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By NASA
Almost a decade ago, then-grad student Kyle Helson contributed to early paperwork for NASA’s EXCITE mission. As a scientist at Goddard, Helson helped make this balloon-based telescope a reality: EXCITE launched successfully on Aug. 31.
Name: Kyle Helson
Title: Assistant Research Scientist
Organization: Observational Cosmology Lab (Code 665), via UMBC and the GESTAR II cooperative agreement with NASA Goddard
Dr. Kyle Helson is an assistant research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Photo credit: Dr. Amy Bender How did you know you wanted to work at NASA Goddard?
When I was finishing my physics Ph.D. at Brown University in 2016, I was talking to Ed Wollack and Dave Chuss at Goddard about the NASA postdoc program, and they suggested I apply. Luckily, I got the postdoc fellowship to come here to Goddard to work on cosmic microwave background detector testing and other related research.
I don’t think I would have realized or been interested in coming here had I not had that NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship when I was in grad school and gotten the opportunity to spend some time here and work with Ed and Dave.
What is the name of your team that you’re working with right now?
One of the projects I work on is the Exoplanet Climate Infrared TELescope (EXCITE). EXCITE is a scientific balloon-borne telescope that is designed to measure the spectra of hot, Jupiter-like exoplanet atmospheres in near-infrared light.
Related: NASA’s EXCITE Mission Prepared for Scientific Balloon Flight What is your role for that?
I do a little bit of everything. During grad school, I worked on the first few iterations of the proposal for EXCITE back in 2015 and 2016.
Over the past few years here at Goddard, I’ve been responsible for parts of a lot of the different subsystems like the cryogenic receiver, the gondola, the electronics, and integration and testing of the whole payload.
Last year, we went to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, for an engineering flight. Unfortunately, we were not able to fly for weather reasons. We went back last month, and I was again part of the field deployment team. We take the whole instrument, break it down, carefully ship it all out to New Mexico, put it back together, test it, and get it ready for a flight.
Kyle Helson (far right) and part of the EXCITE team stand in front of EXCITE Fort Sumner, New Mexico in Oct. 2023. EXCITE successfully launched on Aug. 31, 2024. Photo credit: Annalies Kleyheeg What is most interesting to you about your role here at Goddard?
What I like about working on a project like EXCITE is that we get to kind of do a little bit of everything.
We’ve been able to see the experiment from concept and design to actually getting built, tested and hopefully flown and then subsequent data analysis after the flight. What I think is really fun is being able be with an experiment for the entire life cycle.
How do you help support Goddard’s mission?
We’re studying exoplanets, which definitely fits within the scientific mission of Goddard. We’re also a collaboration between Goddard other academic institutions, like Arizona State, like Brown University, Cornell, and several other places, and so we’re also members of the larger scientific research community beyond NASA.
We also have a number of graduate students working on EXCITE. Ballooning is a good platform for training students and young researchers to learn how to build and design instruments, do data analysis, etc. One of the missions of NASA and Goddard is to train early career scientists like graduate students and post docs, and balloons provide a good platform for that as well.
Balloon missions like EXCITE also provide a good platform for technology advancement and demonstration in preparation for future satellite missions.
How did you know cosmology was what you wanted to pursue?
When I was a kid, I loved space. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. I even went to space camp.
The first time I ever got to see physics was a middle-school science class. That was the first time we ever learned physics or astronomy that was deeper than just identifying planets or constellations. We started to learn how we could use math to measure or predict experiments.
When I was in college, I remember talking to my undergraduate academic adviser, Glenn Starkman, and talking about what research I might like to do over the summer between sophomore and junior year of college. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do or what I was interested in, and he suggested I talk to some of the professors doing astrophysics and cosmology research and see if they had space for me in their lab.
I ended up finding a great opportunity working in a research lab in college — so it was working in the physics department in Case Western.
That’s where I first started learning about computer-aided design (CAD), and designing things in CAD, and that’s where I first learned how things get made in a machine shop, like on a mill, or a lathe. These skills have come in handy ever since, because I do a lot of design work in the lab. And I was lucky growing up that my dad was really hands-on and liked to fix things and build things and he taught me a lot of those skills as well.
“When I was a kid, I loved space,” said Kyle Helson. “I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. I even went to space camp.”Photo courtesy of Kyle Helson Who has influenced you in your life?
My dad had a big influence. I think all the different people I’ve had the opportunity to learn from and work with who have been mentors along the way. My research advisers, professor John Ruhl in college, professor Greg Tucker in grad school, and Dr. Ed Wollack as a postdoc have all been very influential. Additionally, I have had the opportunity to work with a lot of very good post docs and research scientists during my career, Dr. Asad Aboobaker, Dr. Britt Reichborn-Kjennerud, Dr. Michele Limon, among others.
Throughout a career, there are tons of other people on the way from whom you pick up little things here and there that stick with you. You look back and you realize five years later you still do this one thing a certain way because someone helped you and taught you this skill or technique.
Where is a place you’d like to travel to?
Since I was lucky enough to go to Antarctica in graduate school, I figured that is the hardest continent to travel to, so now I have a mission to go to every continent. I’ve been to North America, I’ve been to South America, I’ve been to Asia, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand, but I’ve never been to Africa.
Kyle Helson (second from left) races the keirin at the Valley Preferred Cycling Center in Breinigsville, PA. Photo Credit Dr. Vishrut Garg What are your hobbies, or what do you enjoy doing?
I’m a competitive track cyclist. I started racing bikes in collegiate racing as a grad student at Brown. Many summers I’ve spent many weekends driving and flying all over the U.S. to race in the biggest track cycling events in the country.
What would be your three-word-memoir?
Curious, compassionate, cat-dad.
By Tayler Gilmore
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in 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 Sep 10, 2024 EditorMadison OlsonContactRob Garnerrob.garner@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
NASA research mathematician Katherine Johnson is photographed at her desk at NASA Langley Research Center with a globe, or “Celestial Training Device,” in 1962. Credit: NASA / Langley Research Center NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will represent the agency during a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony at 3 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 18, recognizing the women who contributed to the space race, including the NASA mathematicians who helped land the first astronauts on the Moon under the agency’s Apollo Program.
Hosted by House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony will take place inside Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Nelson is expected to be among the speakers.
The event will stream live on the speaker’s YouTube channel. The agency will share a direct link on this advisory in advance of the event.
Media without current congressional credentials on the Hill interested in participating in the event must RSVP by Sept. 13, to Abby Ronson at: abby.ronson@mail.house.gov.
Medal Information
Introduced by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson on Feb. 27, 2019, H.R.1396 – Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Act – was signed into law later that year. Awards will include:
Congressional Gold Medal to Katherine Johnson, in recognition of her service to the United States as a mathematician Congressional Gold Medal to Dr. Christine Darden, for her service to the United States as an aeronautical engineer Congressional Gold Medals in commemoration of the lives of Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, in recognition of their service to the United States during the space race Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of all the women who served as computers, mathematicians, and engineers at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and NASA between the 1930s and the 1970s. For more information about NASA missions, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov
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Meira Bernstein / Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
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meira.b.bernstein@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov
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By NASA
5 Min Read Webb Finds Early Galaxies Weren’t Too Big for Their Britches After All
This image shows a small portion of the field observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) for the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey. The full image appears below. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, S. Finkelstein (University of Texas) It got called the crisis in cosmology. But now astronomers can explain some surprising recent discoveries.
When astronomers got their first glimpses of galaxies in the early universe from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, they were expecting to find galactic pipsqueaks, but instead they found what appeared to be a bevy of Olympic bodybuilders. Some galaxies appeared to have grown so massive, so quickly, that simulations couldn’t account for them. Some researchers suggested this meant that something might be wrong with the theory that explains what the universe is made of and how it has evolved since the big bang, known as the standard model of cosmology.
According to a new study in the Astrophysical Journal led by University of Texas at Austin graduate student Katherine Chworowsky, some of those early galaxies are in fact much less massive than they first appeared. Black holes in some of these galaxies make them appear much brighter and bigger than they really are.
“We are still seeing more galaxies than predicted, although none of them are so massive that they ‘break’ the universe,” Chworowsky said.
The evidence was provided by Webb’s Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, led by Steven Finkelstein, a professor of astronomy at UT Austin and study co-author.
Image A : CEERS Deep Field (NIRCam)
This image shows a small portion of the field observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) for the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey. It is filled with galaxies. Some galaxies appear to have grown so massive, so quickly, that simulations couldn’t account for them. However, a new study finds that some of those early galaxies are in fact much less massive than they first appeared. Black holes in some of those galaxies make them appear much brighter and bigger than they really are. NASA, ESA, CSA, S. Finkelstein (University of Texas)
View 8k pixel full resolution version of the image
Black Holes Add to Brightness
According to this latest study, the galaxies that appeared overly massive likely host black holes rapidly consuming gas. Friction in the fast-moving gas emits heat and light, making these galaxies much brighter than they would be if that light emanated just from stars. This extra light can make it appear that the galaxies contain many more stars, and hence are more massive, than we would otherwise estimate. When scientists remove these galaxies, dubbed “little red dots” (based on their red color and small size), from the analysis, the remaining early galaxies are not too massive to fit within predictions of the standard model.
“So, the bottom line is there is no crisis in terms of the standard model of cosmology,” Finkelstein said. “Any time you have a theory that has stood the test of time for so long, you have to have overwhelming evidence to really throw it out. And that’s simply not the case.”
Efficient Star Factories
Although they’ve settled the main dilemma, a less thorny problem remains: There are still roughly twice as many massive galaxies in Webb’s data of the early universe than expected from the standard model. One possible reason might be that stars formed more quickly in the early universe than they do today.
“Maybe in the early universe, galaxies were better at turning gas into stars,” Chworowsky said.
Star formation happens when hot gas cools enough to succumb to gravity and condense into one or more stars. But as the gas contracts, it heats up, generating outward pressure. In our region of the universe, the balance of these opposing forces tends to make the star formation process very slow. But perhaps, according to some theories, because the early universe was denser than today, it was harder to blow gas out during star formation, allowing the process to go faster.
More Evidence of Black Holes
Concurrently, astronomers have been analyzing the spectra of “little red dots” discovered with Webb, with researchers in both the CEERS team and others finding evidence of fast-moving hydrogen gas, a signature of black hole accretion disks. This supports the idea that at least some of the light coming from these compact, red objects comes from gas swirling around black holes, rather than stars – reinforcing Chworowsky and their team’s conclusion that they are probably not as massive as astronomers initially thought. However, further observations of these intriguing objects are incoming, and should help solve the puzzle about how much light comes from stars versus gas around black holes.
Often in science, when you answer one question, that leads to new questions. While Chworowsky and their colleagues have shown that the standard model of cosmology likely isn’t broken, their work points to the need for new ideas in star formation.
“And so there is still that sense of intrigue,” Chworowsky said. “Not everything is fully understood. That’s what makes doing this kind of science fun, because it’d be a terribly boring field if one paper figured everything out, or there were no more questions to answer.”The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Rob Gutro – rob.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Marc Airhart – mairhart@austin.utexas.edu
University of Texas at Austin
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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ARTICLE: Webb Science – Galaxies Through Time
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Last Updated Aug 26, 2024 Editor Stephen Sabia Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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By NASA
2 min read
Hubble Finds Structure in an Unstructured Galaxy
NASA, ESA, A. del Pino Molina (CEFCA), K. Gilbert and R. van der Marel (STScI), A. Cole (University of Tasmania); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features the nearby dwarf irregular galaxy Leo A, located some 2.6 million light-years away. The relatively open distribution of stars in this diminutive galaxy allows light from distant background galaxies to shine through.
Astronomers study dwarf galaxies like Leo A because they are numerous and may offer clues to how galaxies grow and evolve. Dwarf galaxies are small and dim making the most distant members of this galaxy type difficult to study. As a result, astronomers point their telescopes toward those that are relatively near to our own Milky Way galaxy, like Leo A.
Leo A is one of the most isolated galaxies in our Local Group of galaxies. Its form appears as a roughly spherical, sparsely populated mass of stars with no obvious structural features like spiral arms.
The data that created this image come from four Hubble observing programs. Three of these looked at star formation histories of relatively nearby dwarf galaxies. The fourth sought to better determine the mass of our Local Group by looking at the motions of dwarf galaxies just outside of the Local Group.
The Hubble observations that looked at star formation found distinct structural differences in the age and distribution of stars in the galaxy. Most of the younger stars are located in the middle of the galaxy, while the number of older stars increases as you move outward from the center. Hubble observations also suggest that the galaxy’s halo of stars is about one-third larger than previous estimates. This distribution suggests that star formation in Leo A occurred from the outside-in, or that older stars efficiently migrated to the outskirts of Leo A in the early stages of its evolution.
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By NASA
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Warming global climate is changing the vegetation structure of forests in the far north. It’s a trend that will continue at least through the end of this century, according to NASA researchers. The change in forest structure could absorb more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, or increase permafrost thawing, resulting in the release of ancient carbon. Millions of data points from the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2) and Landsat missions helped inform this latest research, which will be used to refine climate forecasting computer models.
Landscape at Murphy Dome fire scar, outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, during the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) in August 2022. Credit: NASA/Katie Jepson Tundra landscapes are getting taller and greener. With the warming climate, the vegetation of forests in the far north is changing as more trees and shrubs appear. These shifts in the vegetation structure of boreal forests and tundra will continue for at least the next 80 years, according to NASA scientists in a recently published study.
Boreal forests generally grow between 50 and 60 degrees north latitude, covering large parts of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia. The biome is home to evergreens such as pine, spruce, and fir. Farther north, the permafrost and short growing season of the tundra biome have historically made it hard to support large trees or dense forests. The vegetation in those regions has instead been made up of shrubs, mosses, and grasses.
The boundary between the two biomes is difficult to discern. Previous studies have found high-latitude plant growth increasing and moving northward into areas that earlier were sparsely covered in the shrubs and grasses of the tundra. Now, the new NASA-led study finds an increased presence of trees and shrubs in those tundra regions and adjacent transitional forests, where boreal regions and tundra meet. This is predicted to continue until at least the end of the century.
Data from the study depicted on a map of Alaska and Northern Canada highlighting the change in tree canopy cover extending into transitional landscapes. In boreal North America, the largest increases in canopy cover (dark green) have occurred in transitional tundra landscapes. These landscapes are found along the cold, northern extent of the study area and have historically supported mostly shrubs, mosses, and grasses. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Wanmei Liang “The results from this study advance a growing body of work that recognizes a shift in vegetation patterns within the boreal forest biome,” said Paul Montesano, lead author for the paper and research scientist at NASA Goddard’s Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’ve used satellite data to track the increased vegetation growth in this biome since 1984, and we found that it’s similar to what computer models predict for the decades to come. This paints a picture of continued change for the next 80 or so years that is particularly strong in transitional forests.”
Scientists found predictions of “positive median height changes” in all tundra landscapes and transitional – between boreal and tundra – forests featured in this study. This suggests trees and shrubs will be both larger and more abundant in areas where they are currently sparse.
“The increase of vegetation that corresponds with the shift can potentially offset some of the impact of rising CO2 emissions by absorbing more CO2 through photosynthesis,” said study co-author Chris Neigh, NASA’s Landsat 8 and 9 project scientist at Goddard. Carbon absorbed through this process would then be stored in the trees, shrubs, and soil.
The change in forest structure may also cause permafrost areas to thaw as more sunlight is absorbed by the darker colored vegetation. This could release CO2 and methane that has been stored in the soil for thousands of years.
In their paper published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment in May, NASA scientists described the mixture of satellite data, machine learning, climate variables, and climate models they used to model and predict how the forest structure will look for years to come. Specifically, they analyzed nearly 20 million data points from NASA’s ICESat-2. They then matched these data points with tens of thousands of scenes of North American boreal forests between 1984 to 2020 from Landsat, a joint mission of NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Advanced computing capabilities are required to create models with such large quantities of data, which are called “big data” projects.
Flight over the boreal landscapes of Fairbanks, Alaska, during the ABoVE field campaign in August 2022. Credit: NASA/Sofie Bates The ICESat-2 mission uses a laser instrument called lidar to measure the height of Earth’s surface features (like ice sheets or trees) from the vantage point of space. In the study, the authors examined these measurements of vegetation height in the far north to understand what the current boreal forest structure looks like. Scientists then modeled several future climate scenarios — adjusting to different scenarios for temperature and precipitation — to show what forest structure may look like in response.
“Our climate is changing and, as it changes, it affects almost everything in nature,” said Melanie Frost, remote sensing scientist at NASA Goddard. “It’s important for scientists to understand how things are changing and use that knowledge to inform our climate models.”
By Erica McNamee
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Aug 06, 2024 EditorKate D. RamsayerContactErica McNameeerica.s.mcnamee@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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