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Amelie Schoenenwald | Science, Exploration, Training | ESA Explores #13
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By European Space Agency
Image: New ESA invention tested in a chamber of no echoes View the full article
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By NASA
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Eclipses, Science, NASA Firsts: Heliophysics Big Year Highlights
One year ago today, a total solar eclipse swept across the United States. The event was a cornerstone moment in the Heliophysics Big Year, a global celebration of the Sun’s influence on Earth and the entire solar system. From October 2023 to December 2024 — a period encompassing two solar eclipses across the U.S., two new NASA heliophysics missions, and one spacecraft’s history-making solar flyby — NASA celebrated the Sun’s widespread influence on our lives.
An infographic showing key numbers summarizing the activities and events of the Heliophysics Big Year, which spanned from Oct. 14, 2023 – Dec. 24, 2024. NASA/Miles Hatfield/Kristen Perrin Annular Solar Eclipse
An annular (or “ring of fire”) solar eclipse occurred Oct. 14, 2023, and kicked off the Helio Big Year with a bang. Millions of people across North America witnessed the Moon crossing in front of the Sun, creating this brilliant celestial event. NASA’s live broadcast had more than 11 million views across different platforms.
On Oct. 14, 2023, an annular solar eclipse crossed North, Central, and South America. Visible in parts of the United States, Mexico, and many countries in South and Central America, millions of people in the Western Hemisphere were able to experience this “ring of fire” eclipse. NASA’s official broadcast and outreach teams were located in Kerrville, TX, and Albuquerque, NM, to capture the event and celebrate with the communities in the path of annularity.
Credit: NASA/Ryan Fitzgibbons Before the eclipse, NASA introduced the 2023 Eclipse Explorer, an interactive map to explore eclipse details for any location in the United States. NASA shared tips on eclipse safety, including through a video with NSYNC’s Lance Bass and even with an augmented reality filter.
Scientists also studied conditions during the annular eclipse with sounding rockets, balloons, and amateur radio.
Total Solar Eclipse
On April 8, 2024, millions of people across North America experienced a total solar eclipse that darkened parts of 15 U.S. states in the path of totality.
Ahead of the event, NASA hosted a widespread safety campaign, handed out over 2 million solar viewing glasses, and produced an interactive map to help viewers plan their viewing experience. On eclipse day, NASA also hosted a live broadcast from locations across the country, drawing over 38 million views.
Researchers studied the eclipse and its effects on Earth using a variety of techniques, including international radar networks, scientific rockets, weather balloons, and even high-altitude NASA WB-57 jets. Several NASA-funded citizen science projects also conducted experiments. These projects included more than 49,000 volunteers who contributed an astounding 53 million observations.
This infographic shares metrics from citizen science projects that occurred during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. NASA/Kristen Perrin “We have opened a window for all Americans to discover our connection to the Sun and ignited enthusiasm for engaging with groundbreaking NASA science, whether it’s through spacecraft, rockets, balloons, or planes,” said Kelly Korreck, a Heliophysics program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Sharing the excitement of NASA heliophysics with our fellow citizens has truly been amazing.”
Science Across the Solar System
NASA’s heliophysics missions gather data on the Sun and its effects across the solar system.
The Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) mission launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Nov. 9, 2023, and was installed on the International Space Station nine days later. This mission studies atmospheric gravity waves, how they form and travel through Earth’s atmosphere, and their role in space weather.
Orbital footage from the International Space Station shows NASA’s Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) as it was extracted from SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft. NASA/International Space Station On Nov. 4, 2024, the Coronal Diagnostic Experiment (CODEX) mission also launched to the space station, where it studies the solar wind, with a focus on what heats it and propels it through space.
Pictured is the CODEX instrument inside the integration and testing facility at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA/CODEX team The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission ended after 16 years studying Earth’s highest clouds, called polar mesospheric clouds.
An artist’s concept shows the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft orbiting Earth. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight/Center Conceptual Image Lab NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) also ended after three successful years studying the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere, called the ionosphere.
NASA’s ICON, shown in this artist’s concept, studied the frontiers of space, the dynamic zone high in our atmosphere where terrestrial weather from below meets space weather above. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab Voyager has been operating for more than 47 years, continuing to study the heliosphere and interstellar space. In October 2024, the Voyager 1 probe stopped communicating. The mission team worked tirelessly to troubleshoot and ultimately reestablish communications, keeping the mission alive to continue its research.
In this artist’s conception, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has a bird’s-eye view of the solar system. The circles represent the orbits of the major outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 visited the planets Jupiter and Saturn. The spacecraft is now 13 billion miles from Earth, making it the farthest and fastest-moving human-made object ever built. In fact, Voyager 1 is now zooming through interstellar space, the region between the stars that is filled with gas, dust, and material recycled from dying stars. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is observing the material along Voyager’s path through space. NASA/STSci While the goal of the NASA heliophysics fleet is to study the Sun and its influence, these missions often make surprising discoveries that they weren’t originally designed to. From finding 5,000 comets to studying the surface of Venus, NASA highlighted and celebrated these bonus science connections during the Helio Big Year.
Solar Maximum
Similar to Earth, the Sun has its own seasons of activity, with a solar minimum and solar maximum during a cycle that lasts about 11 years. The Helio Big Year happened to coincide with the Sun’s active period, with NASA and NOAA announcing in October 2024 that the Sun had reached solar maximum, the highest period of activity. Some of the largest solar storms on current record occurred in 2024, and the largest sunspot in nearly a decade was spotted in the spring of 2024, followed by a colossal X9.0 solar flare Oct. 3, 2024.
Sunspots are cooler, darker areas on the solar surface where the Sun’s magnetic field gets especially intense, often leading to explosive solar eruptions. This sunspot group was so big that nearly 14 Earths could fit inside it! The eruptions from this region resulted in the historic May 2024 geomagnetic storms, when the aurora borealis, or northern lights, were seen as far south as the Florida Keys.
Credit: NASA/Beth Anthony Viewers across the U.S. spotted auroras in their communities as a result of these storms, proving that you can capture amazing aurora photography without advanced equipment.
The Big Finale: Parker’s Close Approach to the Sun
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe holds the title as the closest human-made object to the Sun. On Dec. 24, 2024, Parker made history by traveling just 3.8 million miles from the Sun’s surface at a whopping 430,000 miles per hour.
“Flying this close to the Sun is a historic moment in humanity’s first mission to a star,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters.
Controllers have confirmed NASA’s mission to “touch” the Sun survived its record-breaking closest approach to the solar surface on Dec. 24, 2024.
Credit: NASA/Joy Ng Parker Solar Probe’s close approach capped off a momentous Heliophysics Big Year that allowed NASA scientists to gather unprecedented data and invited everyone to celebrate how the Sun impacts us all. In the growing field of heliophysics, the Helio Big Year reminded us all how the Sun touches everything and how important it is to continue studying our star’s incredible influence.
A Big Year Ahead
Though the Helio Big Year is over, heliophysics is only picking up its pace in 2025. We remain in the solar maximum phase, so heightened solar activity will continue into the near future. In addition, several new missions are expected to join the heliophysics fleet by year’s end.
The PUNCH mission, a set of four Sun-watching satellites imaging solar eruptions in three dimensions, and EZIE, a trio of Earth-orbiting satellites tracing the electrical currents powering Earth’s auroras, have already launched. The LEXI instrument, an X-ray telescope studying Earth’s magnetosphere from the Moon, also launched through NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative.
Future missions slated for launch include TRACERS, which will investigate the unusual magnetic environment near Earth’s poles, and ESCAPADE, venturing to Mars to measure the planet’s unique magnetic environment.
The last two missions will share a ride to space. The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will look back at home, studying ultraviolet light emitted by the outermost boundaries of our planet’s atmosphere. The IMAP mission will instead look to the outermost edges of our heliosphere, mapping the boundaries where the domain of our Sun transitions into interstellar space.
By Desiree Apodaca
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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Last Updated Apr 08, 2025 Editor Miles Hatfield Related Terms
Heliophysics Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Division NASA Centers & Facilities NASA Directorates Science & Research Science Mission Directorate The Solar System The Sun Explore More
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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 Deployment 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 5 Min Read NASA Webb Explores Effect of Strong Magnetic Fields on Star Formation
An image of the Milky Way captured by the MeerKAT radio telescope array puts the James Webb Space Telescope’s image of the Sagittarius C region in context. Full image below. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crowe (UVA), John Bally (CU), Ruben Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), Ian Heywood (Oxford) Follow-up research on a 2023 image of the Sagittarius C stellar nursery in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, has revealed ejections from still-forming protostars and insights into the impact of strong magnetic fields on interstellar gas and the life cycle of stars.
“A big question in the Central Molecular Zone of our galaxy has been, if there is so much dense gas and cosmic dust here, and we know that stars form in such clouds, why are so few stars born here?” said astrophysicist John Bally of the University of Colorado Boulder, one of the principal investigators. “Now, for the first time, we are seeing directly that strong magnetic fields may play an important role in suppressing star formation, even at small scales.”
Detailed study of stars in this crowded, dusty region has been limited, but Webb’s advanced near-infrared instruments have allowed astronomers to see through the clouds to study young stars like never before.
“The extreme environment of the galactic center is a fascinating place to put star formation theories to the test, and the infrared capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope provide the opportunity to build on past important observations from ground-based telescopes like ALMA and MeerKAT,” said Samuel Crowe, another principal investigator on the research, a senior undergraduate at the University of Virginia and a 2025 Rhodes Scholar.
Bally and Crowe each led a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Image A: Milky Way Center (MeerKAT and Webb)
An image of the Milky Way captured by the MeerKAT (formerly the Karoo Array Telescope) radio telescope array puts the James Webb Space Telescope’s image of the Sagittarius C region in context. Like a super-long exposure photograph, MeerKAT shows the bubble-like remnants of supernovas that exploded over millennia, capturing the dynamic nature of the Milky Way’s chaotic core. At the center of the MeerKAT image the region surrounding the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole blazes bright. Huge vertical filamentary structures echo those captured on a smaller scale by Webb in Sagittarius C’s blue-green hydrogen cloud. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crowe (UVA), John Bally (CU), Ruben Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), Ian Heywood (Oxford) Image B: Milky Way Center (MeerKAT and Webb), Labeled
The star-forming region Sagittarius C, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, is about 200 light-years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*. The spectral index at the lower left shows how color was assigned to the radio data to create the image. On the negative end, there is non-thermal emission, stimulated by electrons spiraling around magnetic field lines. On the positive side, thermal emission is coming from hot, ionized plasma. For Webb, color is assigned by shifting the infrared spectrum to visible light colors. The shortest infrared wavelengths are bluer, and the longer wavelengths appear more red. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crowe (UVA), John Bally (CU), Ruben Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), Ian Heywood (Oxford) Using Infrared to Reveal Forming Stars
In Sagittarius C’s brightest cluster, the researchers confirmed the tentative finding from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) that two massive stars are forming there. Along with infrared data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope and SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) mission, as well as the Herschel Space Observatory, they used Webb to determine that each of the massive protostars is already more than 20 times the mass of the Sun. Webb also revealed the bright outflows powered by each protostar.
Even more challenging is finding low-mass protostars, still shrouded in cocoons of cosmic dust. Researchers compared Webb’s data with ALMA’s past observations to identify five likely low-mass protostar candidates.
The team also identified 88 features that appear to be shocked hydrogen gas, where material being blasted out in jets from young stars impacts the surrounding gas cloud. Analysis of these features led to the discovery of a new star-forming cloud, distinct from the main Sagittarius C cloud, hosting at least two protostars powering their own jets.
“Outflows from forming stars in Sagittarius C have been hinted at in past observations, but this is the first time we’ve been able to confirm them in infrared light. It’s very exciting to see, because there is still a lot we don’t know about star formation, especially in the Central Molecular Zone, and it’s so important to how the universe works,” said Crowe.
Magnetic Fields and Star Formation
Webb’s 2023 image of Sagittarius C showed dozens of distinctive filaments in a region of hot hydrogen plasma surrounding the main star-forming cloud. New analysis by Bally and his team has led them to hypothesize that the filaments are shaped by magnetic fields, which have also been observed in the past by the ground-based observatories ALMA and MeerKAT (formerly the Karoo Array Telescope).
“The motion of gas swirling in the extreme tidal forces of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, can stretch and amplify the surrounding magnetic fields. Those fields, in turn, are shaping the plasma in Sagittarius C,” said Bally.
The researchers think that the magnetic forces in the galactic center may be strong enough to keep the plasma from spreading, instead confining it into the concentrated filaments seen in the Webb image. These strong magnetic fields may also resist the gravity that would typically cause dense clouds of gas and dust to collapse and forge stars, explaining Sagittarius C’s lower-than-expected star formation rate.
“This is an exciting area for future research, as the influence of strong magnetic fields, in the center of our galaxy or other galaxies, on stellar ecology has not been fully considered,” said Crowe.
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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View/Download the science paper led by Crowe from the The Astrophysical Journal.
Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Leah Ramsay – lramsay@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Related Information
Read more: press releases about the center of the Milky Way
NASA’s Universe of Learning: ViewSpace Interactive image tour of the center of the Milky Way
Learn more about the Milky Way and Sagittarius Constellation
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Last Updated Apr 02, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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