Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
Firefoxes and whale spouts light up Earth's shield
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This artist’s concept shows a brown dwarf — an object larger than a planet but not massive enough to kickstart fusion in its core like a star. Brown dwarfs are hot when they form and may glow like this one, but over time they get closer in temperature to gas giant planets like Jupiter. NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. Proctor An unusual cosmic object is helping scientists better understand the chemistry hidden deep in Jupiter and Saturn’s atmospheres — and potentially those of exoplanets.
Why has silicon, one of the most common elements in the universe, gone largely undetected in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, and gas planets like them orbiting other stars? A new study using observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope sheds light on this question by focusing on a peculiar object that astronomers discovered by chance in 2020 and called “The Accident.”
The results were published on Sept. 4 in the journal Nature.
As shown in this graphic, brown dwarfs can be far more massive than even large gas planets like Jupiter and Saturn. However, they tend to lack the mass that kickstarts nuclear fusion in the cores of stars, causing them to shine. NASA/JPL-Caltech The Accident is a brown dwarf, a ball of gas that’s not quite a planet and not quite a star. Even among its already hard-to-classify peers, The Accident has a perplexing mix of physical features, some of which have been previously seen in only young brown dwarfs and others seen only in ancient ones. Because of those features, it slipped past typical detection methods before being discovered five years ago by a citizen scientist participating in Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. The program lets people around the globe look for new discoveries in data from NASA’s now-retired NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer), which was managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The brown dwarf nicknamed “The Accident” can be seen moving in the bottom left corner of this video, which shows data from NASA’s now-retired NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer), launched in 2009 with the moniker WISE. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Dan Caselden The Accident is so faint and odd that researchers needed NASA’s most powerful space observatory, Webb, to study its atmosphere. Among several surprises, they found evidence of a molecule they couldn’t initially identify. It turned out to be a simple silicon molecule called silane (SiH4). Researchers have long expected — but been unable — to find silane not only in our solar system’s gas giants, but also in the thousands of atmospheres belonging to brown dwarfs and to the gas giants orbiting other stars. The Accident is the first such object where this molecule has been identified.
Scientists are fairly confident that silicon exists in Jupiter and Saturn’s atmospheres but that it is hidden. Bound to oxygen, silicon forms oxides such as quartz that can seed clouds on hot gas giants, bearing a resemblance to dust storms on Earth. On cooler gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, these types of clouds would sink far beneath lighter layers of water vapor and ammonia clouds, until any silicon-containing molecules are deep in the atmosphere, invisible even to the spacecraft that have studied those two planets up close.
Some researchers have also posited that lighter molecules of silicon, like silane, should be found higher up in these atmospheric layers, left behind like traces of flour on a baker’s table. That such molecules haven’t appeared anywhere except in a single, peculiar brown dwarf suggests something about the chemistry occurring in these environments.
“Sometimes it’s the extreme objects that help us understand what’s happening in the average ones,” said Faherty, a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and lead author on the new study.
Happy accident
Located about 50 light-years from Earth, The Accident likely formed 10 billion to 12 billion years ago, making it one of the oldest brown dwarfs ever discovered. The universe is about 14 billion years old, and at the time that The Accident developed, the cosmos contained mostly hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of other elements, including silicon. Over eons, elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen forged in the cores of stars, so planets and stars that formed more recently possess more of those elements.
Webb’s observations of The Accident confirm that silane can form in brown dwarf and planetary atmospheres. The fact that silane seems to be missing in other brown dwarfs and gas giant planets suggests that when oxygen is available, it bonds with silicon at such a high rate and so easily, virtually no silicon is left over to bond with hydrogen and form silane.
So why is silane in The Accident? The study authors surmise it is because far less oxygen was present in the universe when the ancient brown dwarf formed, resulting in less oxygen in its atmosphere to gobble up all the silicon. The available silicon would have bonded with hydrogen instead, resulting in silane.
“We weren’t looking to solve a mystery about Jupiter and Saturn with these observations,” said JPL’s Peter Eisenhardt, project scientist for the WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) mission, which was later repurposed as NEOWISE. “A brown dwarf is a ball of gas like a star, but without an internal fusion reactor, it gets cooler and cooler, with an atmosphere like that of gas giant planets. We wanted to see why this brown dwarf is so odd, but we weren’t expecting silane. The universe continues to surprise us.”
Brown dwarfs are often easier to study than gas giant exoplanets because the light from a faraway planet is typically drowned out by the star it orbits, while brown dwarfs generally fly solo. And the lessons learned from these objects extend to all kinds of planets, including ones outside our solar system that might feature potential signs of habitability.
“To be clear, we’re not finding life on brown dwarfs,” said Faherty. “But at a high level, by studying all of this variety and complexity in planetary atmospheres, we’re setting up the scientists who are one day going to have to do this kind of chemical analysis for rocky, potentially Earth-like planets. It might not specifically involve silicon, but they’re going to get data that is complicated and confusing and doesn’t fit their models, just like we are. They’ll have to parse all those complexities if they want to answer those big questions.”
More about WISE, Webb
A division of Caltech, JPL managed and operated WISE for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The mission was selected competitively under NASA’s Explorers Program managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The NEOWISE mission was a project of JPL and the University of Arizona in Tucson, supported by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
For more information about WISE, go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/main/index.html
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory, and an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/webb
News Media Contacts
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
cpulliam@stsci.edi
2025-113
Share
Details
Last Updated Sep 09, 2025 Related Terms
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Brown Dwarfs Exoplanets The Search for Life Explore More
6 min read NASA Webb Looks at Earth-Sized, Habitable-Zone Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 e
Scientists are in the midst of observing the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 e with NASA’s James Webb…
Article 1 day ago 5 min read Glittering Glimpse of Star Birth From NASA’s Webb Telescope
This is a sparkling scene of star birth captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.…
Article 5 days ago 5 min read Astronomers Map Stellar ‘Polka Dots’ Using NASA’s TESS, Kepler
Scientists have devised a new method for mapping the spottiness of distant stars by using…
Article 2 weeks ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
By Space Force
Airmen and Guardians from Buckley Space Force Base participated in exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield 25, a combined, joint, all-domain exercise.
View the full article
-
By NASA
Technicians have successfully installed two sunshields onto NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s inner segment. Along with the observatory’s Solar Array Sun Shield and Deployable Aperture Cover, the panels (together called the Lower Instrument Sun Shade), will play a critical role in keeping Roman’s instruments cool and stable as the mission explores the infrared universe.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
This video shows technicians installing two sunshields onto NASA's nearly complete Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on July 17. The large yet lightweight panels will block sunlight, keeping Roman’s instruments cool and stable as the mission explores the infrared universe.Credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts The team is on track to join Roman’s outer and inner assemblies this fall to complete the full observatory, which can then undergo further prelaunch testing.
“This shield is like an extremely strong sunblock for Roman’s sensitive instruments, protecting them from heat and light from the Sun that would otherwise overwhelm our ability to detect faint signals from space,” said Matthew Stephens, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The sunshade, which was designed and engineered at NASA Goddard, is essentially an extension of Roman’s solar panels, except without solar cells. Each sunshade flap is roughly the size of a garage door — about 7 by 7 feet (2.1 by 2.1 meters) — and 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) thick.
“They’re basically giant aluminum sandwiches, with metal sheets as thin as a credit card on the top and bottom and the central portion made up of a honeycomb structure,” said Conrad Mason, an aerospace engineer at NASA Goddard.
This design makes the panels lightweight yet stiff, and the material helps limit heat transfer from the side facing the Sun to the back—no small feat considering the front will be hot enough to boil water (up to 216 degrees Fahrenheit, or 102 degrees Celsius) while the back will be much colder than Antarctica’s harshest winter (minus 211 Fahrenheit, or minus 135 Celsius). A specialized polymer film blanket will wrap around each panel to temper the heat, with 17 layers on the Sun side and one on the shaded side.
The sunshade will be stowed and gently deploy around an hour after launch.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
In this time-lapse video, technicians manually deploy the Lower Instrument Sun Shield for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The test helps verify the panels will operate as designed in space.NASA/Sophia Roberts “The deploying mechanisms have dampers that work like soft-close hinges for drawers or cabinets, so the panels won’t slam open and rattle the observatory,” Stephens said. “They each take about two minutes to move into their final positions. This is the very first system that Roman will deploy in space after the spacecraft separates from the launch vehicle.”
Now completely assembled, Roman’s inner segment is slated to undergo a 70-day thermal vacuum test next. Engineers and scientists will test the full functionality of the spacecraft, telescope, and instruments under simulated space conditions. Following the test, the sunshade will be temporarily removed while the team joins Roman’s outer and inner assemblies, and then reattached to complete the observatory. The mission remains on track for launch no later than May 2027 with the team aiming for as early as fall 2026.
Click here to virtually tour an interactive version of the telescope Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Share
Details
Last Updated Jul 31, 2025 EditorAshley BalzerContactAshley Balzerashley.m.balzer@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Dark Energy Dark Matter Exoplanets Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Nebulae Sensing the Universe & Multimessenger Astronomy Stars The Universe Explore More
7 min read One Survey by NASA’s Roman Could Unveil 100,000 Cosmic Explosions
Article 2 weeks ago 3 min read NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Team Installs Observatory’s Solar Panels
Article 3 weeks ago 6 min read NASA’s Roman Mission Shares Detailed Plans to Scour Skies
Article 3 months ago View the full article
-
By NASA
NASA’s TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites) mission launched at 2:13 p.m. EDT atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Credit: SpaceX NASA’s newest mission, TRACERS, soon will begin studying how Earth’s magnetic shield protects our planet from the effects of space weather. Short for Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, the twin TRACERS spacecraft lifted off at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT) Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
“NASA is proud to launch TRACERS to demonstrate and expand American preeminence in space science research and technology,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “The TRACERS satellites will move us forward in decoding space weather and further our understanding of the connection between Earth and the Sun. This mission will yield breakthroughs that will advance our pursuit of the Moon, and subsequently, Mars.”
The twin satellites will fly one behind the other – following as closely as 10 seconds apart over the same location – and will take a record-breaking 3,000 measurements in one year to build a step-by-step picture of how magnetic reconnection changes over time.
Riding along with TRACERS aboard the Falcon 9 were NASA’s Athena EPIC (Economical Payload Integration Cost), PExT (Polylingual Experimental Terminal), and REAL (Relativistic Electron Atmospheric Loss) missions – three small satellites to demonstrate new technologies and gather scientific data. These three missions were successfully deployed, and mission controllers will work to contact them over the coming hours and days.
Ground controllers for the TRACERS mission established communications with the second of the two spacecraft at 3:43 p.m. PDT (6:43 p.m. EDT), about 3 hours after it separated from the rocket. During the next four weeks, TRACERS will undergo a commissioning period during which mission controllers will check out their instruments and systems.
Once cleared, the twin satellites will begin their 12-month prime mission to study a process called magnetic reconnection, answering key questions about how it shapes the impacts of the Sun and space weather on our daily lives.
“NASA’s heliophysics fleet helps to safeguard humanity’s home in space and understand the influence of our closest star, the Sun,” said Joe Westlake, heliophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By adding TRACERS to that fleet, we will gain a better understanding of those impacts right here at Earth.”
The two TRACERS spacecraft will orbit through an open region in Earth’s magnetic field near the North Pole, called the polar cusp. Here, TRACERS will investigate explosive magnetic events that happen when the Sun’s magnetic field – carried through space in a stream of solar material called the solar wind – collides with Earth’s magnetic field. This collision creates a buildup of energy that causes magnetic reconnection, when magnetic field lines snap and explosively realign, flinging away nearby particles at high speeds.
Flying through the polar cusp allows the TRACERS satellites to study the results of these magnetic explosions, measuring charged particles that race down into Earth’s atmosphere and collide with atmospheric gases – giving scientist the tools to reconstruct exactly how changes in the incoming solar wind affect how, and how quickly, energy and particles are coupled into near-Earth space.
“The successful launch of TRACERS is a tribute to many years of work by an excellent team,” said David Miles, TRACERS principal investigator at the University of Iowa. “TRACERS is set to transform our understanding of Earth’s magnetosphere. We’re excited to explore the dynamic processes driving space weather.”
Small Satellites Along for Ride
Athena EPIC is a pathfinder mission that will demonstrate NASA’s use of an innovative and configurable commercial SmallSat architecture to improve flexibility of payload designs, reduce launch schedule, and reduce overall costs in future missions, as well as the benefits of working collaboratively with federal partners. In addition to this demonstration for NASA, once the Athena EPIC satellite completes its two-week commissioning period, the mission will spend the next 12 months taking measurements of outgoing longwave radiation from Earth.
The PExT demonstration will test interoperability between commercial and government communication networks for the first time by demonstrating a wideband polylingual terminal in low Earth orbit. This terminal will use software-defined radios to jump between government and commercial networks, similar to cell phones roaming between providers on Earth. These terminals could allow future missions to switch seamlessly between networks and access new commercial services throughout its lifecycle in space.
The REAL mission is a CubeSat that will investigate how energetic electrons are scattered out of the Van Allen radiation belts and into Earth’s atmosphere. Shaped like concentric rings high above Earth’s equator, the Van Allen belts are composed of a mix of high-energy electrons and protons that are trapped in place by Earth’s magnetic field. Studying electrons and their interactions, REAL aims to improve our understanding of these energetic particles that can damage spacecraft and imperil astronauts who pass through them.
The TRACERS mission is led by David Miles at the University of Iowa with support from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. NASA’s Heliophysics Explorers Program Office at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the mission for the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The University of Iowa, Southwest Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Berkeley, all lead instruments on TRACERS.
The Athena EPIC mission is led by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and is a partnership between National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Space Force, and NovaWurks. Athena EPIC’s launch is supported by launch integrator SEOPS. The PExT demonstration is managed by NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program in partnership with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, with launch support by York Space Systems. The REAL project is led by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and is a partnership between Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Montana State University, and Boston University. Sponsored by NASA’s Heliophysics Division and CubeSat Launch Initiative, it was included through launch integrator Maverick Space Systems.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the VADR (Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) contract.
To learn more about TRACERS, visit:
https://nasa.gov/tracers
-end-
Abbey Interrante / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
301-201-0124 / 202-358-1600
abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov
Sarah Frazier
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Jul 23, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
TRACERS Earth Science Science Mission Directorate View the full article
-
By NASA
Explore This Section Science Uncategorized NASA eClips STEM Student… Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Activation Stories Citizen Science 3 min read
NASA eClips STEM Student Ambassadors Light Up CNU’s 2025 STEM Community Day
More than 2,000 curious visitors from Newport News and the surrounding Hampton Roads region of Virginia flocked to Christopher Newport University (CNU) on May 31, 2025 for their annual STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics) Community Day, and the NASA eClips team from the National Institute of Aerospace’s Center for Integrative STEM Education (NIA-CISE) made sure every one of them left with their eyes—and imaginations—fixed on the Sun.
At the heart of the NASA eClips exhibit were NIA’s STEM Student Ambassadors—a team of carefully selected high school students from the Tidewater region of Virginia who underwent extensive training with NASA eClips educators during the summer of 2024. These bright, enthusiastic young leaders are passionate about communicating about and advocating for STEM. The STEM Student Ambassador program is made possible through a Coastal Virginia STEM Hub grant from the Virginia General Assembly and is already having an impact.
Throughout the day, the Ambassadors engaged learners of all ages with two creative, hands-on experiences that connected STEM and the arts:
Chalk Corona – Using black construction paper and vibrant chalk, participants recreated the Sun’s corona—the super-hot, gaseous “crown” that’s visible during a total solar eclipse. While they shaded and smudged, the Ambassadors explained why the corona is so important to solar research and handed out certified solar viewers for safe Sun-watching back home. Pastel Auroras – Visitors also discovered how solar wind, storms, and coronal mass ejections (aka Sun “sneezes”) spark Earth’s dazzling auroras. Guided by the Ambassadors, budding artists layered pastels to capture swirling curtains of light, tying recent mid-Atlantic aurora sightings to real-time space weather. Throughout the day, the Ambassadors’ energy was contagious, turning complex heliophysics into hands-on fun and opening eyes to the opportunities and careers that await in STEM. Judging by the smiles—and the dusting of chalk and pastels—NASA eClips’ presence was, quite literally, the “crowning” touch on an unforgettable community celebration of STEM.
The NASA eClips project provides educators with standards-based videos, activities, and lessons to increase STEM literacy through the lens of NASA. It is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AB91A and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation 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
Two STEM Student Ambassadors engage a young girl while she creates her own Pastel Aurora artwork. Share
Details
Last Updated Jul 22, 2025 Editor NASA Science Editorial Team Related Terms
Opportunities For Students to Get Involved Science Activation The Sun Explore More
2 min read GLOBE-Trotting Science Lands in Chesapeake with NASA eClips
Article
1 day ago
6 min read NASA’s TRACERS Studies Explosive Process in Earth’s Magnetic Shield
Article
6 days ago
3 min read NASA Citizen Science and Your Career: Stories of Exoplanet Watch Volunteers
Doing NASA Science brings many rewards. But can taking part in NASA citizen science help…
Article
6 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
-
-
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.