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By NASA
8 Min Read NASA Telescopes Tune Into a Black Hole Prelude, Fugue
The first sonification features WR124, an extremely bright, massive star. Here, the star is shown in a short-lived phase preceding the possible creation of a black hole. NASA released three new pieces of cosmic sound Thursday that are associated with the densest and darkest members of our universe: black holes. These scientific productions are sonifications — or translations into sound — of data collected by NASA telescopes in space including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, James Webb Space Telescope, and Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE).
This trio of sonifications represents different aspects of black holes and black hole evolution. WR124 is an extremely bright, short-lived massive star known as a Wolf-Rayet that may collapse into a black hole in the future. SS 433 is a binary, or double system, containing a star like our Sun in orbit with either a neutron star or a black hole. The galaxy Centaurus A has an enormous black hole in its center that is sending a booming jet across the entire length of the galaxy. Data from Chandra and other telescopes were translated through a process called “sonification” into sounds and notes. This new trio of sonifications represents different aspects of black holes. Black holes are neither static nor monolithic. They evolve over time, and are found in a range of sizes and environments.
WR 124
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: (Herschel) ESA/NASA/Caltech, (Spitzer) NASA/JPL/Caltech, (WISE) NASA/JPL/Caltech; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Webb ERO Production Team; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) The first movement is a prelude to the potential birth of a black hole. WR124 is an extremely bright, short-lived massive star known as a Wolf-Rayet at a distance of about 28,000 light-years from Earth. These stars fling their outer layers out into space, creating spectacular arrangements seen in an image in infrared light from the Webb telescope. In the sonification of WR124, this nebula is heard as flutes and the background stars as bells. At the center of WR124, where the scan begins before moving outward, is a hot core of the star that may explode as a supernova and potentially collapse and leave behind a black hole in its wake. As the scan moves from the center outward, X-ray sources detected by Chandra are translated into harp sounds. Data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is heard as metallic bell-like sounds, while the light of the central star is mapped to produce the descending scream-like sound at the beginning. The piece is rounded out by strings playing additional data from the infrared telescopic trio of ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Herschel Space Telescope, NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, and NASA’s retired Wide Image Survey Explorer (WISE) as chords.
SS 433
Credit: X-ray: (IXPE): NASA/MSFC/IXPE; (Chandra): NASA/CXC/SAO; (XMM): ESA/XMM-Newton; IR: NASA/JPL/Caltech/WISE; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/VLA/B. Saxton. (IR/Radio image created with data from M. Goss, et al.); Image Processing/compositing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk & K. Arcand; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) In the second movement of this black hole composition, listeners can explore a duet. SS 433 is a binary, or double, system about 18,000 light-years away that sings out in X-rays. The two members of SS 433 include a star like our Sun in orbit around a much heavier partner, either a neutron star or a black hole. This orbital dance causes undulations in X-rays that Chandra, IXPE, and ESA’s XMM-Newton telescopes are tuned into. These X-ray notes have been combined with radio and infrared data to provide a backdrop for this celestial waltz. The nebula in radio waves resembles a drifting manatee, and the scan sweeps across from right to left. Light towards the top of the image is mapped to higher-pitch sound, with radio, infrared, and X-ray light mapped to low, medium, and high pitch ranges. Bright background stars are played as water-drop sounds, and the location of the binary system is heard as a plucked sound, pulsing to match the fluctuations due to the orbital dance.
Centarus A
Credit: X-ray: (Chandra) NASA/CXC/SAO, (IXPE) NASA/MSFC; Optical: ESO; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand, J. Major, and J. Schmidt; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) The third and final movement of the black hole-themed sonifications crescendos with a distant galaxy known as Centaurus A, about 12 million light-years away from Earth. At the center of Centaurus A is an enormous black hole that is sending a booming jet across the entire length of the galaxy. Sweeping around clockwise from the top of the image, the scan encounters Chandra’s X-rays and plays them as single-note wind chimes. X-ray light from IXPE is heard as a continuous range of frequencies, producing a wind-like sound. Visible light data from the European Southern Observatory’s MPG telescope shows the galaxy’s stars that are mapped to string instruments including foreground and background objects as plucked strings.
For more NASA sonifications and information about the project, visit https://chandra.si.edu/sound/
These sonifications were led by the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC), with support from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA’s Universe of Learning program, which is part of the NASA Science Activation program. The collaboration was driven by visualization scientist Kimberly Arcand (CXC), astrophysicist Matt Russo, and musician Andrew Santaguida (both of the SYSTEM Sounds project), along with consultant Christine Malec.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts. NASA’s Universe of Learning materials are based upon work supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AC65A to the Space Telescope Science Institute, working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The agency’s IXPE is a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency with partners and science collaborators in 12 countries. The IXPE mission is led by Marshall. 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.
To learn more about NASA’s space telescopes, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/universe
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description
This release features three sonifications related to black holes, presented as soundtracks to short videos. Each sonification video features a composite image representing a different aspect of the life of a black hole. These images are visualizations of data collected by NASA telescopes. During each video, a line sweeps through the image. When the line encounters a visual element, it is translated into sound according to parameters established by visualization scientist Kimberly Arcand, astrophysicist Matt Russo, musician Andrew Santaguida, and consultant Christine Malec.
The first sonification features WR124, an extremely bright, massive star. Here, the star is shown in a short-lived phase preceding the possible creation of a black hole. At the center of the composite image is the large gleaming star in white and pale blue. The star sits at the heart of a mottled pink and gold cloud, its long diffraction spikes extending to the outer edges. Also residing in the cloud are other large gleaming stars, glowing hot-pink dots, and tiny specks of blue and white light. In this sonification, the sound activation line is an ever-expanding circle which starts in the center of the massive star and continues to grow until it exits the frame.
The second sonification features SS 433, a binary star system at the center of a supernova remnant known as the Manatee Nebula. Visually, the translucent, blobby teal nebula does, indeed, resemble a bulbous walrus or manatee, floating in a red haze packed with distant specs of light. Inside the nebula is a violet streak, a blue streak, and a large bright dot. The dot, represented by a plucking sound in the sonification, is the binary system at the heart of the nebula. In this sonification, the vertical activation line begins at our right edge of the frame, and sweeps across the image before exiting at our left.
The third and final sonification features Centaurus A, a distant galaxy with an enormous black hole emitting a long jet of high-energy particles. The black hole sits at the center of the composite image, represented by a brilliant white light. A dark, grainy, oblong cloud cuts diagonally across the black hole from our lower left toward our upper right. A large, faint, translucent blue cloud stretches from our upper left to our lower right. And the long, thin jet, also in translucent blue, extends from the black hole at the center toward the upper lefthand corner. In this sonification, the activation line rotates around the image like the hand of a clock. It begins at the twelve o’clock position, and sweeps clockwise around the image.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
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Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
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Last Updated May 08, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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Explore Hubble Science Hubble Space Telescope NASA’s Hubble Pinpoints… 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 Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 7 Min Read NASA’s Hubble Pinpoints Roaming Massive Black Hole
This six-panel illustration of a tidal disruption event around a supermassive black hole shows the collision with a star followed by an explosion detected in X-ray as well as Hubble Space Telescope visible-light observations. Credits:
Artwork: NASA, ESA, STScI, Ralf Crawford (STScI) Like a scene out of a sci-fi movie, astronomers using NASA telescopes have found “Space Jaws.”
Lurking 600 million light-years away, within the inky black depths between stars, there is an invisible monster gulping down any wayward star that plummets toward it. The sneaky black hole betrayed its presence in a newly identified tidal disruption event (TDE) where a hapless star was ripped apart and swallowed in a spectacular burst of radiation. These disruption events are powerful probes of black hole physics, revealing the conditions necessary for launching jets and winds when a black hole is in the midst of consuming a star, and are seen as bright objects by telescopes.
The new TDE, called AT2024tvd, allowed astronomers to pinpoint a wandering supermassive black hole using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, with similar supporting observations from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the NRAO Very Large Array telescope that also showed that the black hole is offset from the center of the galaxy.
The paper will be published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
This six-panel illustration of a tidal disruption event around a supermassive black hole shows the following: 1) A supermassive black hole is adrift inside a galaxy, its presence only detectable by gravitational lensing; 2) A wayward star gets swept up in the black hole’s intense gravitational pull; 3) The star is stretched or “spaghettified” by gravitational tidal effects; 4) The star’s remnants form a disk around the black hole; 5) There is a period of black hole accretion, pouring out radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from X-rays to radio wavelengths; and 6) The host galaxy, seen from afar, contains a bright flash of energy that is offset from the galaxy’s nucleus, where an even more massive black hole dwells. Artwork: NASA, ESA, STScI, Ralf Crawford (STScI) Surprisingly, this one million-solar-mass black hole doesn’t reside exactly in the center of the host galaxy, where supermassive black holes are typically found, and actively gobble up surrounding material. Out of approximately 100 TDE events recorded by optical sky surveys so far, this is the first time an offset TDE has been identified. The rest are associated with the central black holes of galaxies.
In fact, at the center of the host galaxy there is a different supermassive black hole weighing 100 million times the mass of the Sun. Hubble’s optical precision shows the TDE was only 2,600 light-years from the more massive black hole at the galaxy’s center. That’s just one-tenth the distance between our Sun and the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole.
This bigger black hole spews out energy as it accretes infalling gas, and it is categorized as an active galactic nucleus. Strangely, the two supermassive black holes co-exist in the same galaxy, but are not gravitationally bound to each other as a binary pair. The smaller black hole may eventually spiral into the galaxy’s center to merge with the bigger black hole. But for now, it is too far separated to be gravitationally bound.
A TDE happens when an infalling star is stretched or “spaghettified” by a black hole’s immense gravitational tidal forces. The shredded stellar remnants are pulled into a circular orbit around the black hole. This generates shocks and outflows with high temperatures that can be seen in ultraviolet and visible light.
“AT2024tvd is the first offset TDE captured by optical sky surveys, and it opens up the entire possibility of uncovering this elusive population of wandering black holes with future sky surveys,” said lead study author Yuhan Yao of the University of California at Berkeley. “Right now, theorists haven’t given much attention to offset TDEs. “I think this discovery will motivate scientists to look for more examples of this type of event.”
This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of distant galaxy that is host to the telltale signature of a roaming supermassive black hole. Science: NASA, ESA, STScI, Yuhan Yao (UC Berkeley); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) A Flash in the Night
The star-snacking black hole gave itself away when several ground-based sky survey telescopes observed a flare as bright as a supernova. But unlike a supernova, astronomers know that this came from a black hole snacking on a star because the flare was very hot, and showed broad emission lines of hydrogen, helium, carbon, nitrogen, and silicon. The Zwicky Transient Facility at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory, with its 1.2-meter telescope that surveys the entire northern sky every two days, first observed the event.
“Tidal disruption events hold great promise for illuminating the presence of massive black holes that we would otherwise not be able to detect,” said Ryan Chornock, associate adjunct professor at UC Berkeley and a member of the ZTF team. “Theorists have predicted that a population of massive black holes located away from the centers of galaxies must exist, but now we can use TDEs to find them.”
The flare was seemingly offset from the center of a bright massive galaxy as cataloged by Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System), the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and the DESI Legacy Imaging Survey. To better determine that it was not at the galactic center, Yao’s team used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to confirm that X-rays from the flare site were also offset.
It took the resolving power of Hubble to settle any uncertainties. Hubble’s sensitivity to ultraviolet light also allows it to pinpoint the location of the TDE, which is much bluer than the rest of the galaxy.
This is a combined Hubble Space Telescope/Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of a distant galaxy that is host to the telltale signature of a roaming supermassive black hole. Both telescopes caught a tidal disruption event (TDE) caused by the black hole eating a star. Science: NASA, ESA, STScI, Yuhan Yao (UC Berkeley); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) Origin Unknown
The black hole responsible for the TDE is prowling inside the bulge of the massive galaxy. The black hole only becomes apparent every few tens of thousands of years when it “burps” from capturing a star, and then it goes quiet again until its next meal comes along.
How did the black hole get off-center? Previous theoretical studies have shown that black holes can be ejected out of the centers of galaxies because of three-body interactions, where the lowest-mass member gets kicked out. This may be the case here, given the stealthy black hole’s close proximity to the central black hole. “If the black hole went through a triple interaction with two other black holes in the galaxy’s core, it can still remain bound to the galaxy, orbiting around the central region,“ said Yao.
An alternative explanation is that the black hole is the surviving remnant of a smaller galaxy that merged with the host galaxy more than 1 billion years ago. If that is the case, the black hole might eventually spiral in to merge with the central active black hole sometime in the very far future. So at present, astronomers don’t know if it’s coming or going.
Erica Hammerstein, another UC Berkeley postdoctoral researcher, scrutinized the Hubble images as part of the study, but did not find any evidence of a past galaxy merger. But she explained, “There is already good evidence that galaxy mergers enhance TDE rates, but the presence of a second black hole in AT2024tvd’s host galaxy means that at some point in this galaxy’s past, a merger must have happened.”
Specialized for different kinds of light, observatories like Hubble and Chandra work together to pinpoint and better understand fleeting events like these. Future telescopes that will also be optimized for capturing transient events like this one include the National Science Foundation’s Vera C. Rubin Observatory and NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. They will provide more opportunities for follow-up Hubble observations to zero in on a transient’s exact location.
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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, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
ZTF is a public-private partnership, with equal support from the ZTF Partnership and from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
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Six panel illustration of Black Hole TDE AT2024tvd
This is a six-panel illustration of a tidal disruption event around a supermassive back hole.
Black Hole TDE AT2024tvdu00a0
This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of a distant galaxy that is host to the telltale signature of a roaming supermassive black hole.
Black Hole TDE AT2024tvd (Hubble + Chandra)
This is a combined Hubble Space Telescope/Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of a distant galaxy that is host to the telltale signature of a roaming supermassive black hole.
Black Hole TDE AT2024tvd Compass Image
This is a combined Hubble Space Telescope/Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of a distant galaxy that is host to the telltale signature of a roaming supermassive black hole.
Black Hole Tidal Disruption Event
This is a video animation of a tidal disruption event (TDE), an intense flash of radiation caused by the supermassive black hole eating a star. The video begins by zooming into a galaxy located 600 million light-years away.
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Last Updated May 08, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Contact Media Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland
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5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The blazar BL Lacertae, a supermassive black hole surrounded by a bright disk and jets oriented toward Earth, provided scientists with a unique opportunity to answer a longstanding question: How are X-rays generated in extreme environments like this?
NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) collaborated with radio and optical telescopes to find answers. The results (preprint available here), to be published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, show that interactions between fast-moving electrons and particles of light, called photons, must lead to this X-ray emission.
This artist’s concept depicts the central region of the blazar BL Lacertae, a supermassive black hole surrounded by a bright disk and a jet oriented toward Earth. The galaxy’s central black hole is surrounded by swirls of orange in various shades representing the accretion disk of material falling toward the black hole. While black holes are known for pulling in material, this accretion process can result in the ejection of jets of electrons at nearly the speed of light. The jet of matter is represented by the cone of light that starts at the center of the black hole and widens out as it reaches the bottom of the image. It is streaked with lines of white, pink and purple which represent helix-shaped magnetic fields. We can observe these jets in many wavelengths of light including radio, optical, and X-ray. NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) recently collaborated with radio and optical telescopes to observe this jet and determine how the X-rays are generated in these types of celestial environments.NASA/Pablo Garcia Scientists had two competing possible explanations for the X-rays, one involving protons and one involving electrons. Each of these mechanisms would have a different signature in the polarization of X-ray light. Polarization is a property of light that describes the average direction of the electromagnetic waves that make up light.
If the X-rays in a black hole’s jets are highly polarized, that would mean that the X-rays are produced by protons gyrating in the magnetic field of the jet or protons interacting with jet’s photons. If the X-rays have a lower polarization degree, it would suggest that electron-photons interactions lead to X-ray production.
IXPE, which launched Dec. 9, 2021, is the only satellite flying today that can make such a polarization measurement.
“This was one of the biggest mysteries about supermassive black hole jets” said Iván Agudo, lead author of the study and astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía – CSIC in Spain. “And IXPE, with the help of a number of supporting ground-based telescopes, finally provided us with the tools to solve it.”
Astronomers found that electrons must be the culprits through a process called Compton Scattering. Compton scattering (or the Compton effect) happens when a photon loses or gains energy after interacting with a charged particle, usually an electron. Within jets from supermassive black holes, electrons move near the speed of light. IXPE helped scientists learn that, in the case of a blazar jet, the electrons have enough energy to scatter photons of infrared light up to X-ray wavelengths.
BL Lacertae (BL Lac for short) is one of the first blazars ever discovered, originally thought to be a variable star in the Lacerta constellation. IXPE observed BL Lac at the end of November 2023 for seven days along with several ground-based telescopes measuring optical and radio polarization at the same time. While IXPE observed BL Lac in the past, this observation was special. Coincidentally, during the X-ray polarization observations, the optical polarization of BL Lac reached a high number: 47.5%.
“This was not only the most polarized BL Lac has been in the past 30 years, this is the most polarized any blazar has ever been observed!” said Ioannis Liodakis, one of the primary authors of the study and astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics – FORTH in Greece.
IXPE found the X-rays were far less polarized than the optical light. The team was not able to measure a strong polarization signal and determined that the X-rays cannot be more polarized than 7.6%. This proved that electrons interacting with photons, via the Compton effect, must explain the X-rays.
The fact that optical polarization was so much higher than in the X-rays can only be explained by Compton scattering.
Steven Ehlert
Project Scientist for IXPE at Marshall Space Flight Center
“The fact that optical polarization was so much higher than in the X-rays can only be explained by Compton scattering”, said Steven Ehlert, project scientist for IXPE and astronomer at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
“IXPE has managed to solve another black hole mystery” said Enrico Costa, astrophysicist in Rome at the Istituto di Astrofísica e Planetologia Spaziali of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofísica. Costa is one of the scientists who conceived this experiment and proposed it to NASA 10 years ago, under the leadership of Martin Weisskopf, IXPE’s first principal investigator. “IXPE’s polarized X-ray vision has solved several long lasting mysteries, and this is one of the most important. In some other cases, IXPE results have challenged consolidated opinions and opened new enigmas, but this is how science works and, for sure, IXPE is doing very good science.”
What’s next for the blazar research?
“One thing we’ll want to do is try to find as many of these as possible,” Ehlert said. “Blazars change quite a bit with time and are full of surprises.”
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
Elizabeth Landau
NASA Headquarters
elizabeth.r.landau@nasa.gov
202-358-0845
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
256.544.0034
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Last Updated May 06, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayContactElizabeth R. Landauelizabeth.r.landau@nasa.govLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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Black Holes
Black Holes Black holes are among the most mysterious cosmic objects, much studied but not fully understood. These objects aren’t…
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Researchers with NASA’s Exploration Research and Technology programs conduct molten regolith electrolysis testing inside Swamp Works at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024.NASA/Kim Shiflett As NASA works to establish a long-term presence on the Moon, researchers have reached a breakthrough by extracting oxygen at a commercial scale from simulated lunar soil at Swamp Works at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The achievement moves NASA one step closer to its goal of utilizing resources on the Moon and beyond instead of relying only on supplies shipped from Earth.
NASA Kennedy researchers in the Exploration Research and Technology programs teamed up with Lunar Resources Inc. (LUNAR), a space industrial company in Houston, Texas, to perform molten regolith electrolysis. Researchers used the company’s resource extraction reactor, called LR-1, along with NASA Kennedy’s vacuum chamber. During the recent vacuum chamber testing, molecular oxygen was measured in its pure form along with the production of metals from a batch of dust and rock that simulates lunar soil, often referred to as “regolith,” in the industry.
“This is the first time NASA has produced molecular oxygen using this process,” said Dr. Annie Meier, molten regolith electrolysis project manager at NASA Kennedy. “The process of heating up the reactor is like using an elaborate cooking pot. Once the lid is on, we are essentially watching the gas products come out.”
During testing, the vacuum environment chamber replicated the vacuum pressure of the lunar surface. The extraction reactor heated about 55 pounds (25 kilograms) of simulated regolith up to a temperature of 3100°F (1700°C) until it melted. Researchers then passed an electric current through the molten regolith until oxygen in a gas form was separated from the metals of the soil. They measured and collected the molecular oxygen for further study.
In addition to air for breathing, astronauts could use oxygen from the Moon as a propellant for NASA’s lunar landers and for building essential infrastructure. This practice of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) also decreases the costs of deep space exploration by reducing the number of resupply missions needed from Earth.
Once the process is perfected on Earth, the reactor and its subsystems can be delivered on future missions to the Moon. Lunar rovers, similar to NASA’s ISRU Pilot Excavator, could autonomously gather the regolith to bring back to the reactor system to separate the metals and oxygen.
“Using this unique chemical process can produce the oxidizer, which is half of the propellant mix, and it can create vital metals used in the production of solar panels that in turn could power entire lunar base stations,” said Evan Bell, mechanical structures and mechatronics lead at NASA Kennedy.
Post-test data analysis will help the NASA and LUNAR teams better understand the thermal and chemical function of full-scale molten regolith electrolysis reactors for the lunar surface. The vacuum chamber and reactor also can be upgraded to represent other locations of the lunar environment as well as conditions on Mars for further testing.
Researchers at NASA Kennedy began developing and testing molten regolith electrolysis reactors in the early 1990s. Swamp Works is a hands-on learning environment facility at NASA Kennedy that takes ideas through development and into application to benefit space exploration and everyone living on Earth. From 2019 to 2023, Swamp Works developed an early concept reactor under vacuum conditions named Gaseous Lunar Oxygen from Regolith Electrolysis (GaLORE). Scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston conducted similar testing in 2023, removing carbon monoxide from simulated lunar regolith in a vacuum chamber.
“We always say that Kennedy Space Center is Earth’s premier spaceport, and this breakthrough in molten regolith electrolysis is just another aspect of us being the pioneers in providing spaceport capabilities on the Moon, Mars, and beyond,” Bell said.
NASA’s Exploration Research and Technology programs, related laboratories, and research facilities develop technologies that will enable human deep space exploration. NASA’s Game Changing Development program, managed by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate funded the project.
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