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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Spies a Spiral That May Be Hiding an Imposter
The spiral galaxy UGC 5460 shines in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. UGC 5460 sits about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Jacobson-Galán, A. Filippenko, J. Mauerhan
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The sparkling spiral galaxy gracing this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is UGC 5460, which sits about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. This image combines four different wavelengths of light to reveal UGC 5460’s central bar of stars, winding spiral arms, and bright blue star clusters. Also captured in the upper left-hand corner is a far closer object: a star just 577 light-years away in our own galaxy.
UGC 5460 has hosted two recent supernovae: SN 2011ht and SN 2015as. It’s because of these two stellar explosions that Hubble targeted this galaxy, collecting data for three observing programs that aim to study various kinds of supernovae.
SN 2015as was as a core-collapse supernova: a cataclysmic explosion that happens when the core of a star far more massive than the Sun runs out of fuel and collapses under its own gravity, initiating a rebound of material outside the core. Hubble observations of SN 2015as will help researchers understand what happens when the expanding shockwave of a supernova collides with the gas that surrounds the exploded star.
SN 2011ht might have been a core-collapse supernova as well, but it could also be an impostor called a luminous blue variable. Luminous blue variables are rare stars that experience eruptions so large that they can mimic supernovae. Crucially, luminous blue variables emerge from these eruptions unscathed, while stars that go supernova do not. Hubble will search for a stellar survivor at SN 2011ht’s location with the goal of revealing the explosion’s origin.
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The Death Throes of Stars
Homing in on Cosmic Explosions
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Last Updated Feb 21, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge
Hubble’s Galaxies
Reshaping Our Cosmic View: Hubble Science Highlights
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By European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have signed a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) to harness space technology for humanitarian assistance worldwide. The partnership will combine ESA's space expertise with ICRC's humanitarian reach to develop space-enabled solutions that can help protect and assist communities affected by disasters and conflicts across Europe and beyond.
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
How to Attend
The workshop will be hosted by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Virtual and in-person attendance are available. Registration is required for both. (Link coming soon!)
Virtual attendees will receive connection information one week before the workshop.
Background, Goals and Objectives
The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) is conducting an assessment of the state of cold capable electronics for future lunar surface missions. The intent is to enable the continuous use of electronics with minimal or no thermal management on missions of up to 20 years in all regions of the lunar surface, e.g., permanently shadowed regions and equatorial. The scope of the assessment includes: capture of the state of cold electronics at NASA, academia, and industry; applications and challenges for lunar environments; gap analyses of desired capabilities vs state of the art/practice; guidance for cold electronics selection, evaluation and qualification; and recommendations for technology advances and follow-on actions to close the gaps. The preliminary report of the assessment will be available the first week of April 2025 on this website, i.e., 3 weeks prior to the workshop. Attendees are urged to read the report beforehand as the workshop will provide only a limited, high-level summary of the report’s key findings. The goal of the workshop is to capture your feedback with regards to the findings of the report, especially in the areas below: Technologies, new or important studies or data that we missed. Gaps, i.e. requirements vs available capabilities that we missed. Additional recommendations, suggestions, requests, that we missed.
Preliminary Agenda
Day 1, April 30, 2025 8:00 – 9:00 Sign-in 9:00 – 10:00 Introduction – Y. Chen 10:00 – 11:00 Environment and Architectural Considerations – R. Some 11:00 – 12:00 Custom Electronics – M. Mojarradi 12:00 – 13:00 Lunch 13:00 – 14:00 COTS Components – J. Yang-Scharlotta 14:00 – 15:00 Power Architecture – R. Oeftering 15:00 – 15:30 Energy Storage – E. Brandon 15:30 – 17:00 Materials and Packaging and Passives – L. Del Castillo 17:00 – 17:30 Qualification – Y. Chen 18:30 Dinner Day 2, May 1, 2025 8:00 – 9:00 Sign-in 9:00 – 12:00 Review and discussion of key findings 12:00 – 13:00 Lunch 13:00 – 15:00 Follow on work concepts & discussions. Please be prepared to discuss: 15 min each from industry primes and subsystem developers What would you like to see developed and how would it impact your future missions/platforms? 15:00 – 17:30 Follow on work concepts & discussions 15 min each from technology & component developers, academia, government agencies, etc. What would you like to be funded to do and what are benefits to NASA/missions? 17:00 – 17:30 Wrap up – Y. Chen Points of Contact
If you have any questions regarding the workshop, please contact Roxanne Cena at Roxanne.R.Cena@jpl.nasa.gov and Amy K. Wilson at Amy.K.Wilson@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Feb 20, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s SPHEREx mission will survey the Milky Way galaxy looking for water ice and other key ingredients for life. In the search for these frozen compounds, the mission will focus on molecular clouds — collections of gas and dust in space — like this one imaged by the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope. NASA, ESA, CSA Where is all the water that may form oceans on distant planets and moons? The SPHEREx astrophysics mission will search the galaxy and take stock.
Every living organism on Earth needs water to survive, so scientists searching for life outside our solar system, are often guided by the phrase “follow the water.” Scheduled to launch no earlier than Thursday, Feb. 27, NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) mission will help in that quest.
After its ride aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force base in California, the observatory will search for water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other key ingredients for life frozen on the surface of interstellar dust grains in the clouds of gas and dust where planets and stars eventually form.
While there are no oceans or lakes floating freely in space, scientists think these reservoirs of ice, bound to small dust grains, are where most of the water in our universe forms and resides. Additionally, the water in Earth’s oceans as well as those of other planets and moons in our galaxy likely originated in such locations.
The Perseus Molecular Cloud, located about 1,000 light-years from Earth, was imaged by NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope. NASA’s SPHEREx mission will search the galaxy for water ice and other frozen compounds in clouds of gas and dust in space like this one. NASA/JPL-Caltech The mission will focus on massive regions of gas and dust called molecular clouds. Within those, SPHEREx will also look at some newly formed stars and the disks of material around them from which new planets are born.
Although space telescopes such as NASA’s James Webb and retired Spitzer have detected water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other compounds in hundreds of targets, the SPHEREx observatory is the first to be uniquely equipped to conduct a large-scale survey of the galaxy in search of water ice and other frozen compounds.
Get the SPHEREx Press Kit Rather than taking 2D images of a target like a star, SPHEREx will gather 3D data along its line of sight. That enables scientists to see the amount of ice present in a molecular cloud and observe how the composition of the ices throughout the cloud changes in different environments.
By making more than 9 million of these line-of-sight observations and creating the largest-ever survey of these materials, the mission will help scientists better understand how these compounds form on dust grains and how different environments can influence their abundance.
Tip of the Iceberg
It makes sense that the composition of planets and stars would reflect the molecular clouds they formed in. However, researchers are still working to confirm the specifics of the planet formation process, and the universe doesn’t always match scientists’ expectations.
For example, a NASA mission launched in 1998, the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS), surveyed the galaxy for water in gas form — including in molecular clouds — but found far less than expected.
BAE Systems employees work on NASA’s SPHEREx observatory in the Astrotech Space Operations facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Jan. 16. Targeting a Feb. 27 launch, the mission will map the entire sky in infrared light. NASA/JPL-Caltech “This puzzled us for a while,” said Gary Melnick, a senior astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and a member of the SPHEREx science team. “We eventually realized that SWAS had detected gaseous water in thin layers near the surface of molecular clouds, suggesting that there might be a lot more water inside the clouds, locked up as ice.”
The mission team’s hypothesis also made sense because SWAS detected less oxygen gas (two oxygen atoms bound together) than expected. They concluded that the oxygen atoms were sticking to interstellar dust grains, and were then joined by hydrogen atoms, forming water. Later research confirmed this. What’s more, the clouds shield molecules from cosmic radiation that would otherwise break those compounds apart. As a result, water ice and other materials stored deep in a cloud’s interior are protected.
As starlight passes through a molecular cloud, molecules like water and carbon dioxide block certain wavelengths of light, creating a distinct signature that SPHEREx and other missions like Webb can identify using a technique called absorption spectroscopy.
In addition to providing a more detailed accounting of the abundance of these frozen compounds, SPHEREx will help researchers answer questions including how deep into molecular clouds ice begins to form, how the abundance of water and other ices changes with the density of a molecular cloud, and how that abundance changes once a star forms.
Powerful Partnerships
As a survey telescope, SPHEREx is designed to study large portions of the sky relatively quickly, and its results can be used in conjunction with data from targeted telescopes like Webb, which observe a significantly smaller area but can see their targets in greater detail.
“If SPHEREx discovers a particularly intriguing location, Webb can study that target with higher spectral resolving power and in wavelengths that SPHEREx cannot detect,” said Melnick. “These two telescopes could form a highly effective partnership.”
More About SPHEREx
SPHEREx is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California for the Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. The science analysis of the SPHEREx data will be conducted by a team of scientists located at 10 institutions in the U.S., two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA. The mission principal investigator is based at Caltech with a joint JPL appointment. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive.
For more information about the SPHEREx mission visit:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/spherex/
6 Things to Know About SPHEREx Why NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Will Make ‘Most Colorful’ Cosmic Map Ever News Media Contact
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
2025-020
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Last Updated Feb 13, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
For more than a decade, Tristan McKnight has been a driving force behind some of NASA’s most iconic events, orchestrating the behind-the-scenes magic that brings each historic moment to life while sharing the agency’s advancements with the public.
As a multimedia producer on the audiovisual team at Johnson Space Center in Houston, McKnight produces and directs live broadcasts and manages event planning, coordination, and execution. From overseeing resources, mitigating risks, and communicating with stakeholders, he ensures every detail aligns seamlessly.
Official portrait of Tristan McKnight.NASA/Josh Valcarcel McKnight has played an integral role in the audiovisual team’s coverage of major events including the Artemis II crew announcement, where NASA revealed the astronauts who will venture around the Moon and back, to Johnson’s 2023 Open House, which celebrated the agency’s 65th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of the International Space Station’s operations. These achievements highlight key milestones in human space exploration.
A standout achievement was contributing to the Dorothy Vaughan Center in Honor of the Women of Apollo naming ceremony, held on the eve of the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. The event honored the unsung heroes who made humanity’s first steps on the Moon possible.
The team’s dedication and passion are a testament to their commitment to sharing NASA’s legacy with the world.
“Not only have these events been impactful to Johnson, but they have also resonated across the entire agency,” McKnight said. “That is what I’m most proud of!”
Tristan McKnight at the 45th Annual Original Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade in downtown Houston.NASA/James Blair One of McKnight’s most memorable events was the 2023 “Back in the Saddle,” an annual tradition designed to refocus Johnson’s workforce at the start of a new year and renew the center’s commitment to safety and mission excellence. McKnight recalled how the speaker transformed Johnson’s Teague Auditorium into a venue filled with drum kits, inspiring messages, and lighting displays. Each audience member, drumsticks in hand, participated in a lesson on teamwork and synchronization to create a metaphor for working in harmony toward a shared goal.
Like many high-achieving professionals. McKnight has faced moments of self-doubt. Then he realized that he is exactly where he is supposed to be. “As I settled into my role, I recognized that my contributions matter and simply being true to who I am adds value to the Johnson community,” he said.
Tristan McKnight (right) receives a Group Special Act Award from Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche for his contributions to the Dorothy Vaughn in Honor of the Women of Apollo naming ceremony.NASA Each day brings its own set of challenges, ranging from minor issues like communication gaps and scheduling conflicts to major obstacles like technology failures. One of McKnight’s most valuable lessons is recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and each situation requires a thoughtful analysis.
McKnight understands the importance of the “check-and double-check,” a philosophy he considers crucial when working with technology. “Taking the extra time to do your due diligence, or even having someone else take a look, can make all the difference,” he said.
“The challenges I’ve faced helped me grow as a problem solver and taught me valuable lessons on resilience and adaptability in the workplace,” he said. McKnight approaches obstacles with a level head, focusing on effective solutions rather than dwelling on the problem.
Tristan McKnight (left) with his daughter Lydia McKnight and Johnson’s External Relations Director Arturo Sanchez at the 2024 Bring Your Youth To Work Day. NASA/Helen Arase Vargas As humanity looks to the stars, McKnight is energized about the future of exploration, particularly advancements in spacesuit and rocket technology that will enable us to travel farther, faster, and safer than ever before. His work, though grounded on Earth, helps create the inspiration that fuels these bold endeavors.
“My hope for the next generation is that they dive deeper into their curiosity—exploring not only the world around them but also the Moon, planets, and beyond,” he said. “I also hope they carry forward the spirit of resilience and a commitment to making the world a better place for all.”
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