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Amateur astronomers needed: help classify stars with Gaia's data
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By NASA
Explore This Section Projects Highlights Publications NASA Citizen Scientists Science Activation Resources 2 min read
Amateur Radio Scientists Shine at the 2025 HamSCI Workshop
A collage of Posters from HamSCI’s March workshop. You can read them all online! Love Ham Radio? The HamSCI project fosters collaboration between amateur radio operators and professional researchers. Its goals are to advance scientific research and understanding through amateur radio activities, encourage the development of modern technologies to support this research, and provide educational opportunities for the amateur community and the public.
HamSCI held its annual Workshop, ‘HamSCI’s Big Year’, at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in late March. Over 100 members of the HamSCI community attended: researchers, students (secondary through graduate level), and citizen scientist volunteers. Over the two-day event, in-person and virtual participants experienced twenty-five talks on topics ranging from analysis of HamSCI’s 2023/24 Festivals of Eclipse Ionospheric Science events to space weather observations made during the May 10, 2024 geomagnetic superstorm.
The Workshop hosted a variety of Keynote and Invited Tutorial speakers, including distinguished scientists and leaders in the Amateur (ham) Radio community. The Workshop concluded with a poster session, featuring current research, ongoing educational activities, and concepts for future events involving Sun-space-Earth science topics. Posters were submitted from the US, Brazil, Egypt, the United Kingdom, and Turkey.
Explore the workshop presentations and posters. Videos of conference presentations will be available at the HamSCI website in a few months.
HamSCI is supported by NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) foundation.
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Last Updated May 01, 2025 Related Terms
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Help Classify Galaxies Seen by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope!
The Galaxy Zoo classification interface shows you an image from NASA’s Webb telescope and asks you questions about it. Image credit: Galaxy Zoo, Zooniverse. Inset galaxy: NASA/STScI/CEERS/TACC/S. Finkelstein/M. Bagley/Z. Levay/A. Pagan NASA needs your help identifying the shapes of thousands of galaxies in images taken by our James Webb Space Telescope with the Galaxy Zoo project. These classifications will help scientists answer questions about how the shapes of galaxies have changed over time, what caused these changes, and why. Thanks to the light collecting power of Webb, there are now over 500,000 images of galaxies on website of the Galaxy Zoo citizen science project—more images than scientists can classify by themselves.
“This is a great opportunity to see images from the newest space telescope,” said volunteer Christine Macmillan from Aberdeen, Scotland. “Galaxies at the edge of our universe are being seen for the first time, just as they are starting to form. Just sign up and answer simple questions about the shape of the galaxy that you are seeing. Anyone can do it, ages 10 and up!”
As we look at more distant objects in the universe, we see them as they were billions of years ago because light takes time to travel to us. With Webb, we can spot galaxies at greater distances than ever before. We’re seeing what some of the earliest galaxies ever detected look like, for the first time. The shapes of these galaxies tell us about how they were born, how and when they formed stars, and how they interacted with their neighbors. By looking at how more distant galaxies have different shapes than close galaxies, we can work out which processes were more common at different times in the universe’s history.
At Galaxy Zoo, you’ll first examine an image from the Webb telescope. Then you will be asked several questions, such as ‘Is the galaxy round?’, or ‘Are there signs of spiral arms?’. If you’re quick, you may even be the first person to see the galaxies you’re asked to classify.
“I’m amazed and honored to be one of the first people to actually see these images! What a privilege!” said volunteer Elisabeth Baeten from Leuven, Belgium.
Galaxy Zoo is a citizen science project with a long history of scientific impact. Galaxy Zoo volunteers have been exploring deep space since July 2007, starting with a million galaxies from a telescope in New Mexico called the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and then, moving on to images from space telescopes like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and ESA (European Space Agency)’s Euclid telescope. The project has revealed spectacular mergers, taught us about how the black holes at the center of galaxies affect their hosts, and provided insight into how features like spiral arms form and grow.
Now, in addition to adding new data from Webb, the science team has incorporated an AI algorithm called ZooBot, which will sift through the images first and label the ‘easier ones’ where there are many examples that already exist in previous images from the Hubble Space Telescope. When ZooBot is not confident on the classification of a galaxy, perhaps due to complex or faint structures, it will show it to users on Galaxy Zoo to get their human classifications, which will then help ZooBot learn more. Working together, humans and AI can accurately classify limitless numbers of galaxies. The Galaxy Zoo science team acknowledges support from the International Space Sciences Institute (ISSI), who provided funding for the team to get together and work on Galaxy Zoo. Join the project now.
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Last Updated Apr 29, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
This artist’s concept depicts a magnetar – a type of neutron star with a strong magnetic field – losing material into space. Shown as thin green lines, the magnetic field lines influence the movement of charged material around the magnetar. NASA/JPL-Caltech Since the big bang, the early universe had hydrogen, helium, and a scant amount of lithium. Later, some heavier elements, including iron, were forged in stars. But one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics is: How did the first elements heavier than iron, such as gold, get created and distributed throughout the universe?
“It’s a pretty fundamental question in terms of the origin of complex matter in the universe,” said Anirudh Patel, a doctoral student at Columbia University in New York. “It’s a fun puzzle that hasn’t actually been solved.”
Patel led a study using 20-year-old archival data from NASA and ESA telescopes that finds evidence for a surprising source of a large amount of these heavy elements: flares from highly magnetized neutron stars, called magnetars. The study is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Study authors estimate that magnetar giant flares could contribute up to 10% of the total abundance of elements heavier than iron in the galaxy. Since magnetars existed relatively early in the history of the universe, the first gold could have been made this way.
“It’s answering one of the questions of the century and solving a mystery using archival data that had been nearly forgotten,” said Eric Burns, study co-author and astrophysicist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
How could gold be made at a magnetar?
Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of stars that have exploded. They are so dense that one teaspoon of neutron star material, on Earth, would weigh as much as a billion tons. A magnetar is a neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field.
On rare occasions, magnetars release an enormous amount of high-energy radiation when they undergo “starquakes,” which, like earthquakes, fracture the neutron star’s crust. Starquakes may also be associated with powerful bursts of radiation called magnetar giant flares, which can even affect Earth’s atmosphere. Only three magnetar giant flares have been observed in the Milky Way and the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, and seven outside.
Patel and colleagues, including his advisor Brian Metzger, professor at Columbia University and senior research scientist at the Flatiron Institute in New York, have been thinking about how radiation from giant flares could correspond to heavy elements forming there. This would happen through a “rapid process” of neutrons forging lighter atomic nuclei into heavier ones.
Protons define the element’s identity on the periodic table: hydrogen has one proton, helium has two, lithium has three, and so on. Atoms also have neutrons which do not affect identity, but do add mass. Sometimes when an atom captures an extra neutron the atom becomes unstable and a nuclear decay process happens that converts a neutron into a proton, moving the atom forward on the periodic table. This is how, for example, a gold atom could take on an extra neutron and then transform into mercury.
In the unique environment of a disrupted neutron star, in which the density of neutrons is extremely high, something even stranger happens: single atoms can rapidly capture so many neutrons that they undergo multiple decays, leading to the creation of a much heavier element like uranium.
When astronomers observed the collision of two neutron stars in 2017 using NASA telescopes and the Laser Interferomete Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO), and numerous telescopes on the ground and in space that followed up the initial discovery, they confirmed that this event could have created gold, platinum, and other heavy elements. But neutron star mergers happen too late in the universe’s history to explain the earliest gold and other heavy elements. Recent research by co-authors of the new study — Jakub Cehula of Charles University in Prague, Todd Thompson of The Ohio State University, and Metzger — has found that magnetar flares can heat and eject neutron star crustal material at high speeds, making them a potential source.
A rupture in the crust of a highly magnetized neutron star, shown here in an artist’s rendering, can trigger high-energy eruptions. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/S. Wiessinger New clues in old data
At first, Metzger and colleagues thought that the signature from the creation and distribution of heavy elements at a magnetar would appear in the visible and ultraviolet light, and published their predictions. But Burns in Louisiana wondered if there could be a gamma-ray signal bright enough to be detected, too. He asked Metzger and Patel to check, and they found that there could be such a signature.
“At some point, we said, ‘OK, we should ask the observers if they had seen any,’” Metzger said.
Burns looked up the gamma ray data from the last giant flare that has been observed, which was in December 2004. He realized that while scientists had explained the beginning of the outburst, they had also identified a smaller signal from the magnetar, in data from ESA (European Space Agency)’s INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), a recently retired mission with NASA contributions. “It was noted at the time, but nobody had any conception of what it could be,” Burns said.
Metzger remembers that Burns thought he and Patel were “pulling his leg” because the prediction from their team’s model so closely matched the mystery signal in the 2004 data. In other words, the gamma ray signal detected over 20 years ago corresponded to what it should look like when heavy elements are created and then distributed in a magnetar giant flare.
Patel was so excited, “I wasn’t thinking about anything else for the next week or two. It was the only thing on my mind,” he said.
Researchers supported their conclusion using data from two NASA heliophysics missions: the retired RHESSI (Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager) and the ongoing NASA’s Wind satellite, which had also observed the magnetar giant flare. Other collaborators on the new study included Jared Goldberg at the Flatiron Institute.
Next steps in the magnetar gold rush
NASA’s forthcoming COSI (Compton Spectrometer and Imager) mission can follow up on these results. A wide-field gamma ray telescope, COSI is expected to launch in 2027 and will study energetic phenomena in the cosmos, such as magnetar giant flares. COSI will be able to identify individual elements created in these events, providing a new advancement in understanding the origin of the elements. It is one of many telescopes that can work together to look for “transient” changes across the universe.
Researchers will also follow up on other archival data to see if other secrets are hiding in observations of other magnetar giant flares.
“It very cool to think about how some of the stuff in my phone or my laptop was forged in this extreme explosion of the course of our galaxy’s history,” Patel said.
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By NASA
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s AVIRIS-3 airborne imaging spectrometer was used to map a wildfire near Cas-tleberry, Alabama, on March 19. Within minutes, the image was transmitted to firefighters on the ground, who used it to contain the blaze. NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA Earth Observatory The map visualizes three wavelengths of infrared light, which are invisible to the human eye. Orange and red areas show cooler-burning areas, while yellow indicates the most intense flames. Burned areas show up as dark red or brown.NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA Earth Observatory Data from the AVIRIS-3 sensor was recently used to create detailed fire maps in minutes, enabling firefighters in Alabama to limit the spread of wildfires and save buildings.
A NASA sensor recently brought a new approach to battling wildfire, providing real-time data that helped firefighters in the field contain a blaze in Alabama. Called AVIRIS-3, which is short for Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer 3, the instrument detected a 120-acre fire on March 19 that had not yet been reported to officials.
As AVIRIS-3 flew aboard a King Air B200 research plane over the fire about 3 miles (5 kilometers) east of Castleberry, Alabama, a scientist on the plane analyzed the data in real time and identified where the blaze was burning most intensely. The information was then sent via satellite internet to fire officials and researchers on the ground, who distributed images showing the fire’s perimeter to firefighters’ phones in the field.
All told, the process from detection during the flyover to alert on handheld devices took a few minutes. In addition to pinpointing the location and extent of the fire, the data showed firefighters its perimeter, helping them gauge whether it was likely to spread and decide where to add personnel and equipment.
As firefighters worked to prevent a wildfire near Perdido, Alabama, from reaching nearby buildings, they saw in an infrared fire map from NASA’s AVIRIS-3 sensor that showed the fire’s hot spot was inside its perimeter. With that intelligence, they shifted some resources to fires in nearby Mount Vernon.NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA Earth Observatory “This is very agile science,” said Robert Green, the AVIRIS program’s principal investigator and a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, noting AVIRIS-3 mapped the burn scar left near JPL by the Eaton Fire in January.
Observing the ground from about 9,000 feet (3,000 meters) in altitude, AVIRIS-3 flew aboard several test flights over Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas for a NASA 2025 FireSense Airborne Campaign. Researchers flew in the second half of March to prepare for prescribed burn experiments that took place in the Geneva State Forest in Alabama on March 28 and at Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia from April 14 to 20. During the March span, the AVIRIS-3 team mapped at least 13 wildfires and prescribed burns, as well as dozens of small hot spots (places where heat is especially intense) — all in real time.
At one of the Mount Vernon, Alabama, fires, firefighters used AVIRIS-3 maps to determine where to establish fire breaks beyond the northwestern end of the fire. They ultimately cut the blaze off within about 100 feet (30 meters) of four buildings.NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA Earth Observatory Data from imaging spectrometers like AVIRIS-3 typically takes days or weeks to be processed into highly detailed, multilayer image products used for research. By simplifying the calibration algorithms, researchers were able to process data on a computer aboard the plane in a fraction of the time it otherwise would have taken. Airborne satellite internet connectivity enabled the images to be distributed almost immediately, while the plane was still in flight, rather than after it landed.
The AVIRIS team generated its first real-time products during a February campaign covering parts of Panama and Costa Rica, and they have continued to improve the process, automating the mapping steps aboard the plane.
‘Fan Favorite’
The AVIRIS-3 sensor belongs to a line of imaging spectrometers built at JPL since 1986. The instruments have been used to study a wide range of phenomena — including fire — by measuring sunlight reflecting from the planet’s surface.
During the March flights, researchers created three types of maps. One, called the Fire Quicklook, combines brightness measurements at three wavelengths of infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye, to identify the relative intensity of burning. Orange and red areas on the Fire Quicklook map show cooler-burning areas, while yellow indicates the most intense flames. Previously burned areas show up as dark red or brown.
Another map type, the Fire 2400 nm Quicklook, looks solely at infrared light at a wavelength of 2,400 nanometers. The images are particularly useful for seeing hot spots and the perimeters of fires, which show brightly against a red background.
A third type of map, called just Quicklook, shows burned areas and smoke.
The Fire 2400 nm Quicklook was the “fan favorite” among the fire crews, said Ethan Barrett, fire analyst for the Forest Protection Division of the Alabama Forestry Commission. Seeing the outline of a wildfire from above helped Alabama Forestry Commission firefighters determine where to send bulldozers to stop the spread.
Additionally, FireSense personnel analyzed the AVIRIS-3 imagery to create digitized perimeters of the fires. This provided firefighters fast, comprehensive intelligence of the situation on the ground.
That’s what happened with the Castleberry Fire. Having a clear picture of where it was burning most intensely enabled firefighters to focus on where they could make a difference — on the northeastern edge.
Then, two days after identifying Castleberry Fire hot spots, the sensor spotted a fire about 4 miles (2.5 kilometers) southwest of Perdido, Alabama. As forestry officials worked to prevent flames from reaching six nearby buildings, they noticed that the fire’s main hot spot was inside the perimeter and contained. With that intelligence, they decided to shift some resources to fires 25 miles (40 kilometers) away near Mount Vernon, Alabama.
To combat one of the Mount Vernon fires, crews used AVIRIS-3 maps to determine where to establish fire breaks beyond the northwestern end of the fire. They ultimately cut the blaze off within about 100 feet (30 meters) of four buildings.
“Fire moves a lot faster than a bulldozer, so we have to try to get around it before it overtakes us. These maps show us the hot spots,” Barrett said. “When I get out of the truck, I can say, ‘OK, here’s the perimeter.’ That puts me light-years ahead.”
AVIRIS and the Firesense Airborne Campaign are part of NASA’s work to leverage its expertise to combat wildfires using solutions including airborne technologies. The agency also recently demonstrated a prototype from its Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations project that will provide reliable airspace management for drones and other aircraft operating in the air above wildfires.
NASA Helps Spot Wine Grape Disease From Skies Above California News Media Contacts
Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Apr 23, 2025 Related Terms
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