How Hard Is It To Become An Austronaut? I Want To Start To Studie Astrophysics And I Don't Know If I'll

Why Do X-Ray Mirrors Look So Unusual?

Does the object in this image look like a mirror? Maybe not, but that’s exactly what it is! To be more precise, it’s a set of mirrors that will be used on an X-ray telescope. But why does it look nothing like the mirrors you’re familiar with? To answer that, let’s first take a step back. Let’s talk telescopes.

How does a telescope work?

The basic function of a telescope is to gather and focus light to amplify the light’s source. Astronomers have used telescopes for centuries, and there are a few different designs. Today, most telescopes use curved mirrors that magnify and focus light from distant objects onto your eye, a camera, or some other instrument. The mirrors can be made from a variety of materials, including glass or metal.

Space telescopes like the James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes use large mirrors to focus light from some of the most distant objects in the sky. However, the mirrors must be tailored for the type and range of light the telescope is going to capture—and X-rays are especially hard to catch.

X-rays versus mirrors

X-rays tend to zip through most things. This is because X-rays have much smaller wavelengths than most other types of light. In fact, X-rays can be smaller than a single atom of almost every element. When an X-ray encounters some surfaces, it can pass right between the atoms!

Doctors use this property of X-rays to take pictures of what’s inside you. They use a beam of X-rays that mostly passes through skin and muscle but is largely blocked by denser materials, like bone. The shadow of what was blocked shows up on the film.

This tendency to pass through things includes most mirrors. If you shoot a beam of X-rays into a standard telescope, most of the light would go right through or be absorbed. The X-rays wouldn’t be focused by the mirror, and we wouldn’t be able to study them.

X-rays can bounce off a specially designed mirror, one turned on its side so that the incoming X-rays arrive almost parallel to the surface and glance off it. At this shallow angle, the space between atoms in the mirror's surface shrinks so much that X-rays can't sneak through. The light bounces off the mirror like a stone skipping on water. This type of mirror is called a grazing incidence mirror.

A metallic onion

Telescope mirrors curve so that all of the incoming light comes to the same place. Mirrors for most telescopes are based on the same 3D shape — a paraboloid. You might remember the parabola from your math classes as the cup-shaped curve. A paraboloid is a 3D version of that, spinning it around the axis, a little like the nose cone of a rocket. This turns out to be a great shape for focusing light at a point.

Mirrors for visible and infrared light and dishes for radio light use the “cup” portion of that paraboloid. For X-ray astronomy, we cut it a little differently to use the wall. Same shape, different piece. The mirrors for visible, infrared, ultraviolet, and radio telescopes look like a gently-curving cup. The X-ray mirror looks like a cylinder with very slightly angled walls.

The image below shows how different the mirrors look. On the left is one of the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s cylindrical mirrors. On the right you can see the gently curved round primary mirror for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy telescope.

If we use just one grazing incidence mirror in an X-ray telescope, there would be a big hole, as shown above (left). We’d miss a lot of X-rays! Instead, our mirror makers fill in that cylinder with layers and layers of mirrors, like an onion. Then we can collect more of the X-rays that enter the telescope, giving us more light to study.

Nested mirrors like this have been used in many X-ray telescopes. Above is a close-up of the mirrors for an upcoming observatory called the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM, pronounced “crism”), which is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)-led international collaboration between JAXA, NASA, and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The XRISM mirror assembly uses thin, gold-coated mirrors to make them super reflective to X-rays. Each of the two assemblies has 1,624 of these layers packed in them. And each layer is so smooth that the roughest spots rise no more than one millionth of a millimeter.

Why go to all this trouble to collect this elusive light? X-rays are a great way to study the hottest and most energetic areas of the universe! For example, at the centers of certain galaxies, there are black holes that heat up gas, producing all kinds of light. The X-rays can show us light emitted by material just before it falls in.

Stay tuned to NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the latest on XRISM and other X-ray observatories.

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Cool Space GIFs from the Internet

There’s a lot of historical and archived space footage on the internet and we’re excited to see that the public (you!) have taken it to create many other products that teach people about exploration, space and our universe. Among those products are GIFs. Those quick videos that help you express what you’re trying to say via text, or make you laugh while surfing the web.

Are space GIFs the new cat videos of the internet? Don’t know, but we sure do like them!

Here are a few neat space GIFs from the internet…

This GIF of the Cat Eye Nebula shows it in various wavelengths…

Followed by a GIF of a cat in space…floating in front of the Antennae galaxies...

One time, a frog actually photobombed the launch of our LADEE spacecraft…someone on the internet gave him a parachute…

Want to see what it’s like to play soccer in space? There’s a GIF for that…

There are also some beautiful GIFs looking through the Cupola window on the International Space Station…

This warped footage from the International Space Station gives us ride around the Earth…

While this one encourages us to explore the unknown...

When our New Horizons spacecraft flew by dwarf planet Pluto in 2015, the internet couldn’t get enough of the Pluto GIFs...

NASA GIFs

Want to dive into a black hole of other fun space GIFs? Check out our GIPHY page HERE.

Want to use our GIFs?! You can! Our GIFs are accessible directly from the Twitter app. Just tap or click the GIF button in the Twitter tool bar, search for NASAGIF, and all NASA GIFs will appear for sharing and tweeting. Enjoy!

GIF Sources

Cat Eye GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/astronomy-cZpDWjSlKjWPm Cat GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/cat-HopYL0SamcCli Frog GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/nasa-photo-rocket-NOsCSDT2rUgfK Soccer GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/yahoo-astronauts-zerogravity-QF1ZomA11zofC Cupola 1 GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/nasa-Mcoxp6TgvQm6A Cupola 2 GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/timelapse-space-11f3o8D2rQWzCM Earth GIF: http://giphy.com/gifs/earth-milky-way-international-space-station-ONC6WgECm5KEw Explore GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/text-timelapse-lapse-Vj7gwAvhgsDYs Pluto 1 GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/l46CzjUnYFfeMXiNO Pluto 2 GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/pluto-dbV1LkFWWob84

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New and Notable Tumblrs of 2015 - Part 1

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Spacewalk Recap Told in GIFs

Friday, Oct. 20, NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik and Joe Acaba ventured outside the International Space Station for a 6 hour and 49 minute spacewalk. Just like you make improvements to your home on Earth, astronauts living in space periodically go outside the space station to make updates on their orbiting home.

During this spacewalk, they did a lot! Here’s a recap of their day told in GIFs…

All spacewalks begin inside the space station. Astronauts Paolo Nespoli and Mark Vande Hei helped each spacewalker put on their suit, known as an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU).

They then enter an airlock and regulate the pressure so that they can enter the vacuum of space safely. If they did not regulate the pressure safely, the astronauts could experience something referred to as “the bends” – similar to scuba divers.

Once the two astronauts exited the airlock and were outside the space station, they went to their respective work stations.

Bresnik replaced a failed fuse on the end of the Dextre robotic arm extension, which helps capture visiting vehicles.

During that time, Acaba set up a portable foot restraint to help him get in the right position to install a new camera.

While he was getting set up, he realized that there was unexpected wearing on one of his safety tethers. Astronauts have multiple safety mechanisms for spacewalking, including a “jet pack” on their spacesuit. That way, in the unlikely instance they become untethered from the station, the are able to propel back to safety.

Bresnik was a great teammate and brought Acaba a spare safety tether to use.

Once Acaba secured himself in the foot restraint that was attached to the end of the station’s robotic arm, he was maneuvered into place to install a new HD camera. Who was moving the arm? Astronauts inside the station were carefully moving it into place!

And, ta da! Below you can see one of the first views from the new enhanced HD camera…(sorry, not a GIF).

After Acaba installed the new HD camera, he repaired the camera system on the end of the robotic arm’s hand. This ensures that the hand can see the vehicles that it’s capturing.

Bresnik, completed all of his planned tasks and moved on to a few “get ahead” tasks. He first started removing extra thermal insulation straps around some spare pumps. This will allow easier access to these spare parts if and when they’re needed in the future.

He then worked to install a new handle on the outside of space station. That’s a space drill in the above GIF. 

After Acaba finished working on the robotic arm’s camera, he began greasing bearings on the new latching end effector (the arm’s “hand”), which was just installed on Oct. 5.

The duo completed all planned spacewalk tasks, cleaned up their work stations and headed back to the station’s airlock. 

Once safely inside the airlock and pressure was restored to the proper levels, the duo was greeted by the crew onboard. 

They took images of their spacesuits to document any possible tears, rips or stains, and took them off. 

Coverage ended at 2:36 p.m. EDT after 6 hours and 49 minutes. We hope the pair was able to grab some dinner and take a break!

You can watch the entire spacewalk HERE, or follow @Space_Station on Twitter and Instagram for regular updates on the orbiting laboratory. 

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You’ve seen things floating in space, but why does that happen and how does it affect science being conducted aboard the International Space Station?

Sure, floating looks like fun, but it could also unlock new scientific discoveries!

Microgravity makes the International Space Station the perfect place to perform research that is changing the lives of people on Earth, and preparing us to go deeper into space. This season on our series NASA Explorers, we are following science into low-Earth orbit and seeing what it takes to do research aboard the space station. 

Follow NASA Explorers on Facebook to catch new episodes of season 4 every Wednesday. https://www.facebook.com/NASAExplorersSeries/

Next Gen @ NASA: Celebrating National Intern Day

To celebrate National Intern Day, we asked interns to share how they got their internship and their perspective and advice to the next generation of prospective NASA interns.

Meet our interns and check out their suggestions for the next generation.

Sarah Kilpatrick, STDCE-2 Data Intern

Sarah is a summer Surface Tension Driven Convection Experiment Data Intern at NASA. Her inspiration for applying for an internship came from a passion for science from an early age. “I grew up in a family that liked, enjoyed and appreciated science and the fun of it all,” she recalls. “I grew up watching PBS, NOVA, and other science shows, so when I saw NASA had opportunities for students like me, I was very interested.” 

Sarah’s advice to the next generation of NASA interns is one of perseverance and resilience.

Nicholas Natsoulas, Attitude Control Engineering Intern

Nicholas is a summer Attitude Control Engineering Intern at NASA. He wants to contribute to scientific innovation and discovery. “Overall, what inspired me to apply and come to work here was to contribute to the scientific exploration of space while learning about unique perspectives and innovative space discoveries.”

Nicholas’s advice for prospective NASA interns is to make the most out of your time here and to be a curious and eager learner.

“Use all the resources that are at your center and ask questions about projects you are working on. Don’t be afraid to talk to your mentor about your plans for the future and ask for any advice you may need, as they are more than willing to help you during your time here,” says Nicholas.

Nicholas and his mentor, Brent Faller, are using software to inform design decisions on a variety of spacecraft.

Nylana Murphy, former Additive Manufacturing Engineering Intern

As an American Indian College Fund ambassador and a Navajo engineer, Nylana Murphy hopes her internship story will inspire others to pursue a career in aerospace.

After attending the American Indian Science Engineering Society Conference, Nylana secured an internship in the additive manufacturing research laboratory at NASA Marshall.

 “My internships have helped me get to where I am,” she says, “There is a career for everyone, where their dreams can become reality. Those dreams WILL become a reality.”

You might be wondering: what happens after a NASA internship Here’s what two of our former interns did.

Loral O’Hara, Astronaut, former intern

Lorel interned at NASA JPL in 2003, and at NASA Goddard in 2004. She earned science degrees from both the University of Kansas and Purdue University.

As a research and project engineer, O’Hara reported for duty in August 2017 and completed two years of training as an Astronaut Candidate. She is projected to fly in Soyuz missions as a NASA astronaut soon.

If she could go back in time, Loral says she would tell her younger self to enjoy the opportunities that come her way—and never stop looking for new ones. “Enjoy the whole journey of…figuring out what it is that you like to do and exploring all different kinds of things.”

Jeff Carlson, Assembly, Test, Launch Operations Engineer

The “7 Minutes of Terror” video piqued Jeff Carlson’s interest in working at JPL. He thought, "That's the coolest thing I've ever heard of. I've got to go be a part of that in some way." While interning at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he worked on Starshade, a sunflower-shaped device used to block starlight in order to reveal planets orbiting a star. Later, he went on to work on the team tasked with assembling and testing the “head” and “neck” (officially called the Remote Sensing Mast) for the Mars 2020 rover.

Want to join us in exploring the secrets of the universe? Visit intern.nasa.gov to learn more about open opportunities and requirements!

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Credits: Isabel Rodriguez, Glenn Research Center intern and Claire O'Shea, Johnson Space Center intern

Earth Day at Home with NASA

When you think about Earth Day, you might think about planting trees or picking up garbage. But right now, as a lot of us are staying inside to stay safe, we’ve got you covered for Earth Day at Home with ways to appreciate our beautiful home planet from your couch.

Want to help our researchers map coral in the ocean?

Our new NeMo-Net app lets you do that while playing a game!

What about virtually exploring our planet?

Worldview lets you choose any location on Earth and see it the way our satellites do – in natural color, lit by electric lights at night, or in infrared, highlighting fires around the globe. 

On April 22 -- Earth Day -- we’ll have a host of activities you can participate in. Scientists will share their research from their own homes, including messages from astronauts living on the International Space Station! Hear stories from a trip to Earth’s most remote location: Antarctica, including what happens when the chocolate goes missing on a weeks-long excursion. We’ll even have a new episode of NASA Science Live sharing some of what we’re doing to make our work more sustainable.

We’ll be sharing Earth Day from our homes with #EarthDayAtHome on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and with a Tumblr Answer Time right here! Follow along, and participate, as we share our love for our home planet with you.

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Do you ever feel despair at work just because of your colour? Are you constantly under pressure to prove your worth? And do you feel like a brand endorsement of the organisation you work for when they say "first African American space station crew member"? I understand it could also be a matter of pride for you. Why should origins be used as a leverage for the image of the company? In fact, why should it matter at all? I apologise if these questions are inappropriate. I'm not yet an adult.

Since I have no problems with who I am, I never feel despaired. If other people have a problem, then that’s their problem. I will never take on anyone else’s problem. I do the same work as my colleagues, and I don’t accept less.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s flight harness is transferred from the mock-up structure to the spacecraft flight structure.

Your Body is Wired Like a NASA Space Telescope. Sort Of.

If our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope were alive, its nervous system would be the intricate wiring, or “harness,” that helps different parts of the observatory communicate with one another. Just like the human body sends information through nerves to function, Roman will send commands through this special harness to help achieve its mission: answering longstanding questions about dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets, among other mind-bending cosmic queries. 

Roman’s harness weighs around 1,000 pounds and is made of about 32,000 wires and 900 connectors. If those parts were laid out end-to-end, they would be 45 miles long from start to finish. Coincidentally, the human body’s nerves would span the same distance if lined up. That’s far enough to reach nearly three-fourths of the way to space, twice as far as a marathon, or eight times taller than Mount Everest! 

An aerial view of the harness technicians working to secure Roman’s harness to the spacecraft flight structure.

Over a span of two years, 11 technicians spent time at the workbench and perched on ladders, cutting wire to length, carefully cleaning each component, and repeatedly connecting everything together.  

Space is usually freezing cold, but spacecraft that are in direct sunlight can get incredibly hot. Roman’s harness went through the Space Environment Simulator – a massive thermal vacuum chamber – to expose the components to the temperatures they’ll experience in space. Technicians “baked” vapors out of the harness to make sure they won’t cause problems later in orbit.  

Technicians work to secure Roman’s harness to the interior of the spacecraft flight structure. They are standing in the portion of the spacecraft bus where the propellant tanks will be mounted.  

The next step is for engineers to weave the harness through the flight structure in Goddard’s big clean room, a space almost perfectly free of dust and other particles. This process will be ongoing until most of the spacecraft components are assembled. The Roman Space Telescope is set to launch by May 2027. 

Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on X and Facebook. 

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The magnetic field lines between a pair of active regions formed a beautiful set of swaying arches, seen in this footage captured by our Solar Dynamics Observatory on April 24-26, 2017. 

These arches, which form a connection between regions of opposite magnetic polarity, are visible in exquisite detail in this wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. Extreme ultraviolet light is typically invisible to our eyes, but is colorized here in gold. 

Take a closer look: https://go.nasa.gov/2pGgYZt

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