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New Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) Discovery Papers Published
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By Space Force
The Air Force Chaplain Corps wrapped up its annual summit, bringing together Religious Support Teams from across the Total Force to focus on spiritual readiness and alignment under the Chaplain Corps’ new motto: HC Ready!
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By NASA
A member of the space crop production team prepares materials for Veggie seed pillows inside the Space Systems Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. NASA/Cory S Huston When the Crew-11 astronauts launched to the International Space Station on August 1, 2025, they carried with them another chapter in space farming: the latest VEG-03 experiments, complete with seed pillows ready for planting.
Growing plants provides nutrition for astronauts, as well as psychological benefits that help maintain crew morale during missions.
During VEG-03 MNO, astronauts will be able to choose what they want to grow from a seed library including Wasabi mustard greens, Red Russian Kale, and Dragoon lettuce.
From Seed to Space Salad
The experiment takes place inside Veggie, a chamber about the size of carry-on luggage. The system uses red, blue, and green LED lights to provide the right spectrum for plant growth. Clear flexible bellows — accordion-like walls that expand to accommodate maturing plants — create a semi-controlled environment around the growing area.
Astronauts plant thin strips containing their selected seeds into fabric “seed pillows” filled with a special clay-based growing medium and controlled-release fertilizer. The clay, similar to what’s used on baseball fields, helps distribute water and air around the roots in the microgravity environment.
Crew members will monitor the plants, add water as needed, and document growth through regular photographs. At harvest time, astronauts will eat some of the fresh produce while freezing other samples for return to Earth, where scientists will analyze their nutritional content and safety.
How this benefits space exploration
Fresh food will become critical as astronauts venture farther from Earth on missions to the Moon and Mars. NASA aims to validate different kinds of crops to add variety to astronaut diets during long-duration space exploration missions, while giving crew members more control over what they grow and eat.
How this benefits humanity
The techniques developed for growing crops in space’s challenging conditions may also improve agricultural practices on Earth. Indoor crop cultivation approaches similar to what astronauts do in Veggie might also be adapted for horticultural therapy programs, giving elderly or disabled individuals new ways to experience gardening when traditional methods aren’t accessible.
Related Resources
VEG-03 MNO on the Space Station Research Explorer
Veggie Vegetable Product System
Veggie Plant Growth System Activated on International Space Station
About BPS
NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomenon under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefitting life on Earth.
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By NASA
While it may sound like the opening to a punchline, this scientific question was at the heart of a research experiment that orbited the Moon aboard Artemis I.NASA astronaut and Expedition 65 Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei caring for chili peppers aboard the International Space Station. NASA New research uncovers the connection between space agriculture and astronaut health. A study published in npj Microgravity shows how analyzing diverse datasets together can reveal insights that might otherwise be missed — in this case, linking space-grown food quality to astronaut nutrition and gut health.
The paper reviewed previous studies of plants grown aboard the International Space Station. The authors found that some edible plants grown in low Earth orbit have lower concentrations of essential nutrients, like calcium and magnesium, than those grown on Earth.
The reduced levels of these nutrients could make crops not as effective in mitigating the bone loss and reduced immune function that astronauts encounter in space.
Working Groups Uncover Hidden Health Connections
Three Analysis Working Groups from NASA’s Open Science Data Repository collaborated to make this paper possible. These discipline-specific groups typically work independently, but this project sparked conversations among researchers with different specialties.
Researchers combined plant data, crop nutrition profiles, gut studies, and astronaut blood biomarkers — a data integration effort of the Biological and Physical Sciences Division open science model. The work also draws on data from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).
For NASA, these findings offer new insights into how to feed and support astronauts in space, particularly on long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars.
Seeks Ways to Improve Space Diets
The study also examined increased intestinal permeability — often called “leaky gut” — a condition that can result from poor nutrition and may be exacerbated by the space environment. Intestinal permeability may interfere with how astronauts absorb nutrients and regulate immune responses.
If properly engineered, space-grown crops could offer a solution to these health challenges. The team outlined several potential strategies, including bioengineering plants with higher nutrient content, incorporating more antioxidant-rich species, and designing personalized nutrition plans using astronauts’ genetic information.
The study suggests targeting specific biological pathways, such as using compounds like quercetin, an antioxidant found in certain crops, to address bone health challenges at the molecular level. The approach emphasizes designing nutrition plans based on individual astronaut physiology, including how well their digestive systems can absorb nutrients.
Related Resources
Open Science Data Repository
Open Science Data Repository Analysis Working Groups (AWG)
About BPS
NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomenon under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefitting life on Earth.
View the full article
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Written by Michael Allen
An international team of astronomers using NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), has challenged our understanding of what happens to matter in the direct vicinity of a black hole.
With IXPE, astronomers can study incoming X-rays and measure the polarization, a property of light that describes the direction of its electric field.
The polarization degree is a measurement of how aligned those vibrations are to each other. Scientists can use a black hole’s polarization degree to determine the location of the corona – a region of extremely hot, magnetized plasma that surrounds a black hole – and how it generates X-rays.
This illustration of material swirling around a black hole highlights a particular feature, called the “corona,” that shines brightly in X-ray light. In this depiction, the corona can be seen as a purple haze floating above the underlying accretion disk, and extending slightly inside of its inner edge. The material within the inner accretion disk is incredibly hot and would glow with a blinding blue-white light, but here has been reduced in brightness to make the corona stand out with better contrast. Its purple color is purely illustrative, standing in for the X-ray glow that would not be obvious in visible light. The warp in the disk is a realistic representation of how the black hole’s immense gravity acts like an optical lens, distorting our view of the flat disk that encircles it. NASA/Caltech-IPAC/Robert Hurt In April, astronomers used IXPE to measure a 9.1% polarization degree for black hole IGR J17091-3624, much higher than they expected based on theoretical models.
“The black hole IGR J17091-3624 is an extraordinary source which dims and brightens with the likeness of a heartbeat, and NASA’s IXPE allowed us to measure this unique source in a brand-new way.” said Melissa Ewing, the lead of the study based at Newcastle University in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
In X-ray binary systems, an extremely dense object, like a black hole, pulls matter from a nearby source, most often a neighboring star. This matter can begin to swirl around, flattening into a rotating structure known as an accretion disc.
The corona, which lies in the inner region of this accretion disc, can reach extreme temperatures up to 1.8 billion degrees Fahrenheit and radiate very luminous X-rays. These ultra-hot coronas are responsible for some of the brightest X-ray sources in the sky.
Despite how bright the corona is in IGRJ17091-364, at some 28,000 light-years from Earth, it remains far too small and distant for astronomers to capture an image of it.
“Typically, a high polarization degree corresponds with a very edge-on view of the corona. The corona would have to be perfectly shaped and viewed at just the right angle to achieve such a measurement,” said Giorgio Matt, professor at the University of Roma Tre in Italy and a co-author on this paper. “The dimming pattern has yet to be explained by scientists and could hold the keys to understanding this category of black holes.”
The stellar companion of this black hole isn’t bright enough for astronomers to directly estimate the system’s viewing angle, but the unusual changes in brightness observed by IXPE suggest that the edge of the accretion disk was directly facing Earth.
The researchers explored different avenues to explain the high polarization degree.
In one model, astronomers included a “wind” of matter lifted from the accretion disc and launched away from the system, a rarely seen phenomenon. If X-rays from the corona were to meet this matter on their way to IXPE, Compton scattering would occur, leading to these measurements.
Fast Facts
Polarization measurements from IXPE carry information about the orientation and alignment of emitted X-ray light waves. The high the degree of polarization, the more the X-ray waves are traveling in sync. Most polarization in the corona come from a process known as Compton scattering, where light from the accretion disc bounces off the hot plasma of the corona, gaining energy and aligning to vibrate in the same direction. “These winds are one of the most critical missing pieces to understand the growth of all types of black holes,” said Maxime Parra, who led the observation and works on this topic at Ehime University in Matsuyama, Japan. “Astronomers could expect future observations to yield even more surprising polarization degree measurements.”
Another model assumed the plasma in the corona could exhibit a very fast outflow. If the plasma were to be streaming outwards at speeds as high as 20% the speed of light, or roughly 124 million miles per hour, relativistic effects could boost the observed polarization.
In both cases, the simulations could recreate the observed polarization without a very specific edge-on view. Researchers will continue to model and test their predictions to better understand the high polarization degree for future research efforts.
More about IXPE
IXPE, which continues to provide unprecedented data enabling groundbreaking discoveries about celestial objects across the universe, is a joint NASA and Italian Space Agency mission with partners and science collaborators in 12 countries. IXPE is led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. BAE Systems, Inc., headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, manages spacecraft operations together with the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder.
Learn more about IXPE’s ongoing mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/ixpe
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Last Updated Aug 12, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayContactCorinne Edmistoncorinne.m.edmiston@nasa.govLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) Marshall Astrophysics Marshall Science Research & Projects Marshall Space Flight Center Explore More
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By European Space Agency
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have found strong evidence of a giant planet orbiting a star in the stellar system closest to our own Sun. At just 4 light-years away from Earth, the Alpha Centauri triple star system has long been a compelling target in the search for worlds beyond our solar system.
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