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By NASA
7 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
As the program manager for people, culture and equity, “people whisperer” Edward Victor Gonzales helps ensure people’s wellbeing, comfort, and safety.
Name: Edward Victor Gonzales
Title: Program Manager for People, Culture, and Equity
Organization: Heliophysics Division, Science and Exploration Directorate (Code 670)
Eddie Gonzales is the program manager for People, Culture, and Equity for the Heliophysics Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.NASA What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard?
As the program manager for people, culture, and equity officer for heliophysics, I am responsible for people’s wellbeing, comfort, and safety. What is most interesting to me is the vast diversity across Goddard.
How did you come to Goddard?
I went to college late in life, but never graduated. After high school, I started at Mount San Antonio Community College in Walnut, California, but had to work full time when my then-girlfriend became pregnant. I started in the mail room of an international law firm, gradually working my way into director of the support staff. I worked there for 15 years, often staying overnight. I could not attend night school and there were no online learning options at the time.
In 2001, Warren Christopher, who was the managing partner at the law firm and later became secretary of state in the Clinton administration, wrote me a recommendation that helped me get a job at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California as a business administrator. Apollo 13 inspired me to want to work for NASA. After obtaining the job at NASA JPL, I took a few classes at Pasadena Community College.
In 2009, I was detailed to NASA Headquarters to work in the Office of STEM Education. After two years, I returned to JPL to work on minority-serving programs.
In 2014, I returned to Headquarters for a fellowship to work in the Minority University Research Educational Programs. After a year and a half, I returned to JPL to manage underserved, underrepresented undergraduate programs.
In 2018, I came to Goddard to do outreach for NASA Goddard’s heliophysics division. Three years later, I became the diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility officer for heliophysics and now, my current role as people, culture, and equity officer.
As the people, culture, and equity officer, what are your responsibilities?
First, I observe. There are a lot of cues and things that happen in the world that others, including leadership, can sometimes miss. We need to be conscious of these things. We need to be respectful and kind — always.
When something happens in the world that impacts a colleague, I make sure to check in with them daily. On a broader scale, when something happens in the world that affects a particular culture, I check in with that particular group.
I also go to underserved, underrepresented national conferences across the country. At the American Indian Science and Engineering Society conference, I talked about employment opportunities at NASA. It was important for those students to see someone who looked like them. I am half Native American and half Latinx [a gender-neutral term for those with Latin American heritage].
“I was labeled a troublemaker. Teachers wouldn’t help me. My career counselor said I would do amazing work at a car wash and that’s what I should consider doing and not to continue my education. But I didn’t listen.” — Edward Gonzales, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Lead, Goddard Space Flight CenterNASA/Taylor Mickal In August 2024, the NASA administrator appointed you to the NASA Advisory Council. What do your duties there entail?
The council has five committees: aeronautics, human exploration, science, STEM, and technology. I am a member of the science committee. My plan is to discuss the cultural role we all play at NASA.
What skills do you use in speaking with underserved, underrepresented communities?
I test the waters and the temperature of leadership. I am very active with the employees. I have an open-door policy.
In addition, I think I am highly culturally aware overall. At conferences, I try to dress, speak, and act approachably for the students who attend.
Most importantly, my cell phone is never to be seen. When interacting with someone, I am very observant of the other person’s body language overall, which helps me understand the other person better. Sometimes body language rather than words will tell you what you need to hear. My wife calls me a “people whisperer.”
What does cultural awareness mean to you?
Know your audience. I do not think about how I do things: I focus on how the next generation will do things. I try to speak their language. And listen, very important to listen.
Typically, when I go to a national conference, students will approach me with a résumé. But at a Native American national conference, the elders may approach me with a student and a résumé. It is important to address the elder first and ask permission to speak to the student. Also, you would say that the student could bring knowledge learned at Goddard back to their reservation instead of saying that the student could leave their reservation. I also always acknowledge the tribe associated with where I am speaking.
Whenever we send a team to a national conference, we send people who are culturally aware of that particular group’s culture.
I also conduct cultural awareness training at Goddard.
What are your hopes for Godard’s DEIA programs?
I want to continue to create a pipeline of future employees that is more diverse, filled with great ideas and solutions, with a safe and welcoming environment for them.
What advice do you give students?
The path to NASA is not linear. You have to find your path.
Eddie Gonzales looks out for colleagues wellbeing, comfort, and safety within NASA Goddard’s diverse workforce. Courtesy of Eddie Gonzales You’ve mentioned that DEIA is essentially about kindness. How do you define kindness? How do you teach it?
Kindness in my humble opinion is about grace, integrity and understanding. And the willingness to learn about others and their cultures. To agree to disagree and have a polite conversation, to create that understanding.
Teaching starts in the home, bad behavior, lack of understanding and racism are taught traits. We must do better and lead by example. To treat others how we want to be treated.
Who are your mentors?
One is Christopher Gardner, whose life was portrayed in “The Pursuit of Happyness.” I recently brought Christopher Gardner to Goddard to do a keynote speech and he even stayed with me. I met him because I saw his movie, read his book, and contacted him.
I teach this lesson to students: Everyone is interested when you take the time to learn what is important to them. If there is someone you want to meet, network to try to meet them. All you have to do is ask. But first, research them so that you can talk to them about themselves and their work. If they say no, then you can move on to the next person.
Gardner told me to focus on my plan A because plan B is not good. If you know that you have a plan B, then you won’t put everything you have into plan A. Tread forward as if there is nothing that you can fall back on.
Another mentor is José Hernández, the first Hispanic astronaut. I proposed to my wife while staying at his condo. He told me to find my “yes” and to never give up. He applied to the astronaut program 13 times before he was finally selected.
What are the next big things on your bucket list?
I want to see the Northern Lights and continue to travel. I just lost 70 pounds and want to lose 20 more. I gave up meat for about six months and now eat chicken and turkey, but no longer eat red meat. I also exercise and now feel great.
I want to continue to attend concerts around the country.
By Elizabeth M. Jarrell
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.
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Last Updated Dec 03, 2024 Related Terms
People of Goddard Goddard Space Flight Center People of NASA Explore More
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By NASA
In August, the Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences (AAPS) announced a fellowship opportunity in partnership with the NASA Citizen Science Leaders Series. Fifty-five people applied! The applications came from graduate students and early career professionals in diverse disciplines, including astronomy, ecology, engineering, nursing, policy, and zoology, to name a few.
Sadie Coffin, AAPS-NASA Cit Sci Leaders Fellow. (Credit: Olivia Schlichtkrull)
We are delighted to announce that Sadie Coffin, PhD student and co-lead (alongside her advisor, Dr. Jeyhan Kartaltepe) of the Redshift Wrangler project, will serve as the AAPS-NASA Cit Sci Leaders Fellow. Sadie’s task is to curate resources, advice, and best practices on topics of common interest from four years of NASA Cit Sci Leaders events. Sadie will dig into our recordings to find the moments, speakers, advice, and resources that offer the best guidance for project leaders starting or managing projects. She’ll help package the best elements of the recordings into usable formats for busy scientists and project leaders interested in creating, managing, and improving participatory science projects.
“This fellowship offers a unique opportunity to gain the mentorship and expertise I need to build a career that not only advances research but also fosters public engagement and inclusivity in science,” said Sadie.
The enthusiasm, talent, and passion in the applications we received revealed the broad appeal, utility, and growing acceptance of participatory research. One applicant commented, “Working in the participatory sciences is how I find meaning in my career as a researcher.” Many others commented that they were eager to connect with mentors and colleagues who were as invested in this work as they were.
Thank you to everyone who applied for this fellowship and to all of the early career professionals working in this field. You are inspiring, and we can’t wait to see what big ideas you contribute to the growth of this field! AAPS will announce additional fellowships focused on different projects in the coming months. Please watch for upcoming calls, consider applying yourself, and share them with the inspiring early career individuals in your networks!
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Last Updated Nov 04, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
Hubble Space Telescope Home NASA’s Hubble Finds that… Missions Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts E-books Lithographs Fact Sheets Glossary Posters Hubble on the NASA App More Online Activities 6 min read
NASA’s Hubble Finds that a Black Hole Beam Promotes Stellar Eruptions
This is an artist’s concept looking down into the core of the giant elliptical galaxy M87. A supermassive black hole ejects a 3,000-light-year-long jet of plasma, traveling at nearly the speed of light. In the foreground, to the right is a binary star system. The system is far from the black hole, but in the vicinity of the jet. In the system an aging, swelled-up, normal star spills hydrogen onto a burned-out white dwarf companion star. As the hydrogen accumulates on the surface of the dwarf, it reaches a tipping point where it explodes like a hydrogen bomb. Novae frequently pop-off throughout the giant galaxy of 1 trillion stars, but those near the jet seem to explode more frequently. So far, it’s anybody’s guess why black hole jets enhance the rate of nova eruptions. NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
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In a surprise finding, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the blowtorch-like jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of a huge galaxy seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory. The stars, called novae, are not caught inside the jet, but apparently in a dangerous neighborhood nearby.
The finding is confounding researchers searching for an explanation. “We don’t know what’s going on, but it’s just a very exciting finding,” said lead author Alec Lessing of Stanford University. “This means there’s something missing from our understanding of how black hole jets interact with their surroundings.”
A nova erupts in a double-star system where an aging, swelled-up, normal star spills hydrogen onto a burned-out white dwarf companion star. When the dwarf has tanked up a mile-deep surface layer of hydrogen that layer explodes like a giant nuclear bomb. The white dwarf isn’t destroyed by the nova eruption, which ejects its surface layer and then goes back to siphoning fuel from its companion, and the nova-outburst cycle starts over again.
Hubble found twice as many novae going off near the jet as elsewhere in the giant galaxy during the surveyed time period. The jet is launched by a 6.5-billion-solar-mass central black hole surrounded by a disk of swirling matter. The black hole, engorged with infalling matter, launches a 3,000-light-year-long jet of plasma blazing through space at nearly the speed of light. Anything caught in the energetic beam would be sizzled. But being near its blistering outflow is apparently also risky, according to the new Hubble findings.
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the giant galaxy M87 shows a 3,000-light-year-long jet of plasma blasting from the galaxy’s 6.5-billion-solar-mass central black hole. The blowtorch-like jet seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory. These novae are not caught inside the jet, but are apparently in a dangerous neighborhood nearby. During a recent 9-month survey, astronomers using Hubble found twice as many of these novae going off near the jet as elsewhere in the galaxy. The galaxy is the home of several trillion stars and thousands of star-like globular star clusters. NASA, ESA, STScI, Alec Lessing (Stanford University), Mike Shara (AMNH); Acknowledgment: Edward Baltz (Stanford University); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
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The finding of twice as many novae near the jet implies that there are twice as many nova-forming double-star systems near the jet or that these systems erupt twice as often as similar systems elsewhere in the galaxy.
“There’s something that the jet is doing to the star systems that wander into the surrounding neighborhood. Maybe the jet somehow snowplows hydrogen fuel onto the white dwarfs, causing them to erupt more frequently,” said Lessing. “But it’s not clear that it’s a physical pushing. It could be the effect of the pressure of the light emanating from the jet. When you deliver hydrogen faster, you get eruptions faster. Something might be doubling the mass transfer rate onto the white dwarfs near the jet.” Another idea the researchers considered is that the jet is heating the dwarf’s companion star, causing it to overflow further and dump more hydrogen onto the dwarf. However, the researchers calculated that this heating is not nearly large enough to have this effect.
“We’re not the first people who’ve said that it looks like there’s more activity going on around the M87 jet,” said co-investigator Michael Shara of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. “But Hubble has shown this enhanced activity with far more examples and statistical significance than we ever had before.”
Shortly after Hubble’s launch in 1990, astronomers used its first-generation Faint Object Camera (FOC) to peer into the center of M87 where the monster black hole lurks. They noted that unusual things were happening around the black hole. Almost every time Hubble looked, astronomers saw bluish “transient events” that could be evidence for novae popping off like camera flashes from nearby paparazzi. But the FOC’s view was so narrow that Hubble astronomers couldn’t look away from the jet to compare with the near-jet region. For over two decades, the results remained mysteriously tantalizing.
Compelling evidence for the jet’s influence on the stars of the host galaxy was collected over a nine-month interval of Hubble observing with newer, wider-view cameras to count the erupting novae. This was a challenge for the telescope’s observing schedule because it required revisiting M87 precisely every five days for another snapshot. Adding up all of the M87 images led to the deepest images of M87 that have ever been taken.
In a surprise finding, astronomers, using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of M87, a huge galaxy 54 million light years away, seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; Lead Producer: Paul Morris Hubble found 94 novae in the one-third of M87 that its camera can encompass. “The jet was not the only thing that we were looking at — we were looking at the entire inner galaxy. Once you plotted all known novae on top of M87 you didn’t need statistics to convince yourself that there is an excess of novae along the jet. This is not rocket science. We made the discovery simply by looking at the images. And while we were really surprised, our statistical analyses of the data confirmed what we clearly saw,” said Shara.
This accomplishment is entirely due to Hubble’s unique capabilities. Ground-based telescope images do not have the clarity to see novae deep inside M87. They cannot resolve stars or stellar eruptions close to the galaxy’s core because the black hole’s surroundings are far too bright. Only Hubble can detect novae against the bright M87 background.
Novae are remarkably common in the universe. One nova erupts somewhere in M87 every day. But since there are at least 100 billion galaxies throughout the visible universe, around 1 million novae erupt every second somewhere out there.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
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Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Science Contact:
Alec Lessing
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Michael Shara
American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY
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Last Updated Sep 26, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
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By NASA
Learn about some of the engineering work being done by five members of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, which aims to launch Thursday, Oct. 10.NASA With NASA’s Europa Clipper just weeks away from launch, five short videos give a behind-the-scenes peek at some of the engineers dedicated to making the mission a success.
What does it take to build a massive spacecraft that will seek to determine if a mysterious moon has the right ingredients for life? Find out in a new video series called “Behind the Spacecraft,” which offers behind-the-scenes glimpses into the roles of five engineers working on NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, from building the spacecraft’s communications systems to putting it through rigorous tests so the orbiter can meet its science goals in space.
With its launch period opening Thursday, Oct. 10, Europa Clipper is the agency’s first mission dedicated to exploring an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) to the Jupiter system, where it will investigate the gas giant’s moon Europa, which scientists believe contains a global saltwater ocean beneath its icy shell.
The videos are being released here weekly. The first two are already out.
Meet the team:
Dipak Srinivasan, lead communications systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, makes sure the Europa Clipper team can communicate with the spacecraft. Learn more about his work in the video above. Sarah Elizabeth McCandless, navigation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, helped plan Europa Clipper’s trajectory, ensuring the spacecraft arrives at Jupiter safely and has a path to fly by Europa dozens of times. Learn more about Sarah’s work here. Jenny Kampmeier, a science systems engineer at JPL, acts as an interface between mission scientists and engineers. Andres Rivera, a systems engineer at JPL and first-generation American, works on Europa Clipper’s cruise phase — the journey from Earth to Jupiter. Valeria Salazar, an integration and test engineer at JPL who spent her childhood in Mexico, helped test the Europa Clipper spacecraft to ensure its launch readiness. Upcoming Livestreams and Broadcasts
Europa Clipper experts will answer questions about the mission in a NASA Science Live show airing in English on Tuesday, Oct. 1, and in Spanish on Thursday, Oct. 3. The broadcasts will appear on NASA+, YouTube, Facebook, and X. The Spanish broadcast will be streamed on the NASA en Español YouTube channel. Viewers can submit questions on social media using the hashtag #askNASA or by leaving a comment in the chat section of the Facebook or YouTube stream.
Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission and will fly through the most punishing radiation environment of any planet in the solar system. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and, during multiple flybys of Europa, will collect a wealth of scientific data with nine science instruments and an experiment that uses its telecommunications system to gather gravity data.
More About Europa Clipper
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
To learn more about Europa Clipper, visit:
https://europa.nasa.gov/
8 Things to Know About Europa Clipper NASA’s Europa Clipper Gets Its Giant Solar Arrays Kids Can Explore Europa With NASA’s Space Place Europa Clipper Teachable Moment News Media Contacts
Val Gratias / Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-318-2141 / 818-393-6215
valerie.m.gratias@jpl.nasa.gov / gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
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