‘Peculiar’ aurora-like radio signal from sunspot discovered for the 1st time

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Solar scientists have observed a stunning display of radio waves over a sunspot, and these emissions strikingly resemble auroral displays on Earth known as the Northern Lights.  Happening around 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) over a dark, relatively cool patch of the sun, these “auroral” radio emissions could not only shine a light on the dynamics of intense solar radio bursts, but also on large starspots beyond our solar system. The signals were spotted by astronomers from New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (NJIT-CSTR).  “We’ve detected a peculiar…

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NASA Engineer Earns Goddard Innovation Award for Sun-studying Photon Sieves

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Goddard’s Office of the Chief Technologist named engineer Steven Denis as the FY23 Internal Research and Development (IRAD) Innovator of the Year, an honor the office bestows annually on individuals who demonstrate the best in innovation. Kevin Denis Credit: NASA / Christopher Gunn Denis demonstrated persistence and innovation in developing hair-thin photon sieves to focus extreme ultraviolet light – a difficult wavelength to capture. Thin membranes matter for solar science, he said, because these sieves transmit up to seven times more light than thicker materials. Denis’s work will open new…

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NASA’s Cold Atom Lab Sets Stage for Quantum Chemistry in Space

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7 min read NASA’s Cold Atom Lab Sets Stage for Quantum Chemistry in Space This animation depicts six finely tuned lasers used inside NASA’s Cold Atom Lab to slow down atoms, lowering their temperature. Scientists can now use the lab to see how different types of atoms interact with each other at these cold temperatures. NASA/JPL-Caltech The remotely operated facility aboard the International Space Station has created another tool that researchers can use to probe the fundamental nature of the world around us. For the first time in space, scientists…

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Lego unveils epic Marvel Avengers Tower set with Black Friday deals and offers for Insiders

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NEW YORK —  If you’re a Lego space set fan like me, Black Friday is always a great opportunity to look for great deals on Star Wars and other sci-fi sets — while grabbing some great free offers in the process. But for 2023, Lego appears to have raised the bar when it comes to special offers, with a ton of limited-time deals for Lego Insiders rolling out along with one of the biggest Lego sets I’ve ever seen: The Marvel Avengers Tower.  The Lego Marvel Avengers Tower set, which…

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NASA’s SPHEREx mission aims to map 450 million galaxies and 100 million stars

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A new extraordinary NASA mission aims to map the sky in unprecedented detail and color.  Construction has started on SPHEREx, a new space-based observatory that will map over 450 million galaxies in addition to 100 million stars in our own galaxy, across 96 color bands in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Over its planned two-year lifetime, SPHEREx will map the entire sky, producing two maps a year, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).  Scientists at JPL have been assembling the telescope in recent months, joining its various…

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Record-breaking ‘BOAT’ gamma-ray burst continues to amaze scientists

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Last year, on Oct. 9, scientists witnessed an anomaly in the sky.  Sprouting from the darkness between stars, an abundance of deep space X-rays started to flood observatories. These signals appeared to be connected to an immensely bright event happening in our galaxy known as a gamma-ray burst (GRB) — an outpouring of highly energetic particles linked to things like star explosions and black hole births. But as one expert said, for instance, this GRB is to a standard one what a floodlight is to a lightbulb. The event was…

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Going for the GUSTO in Antarctica

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NASA / Scott Battaion NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility C-130 aircraft, shown in this image from Oct. 28, 2023, delivered the agency’s Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) payload to McMurdo Station, Antarctica. This was the first mission to Antarctica for the plane. The GUSTO mission, launching aboard a football-stadium-sized, zero-pressure scientific balloon in December 2023, will fly an Ultralong-Duration Balloon (ULDB) carrying a telescope with carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen emission line detectors. This unique combination of data will supply the spectral and spatial resolution information needed for the mission team to…

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Trailblazing New Earth Satellite Put to Test in Preparation for Launch

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The NISAR satellite enters the thermal vacuum chamber at an ISRO facility in Bengaluru on Oct. 19. It emerged three weeks later having met all requirements of its performance under extreme temperatures and space-like vacuum. ISRO During three weeks in a thermal vacuum chamber in Bengaluru, India, the joint NASA-ISRO satellite demonstrated its hardiness in a harsh, space-like environment. NISAR, the trailblazing Earth-observing radar satellite being developed by the United States and Indian space agencies, passed a major milestone on Nov. 13, emerging from a 21-day test aimed at evaluating…

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Joshua Abel: Delivering Roman’s Optical Telescope Assembly On Time, On Target

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5 min read Joshua Abel: Delivering Roman’s Optical Telescope Assembly On Time, On Target Joshua Abel’s job as lead systems engineer for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s Optical Telescope Assembly is “to deliver the assembly to the Roman observatory on time, within budget, and meeting all the technical requirements.” Credit: NASA / Chris Gunn Name: Joshua Abel Title: Lead systems engineer for the Roman Space Optical Telescope Assembly Formal Job Classification: Flight Systems Design Engineer Organization: Instrument/Payload Systems Engineering Branch (Code 592), Mission Engineering and Systems Analysis Division, Engineering…

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