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By NASA
NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge directly supports the agency’s Moon to Mars initiatives.Credit: NASA NASA invites the media and public to explore the nexus of space and food innovation at the agency’s Deep Space Food Challenge symposium and winners’ announcement at the Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday, Aug. 16.
In 2019, NASA and the CSA (Canadian Space Agency) started the Deep Space Food Challenge, a multi-year international effort to develop sustainable food systems for long-duration habitation in space including the Moon and Mars. Since Phase 1 of the challenge opened in 2021, more than 300 teams from 32 countries have developed innovative food system designs. On Aug. 16, NASA will announce the final Phase 3 winners and recognize the shared global effort.
NASA will award up to $1.5 million during the awards ceremony, totaling the prize purse for this three-year competition at $3 million. International teams also will be recognized for their achievements.
“Advanced food systems also benefit life on Earth,” said Kim Krome-Sieja, acting program manager of NASA Centennial Challenges at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Solutions from this challenge could enable new avenues for food production around the world, especially in extreme environments, resource-scarce regions, and in locations where disasters disrupt critical infrastructure.”
Media also may request attendance for activities on Thursday, Aug. 15, including private tours, networking, knowledge sharing, and culinary experiences. Interested media need to RSVP by 3 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 12, to Lane Figueroa at lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov.
The Methuselah Foundation, NASA’s partner in the Deep Space Food Challenge, is hosting the event in coordination with the Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and NASA Centennial Challenges.
“Our Phase 2 winners’ event in Brooklyn, New York, was an incredible display of innovation, partnership, and collaboration across NASA, industry, and academia,” said Angela Herblet, challenge manager of the Deep Space Food Challenge and program analyst of NASA Centennial Challenges at NASA Marshall. “I’m looking forward to celebrating these brilliant Phase 3 finalists and underscoring the giant leaps they’ve made toward creating sustainable, regenerative food production systems.”
The event will feature a meet and greet with the Phase 3 finalists, symposium panels, and live demonstrations of the finalists’ food production technologies. Attendees also will have the opportunity to meet the crew of Ohio State students called “Simunauts,” who managed operations of the technologies during the eight-week demonstration and testing period.
“The Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing team is excited to welcome media, stakeholders, and the public to our event in Columbus,” said Amy Kaminski, program executive for NASA’s Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. “These finalists have worked diligently for three years to develop their diverse, innovative food systems, and I’m excited to see how their technologies may impact NASA’s future deep space missions.”
The awards ceremony also will livestream on Marshall Space Flight Center’s YouTube channel and NASA Prize’s Facebook page.
As a NASA Centennial Challenge, the Deep Space Food Challenge is a coordinated effort between NASA and CSA for the benefit of all. Subject matter experts at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida support the competition. NASA’s Centennial Challenges are part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Methuselah Foundation, in partnership with NASA, oversees the competitors.
For more information about the symposium, see the symposium website. To learn more about the Deep Space Food Challenge, visit:
nasa.gov/spacefoodchallenge
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Jasmine Hopkins
Headquarters, Washington
321-432-4624
jasmine.s.hopkins@nasa.gov
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-932-1940
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Aug 02, 2024 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program Earth's Moon Mars Marshall Space Flight Center Prizes, Challenges & Crowdsourcing News Space Technology Mission Directorate View the full article
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By NASA
“We have a group photo of my first project here, ASTRO-H, and that one means a lot to me because I came [to that NASA project] fresh off the street. I was super scared and intimidated. It was me and three other [technicians], who were also all new, and a handful of very seasoned scientists and engineers. And we came together.
“And we actually came in — I believe — under budget, ahead of schedule, and exceeded all expectations for our test results. That’s kind of unheard of, you know what I mean? We had such a good environment in the lab. Everybody got along so well. It was all teamwork. And everything just gelled.
“So when I look back on that photo from 14 years ago, first of all, I look really young in it. And secondly, it makes me realize how blessed and lucky I’ve been to be here for so long. It reminds me of that guy who was really nervous and still did alright. [It reminds me] to have a little confidence in myself, just be me, and do the work. It’ll all work out.
“I love looking back at that first team photo and just remembering how raw everything was at the time and how well it still came out.”
—Clifton Brown, Engineering Technician, OMES III, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Image Credit: NASA/Thalia Patrinos
Interviewer: NASA/Thalia Patrinos
Check out some of our other Faces of NASA.
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By NASA
Jennifer Scott Williams embodies leadership, innovation, and excitement for life. Her career has been a testament to her unwavering passion and versatility, navigating through various roles and significantly contributing to the agency’s milestones and evolution. In her 23 years at NASA, she has combined engineering, business, science communications, and leadership all into one.
Currently in the Center Director’s Office, Williams serves as NASA Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche’s assistant for technical integration, supporting meetings such as readiness reviews for the International Space Station and Commercial Crew Programs. Her role also involves coordinating skip-level meetings for Dare | Unite | Explore and overseeing senior staff meetings to ensure that leadership remains informed about the activities happening across the center.
Official portrait of Jennifer Scott Williams. Credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel She also plays a role in the International Space Station Program’s Research Integration Office, ensuring crews aboard the space station have the tools they need to complete their research.
“Like many of our laboratories where astronauts conduct their research, understanding the engineering components of the facilities we use on board is crucial,” said Williams. “Understanding the science is also critical,” she added. “It adds meaning to our work when we help execute the science onboard and communicate the creative insights and results from the experiments conducted. Being a good communicator is extremely important and creativity makes that message real and mean something to the public.”
Jennifer Scott Williams (front) during a senior staff outreach event at the Remembering Columbia Museum in Hemphill, Texas. Her journey also included groundbreaking work on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, where she served as the instrumentation and communications officer on the Boeing Mission Operations Team. Her efforts established operational foundations that will shape its future space missions. Williams was instrumental in developing the vehicle communications systems, understanding its operations, creating simulations, coding, and comprehending the computer systems, addressing all the fundamental aspects necessary for the spacecraft.
Beyond her technical contributions, Williams is deeply committed to inspiring the next generation of explorers. She also managed the Minority University Research and Education Project, encouraging students of color to engage in STEM fields.
She led a team that collaborated with students, teachers, and educational institutions through the Pre-Service Teacher Program. Williams said that working in the Office of STEM Engagement was a new experience that became life-changing for her. “I really rediscovered a passion that I have for students and education,” she said. “I love being able to help interns navigate the NASA environment and help people of color be able to apply for NASA jobs. It takes all perspectives to accomplish our mission.”
Williams earned dual bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering from Spelman College and the Georgia Institute of Technology. She later received a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Houston. She belongs to the Spelman College National Alumni Association and holds a lifetime membership in the National Society of Black Engineers.
Jennifer Scott Williams’ headshot in the 2024 International Space Station calendar.Credit: NASA/Bill Stafford Williams is an advocate for youth interested in pursuing STEM careers. Her advice is, “Come on and do it. We are out here,” she added “I love that we are embracing our differences instead of shunning differences because having people with different backgrounds, personalities, insights, and perspectives is what’s going to help us get back to the Moon.”
“For the Artemis Generation, we need creative minds,” she said. “We need artists, scientists, engineers, technologists, physicians, attorneys, and financial connoisseurs. This next generation is going to have to be open-minded thought seekers. They need to be willing to do things that we have never done before and take the risks so that we can put boots on the Moon and Mars.”
Jennifer Scott Williams with her family at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the launch of NASA’s SpaceX Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station on March 15, 2023. Williams also plays an integral role in Dare | Unite | Explore initiatives. She works with senior leadership to make sure the workforce has professional mobility and is able to get the training and resources for new opportunities. “We want to encourage employees to try new things, to learn, and to grow in different organizations,” she said. “Dare | Unite | Explore ensures that the Johnson workforce is fully supported in our efforts as we grow and develop and that our facilities and processes can support us and are in alignment with our future initiatives.”
“I never really thought I would work at NASA, but when I came here to interview, they put me in the shuttle simulator and I was hooked,” she said. “I encourage my children to pursue careers in STEM because it has been so beneficial to me throughout my life. The people that I have come across in my time here have been phenomenal. It makes me want to keep coming to work.”
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By NASA
4 min read
NASA’s Hubble Finds that Aging Brown Dwarfs Grow Lonely
It takes two to tango, but in the case of brown dwarfs that were once paired as binary systems, that relationship doesn’t last for very long, according to a recent survey from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Brown dwarfs are interstellar objects larger than Jupiter but smaller than the lowest-mass stars. They are born like stars – out of a cloud of gas and dust that collapses – but do not have enough mass to sustain the fusion of hydrogen like a normal star.
This is an artist’s concept of a brown dwarf. This class of object is too large to be a planet (and did not form in the same way), but is too small to be a star because it cannot sustain nuclear fusion, since it is less massive than even the smallest stars. A brown dwarf is marked by wind-driven horizontal bands of thick clouds that may alternate with relatively cloud-free bands, giving the object a striped appearance. Whirling storm systems as big as terrestrial continents, or even small planets, might exist. The name “brown dwarf” is a misnomer because the object would typically appear red to the naked eye. It is brightest in infrared light. Many brown dwarfs have binary companions. But as they age, the binary system gravitationally falls apart, and each dwarf goes its separate way, according to a recent Hubble Space Telescope study.
The background stars in this illustration are a science visualization assembled from the Gaia spacecraft star catalog. The synthesized stars are accurate in terms of position, brightness, and color. Because this is not an image of the Milky Way, missing are glowing nebulae and dark dust clouds.
NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) Astronomers using Hubble confirm that companions are extremely rare around the lowest-mass and coldest brown dwarfs. Hubble can detect binaries as close to each other as a 300-million-mile separation – the approximate separation between our Sun and the asteroid belt. But they didn’t find any binary pairs in a sample of brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood. This implies that a binary pair of dwarfs is so weakly linked by gravity that they drift apart over a few hundred million years due to the pull of bypassing stars.
“Our survey confirms that widely separated companions are extremely rare among the lowest-mass and coldest isolated brown dwarfs, even though binary brown dwarfs are observed at younger ages. This suggests that such systems do not survive over time,” said lead author Clémence Fontanive of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets, Université de Montréal, Canada.
In a similar survey Fontanive conducted a couple of years ago, Hubble looked at extremely young brown dwarfs and some had binary companions, confirming that star-forming mechanisms do produce binary pairs among low-mass brown dwarfs. The lack of binary companions for older brown dwarfs suggests that some may have started out as binaries, but parted ways over time.
The new Hubble findings, published in The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, further support the theory that brown dwarfs are born the same way as stars, through the gravitational collapse of a cloud of molecular hydrogen. The difference being that they do not have enough mass to sustain nuclear fusion of hydrogen for generating energy, whereas stars do. More than half of the stars in our galaxy have a companion star that resulted from these formation processes, with more massive stars more commonly found in binary systems. “The motivation for the study was really to see how low in mass the trends seen among multiple stars systems hold up,” said Fontanive.
“Our Hubble survey offers direct evidence that these binaries that we observe when they’re young are unlikely to survive to old ages, they’re likely going to get disrupted. When they’re young, they’re part of a molecular cloud, and then as they age the cloud disperses. As that happens, things start moving around and stars pass by each other. Because brown dwarfs are so light, the gravitational hold tying wide binary pairs is very weak, and bypassing stars can easily tear these binaries apart,” said Fontanive.
The team selected a sample of brown dwarfs previously identified by NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. It sampled some of the coldest and lowest-mass old brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood. These old brown dwarfs are so cool (a few hundred degrees warmer than Jupiter in most cases) that their atmospheres contain water vapor that condensed out.
To find the coolest companions, the team used two different near-infrared filters, one in which cold brown dwarfs are bright, and another covering specific wavelengths where they appear very faint due to water absorption in their atmospheres.
“This is the best observational evidence to date that brown dwarf pairs drift apart over time,” said Fontanive. “We could not have done this kind of survey and confirmed earlier models without Hubble’s sharp vision and sensitivity.”
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. Goddard also conducts mission operations with Lockheed Martin Space based in Denver, Colorado. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
Learn More
NASA Telescopes See Weather Patterns in Brown Dwarf
Small Companion to Brown Dwarf
Media Contacts:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Science Contact:
Clémence Fontanive
Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at Université de Montréal
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Last Updated Mar 21, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Related Terms
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