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STScI Astronomers Kathryn Flanagan and Colin Norman Elected AAAS Fellows
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By NASA
This illustration shows a red, early-universe dwarf galaxy that hosts a rapidly feeding black hole at its center. Using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of astronomers have discovered this low-mass supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. It is pulling in matter at a phenomenal rate — over 40 times the theoretical limit. While short lived, this black hole’s “feast” could help astronomers explain how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the early universe.NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/M. Zamani A rapidly feeding black hole at the center of a dwarf galaxy in the early universe, shown in this artist’s concept, may hold important clues to the evolution of supermassive black holes in general.
Using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of astronomers discovered this low-mass supermassive black hole just 1.5 billion years after the big bang. The black hole is pulling in matter at a phenomenal rate — over 40 times the theoretical limit. While short lived, this black hole’s “feast” could help astronomers explain how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the early universe.
Supermassive black holes exist at the center of most galaxies, and modern telescopes continue to observe them at surprisingly early times in the universe’s evolution. It’s difficult to understand how these black holes were able to grow so big so rapidly. But with the discovery of a low-mass supermassive black hole feasting on material at an extreme rate so soon after the birth of the universe, astronomers now have valuable new insights into the mechanisms of rapidly growing black holes in the early universe.
The black hole, called LID-568, was hidden among thousands of objects in the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s COSMOS legacy survey, a catalog resulting from some 4.6 million Chandra observations. This population of galaxies is very bright in the X-ray light, but invisible in optical and previous near-infrared observations. By following up with Webb, astronomers could use the observatory’s unique infrared sensitivity to detect these faint counterpart emissions, which led to the discovery of the black hole.
The speed and size of these outflows led the team to infer that a substantial fraction of the mass growth of LID-568 may have occurred in a single episode of rapid accretion.
LID-568 appears to be feeding on matter at a rate 40 times its Eddington limit. This limit relates to the maximum amount of light that material surrounding a black hole can emit, as well as how fast it can absorb matter, such that its inward gravitational force and outward pressure generated from the heat of the compressed, infalling matter remain in balance.
These results provide new insights into the formation of supermassive black holes from smaller black hole “seeds,” which current theories suggest arise either from the death of the universe’s first stars (light seeds) or the direct collapse of gas clouds (heavy seeds). Until now, these theories lacked observational confirmation.
The new discovery suggests that “a significant portion of mass growth can occur during a single episode of rapid feeding, regardless of whether the black hole originated from a light or heavy seed,” said International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab astronomer Hyewon Suh, who led the research team.
A paper describing these results (“A super-Eddington-accreting black hole ~1.5 Gyr after the Big Bang observed with JWST”) appears in the journal Nature Astronomy.
About the Missions
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
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).
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
News Media Contact
Elizabeth Laundau
NASA Headquarters
Washington, DC
202-923-0167
elizabeth.r.landau@nasa.gov
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) has named two distinguished engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland AIAA Associate Fellows.
The grade of Associate Fellow recognizes individuals who have accomplished or overseen important engineering or scientific work, done original work of outstanding merit, or have otherwise made outstanding contributions to the arts, sciences, or technology of aeronautics or astronautics. To be selected as an Associate Fellow, an individual must be an AIAA Senior Member in good standing, with at least 12 years of professional experience, and be recommended by three AIAA members.
L. Danielle KochCredit: NASA L. Danielle Koch, aerospace engineer, performs research and educational outreach at NASA Glenn. Her 34-year career at NASA has been dedicated to conducting research for safer, cleaner, and quieter aircraft engines; high-performance ventilation systems for spacecraft; and bio-inspired broadband acoustic absorbers. She has authored over 50 technical publications and has been granted three patents. Koch has been recognized for excellence in engineering and educational outreach with many awards, most recently named as one of the 2024 Women of Distinction by the Girl Scouts of Northeast Ohio.
Dr. Sam LeeCredit: NASA Dr. Sam Lee, a research engineer supporting the Aircraft Icing Branch, conducts research in NASA Glenn’s Icing Research Tunnel to study how ice builds up, or accretes, on aircraft surfaces. The results from the experiments are used to understand the physics of how ice accretes on aircraft during flight and to provide the validation data to develop computational tools to predict ice accretion. He also performs research on the effects of ice accretion on aircraft performance in aerodynamic wind tunnels. Lee has authored 17 conference papers and journal papers. He has contributed to the development of many future engineers and scientists as a mentor for NASA’s Explorer Scouts program and various college internship programs. Lee has been part of the Aircraft Icing Branch since 2002.
AIAA will formally honor and induct the class at the AIAA Associate Fellows Induction Ceremony and Dinner on Jan. 8, 2025, during the 2025 AIAA SciTech Forum in Orlando.
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By NASA
8 Min Read Kathryn Sullivan: The First American Woman to Walk in Space
Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan checks the latch of the SIR-B antenna in the space shuttle Challenger's open cargo bay during her historic extravehicular activity (EVA) on Oct. 11, 1984. Earlier, America's first woman to perform an EVA and astronaut David C. Leestma, participated in an in-space simulation of refueling a spacecraft in orbit. Credits: NASA Forty years ago, in October 1984, Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space. But being the first presented several challenges that started well before she took those historic steps. Things got complicated just after she learned of her assignment.
Questions of Physiology
Biomedical researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) raised what they believed was a serious issue with women walking in space and alerted George W.S. Abbey, the head of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate. Females, he learned, were more likely than their male counterparts to develop the bends in the low-pressure environment of the extravehicular mobility unit (EMU), the spacesuit she would wear. To alleviate the possibility of developing decompression syndrome, all spacewalkers had to breathe pure oxygen before a spacewalk to eliminate nitrogen from their bloodstream. Researchers insisted Sullivan (and any future women spacewalkers) spend more time than their male counterparts breathing pure oxygen before going outside of the space shuttle. Sullivan quickly learned that there were flaws in the research, which she countered, and Abbey ended up approving the same requirements for men and women doing an extravehicular activity (EVA).
Setting the Record
After the STS-41G crew had been named in the fall of 1983, a colleague—flush with excitement over the recent flight announcement — congratulated Sally K. Ride and Sullivan on their new titles: Ride being the first woman to fly in space twice and Sullivan the first woman to walk in space. Both shook their heads and explained that it would be many months before launch and that a Soviet woman would fly and do a spacewalk well before the space shuttle Challenger and her crew made it to orbit. As expected, the Soviets assigned cosmonaut Svetlana Y. Savitskaya to a second mission in 1983, less than a month after NASA’s crew announcement. In July 1984, Savitskaya, not Ride, went on to become the first woman to enter space twice and earned the distinction of being the first female to walk in space.
Astronauts Sally K. Ride (right) and Kathryn D. Sullivan, two of three mission specialists, synchronize their watches prior to ingressing the Space Shuttle Challenger on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center on October 5, 1984.NASA Sullivan was not disappointed at losing the title. As she recalled in an oral history interview, being selected for an EVA was an “extraordinary opportunity,” and it did not matter where she was in the queue. She could not understand how people arrived at the idea that the “seventh, tenth, or thirteenth … is [any] less meaningful … than some historical first.”
Others at the Johnson Space Center still thought there was a way they could best the Soviets. Sullivan’s trainers took note of how short Savitskaya’s EVA was. It was only about three and a half hours. “A little bit more than that,” they explained, and “you’ll get the duration record!” But the idea of breaking her record by a few minutes seemed ludicrous. “I’m certainly not going to go tromping around on dinner speeches … saying, ‘Well yes, but I have the duration record.’”
“Hello, I’m right here!”
While the issue of breaking and setting records remained of interest at NASA more than twenty years after the Soviets sent cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space, Sullivan found herself grappling with other matters she found equally frustrating. First, there was the sexist media. No journalist asked how she was feeling about her role in the mission. Flying women in space was still new to the American news media in 1983—Ride had only flown her first mission in June, and while Judith A. Resnik had been named to a mission, she had not yet been in orbit. But Ride had not completed an EVA; only men had walked in space, and some found the activity challenging. Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan described his first EVA as the “spacewalk from hell.” Spacewalks can be physically demanding, and it was assumed that women might not have the strength to do so. Reporters asked commander Robert L. Crippen and Ride, “Do you think Kathy can do this?” Sitting at the preflight press conference she reminded reporters that she could speak for herself. “Hello, I’m right here! Hello. Hello.”
The crew assigned to the STS-41G mission included (seated left to right) Jon A. McBride, pilot; mission specialists Sally K. Ride, Kathryn D. Sullivan, and David C. Leestma. Standing in the rear, left to right, are payload specialist Paul D. Scully-Power, mission commander Robert Crippen, and payload specialist Marc Garneau. Launched aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on October 5, 1984, the STS-41G mission marked the first flight to include two women.NASA There was also the matter of why her spacewalking partner, David C. Leestma, led the EVA. She had two years seniority in the Astronaut Office, arriving in 1978; NASA named Leestma to the corps in 1980. She also worked on spacesuit issues and the mission’s payload longer than he had, but both were rookies on this mission. Sullivan did not think Crippen and Abbey thought she was incapable, but for traditional norms to have been breached in this instance she could not explain why she—the senior ranking astronaut—was playing a support role instead of leading. If anyone asked why, Sullivan told Crippen he—not she—would have to answer the tough questions.
Space Suit Fit
As she prepared for the flight, she began training in the shuttle EMU, which never quite fit her body. The suit’s elbow did not align with hers so when she bent her arm, she had to use extra force. The lower portion of the suit was misaligned, making it difficult to bend her knee. Being the first American woman to do a spacewalk, she decided what was most important was to perform the EVA and demonstrate the EMU worked for women. “I reckoned the wrong thing to do was to turn the first evolution of a woman doing a spacewalk into a controversy. … I just sucked it up and dealt with it.” The suit techs knew the EMU was not quite her size, but she made it work. Later, when assigned to STS-45, one of the techs noticed how poorly the suit fit. “We ought to do something about it. It ought to fit you,” he said. Sullivan responded, “We can start that conversation now, but if you think I was going to make that the conversation on the first EVA you’re crazy.”
Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan, STS-41G mission specialist, gets some help with her extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) prior to participating in an underwater simulation of an extravehicular activity (EVA) scheduled for her flight aboard the Columbia in October 1984. Dr. Sullivan and David C. Leestma (out of frame) participated in the rehearsal in NASA’s weightless environment training facility (WET-F) at the Johnson Space Center.NASA A Walk to Remember
Two days after Sullivan’s thirty-third birthday, STS-41G launched on October 5, 1984. Once in orbit, the flight plan changed quickly. A problem with a malfunctioning Ku-band antenna meant that the EVA had to be pushed back to the day before reentry. Sullivan worried that the walk might be scrapped, but when they finally began the pre-breathing protocol, she relaxed. “Challenger, Houston: You are GO for EVA,” Sullivan recalled, “were the sweetest words I had ever heard.” Sullivan and Leestma’s EVA was short—only three hours and twenty-nine minutes—but busy. Leestma demonstrated it was possible to refuel satellites in orbit, while Sullivan monitored his work. When he wrapped up his task, Sullivan finally had the opportunity to “do something, not just watch things.” She stowed the malfunctioning antenna and before they went back inside the shuttle, they filmed a scene for an IMAX film, The Dream is Alive—where the two spacewalkers rose from the bottom of the space shuttle’s windows and waved at the crew inside, mimicking the “Kilroy Was Here” meme. When filming concluded, Sullivan and Leestma returned to Challenger. “My first spacewalking adventure,” Sullivan wrote in her memoir, “was over all too soon.” The next day, President Ronald Reagan called to ask Sullivan about her experience. “Kathy, when we met at the White House, I know you were excited about walking in space. Was it what you expected?” he asked. Sullivan responded affirmatively and added, “I think it was the most fantastic experience of my life.”
I think it was the most fantastic experience of my life.
Kathryn Sullivan
NASA Astronaut
When she returned to JSC she learned that the EVA flight team had tried to figure out how to send her a diplomatic message to stay outside longer to beat Savitskaya’s record. There ended up being a “five-or six-minute difference” between Sullivan and Savitskaya, “and in the wrong direction as far as they were concerned.”
Despite all the challenges she faced as the first American woman to walk in space, Sullivan called the EVA “a fabulously cool experience.” She hoped to do another, but she never received another assignment to walk in space. She recognized what a unique opportunity she had—very few people have flown in space, and even fewer “get to sneak outside. I’m not going to diminish one dose of sneaking outside just because I didn’t get two, three, or four.”
Watch Suit Up – 50 Years of Spacewalks About the Author
Jennifer Ross-Nazzal
NASA Human Spaceflight HistorianJennifer Ross-Nazzal is the NASA Human Spaceflight Historian. She is the author of Winning the West for Women: The Life of Suffragist Emma Smith DeVoe and Making Space for Women: Stories from Trailblazing Women of NASA's Johnson Space Center.
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Last Updated Oct 07, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
Earth as viewed from the International Space Station.Credit: NASA The NASA-funded Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) announced its selections for the institute’s 2024 postdoctoral fellowship, a space health program intended to launch the careers of a new generation of researchers tackling various challenges involved with human space exploration.
The program supports early-career scientists pursuing research with the potential to reduce the health risks associated with spaceflight. Selected fellows will participate in TRISH’s Academy of Bioastronautics, a mentorship community for space health professionals, and receive a two-year salary stipend. Fellows were selected based on the strengths of the various projects they proposed. Projects are expected to begin in September.
“Our TRISH program has always prioritized providing the next generation with the tools to further human health in space,” said Dr. Rihana Bokhari, acting TRISH chief scientific officer and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “As space becomes more accessible to more people, investing in these early-career scientists is necessary to develop solutions to mitigate the health risks that life in space may pose. We are eager to have this group join our postdoctoral fellowship program and enhance their research for spaceflight.”
The following fellows were selected:
Carolyn Chlebek, Ph.D.
MaineHealth
Mentor: Clifford Rosen, M.D.
Project: Bone Metabolism is Altered by Skeletal Unloading and Nutrient Limitation During Long-duration Spaceflight
Katharyn Flickinger, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh
Mentor: Clifton Callaway, M.D., Ph.D.
Project: Metabolic Measurement, Manipulation, and Countermeasure Strategies
Patrick Opdensteinen, M.Sc., Ph.D.
University of California, San Diego
Mentor: Nicole Steinmetz, Ph.D. Project: Streamlined Molecular Farming of Virus-Like Particle (VLP) Therapeutics in Space
The institute is supported by NASA’s Human Research Program to solve the challenges of human deep space exploration. Led by Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Space Medicine, the consortium leverages partnerships with Caltech in Pasadena, California and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
NASA’s Human Research Program pursues the best methods and technologies to support safe, productive human space travel. Through science conducted in laboratories, ground-based analogs, and missions to the International Space Station, the program scrutinizes how spaceflight affects human bodies and behaviors. Such research continues to drive NASA’s mission to innovate ways that keep astronauts healthy as space exploration expands to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
-end-
Kelly Humphries / Laura Sorto
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
kelly.o.humphries@nasa.gov / laura.g.sorto@nasa.gov
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By European Space Agency
Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, scientists observed the region above Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot to discover a variety of previously unseen features. The region, previously believed to be unremarkable in nature, hosts a variety of intricate structures and activity.
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