Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
Cosmic targets for Webb Telescope’s first images announced
-
Similar Topics
-
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
View the full article
-
By NASA
Dr. Annie Meier (second from left) and her team inside the Applied Chemistry Lab at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida began supplementing their normal workload in mid-2023 with efforts to improve the lab’s sustainable practices. In 2024, the laboratory became the first at NASA to receive certification from the non-profit My Green Lab for its efforts in sustainability.NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida has a long record of achievements in sustainability and recently added another to the list when the spaceport’s Applied Chemistry Lab became the first in the agency to be certified for its environmentally conscious practices.
The My Green Lab Certification recognizes sustainability best practices in research facilities around the world. The certification program run by My Green Lab, a non-profit dedicated to creating a culture of sustainability through science, is considered a key measure of progress towards a zero-carbon future by the United Nations Race to Zero campaign.
“When I heard our lab achieved certification, I was so happy,” said Dr. Annie Meier, one of the laboratory’s chemical engineers. “It meant we could now make a conscious effort to share these green practices with all who work in our lab. We even added them to our training materials for new and incoming members in the lab.”
The lab performs research and technology development for a wide range of chemistry and engineering-related applications to solve the unique operational needs of NASA and outside partners. The lab primarily focuses on in-situ resource utilization and addressing technology gaps related to lunar and Martian sustainability. The lab’s scientists also provide expertise in the fields of logistics reduction, plasma science, hypergolic fuels, analytical instrumentation, and gas analysis.
While sustainability has long been a focus of the lab, the journey to the certification began when Riley Yager, a doctoral student from University of Alabama at Birmingham – where Meier was a technical monitor – shared her knowledge of the program after pursuing green lab practices at her university.
“I work as a sustainability ambassador at my university, so I knew of this program,” Yager said. “Sustainable practices are something woven into my everyday life, so naturally I wanted to bring those practices into my lab environments.”
After learning about the program from Yager and discovering the many other academic institutions and companies certified globally, Meier submitted a proposal to NASA and obtained funding to pursue certification for the Applied Chemistry Lab.
After a kickoff event hosted by My Green Lab in April 2023, the lab’s path to certification began with a self-assessment survey, in which members of the lab answered a series of questions about their practices in areas such as cold storage, green chemistry, infrastructure energy, resource management, waste reduction, and water. My Green Lab collected and analyzed the answers, providing a baseline assessment and recommendations to improve the lab’s sustainable practices.
“We took their initial survey and learned we had lots of room for improvements as a lab,” Meier said. “Then I worked with a few interns over the summer to spearhead the ‘green team’ to implement changes and get momentum from the entire lab.”
The lab began with minimizing purchases by improving efficiencies during the inventory process. The team also performed a waste audit of all seven of its laboratories. They adopted nitrile glove and pipette tip box recycling, reviewed the “12 principles of green chemistry” with the lab members, and installed stickers and signage about what can and cannot be unplugged to save energy. Additionally, they installed low-flow aerators on the lab tap sinks to reduce flow, and the lab now uses a recycling sink to save on water or solvents for cleaning parts.
As luck would have it, Yager ended up working at the Applied Chemistry Lab on a NASA fellowship and became a member of the green team.
“It was really fun to see that come full circle,” Meier said. “Almost all members of the lab, from our fellows to most senior members, used their self-motivation to get on the sustainability train.”
The green team continued to grow as the lab implemented changes to become more sustainable. Just over six months after the kickoff event, they completed another assessment survey. With possible certification levels of bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and green – the level that adheres closest to My Green Lab’s highest standards – the ACL was certified green, marking the first time any NASA center obtained a My Green Lab Certification.
“Our lab is looking to sustain these green practices and achieve the same status when we are reassessed in the future,” Meier said. “This effort could be a wonderful catalyst to inspire other work groups to lean towards more ‘green’ practices at the frontline in our laboratories.”
The NASA Kennedy lab joined over 2,500 labs in a range of sectors that received the My Green Lab certification. Maintaining the distinction will require recertification every two years.
View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
Week in images: 04-08 November 2024
Discover our week through the lens
View the full article
-
By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft sits in its run stall at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, firing up its engine for the first time. These engine-run tests start at low power and allow the X-59 team to verify the aircraft’s systems are working together while powered by its own engine. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land by making sonic booms quieter.NASA/Carla Thomas NASA’s Quesst mission marked a major milestone with the start of tests on the engine that will power the quiet supersonic X-59 experimental aircraft.
These engine-run tests, which began Oct. 30, allow the X-59 team to verify the aircraft’s systems are working together while powered by its own engine. In previous tests, the X-59 used external sources for power. The engine-run tests set the stage for the next phase of the experimental aircraft’s progress toward flight.
The X-59 team is conducting the engine-run tests in phases. In this first phase, the engine rotated at a relatively low speed without ignition to check for leaks and ensure all systems are communicating properly. The team then fueled the aircraft and began testing the engine at low power, with the goal of verifying that it and other aircraft systems operate without anomalies or leaks while on engine power.
Lockheed Martin test pilot Dan Canin sits in the cockpit of NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft in a run stall at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California prior to its first engine run. These engine-run tests featured the X-59 powered by its own engine, whereas in previous tests, the aircraft depended on external sources for power. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land by making sonic booms quieter.NASA/Carla Thomas “The first phase of the engine tests was really a warmup to make sure that everything looked good prior to running the engine,” said Jay Brandon, NASA’s X-59 chief engineer. “Then we moved to the actual first engine start. That took the engine out of the preservation mode that it had been in since installation on the aircraft. It was the first check to see that it was operating properly and that all the systems it impacted – hydraulics, electrical system, environmental control systems, etc. – seemed to be working.”
The X-59 will generate a quieter thump rather than a loud boom while flying faster than the speed of sound. The aircraft is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which will gather data on how people perceive these thumps, providing regulators with information that could help lift current bans on commercial supersonic flight over land.
The engine, a modified F414-GE-100, packs 22,000 pounds of thrust, which will enable the X-59 to achieve the desired cruising speed of Mach 1.4 (925 miles per hour) at an altitude of approximately 55,000 feet. It sits in a nontraditional spot – atop the aircraft — to aid in making the X-59 quieter.
Engine runs are part of a series of integrated ground tests needed to ensure safe flight and successful achievement of mission goals. Because of the challenges involved with reaching this critical phase of testing, the X-59’s first flight is now expected in early 2025. The team will continue progressing through critical ground tests and address any technical issues discovered with this one-of-a-kind, experimental aircraft. The X-59 team will have a more specific first flight date as these tests are successfully completed.
The testing is taking place at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. During later phases, the team will test the aircraft at high power with rapid throttle changes, followed by simulating the conditions of an actual flight.
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft sits in its run stall at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, prior to its first engine run. Engine runs are part of a series of integrated ground tests needed to ensure safe flight and successful achievement of mission goals. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land by making sonic booms quieter.NASA/Carla Thomas “The success of these runs will be the start of the culmination of the last eight years of my career,” said Paul Dees, NASA’s deputy propulsion lead for the X-59. “This isn’t the end of the excitement but a small steppingstone to the beginning. It’s like the first note of a symphony, where years of teamwork behind the scenes are now being put to the test to prove our efforts have been effective, and the notes will continue to play a harmonious song to flight.”
After the engine runs, the X-59 team will move to aluminum bird testing, where data will be fed to the aircraft under both normal and failure conditions. The team will then proceed with a series of taxi tests, where the aircraft will be put in motion on the ground. These tests will be followed by final preparations for first flight.
Facebook logo @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es Instagram logo @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es Linkedin logo @NASA Explore More
1 min read NASA Awards Contract for Refuse and Recycling Services
Article 5 days ago 5 min read We Are All Made of Cells: Space and the Immune System
Article 6 days ago 2 min read NASA Brings Drone and Space Rover to Air Show
Article 7 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans In Space
Quesst: The Vehicle
Explore NASA’s History
Share
Details
Last Updated Nov 06, 2024 EditorLillian GipsonContactMatt Kamletmatthew.r.kamlet@nasa.gov Related Terms
Aeronautics Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Ames Research Center Armstrong Flight Research Center Glenn Research Center Langley Research Center Low Boom Flight Demonstrator Quesst (X-59) Quesst: The Vehicle Supersonic Flight View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
Week in images: 28 October - 01 November 2024
Discover our week through the lens
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.