We're all sick, and aging.
These vessels need some righteous cleaning.
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
July 11, 2025
The Veins of Heaven
Transfusing sunlight as the sky grew darker, this exceptional display of noctilucent clouds was captured on July 10, reflected in the calm waters of Vallentuna Lake near Stockholm, Sweden. From the edge of space, about 80 kilometers above Earth's surface, the icy clouds themselves still reflect sunlight, even though the Sun is below the horizon as seen from the ground. Usually spotted at high latitudes in summer months, the night shining clouds have made a strong showing so far during the short northern summer nights. Also known as polar mesopheric clouds they are understood to form as water vapor driven into the cold upper atmosphere condenses on the fine dust particles supplied by disintegrating meteors or volcanic ash.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 to Support Health Studies for Deep Space Travel
Jul 11, 2025
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission is set to launch a four-person crew to the International Space Station later this summer.
Some of the crew have volunteered to participate in a series of experiments to address health challenges astronauts may face on deep space missions during NASA’s Artemis campaign and future human expeditions to Mars.
The research during Crew-11 includes simulated lunar landings, tactics to safeguard vision, and other human physiology studies led by NASA’s Human Research Program.
Select crew members will participate in a series of simulated Moon landings, before, during, and after their flight.
Using a handheld controller and multiple screens, the astronauts will fly through simulated scenarios created to resemble the lunar South Pole region that Artemis crews plan to visit.
This experiment allows researchers to evaluate how different gravitational forces may disorient astronauts and affect their ability to pilot a spacecraft, like a lunar lander.
“Even though many landing tasks are automated, astronauts must still know how to monitor the controls and know when to take over to ensure a safe landing,” said Scott Wood, a neuroscientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston coordinating the scientific investigation.
“Our study assesses exactly how changes in gravity affect spatial awareness and piloting skills that are important for navigating these scenarios.”
A ground control group completing the same tasks over a similar timeframe will help scientists better understand gravitational effects on human performance.
The experiment’s results could inform the pilot training needed for future Artemis crews.
“Experiencing weightlessness for months and then feeling greater levels of gravity on a planet like Mars, for example, may increase the risk of disorientation,” said Wood.
“Our goal is to help astronauts adapt to any gravitational change, whether it’s to the Moon, a new planet, or landing back on Earth.”
Other studies during the mission will explore possible ways to treat or prevent a group of eye and brain changes that can occur during long-duration space travel, called spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS).
Some researchers suspect the redistribution of bodily fluids in constant weightlessness may increase pressure in the head and contribute to SANS.
One study will investigate fluid pressure on the brain while another will examine how the body processes B vitamins and whether supplements can affect how astronauts respond to bodily fluid shifts.
Participating crew members will test whether a daily B vitamin supplement can eliminate or ease symptoms of SANS. Specific crew members also will wear thigh cuffs to keep bodily fluids from traveling headward.
Crew members also will complete another set of experiments, called CIPHER (Complement of Integrated Protocols for Human Exploration Research), which measures how multiple systems within the human body change in space.
The study includes vision assessments, MRI scans, and other medical exams to provide a complete overview of the whole body’s response to long-duration spaceflight.
Several other studies involving human health and performance are also a part of Crew-11’s science portfolio.
Crew members will contribute to a core set of measurements called Spaceflight Standard Measures, which collects physical data and biological samples from astronauts and stores them for other comparative studies.
Participants will supply biological samples, such as blood and urine, for a study characterizing how spaceflight alters astronauts’ genetic makeup.
In addition, volunteers will test different exercise regimens to help scientists explore what activities remain essential for long-duration journeys.
After landing, participating crew members will complete surveys to track any discomfort, such as scrapes or bruises, acquired from re-entry.
The data will help clarify whether mission length increases injury risks and could help NASA design landing systems on future spacecraft as NASA prepares to travel to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
NASA’s Human Research Program pursues methods and technologies to support safe, productive human space travel.
Through science conducted in laboratories, ground-based analogs, and aboard the International Space Station, the program investigates how spaceflight affects human bodies and behaviors.
Such research drives NASA’s quest to innovate ways that keep astronauts healthy and mission-ready.
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/nasas-spacex-crew-11-to-support-health-studies-for-deep-space-travel/
https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/over-2100-senior-nasa-employees-to-exit-amid-donald-trump-administrations-massive-budget-cuts
Over 2,100 Senior NASA Employees To Exit Amid Donald Trump Administration’s Massive Budget Cuts
Updated: Friday, July 11, 2025, 11:15 AM IST
Washington DC: At least 2,145 senior-ranking National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) employees are set to leave the agency amid Trump administration's plan to reduce federal spending and streamline government operations, Politico reported on Wednesday, referring to the documents it obtained.
This decision is linked to proposed budget cuts for NASA, which would trim nearly 25% of its funding and potentially impact critical space exploration missions.
The report by Politico comes on the heels of a letter from the Executive Office of the US President, sent in early May to the Chair of the US Committee that has jurisdiction over discretionary spending.
As per a letter dated May 2, 2025 from the Executive Office of the US President to Susan Collins, the Chair of the US Senate Committee on Appropriations, US President Trump offered recommendations on discretionary funding levels for the fiscal year 2026.
The letter noted that the recommendations come after a rigorous line-by-line review of Fiscal Year 2025's spending.
The Trump administration's 2026 budget proposal includes significant cuts to NASA's funding, which would lead to a reduction in the agency's workforce.
Trump had proposed reductions and cuts in the budget for eight of the nine areas of NASA's funding. The administration aims to decrease the size and cost of the federal government, with NASA being one of the affected agencies.
These are- space science, mission support, earth science, legacy human exploration systems, space technology, international space station, aeronautics and the office of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics).
The layoffs are part of a strategy to optimize the federal workforce, with NASA offering early retirement, buyouts, and deferred resignations to achieve this goal.
In the letter, Trump had recommended slashing the funding for climate monitoring satellites, phasing out the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule, reducing crew and cargo flights to the International Space Station and cuts in 'subsidising woke STEM programming and research'.
According to a report by Politico, the act could potentially spell trouble for the White House's space policy and result in depriving the agency of decades of experience.
The 2,145 employees were reported to be those in GS-13 to GS-15 positions- these are senior-level government ranks which are characteristically reserved for those with specialised skills or management responsibilities.
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Citing the documents, Politico noted that the losses are particularly concentrated at higher levels, with 875 GS-15 employees set to leave.
It was reported that many of those who are leaving also serve in NASA's core mission sets, according to the documents.
These include staff members in mission areas like science or human space flight, support roles like IT, facilities management or finance.
Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, decried the move.
As per Politico, she said, "You're losing the managerial and core technical expertise of the agency… What's the strategy, and what do we hope to achieve here?"
The departures come on the heels of a proposed White House budget for 2026, which would result in slashing NASA's funding by 25 per cent and cutting over 5,000 staff.
The cuts, if enacted by Congress, would force the agency to operate with the smallest budget and staff since the early 1960s, Politico reported.
Notably, these cuts are spread across each of NASA's 10 regional centres.
According to Politico, the White House may end up losing staff who are key to their integral plans such as sending astronauts to the moon by mid-2027 and later to Mars.
"NASA remains committed to our mission as we work within a more prioritised budget," said NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens.
"We are working closely with the Administration to ensure that America continues to lead the way in space exploration, advancing progress on key goals, including the Moon and Mars", Politico reported.
Politico further noted that the 2,694 civil servants who have left are just half of the total cuts the White House wants to see–thereby opening the door for involuntary cuts if more employees don't participate in the deferred resignation program, which runs through July 25.
The White House's proposed cuts to staff and budget are not yet law. Politico reported that the appropriators in Congress could reject the White House's vision for NASA.
The Senate Commerce Committee, which covers NASA, signalled it supported retaining staff in a bill issued in March.
Despite this, a threat looms as even if the Congress decides to reject the White House cuts, NASA may have a hard time getting employees back
Politico said that NASA employees with relevant skills could work for the rising number of space companies with higher salaries, or they could leave for non-space industries where their skills are deemed valuable, notable areas being robotics.
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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4593-4594: Three Layers and a Lot of Structure at Volcán Peña Blanca
Jul 10, 2025
Earth planning date: Monday, July 7, 2025
A few planning sols ago, we spotted a small ridge in the landscape ahead of us.
Ridges and structures that are prominently raised above the landscape are our main target along this part of Curiosity’s traverse.
There are many hypotheses on how they formed, and water is one of the likely culprits involved.
That is because water reacts with the original minerals, moves the compounds around and some precipitate as minerals in the pore spaces, which is called “cement” by sedimentologists, and generally known as one mechanism to make a rock harder.
It’s not the only one, so the Curiosity science team is after all the details at this time to assess whether water indeed was responsible for the more resistant nature of the ridges.
Spotting one that is so clearly raised prominently above the landscape — and in easy reach of the rover, both from the distance but also from the path that leads up to it — was therefore very exciting.
In addition, the fact that we get a side view of the structure as well as a top view adds to the team’s ability to read the geologic record of this area. “Outcrops,” as we call those places, are one of the most important tools for any field geologist, including Curiosity and team!
Therefore, the penultimate drive stopped about 10 meters away (about 33 feet) from the structure to get a good assessment of where exactly to direct the rover (see the blog post by my colleague Abby).
You can see an example of the images Curiosity took with its Mast Camera above; if you want to see them all, they are on the raw images page (and by the time you go, there may be even more images that we took in today’s plan.
With all the information from the last parking spot, the rover drivers parked Curiosity in perfect operating distance for all instruments.
In direct view of the rover was a part of Volcán Peña Blanca that shows several units; this blogger counts at least three — but I am a mineralogist, not a sedimentologist!
I am really looking forward to the chemical data we will get in this plan. My sedimentologist colleagues found the different angles of smaller layers in the three bigger layers especially interesting, and will look at the high-resolution images from the MAHLI instrument very closely.
With all that in front of us, Curiosity has a very full plan. APXS will get two measurements, the target “Parinacota” is on the upper part of the outcrop and we can even clean it from the dust with the brush, aka DRT.
MAHLI will get close-up images to see finer structures and maybe even individual grains. The second APXS target, called “Wila Willki,” is located in the middle part of the outcrop and will also be documented by MAHLI.
The third activity of MAHLI will be a so-called dog’s-eye view of the outcrop. For this, the arm reaches very low down to align MAHLI to directly face the outcrop, to get a view of the structures and even a peek underneath some of the protruding ledges.
The team is excitedly anticipating the arrival of those images. Stay tuned; you can also find them in the raw images section as soon as we have them!
ChemCam is joining in with two LIBS targets — the target “Pichu Pichu” is on the upper part of the outcrop, and the target “Tacume” is on the middle part.
After this much of close up looks, ChemCam is pointing the RMI to the mid-field to look at another of the raised features in more detail and into the far distance to see the upper contact of the boxwork unit with the next unit above it.
Mastcam will first join the close up looks and take a large mosaic to document all the details of Volcán Peña Blanca, and to document the LIBS targets, before looking into the distance at two places where we see small troughs around exposed bedrock.
Of course, there are also atmospheric observations in the plan; it’s aphelion cloud season and dust is always of interest.
The latter is regularly monitored by atmosphere opacity experiments, and we keep searching for dust devils to understand where, how and why they form and how they move.
Curiosity will be busy, and we are very much looking forward to understanding this interesting feature, which is one piece of the puzzle to understand this area we call the boxwork area.
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/curiosity-blog-sols-4593-4594-three-layers-and-a-lot-of-structure-at-volcan-pena-blanca/
Things that make you go hmmm
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasas-parker-solar-probe-snaps-closest-ever-images-to-sun/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1dTwEyuD44
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun
Jul 10, 2025
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has taken the closest ever images to the Sun, captured just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface.
The new close-up images show features in the solar wind, the constant stream of electrically charged subatomic particles released by the Sun that rage across the solar system at speeds exceeding 1 million miles an hour.
These images, and other data, are helping scientists understand the mysteries of the solar wind, which is essential to understanding its effects at Earth.
On its record-breaking pass by the Sun late last year, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe captured stunning new images from within the Sun’s atmosphere.
These newly released images — taken closer to the Sun than we’ve ever been before — are helping scientists better understand the Sun’s influence across the solar system, including events that can affect Earth.
“Parker Solar Probe has once again transported us into the dynamic atmosphere of our closest star,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
“We are witnessing where space weather threats to Earth begin, with our eyes, not just with models. This new data will help us vastly improve our space weather predictions to ensure the safety of our astronauts and the protection of our technology here on Earth and throughout the solar system.”
Parker Solar Probe started its closest approach to the Sun on Dec. 24, 2024, flying just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface.
As it skimmed through the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, in the days around the perihelion, it collected data with an array of scientific instruments, including the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe, or WISPR.
The new WISPR images reveal the corona and solar wind, a constant stream of electrically charged particles from the Sun that rage across the solar system. The solar wind expands throughout of the solar system with wide-ranging effects.
Together with outbursts of material and magnetic currents from the Sun, it helps generate auroras, strip planetary atmospheres, and induce electric currents that can overwhelm power grids and affect communications at Earth.
Understanding the impact of solar wind starts with understanding its origins at the Sun.
The WISPR images give scientists a closer look at what happens to the solar wind shortly after it is released from the corona.
The images show the important boundary where the Sun’s magnetic field direction switches from northward to southward, called the heliospheric current sheet.
It also captures the collision of multiple coronal mass ejections, or CMEs — large outbursts of charged particles that are a key driver of space weather — for the first time in high resolution.
“In these images, we’re seeing the CMEs basically piling up on top of one another,” said Angelos Vourlidas, the WISPR instrument scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which designed, built, and operates the spacecraft in Laurel, Maryland.
“We’re using this to figure out how the CMEs merge together, which can be important for space weather.”
When CMEs collide, their trajectory can change, making it harder to predict where they’ll end up.
Their merger can also accelerate charged particles and mix magnetic fields, which makes the CMEs’ effects potentially more dangerous to astronauts and satellites in space and technology on the ground.
Parker Solar Probe’s close-up view helps scientists better prepare for such space weather effects at Earth and beyond.
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Zooming in on Solar Wind’s Origins
The solar wind was first theorized by preeminent heliophysicist Eugene Parker in 1958. His theories about the solar wind, which were met with criticism at the time, revolutionized how we see our solar system.
Prior to Parker Solar Probe’s launch in 2018, NASA and its international partners led missions like Mariner 2, Helios, Ulysses, Wind, and ACE that helped scientists understand the origins of the solar wind — but from a distance.
Parker Solar Probe, named in honor of the late scientist, is filling in the gaps of our understanding much closer to the Sun.
At Earth, the solar wind is mostly a consistent breeze, but Parker Solar Probe found it’s anything but at the Sun.
When the spacecraft reached within 14.7 million miles from the Sun, it encountered zig-zagging magnetic fields — a feature known as switchbacks.
Using Parker Solar Probe’s data, scientists discovered that these switchbacks, which came in clumps, were more common than expected.
When Parker Solar Probe first crossed into the corona about 8 million miles from the Sun’s surface in 2021, it noticed the boundary of the corona was uneven and more complex than previously thought.
As it got even closer, Parker Solar Probe helped scientists pinpoint the origin of switchbacks at patches on the visible surface of the Sun where magnetic funnels form.
In 2024 scientists announced that the fast solar wind — one of two main classes of the solar wind — is in part powered by these switchbacks, adding to a 50-year-old mystery.
However, it would take a closer view to understand the slow solar wind, which travels at just 220 miles per second, half the speed of the fast solar wind.
“The big unknown has been: how is the solar wind generated, and how does it manage to escape the Sun’s immense gravitational pull?” said Nour Rawafi, the project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
“Understanding this continuous flow of particles, particularly the slow solar wind, is a major challenge, especially given the diversity in the properties of these streams — but with Parker Solar Probe, we’re closer than ever to uncovering their origins and how they evolve.”
Understanding Slow Solar Wind
The slow solar wind, which is twice as dense and more variable than fast solar wind, is important to study because its interplay with the fast solar wind can create moderately strong solar storm conditions at Earth sometimes rivaling those from CMEs.
Prior to Parker Solar Probe, distant observations suggested there are actually two varieties of slow solar wind, distinguished by the orientation or variability of their magnetic fields.
One type of slow solar wind, called Alfvénic, has small-scale switchbacks. The second type, called non-Alfvénic, doesn’t show these variations in its magnetic field.
As it spiraled closer to the Sun, Parker Solar Probe confirmed there are indeed two types. Its close-up views are also helping scientists differentiate the origins of the two types, which scientists believe are unique.
The non-Alfvénic wind may come off features called helmet streamers — large loops connecting active regions where some particles can heat up enough to escape — whereas Alfvénic wind might originate near coronal holes, or dark, cool regions in the corona.
In its current orbit, bringing the spacecraft just 3.8 million miles from the Sun, Parker Solar Probe will continue to gather additional data during its upcoming passes through the corona to help scientists confirm the slow solar wind’s origins. The next pass comes Sept. 15, 2025.
“We don’t have a final consensus yet, but we have a whole lot of new intriguing data,” said Adam Szabo, Parker Solar Probe mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
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https://www.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/meet-mineral-mappers-flying-nasa-tech-out-west/
https://popo.jpl.nasa.gov/mmgis-aviris/?mission=GEMx
Meet Mineral Mappers Flying NASA Tech Out West
Jul 10, 2025
NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey have been mapping the planets since Apollo. One team is searching closer to home for minerals critical to national security and the economy.
If not for the Joshua trees, the tan hills of Cuprite, Nevada, would resemble Mars. Scalded and chemically altered by water from deep underground, the rocks here are earthly analogs for understanding ancient Martian geology.
The hills are also rich with minerals. They’ve lured prospectors for more than 100 years and made Cuprite an ideal place to test NASA technology designed to map the minerals, craters, crusts, and ices of our solar system.
Sensors that discovered lunar water, charted Saturn’s moons, even investigated ground zero in New York City were all tested and calibrated at Cuprite, said Robert Green, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
He’s honed instruments in Nevada for decades.
One of Green’s latest projects is to find and map rocky surfaces in the American West that could contain minerals crucial to the nation’s economy and security.
Currently, the U.S. is dependent on imports of 50 critical minerals, which include lithium and rare earth elements used in everything from rechargeable batteries to medicine.
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are searching nationwide for domestic sources.
NASA is contributing to this effort with high-altitude aircraft and sensors capable of detecting the molecular fingerprints of minerals across vast, treeless expanses in wavelengths of light not visible to human eyes.
The collaboration is called GEMx, the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment, and it’s likely the largest airborne spectroscopic survey in U.S. history.
Since 2023, scientists working on GEMx have charted more than 190,000 square miles (500,000 square kilometers) of North American soil.
Mapping Partnership Started During Apollo
As NASA instruments fly in aircraft 60,000 feet (18,000 meters) overhead, Todd Hoefen, a geophysicist, and his colleagues from USGS work below.
The samples of rock they test and collect in the field are crucial to ensuring that the airborne observations match reality on the ground and are not skewed by the intervening atmosphere.
The GEMx mission marks the latest in a long history of partnerships between NASA and USGS. The two agencies have worked together to map rocky worlds — and keep astronauts and rovers safe — since the early days of the space race.
For example, geologic maps of the Moon made in the early 1960s at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, helped Apollo mission planners select safe and scientifically promising sites for the six crewed landings that occurred from 1969 to 1972.
Before stepping onto the lunar surface, NASA’s Moon-bound astronauts traveled to Flagstaff to practice fieldwork with USGS geologists.
A version of those Apollo boot camps continues today with astronauts and scientists involved in NASA’s Artemis mission.
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Rainbows and Rocks
To detect minerals and other compounds on the surfaces of rocky bodies across the solar system, including Earth, scientists use a technology pioneered by JPL in the 1980s called imaging spectroscopy.
One of the original imaging spectrometers built by Robert Green and his team is central to the GEMx campaign in the Western U.S.
About the size and weight of a minifridge and built to fly on planes, the instrument is called AVIRIS-Classic, short for Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer.
Like all imaging spectrometers, it takes advantage of the fact that every molecule reflects and absorbs light in a unique pattern, like a fingerprint. Spectrometers detect these molecular fingerprints in the light bouncing off or emitted from a sample or a surface.
In the case of GEMx, that’s sunlight shimmering off different kinds of rocks.
Compared to a standard digital camera, which “sees” three color channels (red, green, and blue), imaging spectrometers can see more than 200 channels, including infrared wavelengths of light that are invisible to the human eye.
NASA spectrometers have orbited or flown by every major rocky body in our solar system. They’ve helped scientists investigate methane lakes on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and study Pluto’s thin atmosphere.
One JPL-built spectrometer is currently en route to Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter, to help search for chemical ingredients necessary to support life.
“One of the cool things about NASA is that we develop technology to look out at the solar system and beyond, but we also turn around and look back down,” said Ben Phillips, a longtime NASA program manager who led GEMx until he retired in 2025.
The Newest Instrument
More than 200 hours of GEMx flights are scheduled through fall 2025. Scientists will process and validate the data, with the first USGS mineral maps to follow.
During these flights, an ER-2 research aircraft from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, will cruise over the Western U.S. at altitudes twice as high as a passenger jet flies.
At such high altitudes, pilot Dean Neeley must wear a spacesuit similar to those used by astronauts. He flies solo in the cramped cockpit but will be accompanied by state-of-the-art NASA instruments.
In the belly of the plane rides AVIRIS-Classic, which will be retiring soon after more than three decades in service. Carefully packed in the plane’s nose is its successor: AVIRIS-5, taking flight for the first time in 2025.
Together, the two instruments provide 10 times the performance of the older spectrometer alone, but even by itself AVIRIS-5 marks a leap forward. It can sample areas ranging from about 30 feet (10 meters) to less than a foot (30 centimeters).
“The newest generation of AVIRIS will more than live up to the original,” Green said.
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Hubble Snaps Galaxy Cluster’s Portrait
Jul 11, 2025
A massive, spacetime-warping cluster of galaxies is the setting of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image.
The galaxy cluster in question is Abell 209, located 2.8 billion light-years away in the constellation Cetus (the Whale).
This Hubble image of Abell 209 shows more than a hundred galaxies, but there’s more to this cluster than even Hubble’s discerning eye can see.
Abell 209’s galaxies are separated by millions of light-years, and the seemingly empty space between the galaxies is filled with hot, diffuse gas that is visible only at X-ray wavelengths.
An even more elusive occupant of this galaxy cluster is dark matter: a form of matter that does not interact with light. Dark matter does not absorb, reflect, or emit light, effectively making it invisible to us.
Astronomers detect dark matter by its gravitational influence on normal matter. Astronomers surmise that the universe is comprised of 5% normal matter, 25% dark matter, and 70% dark energy.
Hubble observations, like the ones used to create this image, can help astronomers answer fundamental questions about our universe, including mysteries surrounding dark matter and dark energy.
These investigations leverage the immense mass of a galaxy cluster, which can bend the fabric of spacetime itself and create warped and magnified images of background galaxies and stars in a process called gravitational lensing.
While this image lacks the dramatic rings that gravitational lensing can sometimes create, Abell 209 still shows subtle signs of lensing at work, in the form of streaky, slightly curved galaxies within the cluster’s golden glow.
By measuring the distortion of these galaxies, astronomers can map the distribution of mass within the cluster, illuminating the underlying cloud of dark matter.
This information, which Hubble’s fine resolution and sensitive instruments help to provide, is critical for testing theories of how our universe evolved.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-snaps-galaxy-clusters-portrait/
NASA selects SwRI and UTSA to test electrolyzer technology on parabolic flights
JULY 11, 2025
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) will receive a $500,000 award from NASA’s TechLeap Prize program to flight test novel electrolyzer technology designed to improve the production of propellants and life-support compounds on the moon, Mars or near-Earth asteroids.
The project, known as the Mars Atmospheric Reactor for Synthesis of Consumables (MARS-C), is led by SwRI’s Kevin Supak and Eugene Hoffman, and by Shrihari “Shri” Sankarasubramanian, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering at UTSA.
TechLeap prizes support future missions by advancing transformative solutions that address NASA’s technology shortfalls.
The SwRI/UTSA group is one of nine prizewinners funded to test their payloads on suborbital, hosted orbital or parabolic flights.
The program aims to accelerate technology testing timelines, allowing completion within one year of the award.
SwRI and UTSA researchers will evaluate the performance of a patent-pending electrolyzer developed with NASA support by Sankarasubramanian and his team.
The device applies a voltage across two electrodes to drive the electrochemical conversion of a simulated Martian brine and carbon dioxide into methane and other hydrocarbons.
This technology is designed to use local resources on the moon or Mars to produce fuel, oxygen and other life support compounds needed for long-term human habitation.
The work builds on previous research conducted by SwRI, which involved studying boiling processes under partial gravity aboard parabolic flights.
Designed to understand how liquids might behave on lunar or Martian surfaces, the research demonstrated that partial gravity affects surface bubble dynamics, which can affect gas production rates.
“In a partial gravity environment, like the moon or Mars, a reduced buoyancy effect on gas bubbles in an electrolyzer poses challenges that aren’t present on Earth,” Supak said.
“We lack an understanding about chemical processes that leverage bubble nucleation in low gravity, which is the gap we aim to fill.”
To address this, SwRI and UTSA will integrate the technology into an existing SwRI-built flight rig and test it aboard a parabolic flight, capitalizing on the Institute’s successful history testing technology in reduced gravity aircraft and suborbital spacecraft.
“We plan to acquire bubble nucleation and fluid motion videos in an operating electrolyzer during the parabolic flight,” Sankarasubramanian said.
“Understanding these processes can help us improve the overall efficiency and performance of these electrolyzers.”
After the flight rig is complete, SwRI will conduct ground tests before the parabolic flight to establish operating procedures and ensure a successful demonstration.
The flight is planned for 2026. “Humans have an intrinsic drive to push the boundaries of what’s possible,” Supak said.
“Exploring space catalyzes technological advancements that have far-reaching benefits in our daily lives — often unanticipated innovations arise as a direct result of overcoming the unique challenges of space exploration.
Establishing permanent presences on other planetary bodies could pave the way for unprecedented scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs.”
https://www.utsa.edu/today/2025/07/story/utsa-swri-researchers-test-electrolyzer-technology-parabolic-flights.html