar 26, 2025 Related Terms
Science Mission Directorate Auroras Heliophysics Planetary Science Division The Solar System The Sun Explore More
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By NASA
5 min read
Atomic Layer Processing Coating Techniques Enable Missions to See Further into the Ultraviolet
Astrophysics observations at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths often probe the most dynamic aspects of the universe. However, the high energy of ultraviolet photons means that their interaction with the materials that make up an observing instrument are less efficient, resulting in low overall throughput. New approaches in the development of thin film coatings are addressing this shortcoming by engineering the coatings of instrument structures at the atomic scale.
Researchers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are employing atomic layer deposition (ALD) and atomic layer etching (ALE) to enable new coating technologies for instruments measuring ultraviolet light. Conventional optical coatings largely rely on physical vapor deposition (PVD) methods like evaporation, where the coating layer is formed by vaporizing the source material and then condensing it onto the intended substrate. In contrast, ALD and ALE rely on a cyclic series of self-limiting chemical reactions that result in the deposition (or removal) of material one atomic layer at a time. This self-limiting characteristic results in a coating or etchings that are conformal over arbitrary shapes with precisely controlled layer thickness determined by the number of ALD or ALE cycles performed.
The ALD and ALE techniques are common in the semiconductor industry where they are used to fabricate high-performance transistors. Their use as an optical coating method is less common, particularly at ultraviolet wavelengths where the choice of optical coating material is largely restricted to metal fluorides instead of more common metal oxides, due to the larger optical band energy of fluoride materials, which minimizes absorption losses in the coatings. Using an approach based on co-reaction with hydrogen fluoride, the team at JPL has developed a variety of fluoride-based ALD and ALE processes.
(left) The Supernova remnants and Proxies for ReIonization Testbed Experiment (SPRITE) CubeSat primary mirror inside the ALD coating facility at JPL, the mirror is 18 cm on the long and is the largest optic coated in this chamber to-date. (right) Flight optic coating inside JPL ALD chamber for Pioneers Aspera Mission. Like SPRITE, the Aspera coating combines a lithium fluoride process developed at NASA GSFC with thin ALD encapsulation of magnesium fluoride at JPL. Image Credit: NASA-JPL In addition to these metal-fluoride materials, layers of aluminum are often used to construct structures like reflective mirrors and bandpass filters for instruments operating in the UV. Although aluminum has high intrinsic UV reflectance, it also readily forms a surface oxide that strongly absorbs UV light. The role of the metal fluoride coating is then to protect the aluminum surface from oxidation while maintaining enough transparency to create a mirror with high reflectance.
The use of ALD in this context has initially been pursued in the development of telescope optics for two SmallSat astrophysics missions that will operate in the UV: the Supernova remnants and Proxies for ReIonization Testbed Experiment (SPRITE) CubeSat mission led by Brian Fleming at the University of Colorado Boulder, and the Aspera mission led by Carlos Vargas at the University of Arizona. The mirrors for SPRITE and Aspera have reflective coatings that utilize aluminum protected by lithium fluoride using a novel PVD processes developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and an additional very thin top coating of magnesium fluoride deposited via ALD.
Team member John Hennessy prepares to load a sample wafer in the ALD coating chamber at JPL. Image Credit: NASA JPL The use of lithium fluoride enables SPRITE and Aspera to “see” further into the UV than other missions like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, which uses only magnesium fluoride to protect its aluminum mirror surfaces. However, a drawback of lithium fluoride is its sensitivity to moisture, which in some cases can cause the performance of these mirror coatings to degrade on the ground prior to launch. To circumvent this issue, very thin layers (~1.5 nanometers) of magnesium fluoride were deposited by ALD on top of the lithium fluoride on the SPRITE and Aspera mirrors. The magnesium fluoride layers are thin enough to not strongly impact the performance of the mirror at the shortest wavelengths, but thick enough to enhance the stability against humidity during ground phases of the missions. Similar approaches are being considered for the mirror coatings of the future NASA flagship Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO).
Multilayer structures of aluminum and metal fluorides can also function as bandpass filters (filters that allow only signals within a selected range of wavelengths to pass through to be recorded) in the UV. Here, ALD is an attractive option due to the inherent repeatability and precise thickness control of the process. There is currently no suitable ALD process to deposit aluminum, and so additional work by the JPL team has explored the development of a custom vacuum coating chamber that combines the PVD aluminum and ALD fluoride processes described above. This system has been used to develop UV bandpass filters that can be deposited directly onto imaging sensors like silicon (Si) CCDs. These coatings can enable such sensors to operate with high UV efficiency, but low sensitivity to longer wavelength visible photons that would otherwise add background noise to the UV observations.
Structures composed of multilayer aluminum and metal fluoride coatings have recently been delivered as part of a UV camera to the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) mission led by Evgenya Shkolnik at Arizona State University. The JPL-developed camera incorporates a delta-doped Si CCD with the ALD/PVD filter coating on the far ultraviolet channel, yielding a sensor with high efficiency in a band centered near 160 nm with low response to out-of-band light.
A prototype of a back-illuminated CCD incorporating a multi-layer metal-dielectric bandpass filter coating deposited by a combination of thermal evaporation and ALD. This coating combined with JPL back surface passivation approaches enable the Si CCD to operate with high UV efficiency while rejecting longer wavelength light. Image credit: NASA JPL Next, the JPL team that developed these coating processes plans to focus on implementing a similar bandpass filter on an array of larger-format Si Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) sensors for the recently selected NASA Medium-Class Explorer (MIDEX) UltraViolet EXplorer (UVEX) mission led by Fiona Harrison at the California Institute of Technology, which is targeted to launch in the early 2030s.
For additional details, see the entry for this project on NASA TechPort
Project Lead: Dr. John Hennessy, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
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Last Updated Mar 18, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
The Propulsion Bus Module of Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element undergoes assembly and installations at Maxar Space Systems in Palo Alto, California.Maxar Space Systems NASA’s Artemis IV astronauts will be the first to inhabit the Gateway lunar space station, opening the door to greater exploration of the Moon and paving the way to Mars. Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element, which will make the station the most powerful solar electric spacecraft ever flown, takes shape at Maxar Space Systems. In lunar orbit, Gateway will allow NASA to conduct unique science and exploration while preparing astronauts to go to the Red Planet.
Technicians install key hardware on the element’s Propulsion Bus Module following installation of both electric propulsion and chemical propulsion control modules. The image highlights a propellant tank exposed on the right, positioned within the central cylinder of the element.
The Power and Propulsion Element will launch with Gateway’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) ahead of NASA’s Artemis IV mission. During Artemis IV, V, and VI, international crews of astronauts will assemble the lunar space station around the Moon and embark on expeditions to the Moon’s South Pole region.
The Power and Propulsion Element is managed out of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and built by Maxar Space Systems in Palo Alto, California.
Gateway is an international collaboration to establish humanity’s first lunar space station as a central component of the Artemis architecture designed to return humans to the Moon for scientific discovery and chart a path for the first human missions to Mars.
The Propulsion Bus Module of Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element undergoes assembly and installations at Maxar Space Systems in Palo Alto, California.Maxar Space Systems An artist’s rendering of the Gateway lunar space station, including its Power and Propulsion Element, shown here with its solar arrays deployed. Gateway will launch its initial elements to lunar orbit ahead of the Artemis IV mission. NASA/Alberto Bertolin An artist’s rendering of Gateway with the Power and Propulsion Element’s advanced thrusters propelling the lunar space station to the Moon. NASA/Alberto Bertolin Learn More About Gateway Facebook logo @NASAGateway @NASA_Gateway Instagram logo @nasaartemis Share
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Last Updated Feb 25, 2025 ContactJacqueline Minerdjacqueline.minerd@nasa.govLocationGlenn Research Center Related Terms
Artemis Artemis 4 Earth's Moon Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate Gateway Program Gateway Space Station Glenn Research Center Humans in Space Technology Technology for Space Travel Explore More
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By European Space Agency
The European Space Agency’s Proba-3 mission will create artificial solar eclipses in orbit, allowing scientists to study the Sun’s corona for longer periods of time than would be possible during eclipses observed from Earth. To test the functionality of Proba-3’s systems, researchers from the Royal Observatory of Belgium took a snapshot of a star field – in the very first image captured by the mission’s coronagraph.
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