Tag: NASA

Hubble Detects Protective Shield Defending a Pair of Dwarf Galaxies

sarah JonasResearch Results

Researchers have used Hubble and FUSE observations of ultraviolet light from quasars to detect and map the Magellanic Corona, a diffuse halo of hot, supercharged gas surrounding the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. Shown in purple, the corona stretches more than 100,000 light-years from the main mass of stars, gas, and dust that make up the Magellanic Clouds, intermingling with the hotter and more extensive Milky Way Corona, shown in blue. The corona is thought to act as a buffer protecting the dwarf galaxies’ vital star-forming gas from the gravitational pull of the much larger Milky Way.

FAU Lands $478,699 NASA Grant to Inspire Local High School Students in STEM

sarah JonasAnnouncement

FAU was one of only eight institutions in the nation to be awarded NASA’s Minority University Research and Education (MUREP) award for the MUREP Aerospace Academy (MAA). Through cooperative agreement awards, MAA funding affords minority-serving institutions the opportunity to develop exciting new avenues to inspire local high school students in the STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics) fields.

ESA Solar Orbiter confirms solar switchback origin theory by UAH’s Dr. Gary Zank

sarah JonasFeature

For the first time a solar switchback has been directly observed that confirms 2020 models by astrophysicist Dr. Gary Zank at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) that theorized how these surprising structures in the solar wind originate.

Seeds in space: plant research on Artemis I mission

sarah JonasFeature

How will we grow food in space? That’s one question Michigan State University’s Federica Brandizzi has been particularly interested in solving.

Brandizzi, an MSU Foundation Professor in the College of Natural Science and the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, will be sending seeds on the Artemis I mission to better understand how to grow food during space travel.

UCI receives $580 million in research funding for fiscal 2021-22

sarah JonasAnnouncement

Irvine, Calif., Aug. 25, 2022 — From monitoring sandy beaches to gauge the effects of sea-level rise to holding clinical trials for potentially lifesaving cancer treatments, scholars, scientists and physicians at the University of California, Irvine are blazing new paths to help change the world. And their impact keeps growing.

GW Experts Available to Discuss Russia Leaving the International Space Station

sarah JonasExpert Pitch

WASHINGTON (July 26, 2022) — Yuri Borisov, head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, has announced Russia will withdraw from the International Space Station after 2024 to focus on building a Russian orbiting station. Experts from the George Washington University’s Space…

WVU scientist says NASA’s Webb Telescope will boost space research at University, Green Bank Observatory

sarah JonasExpert Pitch

The first photos from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have given researchers the deepest and clearest infrared look into space to date. West Virginia University researcher Maura McLaughlin, distinguished professor of physics and astronomy at the Eberly College of Arts…

Specific Environmental Exposures may Help Predict Increased Risk of Death from Cardiovascular Disease

sarah JonasResearch Results

A new study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai quantifies the cardiovascular risk posed by exposure to specific environmental factors, showing, for example, that air pollution heightens the risk of heart disease mortality by 17 percent.

NASA’s Webb to Uncover Riches of the Early Universe

sarah JonasFeature

Telescopes have spotted many distant galaxies – but none earlier than 400 million years after the big bang. What were galaxies that existed even earlier like? Two research teams using the James Webb Space Telescope will wield its state-of-the-art instruments to reveal an untold number of details about this early period in the universe for the first time – and revise what we know about some of the earliest chapters of galaxy evolution.

Nuclear rocket engine heat transfer research wins best student paper at NETS conference

sarah JonasResearch Results

A research paper about heat transfer inside the reactor of a conceptual liquid-fueled nuclear rocket engine by a University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) graduate student won best student paper at the American Nuclear Society’s recent Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS) conference

NASA-Cornell tool to give high-res view of atmospheric dust from space

sarah JonasFeature

Scientists on Earth will soon see our planet’s atmospheric dust sources in high-resolution, as a new state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer – developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Cornell University – aims to survey the land surface from 250 miles above us on the orbiting International Space Station.

NASA funds LLNL to demonstrate “Replicator” 3D printer to produce cartilage in space

sarah JonasAnnouncement

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced April 15 it has awarded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and a private company with funding to develop LLNL’s revolutionary volumetric additive manufacturing (VAM) 3D printing technology to produce artificial cartilage tissue in space.

Alabama student satellite group shifts gears to ABEX mission to keep up with NASA

sarah JonasFeature

The Alabama Space Grant Consortium’s statewide, university student-built cube satellite project is shifting gears to ABEX, the Alabama Burst Energetics eXplorer, after its drive to be the first student-built Cubesat to leave low Earth orbit (LEO) was derailed when NASA dropped secondary payloads from the Artemis II flight.

Hubble Snapshot of ‘Molten Ring’ Galaxy Prompts New Research

sarah JonasResearch Results

In this image, a remote galaxy is greatly magnified and distorted by the effects of gravitationally warped space. After its public release, astronomers used the picture to measure the galaxy’s distance of 9.4 billion light-years. This places the galaxy at the peak epoch of star formation in cosmic evolution.

Sanford Burnham Prebys professor Karen Ocorr awarded $2 million from NASA to study flies in space

sarah JonasAnnouncement

As part of their larger initiative to understand the effects of space conditions on different organisms, NASA has awarded $2 million to Sanford Burnham Prebys assistant professor Karen Ocorr. The grant will fund a three-year project to study the effects of low gravity on muscle and neuron function in fruit flies and nematode worms aboard the International Space Station.

Hubble Finds First Evidence of Water Vapor at Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede

sarah JonasResearch Results

Located ½-billion miles from the Sun, the water ice on Ganymede’s surface is frozen solid in frigid temperatures as low as minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit. This makes the ice as hard as rock. Still, a rain of charged particles from the Sun is enough to turn the ice into water vapor at high noon on Ganymede. This is the first time such evidence has been found, courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope’s spectroscopic observations of aurora on Ganymede spanning two decades. The auroras are used to trace the presence of oxygen, which then is linked to the presence of water molecules sputtering off the surface. Ganymede has a deep ocean located an estimated 100 miles below the surface.

Space Race with China: expert talk & interview availability

sarah JonasExpert Pitch

A New Space Race? Rediscovering Star Wars and the new High Frontier Tuesday, July 13 at 4PM EDT. The Foreign Press Association is hosting a critical talk by space policy and business expert Professor Greg Autry on China’s advances in…

When the James Webb telescope launches, 25 years of UAH R&D involvement will soar

sarah JonasFeature

After a scheduled November launch, when NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) achieves orbit and unfurls the 18 gold-coated beryllium segments of its 6.5-meter primary mirror, over two decades of crucial UAH partnership in the project will also blossom.

FAU Lands $736,000 from NASA to Study the Coastal Carbon Budget from Space

sarah JonasAnnouncement

If successful, this research in the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxia region off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana may demonstrate not just the ability, but also the utility, of remote sensing as an observational technique for characterizing potentially critical but often neglected carbon cycle processes related to marine sediments. Researchers will use satellite images, hydrodynamic modeling and field work in seeking a better understanding of the ocean’s role in the Earth system.

Climate change is driving plant die-offs in Southern California, UCI study finds

sarah JonasResearch Results

Irvine, Calif., June 21, 2021 – A shift is happening in Southern California, and this time it has nothing to do with earthquakes. According to a new study by scientists at the University of California, Irvine, climate change is altering the number of plants populating the region’s deserts and mountains. Using data from the Landsat satellite mission and focusing on an area of nearly 5,000 square miles surrounding Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the research team found that between 1984 and 2017, vegetation cover in desert ecosystems decreased overall by about 35 percent, with mountains seeing a 13 percent vegetation decline.