NSTA Hyperwall Schedule

National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) Annual Conference, March 26-29, 2025

Join NASA in the Exhibit Hall (Booth #779) for Hyperwall Storytelling by NASA experts. Full Hyperwall Agenda below.

THURSDAY, MARCH 27

• 11:00 – 11:15 AM —— Do NASA Science in Your Classroom —— Marc Kuchner
• 11:15 – 11:30 AM —— My NASA Data Satellite Data for All —— Angie Rizzi
• 11:30 – 11:45 AM —— Lunar and Meteorite Sample Disk Program —— Suzanne Foxworth
• 11:45 – 12:00 PM —— DIY Digital Tools: Creating Smart Assets —— Jessica Swann
• 1:00 – 1:15 PM —— DIY: Immersive Virtual Field Trips —— Jessica Swann
• 1:15 – 1:30 PM —— Kahoot- Weather Terms —— Erin McKinley
• 1:30 – 1:45 PM —— Digital Plug and Play Lessons for Your Middle or High School Classroom —— Jessica Swann
• 1:45 – 2:00 PM —— Soar to New Heights with the NASA TechRise Student Challenge —— Marisa Cleghorn
• 2:00 – 2:15 PM —— GLOBE Clouds: Connecting Satellite Data to Your Classroom —— Jessica Taylor
• 2:15 – 2:30 PM —— Step Up to Remote Sensing with STELLA (Science and Technology Education for Land/Life Assessment) —— Mike Taylor
• 2:30 – 2:45 PM —— My NASA Data’s New Earth System Data Explorer —— Angie Rizzi
• 2:45 – 3:00 PM —— Apollo to Artemis: Sample Collection and Curation —— Kim Willis
• 3:30 – 3:45 PM —— Interactive Ways for Learners to Explore NASA Content & Assets —— Astro Materials Docent
• 4:00 – 4:15 PM —— Soar to New Heights with the NASA TechRise Student Challenge —— Marisa Cleghorn
• 4:15 – 4:30 PM —— Lunar and Meteorite Sample Disk Program —— Suzanne Foxworth
• 4:30 – 4:45 PM —— Step Up to Remote Sensing with STELLA (Science and Technology Education for Land/Life Assessment) —— Mike Taylor

FRIDAY, MARCH 28

• 9:15 – 9:30 AM —— Soar to New Heights with the NASA TechRise Student Challenge —— Marisa Cleghorn
• 9:45 – 10:00 AM —— Interactive Ways for Learners to Explore NASA Content & Assets —— Astro Materials Docent
• 10:00 – 10:15 AM —— Digital Plug and Play Lessons for Your Middle or High School Classroom —— Jessica Swann
• 10:15 – 10:30 AM —— GLOBE Clouds: Connecting Satellite Data to Your Classroom —— Jessica Taylor
• 10:30 – 10:45 AM —— Do NASA Science in Your Classroom —— Marc Kuchner
• 10:45 – 11:00 AM —— DIY: Immersive Virtual Field Trips —— Jessica Swann
• 11:00 – 11:15 AM —— Apollo to Artemis: Sample Collection and Curation —— Kim Willis
• 11:15 – 11:30 AM —— My NASA Data’s New Earth System Data Explorer —— Angie Rizzi
• 11:30 – 11:45 AM —— Step Up to Remote Sensing with STELLA —— Mike Taylor
• 11:45 – 12:00 PM —— DIY Digital Tools: Creating Smart Assets —— Jessica Swann
• 1:00 – 1:15 PM —— Lunar and Meteorite Sample Disk Program —— Suzanne Foxworth
• 1:15 – 1:30 PM —— Soar to New Heights with the NASA TechRise Student Challenge —— Marisa Cleghorn
• 1:30 – 1:45 PM —— Kahoot
• 1:45 – 2:00 PM —— Apollo to Artemis: Sample Collection and Curation —— Kim Willis
• 2:00 – 2:15 PM —— Step Up to Remote Sensing with STELLA —— Mike Taylor
• 2:15 – 2:30 PM —— SpacePhys Lab: A Heliophysics VR Experience for Education and Outreach —— Stephen Zaffke
• 2:30 – 2:45 PM —— Do NASA Science in Your Classroom —— Marc Kuchner
• 2:45 – 3:00 PM —— GLOBE Clouds: Connecting Satellite Data to Your Classroom —— Jessica Talyor
• 3:30 – 3:45 PM —— Interactive Ways for Learners to Explore NASA Content & Assets —— Astro Materials Docent
• 3:45 – 4:00 PM —— Lunar and Meteorite Sample Disk Program —— Suzanne Foxworth
• 4:00 – 4:15 PM —— My NASA Data Satellite Data for All —— Angie Rizzi
• 4:15 – 4:30 PM —— Kahoot

SATURDAY, MARCH 29

• 9:15 – 9:30 AM —— Apollo to Artemis: Sample Collection and Curation —— Kim Willis
• 9:45 – 10:00 AM —— DIY: Immersive Virtual Field Trips —— Jessica Swann
• 10:00 – 10:15 AM —— Lunar and Meteorite Sample Disk Program —— Suzanne Foxworth
• 10:15 – 10:30 AM —— Do NASA Science in Your Classroom —— Marc Kuchner
• 10:30 – 10:45 AM —— Digital Plug and Play Lessons for Your Middle or High School Classroom —— Jessica Swann
• 10:45 – 11:00 AM —— Step Up to Remote Sensing with STELLA (Science and Technology Education for Land/Life Assessment) —— Mike Taylor
• 11:15 – 11:30 AM —— DIY Digital Tools: Creating Smart Assets —— Jessica Swann
• 11:30 – 11:45 AM —— Kahoot
• 11:45 – 12:00 PM —— My NASA Data’s New Earth System Data Explorer —— Angie Rizzi

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How NASA’s Perseverance Is Helping Prepare Astronauts for Mars

The rover carries several swatches of spacesuit materials, and scientists are assessing how they’ve held up after four years on the Red Planet.

NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars in 2021 to search for signs of ancient microbial life and to help scientists understand the planet’s climate and geography. But another key objective is to pave the way for human exploration of Mars, and as part of that effort, the rover carries a set of five spacesuit material samples. Now, after those samples have endured four years of exposure on Mars’ dusty, radiation-soaked surface, scientists are beginning the next phase of studying them.

The end goal is to predict accurately the usable lifetime of a Mars spacesuit. What the agency learns about how the materials perform on Mars will inform the design of future spacesuits for the first astronauts on the Red Planet.

“This is one of the forward-looking aspects of the rover’s mission — not just thinking about its current science, but also about what comes next,” said planetary scientist Marc Fries of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, who helped provide the spacesuit materials. “We’re preparing for people to eventually go and explore Mars.”

The swatches, each three-quarters of an inch square (20 millimeters square), are part of a calibration target used to test the settings of SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals), an instrument on the end of Perseverance’s arm.

The samples include a piece of polycarbonate helmet visor; Vectran, a cut-resistant material used for the palms of astronaut gloves; two kinds of Teflon, which has dust-repelling nonstick properties; and a commonly used spacesuit material called Ortho-Fabric. This last fabric features multiple layers, including Nomex, a flame-resistant material found in firefighter outfits; Gore-Tex, which is waterproof but breathable; and Kevlar, a strong material used in bulletproof vests that makes spacesuits more rip-resistant.

Martian Wear and Tear

Mars is far from hospitable. It has freezing temperatures, fine dust that can stick to solar panels and spacesuits (causing wear and tear on the latter), and a surface rife with perchlorates, a kind of corrosive salt that can be toxic to humans.

There’s also lots of solar radiation. Unlike Earth, which has a magnetic field that deflects much of the Sun’s radiation, Mars lost its magnetic field billions of years ago, followed by much of its atmosphere. Its surface has little protection from the Sun’s ultraviolet light (which is why researchers have looked into how rock formations and caves could provide astronauts some shielding).

“Mars is a really harsh, tough place,” said SHERLOC science team member Joby Razzell Hollis of the Natural History Museum in London. “Don’t underestimate that — the radiation in particular is pretty nasty.”

Razzell Hollis was a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California from 2018 to 2021, where he helped prepare SHERLOC for arrival on Mars and took part in science operations once the rover landed. A materials scientist, Razzell Hollis has previously studied the chemical effects of sunlight on a new kind of solar panel made from plastic, as well as on plastic pollution floating in the Earth’s oceans.

He likened those effects to how white plastic lawn chairs become yellow and brittle after years in sunlight. Roughly the same thing happens on Mars, but the weathering likely happens faster because of the high exposure to ultraviolet light there.

The key to developing safer spacesuit materials will be understanding how quickly they would wear down on the Martian surface. About 50% of the changes SHERLOC witnessed in the samples happened within Perseverance’s first 200 days on Mars, with the Vectran appearing to change first.

Another nuance will be figuring out how much solar radiation different parts of a spacesuit will have to withstand. For example, an astronaut’s shoulders will be more exposed — and likely encounter more radiation — than his or her palms.

Next Steps

The SHERLOC team is working on a science paper detailing initial data on how the samples have fared on Mars. Meanwhile, scientists at NASA Johnson are eager to simulate that weathering in special chambers that mimic the carbon dioxide atmosphere, air pressure, and ultraviolet light on the Martian surface. They could then compare the results generated on Earth while putting the materials to the test with those seen in the SHERLOC data. For example, the researchers could stretch the materials until they break to check if they become more brittle over time.

“The fabric materials are designed to be tough but flexible, so they protect astronauts but can bend freely,” Fries said. “We want to know the extent to which the fabrics lose their strength and flexibility over time. As the fabrics weaken, they can fray and tear, allowing a spacesuit to leak both heat and air.”

More About Perseverance

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover is characterizing the planet’s geology and past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and is the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.

NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program (MEP) portfolio and the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance:

News Media Contacts

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov

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NASA’s Webb Captures Neptune’s Auroras For First Time

6 Min Read

NASA’s Webb Captures Neptune’s Auroras For First Time

Long-sought auroral glow finally emerges under Webb’s powerful gaze

For the first time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured bright auroral activity on Neptune. Auroras occur when energetic particles, often originating from the Sun, become trapped in a planet’s magnetic field and eventually strike the upper atmosphere. The energy released during these collisions creates the signature glow.

In the past, astronomers have seen tantalizing hints of auroral activity on Neptune, for example, in the flyby of NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1989. However, imaging and confirming the auroras on Neptune has long evaded astronomers despite successful detections on Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. Neptune was the missing piece of the puzzle when it came to detecting auroras on the giant planets of our solar system.

“Turns out, actually imaging the auroral activity on Neptune was only possible with Webb’s near-infrared sensitivity,” said lead author Henrik Melin of Northumbria University, who conducted the research while at the University of Leicester. “It was so stunning to not just see the auroras, but the detail and clarity of the signature really shocked me.”

The data was obtained in June 2023 using Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph. In addition to the image of the planet, astronomers obtained a spectrum to characterize the composition and measure the temperature of the planet’s upper atmosphere (the ionosphere). For the first time, they found an extremely prominent emission line signifying the presence of the trihydrogen cation (H₃⁺), which can be created in auroras. In the Webb images of Neptune, the glowing aurora appears as splotches represented in cyan.

Image A:
Neptune’s Auroras – Hubble and Webb

“H₃⁺ has a been a clear signifier on all the gas giants — Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus — of auroral activity, and we expected to see the same on Neptune as we investigated the planet over the years with the best ground-based facilities available,” explained Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Webb interdisciplinary scientist and leader of the Guaranteed Time Observation program for the Solar System in which the data were obtained. “Only with a machine like Webb have we finally gotten that confirmation.”

The auroral activity seen on Neptune is also noticeably different from what we are accustomed to seeing here on Earth, or even Jupiter or Saturn. Instead of being confined to the planet’s northern and southern poles, Neptune’s auroras are located at the planet’s geographic mid-latitudes — think where South America is located on Earth.

This is due to the strange nature of Neptune’s magnetic field, originally discovered by Voyager 2 in 1989 which is tilted by 47 degrees from the planet’s rotation axis. Since auroral activity is based where the magnetic fields converge into the planet’s atmosphere, Neptune’s auroras are far from its rotational poles.

The ground-breaking detection of Neptune’s auroras will help us understand how Neptune’s magnetic field interacts with particles that stream out from the Sun to the distant reaches of our solar system, a totally new window in ice giant atmospheric science.

From the Webb observations, the team also measured the temperature of the top of Neptune’s atmosphere for the first time since Voyager 2’s flyby. The results hint at why Neptune’s auroras remained hidden from astronomers for so long.

“I was astonished — Neptune’s upper atmosphere has cooled by several hundreds of degrees,” Melin said. “In fact, the temperature in 2023 was just over half of that in 1989.” 

Through the years, astronomers have predicted the intensity of Neptune’s auroras based on the temperature recorded by Voyager 2. A substantially colder temperature would result in much fainter auroras. This cold temperature is likely the reason that Neptune’s auroras have remained undetected for so long. The dramatic cooling also suggests that this region of the atmosphere can change greatly even though the planet sits over 30 times farther from the Sun compared to Earth.
Equipped with these new findings, astronomers now hope to study Neptune with Webb over a full solar cycle, an 11-year period of activity driven by the Sun’s magnetic field. Results could provide insights into the origin of Neptune’s bizarre magnetic field, and even explain why it’s so tilted.

“As we look ahead and dream of future missions to Uranus and Neptune, we now know how important it will be to have instruments tuned to the wavelengths of infrared light to continue to study the auroras,” added Leigh Fletcher of Leicester University, co-author on the paper. “This observatory has finally opened the window onto this last, previously hidden ionosphere of the giant planets.”

These observations, led by Fletcher, were taken as part of Hammel’s Guaranteed Time Observation program 1249. The team’s results have been published in Nature Astronomy.

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).

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.

Read the research results published in Nature Astronomy.

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, Maryland

Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Science

Henrik Melin (Northumbria University)

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NASA Statement on Nomination of Greg Autry for Agency CFO

The following is a statement from NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro regarding the nomination by President Donald Trump of Greg Autry on March 24 to serve as the agency’s chief financial officer (CFO):

“The NASA CFO is responsible for executing more than $25 billion in agency funding across a variety of missions, including the Moon and Mars, for the benefit of humanity. With his previous experience as the White House liaison during President Trump’s first administration, as well as his extensive experience in space policy, I look forward to welcoming Greg as our next CFO. If confirmed, we will work together with the current Trump Administration to ensure NASA’s success in maximizing efficiencies, refining our processes, and remaining effective stewards of every tax dollar invested in our agency.”

In addition to his previous experience on the agency review team and as White House liaison at NASA, he also has served on the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) at the FAA and is the vice president of the National Space Society.

Autry is the associate provost for Space Commercialization and Strategy at the University of Central Florida, a published author, and entrepreneur. He also serves as a visiting professor at Imperial College London. He formerly served as the director of Space Leadership, Policy, and Business in the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a professor at Arizona State University. He also has taught technology entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California and macroeconomics at the University of California, Irvine.

For more about NASA’s mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

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Bethany Stevens/Amber Jacobson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / amber.c.jacobson@nasa.gov

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Jennifer M. Dooren

NASA Cloud Software Helps Companies Find their Place in Space 

Planning space missions is a very involved process, ensuring orbits are lined up and spacecraft have enough fuel is imperative to the long-term survival of orbital assets. Continuum Space Systems Inc. of Pasadena, California, produces a cloud-based platform that gives mission planners everything they need to certify that their space resources can accomplish their goals. 

Continuum’s story begins at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Loic Chappaz, the company’s co-founder, started at JPL as an intern working on astrodynamics related to NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test. There he met Leon Alkalai, a JPL technical fellow who spent his 30-year career at the center planning deep space missions. After Alkalai retired from NASA, he founded Mandala Space Ventures, a startup that explored several avenues of commercial space development. Chappaz soon became Mandala’s first employee, but to plan their future, Mandala’s leadership began thinking about the act of planning itself. 

Because the staff had decades of combined experience at JPL, they knew the center had the building blocks for the software they needed. After licensing several pieces of software from JPL, the company began building planning systems that were highly adaptable to any space mission they could come up with. Mandala eventually evolved into a venture firm that incubated space-related startups. However, because Mandala had invested considerably in developing mission-planning tools, further development could be performed by a new company, and Continuum was fully spun off from Mandala in 2021. 

Continuum’s tools are designed to take a space mission from concept to completion. There are three different components to their “mission in a box” — design, build and test, and mission operations. The base of these tools are several pieces of software developed at NASA. As of 2024, several space startups have begun planning missions with Continuum’s NASA-inspired software, as well as established operators of satellite constellations. From Continuum to several startups, NASA technologies continue to prove a valuable foundation for the nation’s space economy.  

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