Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
Cheops shows scorching exoplanet acts like a mirror
-
Similar Topics
-
By European Space Agency
Astronomers using the European Space Agency’s Cheops mission have caught an exoplanet that seems to be triggering flares of radiation from the star it orbits. These tremendous explosions are blasting away the planet’s wispy atmosphere, causing it to shrink every year.
This is the first-ever evidence for a ‘planet with a death wish’. Though it was theorised to be possible since the nineties, the flares seen in this research are around 100 times more energetic than expected.
View the full article
-
By NASA
7 min read
A New Alloy is Enabling Ultra-Stable Structures Needed for Exoplanet Discovery
A unique new material that shrinks when it is heated and expands when it is cooled could help enable the ultra-stable space telescopes that future NASA missions require to search for habitable worlds.
Advancements in material technologies are needed to meet the science needs of the next great observatories. These observatories will strive to find, identify, and study exoplanets and their ability to support life. Credit: NASA JPL One of the goals of NASA’s Astrophysics Division is to determine whether we are alone in the universe. NASA’s astrophysics missions seek to answer this question by identifying planets beyond our solar system (exoplanets) that could support life. Over the last two decades, scientists have developed ways to detect atmospheres on exoplanets by closely observing stars through advanced telescopes. As light passes through a planet’s atmosphere or is reflected or emitted from a planet’s surface, telescopes can measure the intensity and spectra (i.e., “color”) of the light, and can detect various shifts in the light caused by gases in the planetary atmosphere. By analyzing these patterns, scientists can determine the types of gasses in the exoplanet’s atmosphere.
Decoding these shifts is no easy task because the exoplanets appear very near their host stars when we observe them, and the starlight is one billion times brighter than the light from an Earth-size exoplanet. To successfully detect habitable exoplanets, NASA’s future Habitable Worlds Observatory will need a contrast ratio of one to one billion (1:1,000,000,000).
Achieving this extreme contrast ratio will require a telescope that is 1,000 times more stable than state-of-the-art space-based observatories like NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and its forthcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. New sensors, system architectures, and materials must be integrated and work in concert for future mission success. A team from the company ALLVAR is collaborating with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to demonstrate how integration of a new material with unique negative thermal expansion characteristics can help enable ultra-stable telescope structures.
Material stability has always been a limiting factor for observing celestial phenomena. For decades, scientists and engineers have been working to overcome challenges such as micro-creep, thermal expansion, and moisture expansion that detrimentally affect telescope stability. The materials currently used for telescope mirrors and struts have drastically improved the dimensional stability of the great observatories like Webb and Roman, but as indicated in the Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics 2020 developed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, they still fall short of the 10 picometer level stability over several hours that will be required for the Habitable Worlds Observatory. For perspective, 10 picometers is roughly 1/10th the diameter of an atom.
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope sits atop the support structure and instrument payloads. The long black struts holding the telescope’s secondary mirror will contribute roughly 30% of the wave front error while the larger support structure underneath the primary mirror will contribute another 30%.
Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
Funding from NASA and other sources has enabled this material to transition from the laboratory to the commercial scale. ALLVAR received NASA Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) funding to scale and integrate a new alloy material into telescope structure demonstrations for potential use on future NASA missions like the Habitable Worlds Observatory. This alloy shrinks when heated and expands when cooled—a property known as negative thermal expansion (NTE). For example, ALLVAR Alloy 30 exhibits a -30 ppm/°C coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) at room temperature. This means that a 1-meter long piece of this NTE alloy will shrink 0.003 mm for every 1 °C increase in temperature. For comparison, aluminum expands at +23 ppm/°C.
While other materials expand while heated and contract when cooled, ALLVAR Alloy 30 exhibits a negative thermal expansion, which can compensate for the thermal expansion mismatch of other materials. The thermal strain versus temperature is shown for 6061 Aluminum, A286 Stainless Steel, Titanium 6Al-4V, Invar 36, and ALLVAR Alloy 30.
Because it shrinks when other materials expand, ALLVAR Alloy 30 can be used to strategically compensate for the expansion and contraction of other materials. The alloy’s unique NTE property and lack of moisture expansion could enable optic designers to address the stability needs of future telescope structures. Calculations have indicated that integrating ALLVAR Alloy 30 into certain telescope designs could improve thermal stability up to 200 times compared to only using traditional materials like aluminum, titanium, Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRPs), and the nickel–iron alloy, Invar.
The hexapod assembly with six ALLVAR Alloy struts was measured for long-term stability. The stability of the individual struts and the hexapod assembly were measured using interferometry at the University of Florida’s Institute for High Energy Physics and Astrophysics. The struts were found to have a length noise well below the proposed target for the success criteria for the project. Credit: (left) ALLVAR and (right) Simon F. Barke, Ph.D. To demonstrate that negative thermal expansion alloys can enable ultra-stable structures, the ALLVAR team developed a hexapod structure to separate two mirrors made of a commercially available glass ceramic material with ultra-low thermal expansion properties. Invar was bonded to the mirrors and flexures made of Ti6Al4V—a titanium alloy commonly used in aerospace applications—were attached to the Invar. To compensate for the positive CTEs of the Invar and Ti6Al4V components, an NTE ALLVAR Alloy 30 tube was used between the Ti6Al4V flexures to create the struts separating the two mirrors. The natural positive thermal expansion of the Invar and Ti6Al4V components is offset by the negative thermal expansion of the NTE alloy struts, resulting in a structure with an effective zero thermal expansion.
The stability of the structure was evaluated at the University of Florida Institute for High Energy Physics and Astrophysics. The hexapod structure exhibited stability well below the 100 pm/√Hz target and achieved 11 pm/√Hz. This first iteration is close to the 10 pm stability required for the future Habitable Worlds Observatory. A paper and presentation made at the August 2021 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers conference provides details about this analysis.
Furthermore, a series of tests run by NASA Marshall showed that the ultra-stable struts were able to achieve a near-zero thermal expansion that matched the mirrors in the above analysis. This result translates into less than a 5 nm root mean square (rms) change in the mirror’s shape across a 28K temperature change.
The ALLVAR enabled Ultra-Stable Hexapod Assembly undergoing Interferometric Testing between 293K and 265K (right). On the left, the Root Mean Square (RMS) changes in the mirror’s surface shape are visually represented. The three roughly circular red areas are caused by the thermal expansion mismatch of the invar bonding pads with the ZERODUR mirror, while the blue and green sections show little to no changes caused by thermal expansion. The surface diagram shows a less than 5 nanometer RMS change in mirror figure. Credit: NASA’s X-Ray and Cryogenic Facility [XRCF] Beyond ultra-stable structures, the NTE alloy technology has enabled enhanced passive thermal switch performance and has been used to remove the detrimental effects of temperature changes on bolted joints and infrared optics. These applications could impact technologies used in other NASA missions. For example, these new alloys have been integrated into the cryogenic sub-assembly of Roman’s coronagraph technology demonstration. The addition of NTE washers enabled the use of pyrolytic graphite thermal straps for more efficient heat transfer. ALLVAR Alloy 30 is also being used in a high-performance passive thermal switch incorporated into the UC Berkeley Space Science Laboratory’s Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE Night) project aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 2, which will be delivered to the Moon through NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. The NTE alloys enabled smaller thermal switch size and greater on-off heat conduction ratios for LuSEE Night.
Through another recent NASA SBIR effort, the ALLVAR team worked with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop detailed datasets of ALLVAR Alloy 30 material properties. These large datasets include statistically significant material properties such as strength, elastic modulus, fatigue, and thermal conductivity. The team also collected information about less common properties like micro-creep and micro-yield. With these properties characterized, ALLVAR Alloy 30 has cleared a major hurdle towards space-material qualification.
As a spinoff of this NASA-funded work, the team is developing a new alloy with tunable thermal expansion properties that can match other materials or even achieve zero CTE. Thermal expansion mismatch causes dimensional stability and force-load issues that can impact fields such as nuclear engineering, quantum computing, aerospace and defense, optics, fundamental physics, and medical imaging. The potential uses for this new material will likely extend far beyond astronomy. For example, ALLVAR developed washers and spacers, are now commercially available to maintain consistent preloads across extreme temperature ranges in both space and terrestrial environments. These washers and spacers excel at counteracting the thermal expansion and contraction of other materials, ensuring stability for demanding applications.
For additional details, see the entry for this project on NASA TechPort.
Project Lead: Dr. James A. Monroe, ALLVAR
The following NASA organizations sponsored this effort: NASA Astrophysics Division, NASA SBIR Program funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD).
Share
Details
Last Updated Jul 01, 2025 Related Terms
Technology Highlights Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Science-enabling Technology Explore More
7 min read NASA Webb ‘Pierces’ Bullet Cluster, Refines Its Mass
Article
1 day ago
2 min read Hubble Captures an Active Galactic Center
Article
4 days ago
2 min read NASA Citizen Scientists Find New Eclipsing Binary Stars
Article
5 days ago
View the full article
-
By NASA
Explore Webb Webb News Latest News Latest Images Webb’s Blog Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Deployment Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Webb’s First Images Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 6 Min Read Frigid Exoplanet in Strange Orbit Imaged by NASA’s Webb
This image of exoplanet 14 Herculis c was taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). A star symbol marks the location of the host star 14 Herculis, whose light has been blocked by a coronagraph on NIRCam (shown here as a dark circle outlined in white). Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, W. Balmer (JHU), D. Bardalez Gagliuffi (Amherst College) A planetary system described as abnormal, chaotic, and strange by researchers has come into clearer view with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Using Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), researchers have successfully imaged one of two known planets surrounding the star 14 Herculis, located 60 light-years away from Earth in our own Milky Way galaxy.
The exoplanet, 14 Herculis c, is one of the coldest imaged to date. While there are nearly 6,000 exoplanets that have been discovered, only a small number of those have been directly imaged, most of those being very hot (think hundreds or even thousands of degrees Fahrenheit). The new data suggests 14 Herculis c, which weighs about 7 times the planet Jupiter, is as cool as 26 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 3 degrees Celsius).
Image: 14 Herculis c (NIRCam)
This image of exoplanet 14 Herculis c was taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). A star symbol marks the location of the host star 14 Herculis, whose light has been blocked by a coronagraph on NIRCam (shown here as a dark circle outlined in white). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, W. Balmer (JHU), D. Bardalez Gagliuffi (Amherst College) The team’s results covering 14 Herculis c have been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters and were presented in a press conference Tuesday at the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Anchorage, Alaska.
“The colder an exoplanet, the harder it is to image, so this is a totally new regime of study that Webb has unlocked with its extreme sensitivity in the infrared,” said William Balmer, co-first author of the new paper and graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. “We are now able to add to the catalog of not just hot, young exoplanets imaged, but older exoplanets that are far colder than we’ve directly seen before Webb.”
Webb’s image of 14 Herculis c also provides insights into a planetary system unlike most others studied in detail with Webb and other ground- and space-based `observatories. The central star, 14 Herculis, is almost Sun-like – it is similar in age and temperature to our own Sun, but a little less massive and cooler.
There are two planets in this system – 14 Herculis b is closer to the star, and covered by the coronagraphic mask in the Webb image. These planets don’t orbit each other on the same plane like our solar system. Instead, they cross each other like an ‘X’, with the star being at the center. That is, the orbital planes of the two planets are inclined relative to one another at an angle of about 40 degrees. The planets tug and pull at one another as they orbit the star.
This is the first time an image has ever been snapped of an exoplanet in such a mis-aligned system.
Scientists are working on several theories for just how the planets in this system got so “off track.” One of the leading concepts is that the planets scattered after a third planet was violently ejected from the system early in its formation.
“The early evolution of our own solar system was dominated by the movement and pull of our own gas giants,” added Balmer. “They threw around asteroids and rearranged other planets. Here, we are seeing the aftermath of a more violent planetary crime scene. It reminds us that something similar could have happened to our own solar system, and that the outcomes for small planets like Earth are often dictated by much larger forces.”
Understanding the Planet’s Characteristics With Webb
Webb’s new data is giving researchers further insights into not just the temperature of 14 Herculis c, but other details about the planet’s orbit and atmosphere.
Findings indicate the planet orbits around 1.4 billion miles from the host star in a highly elliptical, or football-shaped orbit, closer in than previous estimates. This is around 15 times farther from the Sun than Earth. On average, this would put 14 Herculis c between Saturn and Uranus in our solar system.
The planet’s brightness at 4.4 microns measured using Webb’s coronagraph, combined with the known mass of the planet and age of the system, hints at some complex atmospheric dynamics at play.
“If a planet of a certain mass formed 4 billion years ago, then cooled over time because it doesn’t have a source of energy keeping it warm, we can predict how hot it should be today,” said Daniella C. Bardalez Gagliuffi of Amherst College, co-first author on the paper with Balmer. “Added information, like the perceived brightness in direct imaging, would in theory support this estimate of the planet’s temperature.”
However, what researchers expect isn’t always reflected in the results. With 14 Herculis c, the brightness at this wavelength is fainter than expected for an object of this mass and age. The research team can explain this discrepancy, though. It’s called carbon disequilibrium chemistry, something often seen in brown dwarfs.
“This exoplanet is so cold, the best comparisons we have that are well-studied are the coldest brown dwarfs,” Bardalez Gagliuffi explained. “In those objects, like with 14 Herculis c, we see carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide existing at temperatures where we should see methane. This is explained by churning in the atmosphere. Molecules made at warmer temperatures in the lower atmosphere are brought to the cold, upper atmosphere very quickly.”
Researchers hope Webb’s image of 14 Herculis c is just the beginning of a new phase of investigation into this strange system.
While the small dot of light obtained by Webb contains a plethora of information, future spectroscopic studies of 14 Herculis could better constrain the atmospheric properties of this interesting planet and help researchers understand the dynamics and formation pathways of the system.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/webb
Downloads
Click any image to open a larger version.
View/Download all image products at all resolutions for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Hannah Braun – hbraun@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Related Information
Video: Eclipse/Coronagraph Animation
Webb Blog: How Webb’s Coronagraphs Reveal Exoplanets in the Infrared
Read more about Webb’s Impact on Exoplanet Research
More Webb News
More Webb Images
Webb Science Themes
Webb Mission Page
Related For Kids
What is the Webb Telescope?
SpacePlace for Kids
En Español
Ciencia de la NASA
NASA en español
Space Place para niños
Keep Exploring Related Topics
James Webb Space Telescope
Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…
Exoplanets
Exoplanet Stories
Universe
Share
Details
Last Updated Jun 10, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
Exoplanets Astrophysics Goddard Space Flight Center James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Science & Research Studying Exoplanets The Universe View the full article
-
By NASA
Scientists have discovered a star behaving like no other seen before, giving fresh clues about the origin of a new class of mysterious objects.X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICRAR, Curtin Univ./Z. Wang et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/CalTech/IPAC; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk An unusual star (circled in white at right) behaving like no other seen before and its surroundings are featured in this composite image released on May 28, 2025. A team of astronomers combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope on Wajarri Country in Australia to study the discovered object, known as ASKAP J1832−0911 (ASKAP J1832 for short).
ASKAP J1832 belongs to a class of objects called “long period radio transients” discovered in 2022 that vary in radio wave intensity in a regular way over tens of minutes. This is thousands of times longer than the length of the repeated variations seen in pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutron stars that have repeated variations multiple times a second. ASKAP J1832 cycles in radio wave intensity every 44 minutes, placing it into this category of long period radio transients. Using Chandra, the team discovered that ASKAP J1832 is also regularly varying in X-rays every 44 minutes. This is the first time that such an X-ray signal has been found in a long period radio transient.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICRAR, Curtin Univ./Z. Wang et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/CalTech/IPAC; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
View the full article
-
By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
Sols 4541–4542: Boxwork Structure, or Just “Box-Like” Structure?
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on May 14, 2025 — Sol 4539, or Martian day 4,539 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 00:57:26 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Ashley Stroupe, Mission Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Today we came into another strange and interesting workspace (see image above) that is as exciting as the one we had on Monday. This is our first arrival at a potential boxwork structure — a series of web-like, resistant ridges visible in orbital images that we have been looking forward to visiting since we first saw them. Today’s observations will be the first step to figure out if these ridges (at least the one in front of us) is part of a boxwork structure. Unfortunately, we can’t quite reach their targets safely today because one of the rover’s front wheels is perched on a small pebble and might slip off if we move the arm. Instead, we will take a lot of remote sensing observations and reposition the rover slightly so that we can try again on Friday.
But before repositioning, Curiosity will start off by taking a huge Mastcam mosaic of all terrain around the rover to help us document how it is changing along our path and with elevation. Mastcam then will look at “Temblor Range,” which is a nearby low and resistant ridge that also has some rover tracks from where we previously crossed it. Mastcam is also imaging a trough that is similar to the other troughs we have been seeing locally and that have multiple possible origins. Then, Mastcam will image the AEGIS target from the prior plan. ChemCam is taking a LIBS observation of “Glendale Peak,” a rugged top portion of the ridge defining the potential boxwork structure, which is to the right of the workspace, and an RMI mosaic of Texoli butte. Mastcam follows up the ChemCam observation of Glendale Peak by imaging it.
In parallel with all the imaging is our monthly test and maintenance of our backup pump for the Heat Rejection System (the HRS) The HRS is a fluid loop that distributes the heat from the rover’s power source to help keep all the subsystems within reasonable temperatures. We need to periodically make sure it stays in good working order just in case our primary pump has issues.
After all the imaging, the rover will bump 30 centimeters backwards (about 12 inches) to come down off the pebble and put the interesting science targets in the arm workspace. This should leave us in a position where it is safe to unstow the arm and put instruments down on the surface.
On the second, untargeted sol of the plan, we have some additional atmospheric science including a large dust-devil survey, as well as a Navcam suprahorizon movie and a Mastcam solar tau to measure the dust in the atmosphere. We finish up with another autonomous targeting of ChemCam with AEGIS.
Share
Details
Last Updated May 19, 2025 Related Terms
Blogs Explore More
1 min read Sols 4539-4540: Back After a Productive Weekend Plan
Article
6 days ago
2 min read Sols 4536-4538: Dusty Martian Magnets
Article
6 days ago
2 min read Sols 4534-4535: Last Call for the Layered Sulfates? (West of Texoli Butte, Headed West)
Article
1 week ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…
All Mars Resources
Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…
Rover Basics
Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…
Mars Exploration: Science Goals
The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.