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ESA’s Euclid lifts off on quest to unravel the cosmic mystery of dark matter and dark energy
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By NASA
This artist’s concept shows how the universe might have looked when it was less than a billion years old, about 7 percent of its current age. Star formation voraciously consumed primordial hydrogen, churning out myriad stars at an unprecedented rate. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will peer back to the universe’s early stages to understand how it transitioned from being opaque to the brilliant starscape we see today.NASA, ESA, and A. Schaller (for STScI) 0:00 / 0:00
Your browser does not support the audio element. Today, enormous stretches of space are crystal clear, but that wasn’t always the case. During its infancy, the universe was filled with a “fog” that made it opaque, cloaking the first stars and galaxies. NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will probe the universe’s subsequent transition to the brilliant starscape we see today –– an era known as cosmic dawn.
“Something very fundamental about the nature of the universe changed during this time,” said Michelle Thaller, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Thanks to Roman’s large, sharp infrared view, we may finally figure out what happened during a critical cosmic turning point.”
Lights Out, Lights On
Shortly after its birth, the cosmos was a blistering sea of particles and radiation. As the universe expanded and cooled, positively charged protons were able to capture negatively charged electrons to form neutral atoms (mostly hydrogen, plus some helium). That was great news for the stars and galaxies the atoms would ultimately become, but bad news for light!
It likely took a long time for the gaseous hydrogen and helium to coalesce into stars, which then gravitated together to form the first galaxies. But even when stars began to shine, their light couldn’t travel very far before striking and being absorbed by neutral atoms. This period, known as the cosmic dark ages, lasted from around 380,000 to 200 million years after the big bang.
Then the fog slowly lifted as more and more neutral atoms broke apart over the next several hundred million years: a period called the cosmic dawn.
“We’re very curious about how the process happened,” said Aaron Yung, a Giacconi Fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who is helping plan Roman’s early universe observations. “Roman’s large, crisp view of deep space will help us weigh different explanations.”
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Your browser does not support the audio element. Prime Suspects
It could be that early galaxies may be largely to blame for the energetic light that broke up the neutral atoms. The first black holes may have played a role, too. Roman will look far and wide to examine both possible culprits.
“Roman will excel at finding the building blocks of cosmic structures like galaxy clusters that later form,” said Takahiro Morishita, an assistant scientist at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California, who has studied cosmic dawn. “It will quickly identify the densest regions, where more ‘fog’ is being cleared, making Roman a key mission to probe early galaxy evolution and the cosmic dawn.”
The earliest stars were likely starkly different from modern ones. When gravity began pulling material together, the universe was very dense. Stars probably grew hundreds or thousands of times more massive than the Sun and emitted lots of high-energy radiation. Gravity huddled up the young stars to form galaxies, and their cumulative blasting may have once again stripped electrons from protons in bubbles of space around them.
“You could call it the party at the beginning of the universe,” Thaller said. “We’ve never seen the birth of the very first stars and galaxies, but it must have been spectacular!”
But these heavyweight stars were short-lived. Scientists think they quickly collapsed, leaving behind black holes –– objects with such extreme gravity that not even light can escape their clutches. Since the young universe was also smaller because it hadn’t been expanding very long, hordes of those black holes could have merged to form even bigger ones –– up to millions or even billions of times the Sun’s mass.
Supermassive black holes may have helped clear the hydrogen fog that permeated the early universe. Hot material swirling around black holes at the bright centers of active galaxies, called quasars, prior to falling in can generate extreme temperatures and send off huge, bright jets of intense radiation. The jets can extend for hundreds of thousands of light-years, ripping the electrons from any atom in their path.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is also exploring cosmic dawn, using its narrower but deeper view to study the early universe. By coupling Webb’s observations with Roman’s, scientists will generate a much more complete picture of this era.
So far, Webb is finding more quasars than anticipated given their expected rarity and Webb’s small field of view. Roman’s zoomed-out view will help astronomers understand what’s going on by seeing how common quasars truly are, likely finding tens of thousands compared to the handful Webb may find.
This view from the James Webb Space Telescope contains more than 20,000 galaxies. Researchers analyzed 117 galaxies that all existed approximately 900 million years after the big bang. They focused on 59 galaxies that lie in front of quasar J0100+2802, an active supermassive black hole that acts like a beacon, located at the center of the image above appearing tiny and pink with six prominent diffraction spikes. The team studied both the galaxies themselves and the illuminated gas surrounding them, which was lit up by the quasar’s bright light. The observation sheds light on how early galaxies cleared the “fog” around them, eventually leading to today’s clear and expansive views.NASA, ESA, CSA, Simon Lilly (ETH Zürich), Daichi Kashino (Nagoya University), Jorryt Matthee (ETH Zürich), Christina Eilers (MIT), Rob Simcoe (MIT), Rongmon Bordoloi (NCSU), Ruari Mackenzie (ETH Zürich); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Ruari Macken “With a stronger statistical sample, astronomers will be able to test a wide range of theories inspired by Webb observations,” Yung said.
Peering back into the universe’s first few hundred million years with Roman’s wide-eyed view will also help scientists determine whether a certain type of galaxy (such as more massive ones) played a larger role in clearing the fog.
“It could be that young galaxies kicked off the process, and then quasars finished the job,” Yung said. Seeing the size of the bubbles carved out of the fog will give scientists a major clue. “Galaxies would create huge clusters of bubbles around them, while quasars would create large, spherical ones. We need a big field of view like Roman’s to measure their extent, since in either case they’re likely up to millions of light-years wide –– often larger than Webb’s field of view.”
Roman will work hand-in-hand with Webb to offer clues about how galaxies formed from the primordial gas that once filled the universe, and how their central supermassive black holes influenced galaxy and star formation. The observations will help uncover the cosmic daybreakers that illuminated our universe and ultimately made life on Earth possible.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems, Inc in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media contact:
Claire Andreoli
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-1940
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Last Updated Jul 25, 2024 ContactAshley Balzerashley.m.balzer@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Active Galaxies Astrophysics Black Holes Galaxies Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Research Goddard Space Flight Center James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Origin & Evolution of the Universe Science & Research Stars Supermassive Black Holes The Big Bang The Universe View the full article
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By NASA
NASA 55 years ago on July 16, 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 spacecraft launched from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as seen in this photo. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin were aboard.
Apollo 11’s primary mission objective was to fulfill a national goal set by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961: perform a crewed lunar landing and return safely to Earth before the decade ended. Additional flight objectives included scientific exploration by the lunar module (LM) crew, deployment of a television camera to transmit signals to Earth, and deployment of a solar wind composition experiment, seismic experiment package, and a Laser Ranging Retroreflector. During the exploration, Armstrong and Aldrin were to gather samples of lunar-surface materials for return to Earth. They also were to extensively photograph the lunar terrain, the deployed scientific equipment, the LM spacecraft, and each other, both with still and motion picture cameras.
Experience the countdown to liftoff.
Image credit: NASA
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By NASA
Rebekah Hounsell is an assistant research scientist working on ways to optimize and build infrastructure for future observations made by the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The mission will shed light on many astrophysics topics, like dark energy, which are currently shrouded in mystery. Rebekah also works as a support scientist for the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission, helping scientists access and analyze data.
Name: Rebekah Hounsell
Title: Assistant Research Scientist
Formal Job Classification: Support Scientist for the TESS mission and Co-Principal Investigator of the Roman Supernova Project Infrastructure Team (PIT)
Organization: Code 667.0
Rebekah Hounsell knew she wanted to study space from a very young age. Now, she’s a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. NASA/Chris Gunn What do you do and what is most interesting about your role at Goddard?
I am fortunate to have several roles at Goddard. I am a support scientist for TESS. Here I aid the community in accessing and analyzing TESS data. I am a co-principal investigator of a Roman project infrastructure team, focusing on building infrastructure to support supernova cosmology with the Roman HLTDS (High Latitude Time-Domain Survey). In addition, I am part of the Physics of the Cosmos program analysis group executive committee, co-chairing both the Cosmic Structure Science interest group and the Time-Domain and Multi-Messenger Astrophysics Science interest group. In these roles I have been fortunate enough to get a glimpse into how missions such as TESS and Roman work and how we can make them a success for the community. Missions like TESS are paving the way for future wide area surveys like Roman, providing a plethora of high cadence transient and variable star data, which can be used to gain a better understanding of our universe and our place within it.
How will your current work influence the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s future observations?
The Roman team I am leading is tasked with developing a pixels-to-cosmology pipeline for the analysis of supernova data from the HLTDS. What this means is that we will develop tools to aid the community in obtaining supernova lightcurves and prism spectra, which are precise enough to be used in testing various cosmological modes. We are also working to develop tools which will allow the community to test various HLTDS designs, adjusting cadence, filters, exposure times, etc., to best optimize its output for their science.
What got you interested in astrophysics? What was your path to your current role?
When I was a child I lived in a very rural area in England, with little to no light pollution. I had a wonderful view of the night sky and was fascinated by stars. I remember when I found out that the universe was expanding and my first thought was “into what?” I think it was that which fueled my curiosity about space and pushed me into astrophysics. At about 10 years old, I decided astrophysics was the path for me, and after that I really started to focus on physics and math at school.
At 18, 19 I went to Liverpool University/Liverpool John Moores and completed my master’s in astrophysics in 2008. I then went on to obtain my Ph.D., focusing on classical and recurrent novae. In 2012 I received my first postdoc at STScI (the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore). It was at STScI that I learned about how the instruments operating on Hubble worked and figured out that what I really loved doing was working on data and improving it. At the time however, I wasn’t ready to leave academia altogether, so I took another postdoc at the University of Illinois Champaign Urbana/UC Santa Cruz. It was here that I first started working on Roman, only back then it was known as WFIRST. I was a member of a Supernova Science Investigation Team for WFIRST and worked to optimize the design of what was then known as the SN survey, later to become the HLTDS. During this time I published a paper that created some of the most realistic simulations of the survey, including various statistical and systematic effects. After this I headed to the University of Pennsylvania to work on core collapse supernovae from the Dark Energy Survey. This was an exciting data set, but again I realized what I really liked doing was working on data from or for a mission. As such I took my current job at NASA.
Rebekah stands by a model of NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The observatory’s deployable aperture cover, or sun shade, is visible in the background in the largest clean room at Goddard.NASA/David Friedlander What are you most looking forward to exploring through Roman’s eyes?
Given the nature of the mission, Roman is going to discover a plethora of transient events. Some of these will be extremely rare and if caught in one of Roman’s high cadenced, deep fields, the data obtained will be able to shed new light on the physics driving these phenomena. I am also excited about these data being used with those from other observatories including the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
What has surprised you the most about the universe as you’ve learned more about it?
We are still discovering so many new things which shed new light on the universe, its evolution, and our place in it. In recent years we have learned about kilonovae, gravitational waves, and we’ve discovered various diverse supernovae. There are so many extreme and complex events that we are still trying to understand, and I suspect that Roman will reveal even more.
What is your favorite thing about working for NASA?
There is no one path to working at NASA. I have met so many people who entered into the field following completely different paths than myself. I love this. We all have something different to bring to the table and those differences are what makes NASA what it is today.
A portrait of Rebekah in front of the NASA meatball.NASA/David Friedlander What hobbies fill your time outside of work?
I like to paint and draw. I also enjoy looking after animals. I also love participating in outreach events. When I lived in Philly I helped to set up the Astronomy on Tap branch there. I think it is important to talk about what we do and why it is needed.
What advice do you have for others who are interested in working in astronomy?
There is no one path. Don’t think you have to complete x, y, z steps and then you make it. That is not true. Do what you are passionate about, what you enjoy to learn about. And most importantly ask questions! Learn about what others are doing in the field, how they got there, and figure out what works for you.
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.
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Last Updated Jul 16, 2024 ContactAshley Balzerashley.m.balzer@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
People of NASA Careers Goddard Space Flight Center Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope People of Goddard Women at NASA Explore More
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By NASA
Cosmic Road Trip: four distinct composite images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope, presented in a two-by-two grid, Rho Ophiuchi at lower right, the heart of the Orion Nebula at upper right, the galaxy NGC 3627 at lower left and the galaxy cluster MACS J0416.X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/Infrared: (Hubble) NASA/ESA/STScI; IR: (JWST) NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI It’s time to take a cosmic road trip using light as the highway and visit four stunning destinations across space. The vehicles for this space get-away are NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope.
The first stop on this tour is the closest, Rho Ophiuchi, at a distance of about 390 light-years from Earth. Rho Ophiuchi is a cloud complex filled with gas and stars of different sizes and ages. Being one of the closest star-forming regions, Rho Ophiuchi is a great place for astronomers to study stars. In this image, X-rays from Chandra are purple revealing infant stars that violently flare and produce X-rays. Infrared data from Webb are red, yellow, cyan, light blue and darker blue and provide views of the spectacular regions of gas and dust.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/C. Canizares; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/K. Pontoppidan; Image Processing: NASA/ESA/STScI/Alyssa Pagan, NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major The next destination is the Orion Nebula. Still located in the Milky Way galaxy, this region is a little bit farther from our home planet at about 1,500 light-years away. If you look just below the middle of the three stars that make up the “belt” in the constellation of Orion, you may be able to see this nebula through a small telescope. With Chandra and Webb, however, we get to see so much more. Chandra reveals young stars that glow brightly in X-rays, colored in red, green, and blue, while Webb shows the gas and dust in darker red that will help build the next generation of stars here.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/E.Fei It’s time to leave our galaxy and visit another. Like the Milky Way, NGC 3627 is a spiral galaxy that we see at a slight angle. NGC 3627 is known as a “barred” spiral galaxy because of the rectangular shape of its central region. From our vantage point, we can also see two distinct spiral arms that appear as arcs. X-rays from Chandra in purple show evidence for a supermassive black hole in its center while Webb finds the dust, gas, and stars throughout the galaxy in red, green, and blue. This image also contains optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope in red, green, and blue.
Spiral galaxy NGC 3627.X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESO/STScI, ESO/WFI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JWST; Image Processing:/NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major Our final landing place on this trip is the farthest and the biggest. MACS J0416 is a galaxy cluster, which are among the largest objects in the Universe held together by gravity. Galaxy clusters like this can contain hundreds or even thousands of individual galaxies all immersed in massive amounts of superheated gas that Chandra can detect. In this view, Chandra’s X-rays in purple show this reservoir of hot gas while Hubble and Webb pick up the individual galaxies in red, green, and blue.
ACS J0416 galaxy cluster.X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/G. Ogrean et al.; Optical/Infrared: (Hubble) NASA/ESA/STScI; IR: (JWST) NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Jose M. Diego (IFCA), Jordan C. J. D’Silva (UWA), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Jake Summers (ASU), Rogier Windhorst (ASU), Haojing Yan (University of Missouri) NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/chandra-x-ray-observatory/
Visual Description:
This release features four distinct composite images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope, presented in a two-by-two grid.
At our lower right is Rho Ophiuchi, a cloud complex filled with gas, and dotted with stars. The murky green and gold cloud resembles a ghostly head in profile, swooping down from the upper left, trailing tendrils of hair. Cutting across the bottom edge and lower righthand corner of the image is a long, narrow, brick red cloud which resembles the ember of a stick pulled from a fire. Several large white stars dot the image. Many are surrounded by glowing neon purple rings, and gleam with diffraction spikes.
At our upper right of the grid is a peek into the heart of the Orion Nebula, which blankets the entire image. Here, the young star nursery resembles a dense, stringy, dusty rose cloud, peppered with thousands of glowing golden, white, and blue stars. Layers of cloud around the edges of the image, and a concentration of bright stars at its distant core, help convey the depth of the nebula.
In the lower left of the two-by-two grid is a hazy image of a spiral galaxy known as NGC 3627. Here, the galaxy appears pitched at an oblique angle, tilted from our upper left down to our lower right. Much of its face is angled toward us, making its spiral arms, composed of red and purple dots, easily identifiable. Several bright white dots ringed with neon purple speckle the galaxy. At the galaxy’s core, where the spiral arms converge, a large white and purple glow identified by Chandra provides evidence of a supermassive black hole.
At the upper left of the grid is an image of the distant galaxy cluster known as MACS J0416. Here, the blackness of space is packed with glowing dots and tiny shapes, in whites, purples, oranges, golds, and reds, each a distinct galaxy. Upon close inspection (and with a great deal of zooming in!) the spiraling arms of some of the seemingly tiny galaxies are revealed in this highly detailed image. Gently arched across the middle of the frame is a soft band of purple; a reservoir of superheated gas detected by Chandra.
News Media Contact
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Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, Ala.
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