Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
Living Planet Symposium kicks off
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
Explore This Section Science Uncategorized NASA SCoPE Summer Symposium… Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Activation Stories Citizen Science 4 min read
NASA SCoPE Summer Symposium Celebrates Early Career Scientists and Cross-Team Collaboration
From June 16–18, 2025, the NASA Science Mission Directorate Community of Practice for Education (SCoPE) Summer Symposium brought together a community of scientists, educators, and outreach professionals to celebrate and strengthen NASA’s commitment to developing its workforce and broadening participation in science.
NASA SCoPE is a NASA-funded initiative at Arizona State University that connects early career scientists with NASA Science Activation (SciAct) program teams to build capacity in science communication, community engagement, and educational outreach. Through targeted support like Seed Grants, Travel Grants, and Mission Liaison opportunities, SCoPE equips scientists with the skills and networks needed to meaningfully engage the public with NASA science.
Held in collaboration with key SciAct teams—including Infiniscope, Co-creating with Communities, NASA’s Community College Network, and NASA’s Universe of Learning—the 2025 symposium highlighted the incredible impact of SCoPE over the past four and a half years. The program has financially supported more than 100 early career scientists across a growing network of nearly 1,000 participants.
Over the course of the three-day event, 23 awardees of SCoPE Seed Grants, Travel Grants, and Mission Liaison Grants came together to share their work, connect across disciplines, and explore new avenues for collaboration. Twelve Seed Grant awardees presented their projects, illustrating the transformative power of partnerships with SciAct teams. Highlights included learning how to write for young audiences through mentorship from NASA eClips in support of the children’s book ‘Blai and Zorg Explore the Moon’, designed for elementary learners; a collaborative effort between ‘Lost City, Icy Worlds’ and OpenSpace that evolved into long-term networking and visualization opportunities; and an Antarctic research project that, through collaboration with the Ocean Community Engagement and Awareness using NASA Earth Observations and Science (OCEANOS) project and Infiniscope, both expanded training opportunities for expedition guides and brought polar science to Puerto Rican high school summer interns.
Beyond formal sessions, the symposium embraced community building through shared meals, informal networking, and hands-on experiences like a 3D planetarium show using OpenSpace software, a telescope demonstration with 30 high school students, and a screening of NASA’s Planetary Defenders documentary. Workshop topics addressed the real-world needs of early career professionals, including grant writing, logic model development, and communicating with the media.
Survey responses revealed that 95% of attendees left with a stronger sense of belonging to a community of scientists engaged in outreach. Participants reported making valuable new connections—with peers, mentors, and potential collaborators—and left inspired to try new approaches in their own work, from social media storytelling to designing outreach for hospital patients or other specialized audiences.
As one participant put it, “Seeing others so passionate about Science Communication inspired me to continue doing it in different ways… it feels like the start of a new wave.” Another attendee remarked, “I want to thank the entire team for SCoPE to even exist. It is an incredible team/program/resource and I can’t even imagine the amount of work, dedication and pure passion that has gone into this entire project over the years. Although I only found SCoPE very recently, I feel like it has been incredibly helpful in my scientific journey and I only wish I had learned of the program sooner. Thank you to the entire team for what was a truly educational and inspirational workshop, and the wonderful community that SCoPE has fostered.”
This successful event was made possible through the dedication of NASA SciAct collaborators and the leadership of SciAct Program Manager Lin Chambers, whose continued support of early career engagement through SCoPE has created a growing, connected community of science communicators. The SCoPE Summer Symposium exemplifies how cross-team collaboration and community-centered design can effectively amplify the reach of NASA science.
Learn more about how NASA’s Science Activation program connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn/about-science-activation/
SCoPE-funded scientists and collaborators gather at the 2025 SCoPE Summer Symposium to celebrate program success, share ideas, build partnerships, and advance science communication and education efforts across NASA’s Science Activation program. Share
Details
Last Updated Jul 15, 2025 Editor NASA Science Editorial Team Related Terms
Opportunities For Educators to Get Involved Science Activation Science Mission Directorate Explore More
4 min read Linking Satellite Data and Community Knowledge to Advance Alaskan Snow Science
Article
1 day ago
2 min read Hubble Snaps Galaxy Cluster’s Portrait
Article
4 days ago
7 min read NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun
On its record-breaking pass by the Sun late last year, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe captured…
Article
5 days ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
James Webb Space Telescope
Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…
Perseverance Rover
This rover and its aerial sidekick were assigned to study the geology of Mars and seek signs of ancient microbial…
Parker Solar Probe
On a mission to “touch the Sun,” NASA’s Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona…
Juno
NASA’s Juno spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter in 2016, the first explorer to peer below the planet’s dense clouds to…
View the full article
-
By NASA
As Hubble marks three and a half decades of scientific breakthroughs and technical resilience, the “Hubble at 35 Years” symposium offers a platform to reflect on the mission’s historical, operational, and scientific legacy. Hubble’s trajectory—from early challenges to becoming a symbol of American scientific ingenuity—presents valuable lessons in innovation, collaboration, and crisis response. Bringing together scientists, engineers, and historians at NASA Headquarters ensures that this legacy informs current and future mission planning, including operations for the James Webb Space Telescope, Roman Space Telescope, and other next-generation observatories. The symposium not only honors Hubble’s transformative contributions but also reinforces NASA’s commitment to learning from the past to shape a more effective and ambitious future for space science.
Hubble at 35 Years
Lessons Learned in Scientific Discovery and NASA Flagship Mission Operations
October 16–17, 2025
James Webb Auditorium, NASA HQ, Washington, D.C.
The giant Hubble Space Telescope (HST) can be seen as it is suspended in space by Discovery’s Remote Manipulator System (RMS) following the deployment of part of its solar panels and antennae on April 25, 1990.NASA The story of the Hubble Space Telescope confirms its place as the most transformative and significant astronomical observatory in history. Once called “the eighth wonder of the world” by a former NASA administrator, Hubble’s development since its genesis in the early 1970s and its launch, repair, and ultimate impact since 1990 provide ample opportunity to apply insights from its legacy. Scientists and engineers associated with groundbreaking discoveries have always operated within contexts shaped by forces including the government, private industry, the military, and the public at large. The purpose of this symposium is to explore the insights from Hubble’s past and draw connections that can inform the development of mission work today and for the future.
Contact the Organizer Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Hubble’s 35th Anniversary
Universe
Humans In Space
NASA History
View the full article
-
By Space Force
The Department of the Air Force launched its Pacific-focused first-in-a-generation Department-Level Exercise series today in multiple locations across the United States and Indo-Pacific areas of responsibility.
View the full article
-
By NASA
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS The United States flag adorns an aluminum plate mounted at the base of the mast, or “head,” of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. This image of the plate was taken on June 28, 2025 (the 1,548th day, or sol, of the mission), by the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera on the end of the rover’s robotic arm.
WATSON, part of an instrument called SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals), was built by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) in San Diego and is operated jointly by MSSS and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. JPL, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
Learn more about Perseverance’s latest science.
View the full article
-
By NASA
Artist’s concept of the star HIP 67522 with a flare erupting toward an orbiting planet, HIP 67522 b. A second planet, HIP 67522 c, is shown in the background. Janine Fohlmeister, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam The Discovery
A giant planet some 400 light-years away, HIP 67522 b, orbits its parent star so tightly that it appears to cause frequent flares from the star’s surface, heating and inflating the planet’s atmosphere.
Key Facts
On planet Earth, “space weather” caused by solar flares might disrupt radio communications, or even damage satellites. But Earth’s atmosphere protects us from truly harmful effects, and we orbit the Sun at a respectable distance, out of reach of the flares themselves.
Not so for planet HIP 67522 b. A gas giant in a young star system – just 17 million years old – the planet takes only seven days to complete one orbit around its star. A “year,” in other words, lasts barely as long as a week on Earth. That places the planet perilously close to the star. Worse, the star is of a type known to flare – especially in their youth.
In this case, the proximity of the planet appears to result in fairly frequent flaring.
Details
The star and the planet form a powerful but likely a destructive bond. In a manner not yet fully understood, the planet hooks into the star’s magnetic field, triggering flares on the star’s surface; the flares whiplash energy back to the planet. Combined with other high-energy radiation from the star, the flare-induced heating appears to have increased the already steep inflation of the planet’s atmosphere, giving HIP 67522 b a diameter comparable to our own planet Jupiter despite having just 5% of Jupiter’s mass.
This might well mean that the planet won’t stay in the Jupiter size-range for long. One effect of being continually pummeled with intense radiation could be a loss of atmosphere over time. In another 100 million years, that could shrink the planet to the status of a “hot Neptune,” or, with a more radical loss of atmosphere, even a “sub-Neptune,” a planet type smaller than Neptune that is common in our galaxy but lacking in our solar system.
Fun Facts
Four hundred light-years is much too far away to capture images of stellar flares striking orbiting planets. So how did a science team led by Netherlands astronomer Ekaterina Ilin discover this was happening? They used space-borne telescopes, NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the European Space Agency’s CHEOPS (CHaracterising ExoPlanets Telescope), to track flares on the star, and also to trace the path of the planet’s orbit.
Both telescopes use the “transit” method to determine the diameter of a planet and the time it takes to orbit its star. The transit is a kind of mini-eclipse. As the planet crosses the star’s face, it causes a tiny dip in starlight reaching the telescope. But the same observation method also picks up sudden stabs of brightness from the star – the stellar flares. Combining these observations over five years’ time and applying rigorous statistical analysis, the science team revealed that the planet is zapped with six times more flares than it would be without that magnetic connection.
The Discoverers
A team of scientists from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, led by Ekaterina Ilin of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, published their paper on the planet-star connection, “Close-in planet induces flares on its host star,” in the journal Nature on July 2, 2025.
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Search for Life
Stars
Galaxies
Black Holes
Explore This Section Exoplanets Home Exoplanets Overview Exoplanets Facts Types of Exoplanets Stars What is the Universe Search for Life The Big Questions Are We Alone? Can We Find Life? The Habitable Zone Why We Search Target Star Catalog Discoveries Discoveries Dashboard How We Find and Characterize Missions People Exoplanet Catalog Immersive The Exoplaneteers Exoplanet Travel Bureau 5 Ways to Find a Planet Strange New Worlds Universe of Monsters Galaxy of Horrors News Stories Blog Resources Get Involved Glossary Eyes on Exoplanets Exoplanet Watch More Multimedia ExEP View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.