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6 Min Read NASA’s Chandra Shares a New View of Our Galactic Neighbor
The Andromeda galaxy, also known as Messier 31 (M31), is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way at a distance of about 2.5 million light-years. Astronomers use Andromeda to understand the structure and evolution of our own spiral, which is much harder to do since Earth is embedded inside the Milky Way.
The galaxy M31 has played an important role in many aspects of astrophysics, but particularly in the discovery of dark matter. In the 1960s, astronomer Vera Rubin and her colleagues studied M31 and determined that there was some unseen matter in the galaxy that was affecting how the galaxy and its spiral arms rotated. This unknown material was named “dark matter.” Its nature remains one of the biggest open questions in astrophysics today, one which NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is designed to help answer.
X-ray: NASA/CXO/UMass/Z. Li & Q.D. Wang, ESA/XMM-Newton; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE, Spitzer, NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Gordon (U. Az), ESA/Herschel, ESA/Planck, NASA/IRAS, NASA/COBE; Radio: NSF/GBT/WSRT/IRAM/C. Clark (STScI); Ultraviolet: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GALEX; Optical: Andromeda, Unexpected © Marcel Drechsler, Xavier Strottner, Yann Sainty & J. Sahner, T. Kottary. Composite image processing: L. Frattare, K. Arcand, J.Major This new composite image contains data of M31 taken by some of the world’s most powerful telescopes in different kinds of light. This image includes X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) XMM-Newton (represented in red, green, and blue); ultraviolet data from NASA’s retired GALEX (blue); optical data from astrophotographers using ground based telescopes (Jakob Sahner and Tarun Kottary); infrared data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, the Infrared Astronomy Satellite, COBE, Planck, and Herschel (red, orange, and purple); and radio data from the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (red-orange).
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) in Different Types of Light.X-ray: NASA/CXO/UMass/Z. Li & Q.D. Wang, ESA/XMM-Newton; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE, Spitzer, NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Gordon (U. Az), ESA/Herschel, ESA/Planck, NASA/IRAS, NASA/COBE; Radio: NSF/GBT/WSRT/IRAM/C. Clark (STScI); Ultraviolet: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GALEX; Optical: Andromeda, Unexpected © Marcel Drechsler, Xavier Strottner, Yann Sainty & J. Sahner, T. Kottary. Composite image processing: L. Frattare, K. Arcand, J.Major Each type of light reveals new information about this close galactic relative to the Milky Way. For example, Chandra’s X-rays reveal the high-energy radiation around the supermassive black hole at the center of M31 as well as many other smaller compact and dense objects strewn across the galaxy. A recent paper about Chandra observations of M31 discusses the amount of X-rays produced by the supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy over the last 15 years. One flare was observed in 2013, which appears to represent an amplification of the typical X-rays seen from the black hole.
These multi-wavelength datasets are also being released as a sonification, which includes the same wavelengths of data in the new composite. In the sonification, the layer from each telescope has been separated out and rotated so that they stack on top of each other horizontally, beginning with X-rays at the top and then moving through ultraviolet, optical, infrared, and radio at the bottom. As the scan moves from left to right in the sonification, each type of light is mapped to a different range of notes, from lower-energy radio waves up through the high energy of X-rays. Meanwhile, the brightness of each source controls volume, and the vertical location dictates the pitch.
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In this sonification of M31, the layers from each telescope has been separated out and rotated so that they stack on top of each other horizontally beginning with X-rays at the top and then moving through ultraviolet, optical, infrared, and radio at the bottom. As the scan moves from left to right in the sonification, each type of light is mapped to a different range of notes ranging from lower-energy radio waves up through the high-energy of X-rays. Meanwhile, the brightness of each source controls volume and the vertical location dictates the pitch.NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida This new image of M31 is released in tribute to the groundbreaking legacy of Dr. Vera Rubin, whose observations transformed our understanding of the universe. Rubin’s meticulous measurements of Andromeda’s rotation curve provided some of the earliest and most convincing evidence that galaxies are embedded in massive halos of invisible material — what we now call dark matter. Her work challenged long-held assumptions and catalyzed a new era of research into the composition and dynamics of the cosmos. In recognition of her profound scientific contributions, the United States Mint has recently released a quarter in 2025 featuring Rubin as part of its American Women Quarters Program — making her the first astronomer honored in the series.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
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 several images and a sonification video examining the Andromeda galaxy, our closest spiral galaxy neighbor. This collection helps astronomers understand the evolution of the Milky Way, our own spiral galaxy, and provides a fascinating insight into astronomical data gathering and presentation.
Like all spiral galaxies viewed at this distance and angle, Andromeda appears relatively flat. Its spiraling arms circle around a bright core, creating a disk shape, like a large dinner plate. In most of the images in this collection, Andromeda’s flat surface is tilted to face our upper left.
This collection features data from some of the world’s most powerful telescopes, each capturing light in a different spectrum. In each single-spectrum image, Andromeda has a similar shape and orientation, but the colors and details are dramatically different.
In radio waves, the spiraling arms appear red and orange, like a burning, loosely coiled rope. The center appears black, with no core discernible. In infrared light, the outer arms are similarly fiery. Here, a white spiraling ring encircles a blue center with a small golden core. The optical image is hazy and grey, with spiraling arms like faded smoke rings. Here, the blackness of space is dotted with specks of light, and a small bright dot glows at the core of the galaxy. In ultraviolet light the spiraling arms are icy blue and white, with a hazy white ball at the core. No spiral arms are present in the X-ray image, making the bright golden core and nearby stars clear and easy to study.
In this release, the single-spectrum images are presented side by side for easy comparison. They are also combined into a composite image. In the composite, Andromeda’s spiraling arms are the color of red wine near the outer edges, and lavender near the center. The core is large and bright, surrounded by a cluster of bright blue and green specks. Other small flecks in a variety of colors dot the galaxy, and the blackness of space surrounding it.
This release also features a thirty second video, which sonifies the collected data. In the video, the single-spectrum images are stacked vertically, one atop the other. As the video plays, an activation line sweeps across the stacked images from left to right. Musical notes ring out when the line encounters light. The lower the wavelength energy, the lower the pitches of the notes. The brighter the source, the louder the volume.
News Media Contact
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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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lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jun 25, 2025 EditorLee MohonContactLane Figueroa Related Terms
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NASA-Assisted Scientists Get Bird’s-Eye View of Population Status
Through the eBird citizen scientist program, millions of birders have recorded their observations of different species and submitted checklists to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Through a partnership with NASA, the lab has now used this data to model and map bird population trends for nearly 500 North American species.
Led by Alison Johnston of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, the researchers reported that 75% of bird species in the study are declining at wide-range scales. And yet this study has some good news for birds. The results, published in Science in May, offer insights and projections that could shape the future conservation of the places where birds make their homes.
“This project demonstrates the power of merging in situ data with NASA remote sensing to model biological phenomena that were previously impossible to document,” said Keith Gaddis, NASA’s Biological Diversity and Ecological Forecasting program manager at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, who was not involved in the study. “This data provides not just insight into the Earth system but also provides actionable guidance to land managers to mitigate biodiversity loss.”
Rock wren in Joshua Tree National Park. National Park Service / Jane Gamble A team from Cornell, the University of St. Andrews, and the American Bird Conservancy used land imaging data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments to distinguish among such specific bird habitats as open forests, dense shrublands, herbaceous croplands, and forest/cropland mosaics. They also drew on NASA weather information and water data that matched the dates and times when birders made their reports.
When combined with a 14-year set of eBird checklists — 36 million sets of species observations and counts, keyed directly to habitats — the satellite data gave researchers almost a strong foundation to produce a clear picture of the health of bird populations. But there was one missing piece.
Wrestling with Wren Data
While some eBird checklists come from expert birders who’ve hiked deep into wildlife preserves, others are sent in by novices watching bird feeders and doing the dishes. This creates what Cornell statistician Daniel Fink described as “an unstructured, very noisy data set,” complete with gaps in the landscape that birders did not reach and, ultimately, some missing birds.
To account for gaps where birds weren’t counted, the researchers trained machine learning models to fill in the maps based on the remote sensing data. “For every single species — say the rock wren — we’ve created a simulation that mimics the species and a variety of ways that it could respond to changes in the environment,” Johnston said. “Thousands of simulations underlie the results we showed.”
CornellLab eBird The researchers achieved unprecedented resolution, zeroing in on areas 12 miles by 12 miles (27 km by 27 km), the same area as Portland, Oregon. This new population counting method can also be applied to eBird data from other locations, Fink said. “Now we’re using modeling to track bird populations — not seasonally through the year, but acrossthe years — a major milestone,” he added.
“We’ve been able to take citizen science data and, through machine learning methodology, put it on the same footing as traditionally structured surveys, in terms of the type of signal we can find,” said Cornell science product manager Tom Auer. “It will increase the credibility and confidence of people who use this information for precise conservation all over the globe.”
The Up Side
Since 1970, North America has lost one-quarter of its breeding birds, following a global trend of declines across species. The causes range from increased pollution and land development to changing climate and decreased food resources. Efforts to reverse this loss depend on identifying the areas where birds live at highest risk, assessing their populations, and pinpointing locations where conservation could help most.
For 83% of the reported species in the new study, the decline was greatest in spots where populations had previously been most abundant — indicating problems with the habitat.
“Even in species where populations are declining a lot, there are still places of hope, where the populations are going up,” Johnston said. The team found population increases in the maps of 97% of the reported species. “That demonstrates that there’s opportunity for those species.”
“Birds face so many challenges,” said Cornell conservationist Amanda Rodewald. “This research will help us make strategic decisions about making changes that are precise, effective, and less costly. This is transformative. Now we can really drill in and know where specifically we’re going to be able to have the most positive impact in trying to stem bird declines.”
By Karen Romano Young
NASA Headquarters, Washington
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Sols 4547-4548: Taking in the View After a Long Drive
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on May 21, 2025 — Sol 4546, or Martian day 4,546 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 05:05:33 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University
Earth planning date: Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Monday’s single-sol plan included a marathon 45-meter drive (about 148 feet), which put us in position for two full sols of imaging. This means both sols have what we call “targeted” science blocks, in which we have images of the workspace down from the last plan and can carefully choose what we want to take a closer look at. This always means a lot of good discussion amongst the geology and mineralogy theme group (GEO) about what deserves this closer look. As an outsider on the environmental theme group (ENV), I don’t always grasp the complexities of these discussions, but it’s always interesting to see what GEO is up to and to learn new things about the geology of Mount Sharp.
GEO ended up picking “Big Bear Lake” as our contact science target, which is getting its typical treatment from APXS and MAHLI, as well as a LIBS observation from ChemCam. Aside from that there was plenty of room for remote sensing. ChemCam is also taking a LIBS observation of “Volcan Mountains” and a long-distance mosaic of the Texoli butte. Mastcam is also taking mosaics of a nearby trough, as well as two depressions known as “Sulphur Spring,” a more distant boxwork structure, and the very distant Mishe Mokwa butte.
All of ENV’s activities are remote sensing, and we managed to squeeze in a few of those too. We have a couple dust monitoring observations, looking for dust devils and checking the amount of dust in the atmosphere. And since we’re still in the cloudy season we always try to make room for cloud observations. Today that meant a suraphorizon movie looking for clouds just above the horizon to the south, and a phase function sky survey, which captures clouds all around the rover, to try to understand how these clouds scatter sunlight.
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Sunlight reflects off the ocean surface near Norfolk, Virginia, in this 1991 space shuttle image, highlighting swirling patterns created by features such as internal waves, which are produced when the tide moves over underwater features. Data from the international SWOT mission is revealing the role of smaller-scale waves and eddies.NASA The international mission collects two-dimensional views of smaller waves and currents that are bringing into focus the ocean’s role in supporting life on Earth.
Small things matter, at least when it comes to ocean features like waves and eddies. A recent NASA-led analysis using data from the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite found that ocean features as small as a mile across potentially have a larger impact on the movement of nutrients and heat in marine ecosystems than previously thought.
Too small to see well with previous satellites but too large to see in their entirety with ship-based instruments, these relatively small ocean features fall into a category known as the submesoscale. The SWOT satellite, a joint effort between NASA and the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), can observe these features and is demonstrating just how important they are, driving much of the vertical transport of things like nutrients, carbon, energy, and heat within the ocean. They also influence the exchange of gases and energy between the ocean and atmosphere.
“The role that submesoscale features play in ocean dynamics is what makes them important,” said Matthew Archer, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Some of these features are called out in the animation below, which was created using SWOT sea surface height data.
This animation shows small ocean features — including internal waves and eddies — derived from SWOT observations in the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans, as well as the Mediterranean Sea. White and lighter blue represent higher ocean surface heights compared to darker blue areas. The purple colors shown in one location represent ocean current speeds.
NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio “Vertical currents move heat between the atmosphere and ocean, and in submesoscale eddies, can actually bring up heat from the deep ocean to the surface, warming the atmosphere,” added Archer, who is a coauthor on the submesoscale analysis published in April in the journal Nature. Vertical circulation can also bring up nutrients from the deep sea, supplying marine food webs in surface waters like a steady stream of food trucks supplying festivalgoers.
“Not only can we see the surface of the ocean at 10 times the resolution of before, we can also infer how water and materials are moving at depth,” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, SWOT program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Fundamental Force
Researchers have known about these smaller eddies, or circular currents, and waves for decades. From space, Apollo astronauts first spotted sunlight glinting off small-scale eddies about 50 years ago. And through the years, satellites have captured images of submesoscale ocean features, providing limited information such as their presence and size. Ship-based sensors or instruments dropped into the ocean have yielded a more detailed view of submesoscale features, but only for relatively small areas of the ocean and for short periods of time.
The SWOT satellite measures the height of water on nearly all of Earth’s surface, including the ocean and freshwater bodies, at least once every 21 days. The satellite gives researchers a multidimensional view of water levels, which they can use to calculate, for instance, the slope of a wave or eddy. This in turn yields information on the amount of pressure, or force, being applied to the water in the feature. From there, researchers can figure out how fast a current is moving, what’s driving it and —combined with other types of information — how much energy, heat, or nutrients those currents are transporting.
“Force is the fundamental quantity driving fluid motion,” said study coauthor Jinbo Wang, an oceanographer at Texas A&M University in College Station. Once that quantity is known, a researcher can better understand how the ocean interacts with the atmosphere, as well as how changes in one affect the other.
Prime Numbers
Not only was SWOT able to spot a submesoscale eddy in an offshoot of the Kuroshio Current — a major current in the western Pacific Ocean that flows past the southeast coast of Japan — but researchers were also able to estimate the speed of the vertical circulation within that eddy. When SWOT observed the feature, the vertical circulation was likely 20 to 45 feet (6 to 14 meters) per day.
This is a comparatively small amount for vertical transport. However, the ability to make those calculations for eddies around the world, made possible by SWOT, will improve researchers’ understanding of how much energy, heat, and nutrients move between surface waters and the deep sea.
Researchers can do similar calculations for such submesoscale features as an internal solitary wave — a wave driven by forces like the tide sloshing over an underwater plateau. The SWOT satellite spotted an internal wave in the Andaman Sea, located in the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean off Myanmar. Archer and colleagues calculated that the energy contained in that solitary wave was at least twice the amount of energy in a typical internal tide in that region.
This kind of information from SWOT helps researchers refine their models of ocean circulation. A lot of ocean models were trained to show large features, like eddies hundreds of miles across, said Lee Fu, SWOT project scientist at JPL and a study coauthor. “Now they have to learn to model these smaller scale features. That’s what SWOT data is helping with.”
Researchers have already started to incorporate SWOT ocean data into some models, including NASA’s ECCO (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean). It may take some time until SWOT data is fully a part of models like ECCO. But once it is, the information will help researchers better understand how the ocean ecosystem will react to a changing world.
More About SWOT
The SWOT satellite was jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. Managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the Ka-band radar interferometer (KaRIn) instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. The Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform, and ground operations were provided by CNES. The KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly was provided by CSA.
To learn more about SWOT, visit:
https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov
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Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
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Last Updated May 15, 2025 Related Terms
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Quantum Sensing via Matter-Wave Interferometry Aboard the International Space Station
Future space missions could use quantum technologies to help us understand the physical laws that govern the universe, explore the composition of other planets and their moons, gain insights into unexplained cosmological phenomena, or monitor ice sheet thickness and the amount of water in underground aquafers on Earth.
Upgraded hardware being prepared at Jet Propulsion Lab for launch and install into the Cold Atom Lab on the International Space Station. The Science Module in the background enables CAL researchers to conduct atom interferometry research in Earth’s orbit. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Cold Atom Lab (CAL), a first-of-its-kind facility aboard the International Space Station, has performed a series of trailblazing experiments based on the quantum properties of ultracold atoms. The tool used to perform these experiments is called an atom interferometer, and it can precisely measure gravity, magnetic fields, and other forces.
Atom interferometers are currently being used on Earth to study the fundamental nature of gravity and are also being developed to aid aircraft and ship navigation, but use of an atom interferometer in space will enable innovative science capabilities.
Physicists have been eager to apply atom interferometry in space, both to enable new measurements for space science and to capitalize on the extended free-fall conditions found in space. This could enable researchers to achieve unprecedented performance from these quantum sensors.
These interferometers, however, require exquisitely sensitive equipment, and they were previously considered too fragile to function for extended periods without hands-on attention. The Cold Atom Lab, which is operated remotely from Earth, has now demonstrated that it is possible to conduct atom interferometry in space. The CAL Science Team has published two papers so far documenting these experimental milestones.
Depiction of the atom interferometer (AI) setup onboard the ISS in CAL (on the right), showing the interior components of the instrument, and the path of a retro-reflected laser beam (red) inside the vacuum system. The expanded image on the left shows the beam entering the vacuum chamber through a window and between pairs of traces on the atom chip, which are used to confine and cool the atoms to ultracold temperatures. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The results of the first study, published in the November 2023 issue of Nature, described the demonstration of simultaneous atom interferometry with both rubidium and potassium quantum gases for the first time in space. The dual-species atom interferometer not only exhibited robust and repeatable operation of atom interferometry in Earth orbit, but it also served as a pathfinder for future experiments that aim to use quantum gases to test the universality of free fall, a key tenet of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
In the second study, the results of which were featured in the August 2024 issue of Nature Communications, members of the science team used the CAL atom interferometer to measure subtle vibrations of the space station and to remotely measure the frequency of the atom interferometer laser— the first time ultra-cold atoms have been used to detect changes in the surrounding environment in space. This paper also reported on the demonstration of the wave-like nature of matter persisting for the longest ever freefall time (over a tenth of a second) in space.
“Reaching these milestones was incredibly challenging, and our success was not always a given,” said Jason Williams, the Cold Atom Lab project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It took dedication and a sense of adventure by the team to make this happen.”
Space-based sensors that can measure gravity with high precision have a wide range of potential applications. They could reveal the composition of planets and moons in our solar system, because different materials have different densities that create subtle variations in gravity.
The U.S.-German GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-on) mission is currently collecting gravity measurements using classical sensors that detect slight changes in gravity to track the movement of water and ice on Earth. A future mission using atom interferometry could provide better precision and stability, revealing even more detail about surface mass changes.
Precise measurements of gravity could also offer insights into the nature of dark matter and dark energy, two major cosmological mysteries. Dark matter is an invisible substance that makes up about 27% of the universe, while the “regular” matter that composes planets, stars, and everything else we can see makes up only 5%. Dark energy makes up the remaining 68% of the universe and is the driver of the universe’s accelerating expansion.
“Atom interferometry could also be used to test Einstein’s theory of general relativity in new ways,” said University of Virginia professor Cass Sackett, a Cold Atom Lab principal investigator. “This is the basic theory explaining the large-scale structure of our universe, and we know that there are aspects of the theory that we don’t understand correctly. This technology may help us fill in those gaps and give us a more complete picture of the reality we inhabit.”
About the size of a minifridge, the Cold Atom Lab launched to the space station in 2018 with the goal of advancing quantum science by placing a long-term facility in the microgravity environment of low Earth orbit. The lab cools atoms to almost absolute zero, or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273 degrees Celsius). At this temperature, some atoms can form a Bose-Einstein condensate, a state of matter in which all atoms essentially share the same quantum identity. As a result, some of the atoms’ typically microscopic quantum properties become macroscopic, making them easier to study.
Quantum properties can sometimes cause atoms to act like solid objects and sometimes like waves. Scientists don’t yet entirely understand how the building blocks of matter can transition between such different physical behaviors, but they’re using quantum technology like what’s available on the Cold Atom Lab to seek answers.
In microgravity, Bose-Einstein condensates can reach colder temperatures and can exist for longer, giving scientists more opportunities to study them. The atom interferometer is among several tools in the CAL facility enabling precision measurements by harnessing the quantum nature of atoms.
Dual-species atom interferometry in space. (Left) Normalized population for ultracold gases of potassium (blue) and rubidium (red) in one of two output states following a simultaneous dual-species atom interferometry sequence. (Right) Correlations observed in the relative population of potassium and rubidium output states. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Due to its wave-like behavior, a single atom can simultaneously travel two physically separate paths. If gravity or other forces are acting on those waves, scientists can measure that influence by observing how the waves recombine and interact.
“I expect that space-based atom interferometry will lead to exciting new discoveries, fantastic quantum technologies impacting everyday life, and will transport us into a quantum future,” said Nick Bigelow, a professor at University of Rochester in New York and Cold Atom Lab principal investigator for a consortium of U.S. and German scientists who co-authored the studies cited above.
Designed and built at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Cold Atom Lab is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the Agency’s headquarters in Washington DC and the International Space Station Program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The work carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, was executed under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Learn more about Cold Atom Lab at https://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/
Just how cold are the atoms in Cold Atom Lab? Find out at https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7311
To learn more about the Cold Atom Lab’s recent upgrades visit https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/upgrading-the-space-stations-cold-atom-lab-with-mixed-reality and https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7660
Project Lead: Kamal Oudrhiri, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Sponsoring Organization: Biological and Physical Sciences Division (BPS)
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Last Updated May 06, 2025 Related Terms
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