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LIS relocation

Earth Science Branch

Lightning Imaging Sensor Relocated on International Space Station

SERVIR Amazonia Launches Mangrove Monitoring Service

MSFC Earth Scientist Joins NASA's "Space for Agriculture" Roadshow

Astrophysics Branch

Zeta Ophiuchi: A Star with a Complicated Past

First IXPE Discovery Paper Accepted for Publication

NASA Selects Two Marshall Missions of Opportunity: LEAP and MoonBEAM

The giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is having a "shocking" effect on the surrounding dust clouds in this infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Stellar winds flowing out from this fast-moving star are making ripples in the dust as it approaches, creating a bow shock seen as glowing gossamer threads, which, for this star, are only seen in infrared light.

Zeta Ophiuchi is a young, large and hot star located around 370 light-years away. It dwarfs our own sun in many ways -- it is about six times hotter, eight times wider, 20 times more massive, and about 80,000 times as bright. Even at its great distance, it would be one of the brightest stars in the sky were it not largely obscured by foreground dust clouds.

This massive star is travelling at a snappy pace of about 54,000 mph (24 kilometers per second), fast enough to break the sound barrier in the surrounding interstellar material. Because of this motion, it creates a spectacular bow shock ahead of its direction of travel (to the left). The structure is analogous to the ripples that precede the bow of a ship as it moves through the water, or the sonic boom of an airplane hitting supersonic speeds.

The fine filaments of dust surrounding the star glow primarily at shorter infrared wavelengths, rendered here in green. The area of the shock pops out dramatically at longer infrared wavelengths, creating the red highlights.

A bright bow shock like this would normally be seen in visible light as well, but because it is hidden behind a curtain of dust, only the longer infrared wavelengths of light seen by Spitzer can reach us.

Bow shocks are commonly seen when two different regions of gas and dust slam into one another. Zeta Ophiuchi, like other massive stars, generates a strong wind of hot gas particles flowing out from its surface. This expanding wind collides with the tenuous clouds of interstellar gas and dust about half a light-year away from the star, which is almost 800 times the distance from the sun to

Iceland KnaCK 1

Heliophysics and Planetary Science Branch

KNaCK Planetary Analog Field Work Campaign in Iceland

Marshall Scientists Participate in 2023 Decadal Activities

Marshall Hosts Brazilian Science and Space Leaders

Science Projects Branch

Chandra's Golden Birthday

3D Astronomy: No 3D Printer? No Problem.

A Supernova's Shockwaves

This composite image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope shows the supernova remnant known as N132D. Supernovas are the explosive deaths of the Universe's most massive stars. Once these stars run out of fuel, they collapse and blast waves of energy into space around them. In this image, three of Spitzer's infrared bands are shown in red, green, and blue, while Chandra's X-rays are seen in purple. The pinkish color reveals a clash between the explosion's high-energy shockwaves and surrounding dust grains.

ATHENA

Science Test Branch

Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics X-ray and Cryogenic Facility Mirror Module Calibration and Testing