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By NASA
Did you know some of the brightest sources of light in the sky come from the regions around black holes in the centers of galaxies? It sounds a little contradictory, but it’s true! They may not look bright to our eyes, but satellites have spotted oodles of them across the universe.
One of those satellites is NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi has found thousands of these kinds of galaxies since it launched in 2008, and there are many more out there!
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Watch a cosmic gamma-ray fireworks show in this animation using just a year of data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) aboard NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Each object’s magenta circle grows as it brightens and shrinks as it dims. The yellow circle represents the Sun following its apparent annual path across the sky. The animation shows a subset of the LAT gamma-ray records available for more than 1,500 objects in a continually updated repository. Over 90% of these sources are a type of galaxy called a blazar, powered by the activity of a supermassive black hole. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center/Daniel Kocevski Black holes are regions of space that have so much gravity that nothing — not light, not particles, nada — can escape. Most galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers, and these black holes are hundreds of thousands to billions of times the mass of our Sun. In active galactic nuclei (also called “AGN” for short, or just “active galaxies”) the central region is stuffed with gas and dust that’s constantly falling toward the black hole. As the gas and dust fall, they start to spin and form a disk. Because of the friction and other forces at work, the spinning disk starts to heat up.
This composite view of the active galaxy Markarian 573 combines X-ray data (blue) from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and radio observations (purple) from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico with a visible light image (gold) from the Hubble Space Telescope. Markarian 573 is an active galaxy that has two cones of emission streaming away from the supermassive black hole at its center. X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/A.Paggi et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA The disk’s heat gets emitted as light, but not just wavelengths of it that we can see with our eyes. We detect light from AGN across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from the more familiar radio and optical waves through to the more exotic X-rays and gamma rays, which we need special telescopes to spot.
In the heart of an active galaxy, matter falling toward a supermassive black hole creates jets of particles traveling near the speed of light as shown in this artist’s concept. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab About one in 10 AGN beam out jets of energetic particles, which are traveling almost as fast as light. Scientists are studying these jets to try to understand how black holes — which pull everything in with their huge amounts of gravity — somehow provide the energy needed to propel the particles in these jets.
This artist’s concept shows two views of the active galaxy TXS 0128+554, located around 500 million light-years away. Left: The galaxy’s central jets appear as they would if we viewed them both at the same angle. The black hole, embedded in a disk of dust and gas, launches a pair of particle jets traveling at nearly the speed of light. Scientists think gamma rays (magenta) detected by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope originate from the base of these jets. As the jets collide with material surrounding the galaxy, they form identical lobes seen at radio wavelengths (orange). The jets experienced two distinct bouts of activity, which created the gap between the lobes and the black hole. Right: The galaxy appears in its actual orientation, with its jets tipped out of our line of sight by about 50 degrees. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Many of the ways we tell one type of AGN from another depend on how they’re oriented from our point of view. With radio galaxies, for example, we see the jets from the side as they’re beaming vast amounts of energy into space. Then there’s blazars, which are a type of AGN that have a jet that is pointed almost directly at Earth, which makes the AGN particularly bright.
Blazar 3C 279’s historic gamma-ray flare in 2015 can be seen in this image from the Large Area Telescope on NASA’s Fermi satellite. During the flare, the blazar outshone the Vela pulsar, usually the brightest object in the gamma-ray sky. NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration Fermi has been searching the sky for gamma ray sources since 2008. More than half of the sources it has found have been blazars. Gamma rays are useful because they can tell us a lot about how particles accelerate and how they interact with their environment.
So why do we care about AGN? We know that some AGN formed early in the history of the universe. With their enormous power, they almost certainly affected how the universe changed over time. By discovering how AGN work, we can understand better how the universe came to be the way it is now.
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Last Updated Apr 30, 2025 Related Terms
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By USH
Shape-Shifting Materials are advanced, adaptive materials capable of changing their physical form, embedding sensors and circuits directly into their structure, and even storing energy, all without traditional wiring. Lockheed Martin is at the forefront of developing these futuristic materials, raising questions about the possible extraterrestrial origin of this technology.
In a previous article, we discussed why suppressed exotic technologies are suddenly being disclosed. One company that frequently comes up in this conversation is Lockheed Martin, the American defense and aerospace giant known for pushing the boundaries of aviation and space innovation.
Imagine an aircraft that can grow its own skin, embed sensors into its body, store energy without wires, and even shift its shape mid-flight to adapt to changing conditions. This isn’t science fiction anymore, Lockheed Martin’s cutting-edge research is turning these futuristic concepts into reality.
But where is all this coming from?
The rapid development and creativity behind Lockheed Martin’s projects raise intriguing questions. Whistleblowers like David Grusch have recently alleged that Lockheed Martin has had access to recovered UFO materials for decades. Supporting this, Don Phillips, a former Lockheed engineer, confirmed years ago that exotic materials have been held and studied by the company since at least the 1950s.
This suggests that for over half a century, Lockheed has secretly been engaged in researching and reverse-engineering off-world technologies. It's possible that the breakthroughs we’re seeing today are the result of this hidden legacy. Ben Rich, former head of Lockheed’s Skunk Works division, famously hinted at this when he said, "We now have the technology to take ET home."
One particularly stunning development involves "smart" materials that behave almost like muscles, allowing aircraft structures to morph in real-time. These materials enable a craft to fine-tune its aerodynamics on the fly, adjusting instantly to turbulence, speed shifts, or mission-specific demands.
Lockheed’s innovations go even further. By embedding carbon nanotubes, extremely strong and highly conductive microscopic structure, directly into the material, they have created surfaces that can transfer information and power without traditional wiring. In these next-generation aircraft, the "skin" itself acts as the nervous system, the energy grid, and the sensor network all at once.
You can only imagine the kinds of technologies that have been developed over the years through the reverse engineering of exotic materials and recovered extraterrestrial craft. Yet, governments and space agencies remain tight-lipped about the existence of advanced alien civilizations, who likely introduced these techniques to Earth unintentionally.
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By NASA
Explore This Section Perseverance Home Mission Overview Rover Components Mars Rock Samples Where is Perseverance? Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mission Updates Science Overview Objectives Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Perseverance Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 2 min read
Searching for the Dark in the Light
The Perseverance rover acquired this image of the “Hare Bay” abrasion patch using its SHERLOC WATSON camera (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals, and the Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm. This image was acquired on April 18, 2025 (Sol 1479, or Martian day 1,479 of the Mars 2020 mission) at the local mean solar time of 12:53:57. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Eleanor Moreland, Ph.D. Student Collaborator at Rice University
Perseverance has been busy exploring lower “Witch Hazel Hill,” an outcrop exposed on the edge of the Jezero crater rim. The outcrop is composed of alternating light and dark layers, and naturally, the team has been trying to understand the makeup of and relationships between the light and dark layers. A few weeks ago, we sampled one of the light-toned layers, which we discovered was made up of very small clasts, or fragments of rocks or minerals, at “Main River.” Since then, we have learned that the dark layers tend to be composed of larger clasts compared to the light layers, and we’ve been searching for a place to sample this coarser-grained rock type. Sometimes, these coarser-grained rocks also contain spherules, which are of great interest to the science team because they provide clues about the process that formed these layered rocks.
Perseverance first looked at a dark layer at “Puncheon Rock” with an abrasion. We then examined a dark layer at “Wreck Apple,” near “Sally’s Cove,” but we could not identify a suitable surface to abrade. So, while team members searched for other locations to study the coarse-grained units and spherules, Perseverance drove south to “Port Anson.”
Perseverance acquired this image of the “Strong Island” workspace near Port Anson using its onboard Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera A (https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/rover-components/#eyes). This image was acquired on April 12, 2025 (Sol 1473, or Martian day 1,473 of the Mars 2020 mission) at the local mean solar time of 12:50:32. NASA/JPL-Caltech Port Anson was intriguing because, from orbit, it showed a clear contact between the light layers of Witch Hazel Hill and a distinct unit below it. And, although the rocks below the Port Anson contact do show interesting compositional differences with those of Witch Hazel Hill, they weren’t the coarse-grained rocks we were looking for. We still performed an abrasion there, at Strong Island, before driving back up north for another attempt at investigating the coarser-grained rocks.
We aimed for “Pine Pond,” which neighbors “Dennis Pond,” to abrade at “Hare Bay.” With the data just coming down over the weekend, the team will be hard at work to figure out if we captured the coarse grains and spherules, and if it is representative of rocks we have seen before or not. The image below is a close-up of this most recent abrasion patch at Hare Bay — what do you think? Stay tuned to find out!
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Last Updated Apr 25, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
ECF 2024 Quadchart McGuirk.pdf
Christopher McGuirk
Colorado School of Mines
This project will investigate and develop improved storage methods for the fuels needed to generate electrical power in places where sunlight is not available. The effort will focus on particularly tailored materials called Metal Oxide Frameworks, or MOFs, that can be used to store methane and oxygen. The methane and oxygen can be reacted in a solid oxide fuel cell to generate electricity, and storing them in a MOF could potentially result in significant mass and cost savings over traditional storage tanks which also require active pressure and thermal regulation. The team will use a number of computational and experimental tools to develop a MOF structure suitable for this application.
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Last Updated Apr 18, 2025 EditorLoura Hall Related Terms
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Piloted by NASA’s Tim Williams, the ER-2 science aircraft ascends for one of the final science flights for the GSFC Lidar Observation and Validation Experiment (GLOVE) on Feb. 1, 2025. As a collaboration between engineers, scientists, and aircraft professionals, GLOVE aims to improve satellite data products for Earth Science applications. NASA/Steve Freeman In February, NASA’s ER-2 science aircraft flew instruments designed to improve satellite data products and Earth science observations. From data collection to processing, satellite systems continue to advance, and NASA is exploring how instruments analyzing clouds can improve data measurement methods.
Researchers participating in the Goddard Space Flight Center Lidar Observation and Validation Experiment (GLOVE) used the ER-2 – based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California – to validate satellite data about cloud and airborne particles in the Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists are using GLOVE instruments installed onboard the aircraft to measure and validate data about clouds generated by satellite sensors already orbiting in space around Earth.
“The GLOVE data will allow us to test new artificial intelligence algorithms in data processing,” said John Yorks, principal investigator for GLOVE and research physical scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “These algorithms aim to improve the cloud and aerosol detection in data produced by the satellites.”
Jennifer Moore, a researcher from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, checks the cabling on the Roscoe instrument at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, for the GSFC Lidar Observation and Validation Experiment (GLOVE) on Feb. 1, 2025. The Roscoe instrument will be uploaded onto NASA’s ER-2 science aircraft.NASA/Steve Freeman The validation provided by GLOVE is crucial because it ensures the accuracy and reliability of satellite data. “The instruments on the plane provide a higher resolution measurement ‘truth’ to ensure the data is a true representation of the atmospheric scene being sampled,” Yorks said.
The ER-2 flew over various parts of Oregon, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, as well as over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. These regions reflected various types of atmospheres, including cirrus clouds, marine stratocumulus, rain and snow, and areas with multiple types of clouds.
“The goal is to improve satellite data products for Earth science applications,” Yorks said. “These measurements allow scientists and decision-makers to confidently use this satellite information for applications like weather forecasting and hazard monitoring.”
Researcher Jackson Begolka from the University of Iowa examines instrument connectors onboard the ER-2 aircraft at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on Feb. 1, 2025. The GLOVE instrument will validate data from satellites orbiting the Earth.NASA/Steve Freeman The four instruments installed on the ER-2 were the Cloud Physics Lidar, the Roscoe Lidar, the enhanced Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Airborne Simulator, and the Cloud Radar System. These instruments validate data produced by sensors on NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2) and the Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE), a joint venture between the ESA (European Space Agency) and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).
“Additionally, the EarthCARE satellite is flying the first ever Doppler radar for measurements of air motions within clouds,” Yorks said. While the ER-2 is operated by pilots and aircrew from NASA Armstrong, these instruments are supported by scientists from NASA Goddard, NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and the Naval Research Laboratory office in Monterey, California, as well as by students from the University of Iowa in Iowa City and the University of Maryland College Park.
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Last Updated Apr 16, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactErica HeimLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms
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