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NASA Reveals Semifinalists of Power to Explore Challenge


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NASA Reveals Semifinalists of Power to Explore Challenge

A collage of words that show the “superpowers” of the 45 semifinalists, including words like resilience, persistence, communication, determination, and curiosity, to name a few.
A word cloud showing “superpowers” of the 45 semifinalists.
NASA/David Lam

NASA selected 45 student essays as semifinalists of its 2024-2025 Power to Explore Challenge, a national competition for K-12 students featuring the enabling power of radioisotopes. Contestants were challenged to explore how NASA has powered some of its most famous science missions and to dream up how their personal “superpower” would energize their success on their own radioisotope-powered science mission to explore one of the nearly 300 moons of our solar system.

The competition asked students to learn about radioisotope power systems (RPS), a type of “nuclear battery” that NASA uses to explore the harshest, darkest, and dustiest parts of our solar system. RPS have enabled many spacecraft to explore a variety of these moons, some with active volcanoes, methane lakes, and intricate weather patterns similar to Earth. Many of these moons remain a mystery to us.

This year’s submissions to NASA’s Power to Explore Challenge were immensely enthralling, and we’re thrilled that the number of entries reached a record high.

Carl Sandifer II

Carl Sandifer II

Program Manager, NASA Radioisotope Power Systems Program

In 275 words or less, students wrote about a mission of their own that would use these space power systems to explore any moon in our solar system and described their own power to achieve their mission goals.

The Power to Explore Challenge offered students the opportunity to learn more about these reliable power systems, celebrate their own strengths, and interact with NASA’s diverse workforce. This year’s contest set a record, receiving 2,051 submitted entries from all 50 states, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) Overseas.

“This year’s submissions to NASA’s Power to Explore Challenge were immensely enthralling, and we’re thrilled that the number of entries reached a record high,” said Carl Sandifer II, program manager of the Radioisotope Power Systems Program at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. “It was particularly interesting to see which moons the students selected for their individual essays, and the mysteries they hope to unravel. Their RPS-powered mission concepts always prove to be innovative, and it’s a joy to learn about their ‘superpowers’ that exemplify their path forward as the next generation of explorers.” 

Entries were split into three categories: grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12. Every student who submitted an entry received a digital certificate, and over 4,859 participants who signed up received an invitation to the Power Up with NASA virtual event. Students learned about what powers the NASA workforce utilizes to dream big and work together to explore. Speakers included Carl Sandifer II, Dr. Wanda Peters, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for programs in the Science Mission Directorate and Dr. Zibi Turtle, principal investigator for NASA’s Dragonfly mission from the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Fifteen national semifinalists in each grade category (45 semifinalists total) have been selected. These participants also will receive a NASA RPS prize pack. Finalists for this challenge will be announced on April 23.

Grades K-4

  • Vihaan Akhoury, Roseland, NJ
  • Ada Brolan, Somerville, MA
  • Ashwin Cohen, Washington D.C
  • Unnathi Chandra Devavarapu, San Marcos, CA
  • Levi Fisher, Portland, OR
  • Tamanna Ghosh, Orlando, FL
  • Ava Goodison, Arnold, MD
  • Anika Lal, Pflugerville, TX
  • Diya Loganathan, Secaucus, NJ
  • Mini M, Ann Arbor, MI
  • Mark Porter, Temple Hills, MD
  • Rohith Thiruppathy, Canton, MI
  • Zachary Tolchin, Guilford CT
  • Kavin Vairavan, West Windsor Township, NJ
  • Terry Xu, Arcadia, CA

Grades 5-8

  • Chowdhury Wareesha Ali, Solon OH
  • Caydin Brandes, Los Angeles, CA
  • Caleb Braswell, Crestview, FL
  • Lilah Coyan, Spokane, WA
  • Ashwin Dhondi Kubeer, Phoenix, AZ
  • Jonathan Gigi, Cypress, TX
  • Gagan Girish, Portland, OR
  • Maggie Hou, Snohomish, WA
  • Sanjay Koripelli, Louisville, KY
  • Isaiah Muniz, South Orange, NJ
  • Sarabhesh Saravanakumar, Bothell, WA
  • Eliya Schubert, Katonah, NY
  • Gabriel Traska, Fort Woth, TX
  • Jaxon Verbeck, Riggins, ID
  • Krish Vinodhkumar, Monrovia, MD

Grades 9-12

  • Samaria Berry, Kinder, LA
  • David Cai, Saipan, MP
  • Reggie Castro, Saipan, MP
  • Ryan Danyow, Rutland City, VT
  • Faiz Karim, Jericho, NY
  • Sakethram Kuncha, Chantilly, VA
  • Katerina Morin, Miami, FL
  • Emilio Olivares, Edmond, OK
  • Kairat Otorov, Trumbull, CT
  • Dev Rai, Herndon, VA
  • Shaurya Saxena, Irving, TX
  • Saanvi Shah, Bothell, WA
  • Niyant Sithamraju, San Ramon, CA
  • Anna Swenson, Henderson, NV
  • Alejandro Valdez, Orlando, FL

About the Challenge

The Power to Explore Student Challenge is funded by the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s Radioisotope Power Systems Program Office and managed and administered by Future Engineers under the direction of the NASA Tournament Lab, a part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

Kristin Jansen
NASA’s Glenn Research Center

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      Herbig-Haro 49/50 (Spitzer and Webb Images Side-by-Side)
      This side-by-side comparison shows a Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Array Camera image of HH 49/50 (left) versus a Webb image of the same object (right) using the NIRCam (Near-infrared Camera) instrument and MIRI (Mid-infrared Instrument). The Webb image shows intricate details of the heated gas and dust as the protostellar jet slams into the material. Webb also resolves the “fuzzy” object located at the tip of the outflow into a distant spiral galaxy. The Spitzer image shows 3.6-micron light in blue, the 4.5-micron in green, and the 8.0-micron in red (IRAC1, IRAC2, IRAC4). In the Webb image, blue represents light at 2.0-microns (F200W), cyan represents light at 3.3-microns (F335M), green is 4.4-microns (F444W), orange is 4.7-microns (F470N), and red is 7.7-microns (F770W).NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL, SSC HH 49/50 is located in the Chamaeleon I Cloud complex , one of the nearest active star formation regions in our Milky Way, which is creating numerous low-mass stars similar to our Sun. This cloud complex is likely similar to the environment that our Sun formed in. Past observations of this region show that the HH 49/50 outflow is moving away from us at speeds of 60-190 miles per second (100-300 kilometers per second) and is just one feature of a larger outflow.
      Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI observations of HH 49/50 trace the location of glowing hydrogen molecules, carbon monoxide molecules, and energized grains of dust, represented in orange and red, as the protostellar jet slams into the region. Webb’s observations probe details on small spatial scales that will help astronomers to model the properties of the jet and understand how it is affecting the surrounding material.
      The arc-shaped features in HH 49/50, similar to a water wake created by a speeding boat, point back to the source of this outflow. Based on past observations, scientists suspect that a protostar known as Cederblad 110 IRS4 is a plausible driver of the jet activity. Located roughly 1.5 light-years away from HH 49/50 (off the lower right corner of the Webb image), CED 110 IRS4 is a Class I protostar. Class I protostars are young objects (tens of thousands to a million years old) in the prime time of gaining mass. They usually have a discernable disk of material surrounding them that is still falling onto the protostar. Scientists recently used Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI observations to study this protostar and obtain an inventory  of the icy composition of its environment.
      These detailed Webb images of the arcs in HH 49/50 can more precisely pinpoint the direction to the jet source, but not every arc points back in the same direction. For example, there is an unusual outcrop feature (at the top right of the main outflow) which could be another chance superposition of a different outflow, related to the slow precession of the intermittent jet source. Alternatively, this feature could be a result of the main outflow breaking apart.
      The galaxy that appears by happenstance at the tip of HH 49/50 is a much more distant, face-on spiral galaxy. It has a prominent central bulge represented in blue that shows the location of older stars. The bulge also shows hints of “side lobes” suggesting that this could be a barred-spiral galaxy. Reddish clumps within the spiral arms show the locations of warm dust and groups of forming stars. The galaxy even displays evacuated bubbles in these dusty regions, similar to nearby galaxies observed by Webb as part of the PHANGS program.
      Webb has captured these two unassociated objects in a lucky alignment. Over thousands of years, the edge of HH 49/50 will move outwards and eventually appear to cover up the distant galaxy.
      Want more? Take a closer look at the image, “fly through” it in a visualization, and compare Webb’s image to the Spitzer Space Telescope’s.
      Herbig-Haro 49/50 is located about 625 light-years from Earth in the constellation Chamaeleon.
      The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe 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 the Canadian Space Agency.
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      Media Contacts
      Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
      Quyen Hart – qhart@stsci.edu
      Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
      Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
      Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

      Related Information
      Images – Webb images of other protostar outflows –  L483, HH 46/47, and HH 211
      Animation Video – “Exploring Star and Planet Formation” 
      Interactive – Explore the jets emitted by young stars in multiple wavelengths: ViewSpace Interactive
      Article – Read more about Herbig-Haro objects
      More Webb News
      More Webb Images
      Webb Science Themes
      Webb Mission Page


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      Last Updated Mar 23, 2025 EditorStephen SabiaContactLaura Betzlaura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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