Black Scientists and Engineers Past and Present Enable NASA Space Telescope
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission, set to launch by May 2027. We’re currently integrating parts of the spacecraft in the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center clean room.
Once Roman launches, it will allow astronomers to observe the universe like never before. In celebration of Black History Month, let’s get to know some Black scientists and engineers, past and present, whose contributions will allow Roman to make history.
Dr. Beth Brown
The late Dr. Beth Brown worked at NASA Goddard as an astrophysicist. in 1998, Dr. Brown became the first Black American woman to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of Michigan. While at Goddard, Dr. Brown used data from two NASA X-ray missions – ROSAT (the ROentgen SATellite) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory – to study elliptical galaxies that she believed contained supermassive black holes.
With Roman’s wide field of view and fast survey speeds, astronomers will be able to expand the search for black holes that wander the galaxy without anything nearby to clue us into their presence.
Dr. Harvey Washington Banks
In 1961, Dr. Harvey Washington Banks was the first Black American to graduate with a doctorate in astronomy. His research was on spectroscopy, the study of how light and matter interact, and his research helped advance our knowledge of the field. Roman will use spectroscopy to explore how dark energy is speeding up the universe's expansion.
NOTE - Sensitive technical details have been digitally obscured in this photograph.
Sheri Thorn
Aerospace engineer Sheri Thorn is ensuring Roman’s primary mirror will be protected from the Sun so we can capture the best images of deep space. Thorn works on the Deployable Aperture Cover, a large, soft shade known as a space blanket. It will be mounted to the top of the telescope in the stowed position and then deployed after launch. Thorn helped in the design phase and is now working on building the flight hardware before it goes to environmental testing and is integrated to the spacecraft.
Sanetra Bailey
Roman will be orbiting a million miles away at the second Lagrange point, or L2. Staying updated on the telescope's status and health will be an integral part of keeping the mission running. Electronics engineer Sanetra Bailey is the person who is making sure that will happen. Bailey works on circuits that will act like the brains of the spacecraft, telling it how and where to move and relaying information about its status back down to Earth.
Learn more about Sanetra Bailey and her journey to NASA.
Dr. Gregory Mosby
Roman’s field of view will be at least 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope's, even though the primary mirrors are the same size. What gives Roman the larger field of view are its 18 detectors. Dr. Gregory Mosby is one of the detector scientists on the Roman mission who helped select the flight detectors that will be our “eyes” to the universe.
Dr. Beth Brown, Dr. Harvey Washington Banks, Sheri Thorn, Sanetra Bailey, and Dr. Greg Mosby are just some of the many Black scientists and engineers in astrophysics who have and continue to pave the way for others in the field. The Roman Space Telescope team promises to continue to highlight those who came before us and those who are here now to truly appreciate the amazing science to come.
To stay up to date on the mission, check out our website and follow Roman on X and Facebook.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Imaging using extreme ultraviolet scattering shows that optical pulses can generate surface excitations with spectra that were previously difficult to achieve.
[...]
Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) propagate along a solid material’s surface like ripples on a pond. SAWs with wavelengths of hundreds of kilometers are generated by earthquakes, whereas SAWs with wavelengths at the micrometer scale can be excited by lasers. Flavio Capotondi at the Free Electron laser Radiation for Multidisciplinary Investigations (FERMI) facility at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste in Italy and his colleagues have now demonstrated a simple laser-based technique for exciting and detecting SAWs with nanometer wavelengths [1]. They say that the work will allow the dynamics of materials’ crystal lattices to be probed over a wavelength range that has been inaccessible using other approaches.
Peer beyond the James Webb Space Telescope's stunning images and into the data that drives discovery. About 75% of Webb's observations produce a powerful type of data called spectra. Spectra are created by separating light into its many colors.
While human eyes can see a narrow range of colors called visible light, Webb's instruments detect mostly infrared light, which can pass through dust and reveals objects too cool or distant to shine with visible light. This allows scientists to identify chemical fingerprints and reveal details about the cosmos we’ve never seen before.
In this video, learn how spectra are behind some of Webb's most exciting discoveries.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; D. Kirshenblat, L. Hustak (STScI).
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Astronomers Capture Most Detailed Thousand-Color Image of a Galaxy - New Study/Science Updates
A new ultra-detailed map of the Sculptor Galaxy exposes stellar life and hidden structures, offering new insights into how small-scale processes influence entire galaxies. Astronomers have unveiled a remarkable new view of the Sculptor Galaxy, producing a highly detailed image that exposes features never seen before. The achievement comes from observations with the European Southern…
