supernova, the nasa magazine by malinee tangtanawat

8/18/2019 Supernova, The NASA magazine by Malinee Tangtanawat

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HUBBLE cosmology

First Flower Grown


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follow us o

September 23-30, 20

Te northern lights can take many forms: undulating curtains, pulsing rays or dramatic

overhead coronas. As for colors, they range from subtle to vibrant—predominantlyhues of green, but with occasional splashes of blue, red and purple. And for the bestchance to experience the haunting beauty of the aurora, you really have to travel to

where the lights nearly always dance— in the vast night skies above Iceland.

experience the beauty of

Iceland: Fire, Ice and Aurawith the Editors of Sky & Telescope

See more at: astronomy.com/magazine/trips-tours/2016-iceland

Make a reservation at:travelquesttours.com/2016-iceland-fire-ice-and-aurora-astronomy


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woman’s history month shout out:

Dr.Allen Ochoa 4

Hubble’s 5breakthrough in cosmology

First flower grown 10in space station’s veggie facility

Visit NASA 11experience the unique blend of education and entertainment

in this issue

Visit nasa.gov for more information.


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Ellen Ochoa taking a from work on SS-56songs on her flute.

In 1993, Ellen Ochoa becamethe first Hispanic femaleastronaut. Her first mission

was a nine-day mission aboard theDiscovery space shuttle. Over thespan of her career, Ochoa servedon four space missions. Beforebecoming an astronaut, Ochoaearned three patents as for optical

systems through her work as anengineer. She co-invented an opticalinspection system, an optical objectrecognition method, and a noiseremoval method for imagery.

Ochoa was born in Los Angeles,California in 1958, but views LaMesa, California as her hometown.She has a strong academicbackground in the sciences, havingreceived a bachelor’s of sciencein physics from San Diego StateUniversity, and a master’s ofscience and doctorate in electricalengineering from StanfordUniversity. Ochoa worked, firstas a doctoral student at Stanford,and then at NASA Ames Research

Women’s History Month Shout Out:

Dr. Ellen Ochoa

Center, researching optical systems for image processing. Shebecame the Intelligent Systems echnology Branch manager at Ames and was chosen to be an astronaut in 1990. As an astronaut,Ochoa logged nearly 1000 space flight hours.

Troughout her career, Ochoa has received several awardsfrom NASA including the Distinguished Service Medal, theOutstanding Leadership Medal, and four Space Flight Medals.

In addition, Ochoahas also received the Women in Aerospace

Outstanding Achievement Award and Te HispanicEngineer Albert Baez Award for Outstandingechnical Contributionto Humanity. Fourschools have also beennamed in her honor.

Since 2012, Ochoa hasserved as the 11th director

of Johnson Space Center in Houston, exas. She is JSC’s firstHispanic and second female director. Ochoa is married with twochildren. She and her family live in Houston.

By Beth Brumbaugh

“ What everyone in the

astronaut corps sharesin common is not genderor ethnic background, butmotivation, perseverance,and desire—the desire

to participate in a voyageof discovery.”

Dr. Ellen Ochoa

4 supernova April 2016


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HUBBLE’sBreakthroughs in Cosmologyby Felicia Chou and Ray Villard

W hen we look out at space, we arelooking back in time. Te lightarriving at our location from the

farthest objects in the universe is light thatleft those objects billions of years ago, so wesee them as they appeared long ago.

So what do we see, when we capture thelight from these farthest objects? Te mostdistant galaxies look strange — smaller,irregular, lacking clearly defined shapes.

No telescope before Hubble had theresolution to see these distant galaxies.Intrigued, astronomers turned Hubbleon what appeared to be a nearly emptypatch of sky and let it soak up all the lightit could for 10 days. Tey were taking arisk— most Hubble observations take just

hours, and the time being eaten up couldhave been used for more concrete needs.It was possible the objects the astronomers were looking for would be too faint or smallfor even Hubble to see.

continued on p.6

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Te Orion Nebula

Te Crab Nebula

Te Ea

Te Flaming s

Hubble observations

detect the elements in the

atmosphere of exoplanet HD

209458b.

Power supply on SISfails. Hubble Ultra Deep

Field released.

Te p

Adva

Surv

instru

Servicing Mission 3B launched on

1 March 2002. Installation of ACS,

NICMOS Cooling System (NCS and

new Solar Panels.

Hubble observations show

that the dwarf planet Eris

is bigger than Pluto.

2001 2004 2007

2002 2006

Edwin P. Hubble, the astronomerwho proved the existence of other galaxiesnd discovered the first evidence for anxpanding universe, was deployed from thehuttle Discovery on 25 April 1990.

Surveys like the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) andthe Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODShave provided pictures of vast, deep collections of galaxiincluding some that existed when the universe was less ta billion years old.

Te images allow us to follow the development of the

universe. iny red dots—early, shapeless galaxy buildingblocks whose light has been stretched by the expandinguniverse into an infrared glow—litter the most distantparts of the visible universe. Closer in, we see numerousgalaxy interactions and collisions as galaxies come togethand merge, growing in the process. And nearer still, we versions of the large, stately galaxies we know today.

But the results turned up a treasure trove: 3,000galaxies, large and small, shapely and amorphous,burning in the depths of space. Te stunning image wascalled the Hubble Deep Field.

In subsequent years, Hubble teamed withother observatories to examine small patches

of the sky in high resolution, long exposures,and multiple wavelengths.

Te deeper Hubble sees into space, the farther itgazes back in time. Tis chart illustrates the regionsthat have fallen under Hubble’s eye.

(continued from p.5)



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Servicing Mission 4 launched on 11 May 2009.

Installation of WFC3 (Wide Field Camera 3), COS (Cosmic

Origins Spectrograph). SIS and ACS repaired. Soft Capture

Mechanism installed.

Hubble makes its millionth

observation, a spectroscopic

analysis of the exoplanet

HA-P-7b.

2010 - Hubble images show distant galaxies

with redshifts greater than 8, showing the

Universe as it was when it was less than a

tenth of its current age.

ble photographs exoplanet

alhaut b, one of the first to be

rmed through direct imaging.

10000th scientific paper using H

data is published, identifying th

supernova ever to be associated

long-duration gamma-ray burst

2009 2011

2010 2012

Cosmic BirthdayTe answer to the age of the universe is beamingdown on us from the sky. We know the universehas been expanding since the Big Bang, so if wecan measure its size and its expansion rate, we canextrapolate the age of the universe.

It’s harder than it sounds. Since you can’t extenda ruler out into the stars, all estimations are madeby studying objects’ brightness. Cepheid variablestars are a special type of pulsing star whose cyclesof intensity and dimness indicate their inherentbrightness. When astronomers find Cepheid variablestars in galaxies, they compare how bright theytruly are with how faint they appear over distance,

and thus determine the distance to those galaxies. It’ssomething like judging the distance to a car on a darkroad by gauging the brightness of its headlights.

Before Hubble, astronomers had only been able tonarrow the universe’s age down to 10-20 billion yearsold—not a particularly exact measurement with 10

billion years of leeway.Hubble performed the definitive study of 31 Cepheidvariable stars, helping to determine the currentexpansion rate and thereby narrow the age of theuniverse down to the most accurate it’s ever been. Itsobservations of Cepheid variable stars in galaxies likeNGC 4603, combined with measurements by otherobservatories, eventually pinned the age down to 13.7billion years old, plus or minus a few hundred million

Hubble’s latest Mind-Blowing Cosmic Pic

supernova April 201


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Te Hubble Space elescope began

its mission in 1990. Visit http://

hubble25th.org/ for more about the

venerated telescope’s 25th anniversary.

Hubble Spacecraft Instrument

Hubble’s25th anniversary years. Hubble’s observations helped change the age of the

universe from a vast range of possibilities to the kind ofnumber whose precision required a decimal point.

Knowing the age of the universe isn’t just a matter ofcuriosity. By giving us a time scale for the development ofstars and galaxies, it helps us refine our models of how theuniverse – and everything in it – formed.

Lurking Black Holes When astronomers first turned radio telescopes on the sky,they tracked radio wave sources to some typical cosmicobjects, including the remains of supernovae, distantgalaxies, and powerful areas of star birth. But one particular

type of object looked like nothing more than a point oflight, perhaps a star. Further observations showed thatthese objects were extremely far away, meaning they couldonly be distant galaxies. Te objects, called “quasars,” were thought to be the incredibly bright centers ofthose far-away galaxies.

Te distance to quasars is so great, and their actual size sosmall – about the size of our solar system -- that the merefact that we can see them via telescope makes quasars thebrightest objects we’ve discovered in the universe. In fact,one of Hubble’s contributions to the quasar mystery wasto prove with its high resolution there actually was a galaxyhidden behind the glare.Hubble observations also helpeddetermine that these brilliant galactic centers are poweredby giant black holes. As matter falls into a supermassiveblack hole, the surrounding region heats up and releasesenergy and light, creating a quasar. Hubble found quasarsin the centers of galaxies that are colliding or brushing up

Te supermassive black hole

ACS - Advanced Camera for SurveysTe Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) is a third-generation

imaging camera. Tis camera is optimized to perform surveys or

broad imaging campaigns. Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS)

NICMOS - Near Infrared Camera/Multi-Object

Spectrometer - Second-generation imager/spectrograph.

NICMOS is Hubble’s only near-infrared (NIR) instrument.

o be sensitive in the NIR, NICMOS must operate at a very

low temperature, requiring sophisticated coolers. Problems

with the solid nitrogen refrigerant have necessitated the

installation of the NICMOS Cryocooler (NCC) on SM3B to

continue its operation.

STIS - Space Telescope ImagingSpectrograph

Second-generation imager/spectrograph. SIS is used to obtain

high resolution spectra of resolved objects. SIS has the special

ability to simultaneously obtain spectra from many different

points along a target.



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against one another, which arethought to have developed as aresult of galactic mergers. Teseinteractions “feed” the black holeand light up the quasar.

And it wasn’t just quasars. Hubblefound that almost all galaxies with bright, active centers havesupermassive black holes feedingoff the galaxy’s matter. Further,the mass of the black hole isrelated to the mass of the bulgeof stars around the center ofthe galaxy, indicating that theformation of a galaxy is connectedto the formation of its black hole.

The Runaway UniverseOur universe started with a bang andhas been expanding ever since, the spacebetween galaxies increasing with time. Formany years, astronomers contemplatingthe death of the universe considered twomain possibilities: either the universe

would go on expanding forever, thegalaxies gently drifting apart; or theuniverse would stop expanding and fallback on itself in a “big crunch.”

Certain types of exploding stars, calledype 1a supernovae, always give offabout the same amount of light. Tismakes the brightness of these explosionsnearly identical.

By the late 20th century, astronomers

were confident the answer was thatthe universe would expand forever at aconstantly decreasing speed, coasting likea car out of gas but never quite runningout of momentum. Tey began workingto determine the rate of the expansion.

Te brilliant stellar explosions knownas supernovae could be used to find thedistances to galaxies and thus measure the

expansion of the universe. Hubbclear vision allowed astronomers find extremely distant supernovaBut Hubble’s observations threwthe standard assumptions intodisarray: the universe wasn’t slowdown. Examining the propertiesof the supernovae Hubble hadimaged, astronomers found that

universe was speeding up as thousomething were propelling it, driits expansion faster and faster.

What is it? Scientists still don’tknow. Some suspect a previouslyunknown “dark energy” is theculprit. Hubble continues to studthe supernovae that could be theto solving this mystery.

A supermassive black holecreates a jet of particles,traveling at nearly thespeed of light from thecenter of galaxy M87. Thejet bursts forth from the

disk of material swirlingaround the black hole.

Te Hubble Space ele

launched into low Eart

Te universe would stopexpanding and fall back on itsin a “big crunch.”

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First Flower Grown in SpaceStation’s Veggie Facility

On Jan. 16, 2016, Expedition46 Commander ScottKelly shared photographs

of a blooming zinnia flower in theVeggie growth system aboard theInternational Space Station.

Tis flowering experiment beganon Nov. 16, 2015, when NASAastronaut Kjell Lindgren activatedthe Veggie system and its rooting“pillows” containing zinnia seeds.Te challenging process of growingthe zinnias provided an exceptionalopportunity for scientists back

on Earth to better understandhow plants grow inmicrogravity, and forastronauts to practice

doing what they’ll betasked with on a deep

space mission:autonomous

gardening. In late

December, Kelly found that the plants“weren’t looking too good,” and toldthe ground team, “You know, I thinkif we’re going to Mars, and we weregrowing stuff, we would be responsiblefor deciding when the stuff needed water. Kind of like in my backyard, Ilook at it and say ‘Oh, maybe I should

water the grass today.’ I think this ishow this should be handled.”

Te Veggie team on Earth created what was dubbed “Te Zinnia Care Guidefor the On-Orbit Gardener,” and gavebasic guidelines for care while putting judgment capabilities into the hands ofthe astronaut who had the plants rightin front of him. Rather than pages and

pages of detailed procedurethat most science operation

follow, the care guide wasa one-page, streamlinedresource to support Kelly aan autonomous gardener.Soon, the flowers were onthe rebound, and on Jan. 1pictures showed the first peof petals beginning to sproon a few buds.

Kelly wrote, “Yes, thereare other life forms inspace! #SpaceFlower#YearInSpace”

Zinnia Blooms on Space Sta

NASA’s Veggie chamb



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Te NASA Visitor Centers invite you to to share in America’s triumplhantadventures in space. Our family of world class facilities wants you and yourfamily to experience our unique blend of education and entertainment. It’s aninsider’s view that only NASA can offer

Passport to Explore Space Mission LocationsTe NASA Visitor Centers and space shuttle locations offer unique exhibitions andpresentations. Passport to Explore Space holders receive special savings on admission,tours, food and retail at each location. Visit all 14 Visitor Centers and space shuttlelocations to complete your passport. Offers, discounts and Passport redemptionavailability vary by location.

Visit

Visit visitnasa.com/nasa-visitor-centers for more information.

Visitor CentersCenter Location Exhibits

U.S. Space &Rocket Center

Alabama Te U.S. Space & Rocket Center® (USSRC) is the official NASA Visitor Information Cfor the Marshall Space Flight Center. See the world’s only full-scale Space Shuttle displits External ank, a set of twin Solid Rocket Boosters and the development test article Orbiter, Pathfinder.

Great LakesScience Center

Ohio NASA Glenn Visitor Center’s mission is to stimulate interest in and increase understanthe sciences, with a particular emphasis on the interdependence of scientific, environmand technological activities in the Great Lakes region.

Space CenterHouston

exas Experience space — from its dramatic past and exciting present to its compelling futurone of the only places on Earth where visitors can see astronauts train for missions, toua real moon rock and take a behind-the-scenes tour of NASA. Te world class exhibits

attractions and give guests an experience like no other.Virginia Air &Space Center

Virginia Pilot a space shuttle, program Mars rovers for a mission, become an air traffic controllairplane, and climb aboard a WWII bomber. Te Center is home to the Apollo 12 CoModule, a Mars meteorite, the Apollo 17 moon rock, and Module Simulator (LEMS)train the first astronauts to land on the moon.

Ames ResearchCenter

California Ames Research Center invites you to learn about all things NASA, and explore NASAmissions. See a real moon rock, a Martian asteroid, learn how astronauts live and workspace and more!

Goddard VisitorCenter

Maryland Te Center features exciting work in Earth science, astrophysics, heliophysics, planetarscience, engineering, communication and technology development. Learn about climachange, climb inside a Gemini capsule model, or participate in one of the monthly morocket launches.

Jet PropulsionLaboratory

California Our tours include a multimedia presentation on JPL entitled “Journey to the Planets aBeyond,” an overview of the Laboratory’s activities and accomplishments. Guests may visit the von Karman Visitor Center, the Space Flight Operations Facility, Earth SciencCenter and the Spacecraft Assembly Facility.

Space CenterHouston

exas Experience space — from its dramatic past and exciting present to its compelling futurone of the only places on Earth where visitors can see astronauts train, touch a real moand take a behind-the-scenes tour of NASA.

supernova April 201


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