NASA News March 14, 2025

NASA has launched a new space telescope named the Spherex. One of the most amazing things about it, is when we realize it only has a 7.9-inch mirror verses the James Webb telescope total mirror area is about 21 feet. At first one would think this is a mistake, but it is not. The telescope has one function among others of creating a map, an all-sky map. It is also going to study inflation, which is the expanding universe. Another duty it has is to measure the glow of the universe. It will also be looking for water in the universe. This will all be accomplished with the tiniest mirror that might have ever been launched for a telescope. I was a bit of an amateur astronomer and had a 12.5-inch telescope I used for many years.

NASA did a study of sea level rise in 2024. They said the sea level did rise and it was due to an unusual amount of ocean warming and meltwater from glaciers. According to NASA the main culprit was not the ice melting but the heat causing the expansion of the water. The water rise was less than ¼ of an inch, 0.23 inches to be exact, but was said to be only 0.17 the previous year. According to NASA the global rise of the ocean since 1993 has been about 4 inches, which is about 1.33 inches a decade.

The good news is SpaceX is preparing to launch a rocket to bring the stranded astronauts back to earth. Let’s all hope everything goes well with the launch and return and the health of the astronauts are not in too bad shape.

NASA had launched a mission in 2015 known as MMS or Magnetospheric Multiscale and the results have changed much of the thinking about what is known as magnetic reconnection. This happens when magnetic lines tangle up. This causes a tremendous amount of energy to be released. The subject has become very popular with scientists writing papers. The answers found have helped us understand many things including how the sun creates and influences space weather. It has been said advancements in this field have helped us understand fusion better.

Another NASA telescope is under construction and it is the  Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Why is the universe expanding? That is the question driving the force behind the construction of this telescope. Dark energy is suspected and thus this infrared capability is enabled. To study this phenomenon, a faster scanning telescope than the Hubble is needed and that is where the Nancy Grace Roman telescope comes in. It will be able to scan the universe over 1,000 times faster than the Hubble telescope. A survey of the sky will be made and the telescope will continue to scan the heavens.

One of the NASA projects will use a satellite to monitor crops from  orbit. It is known as NISAR or NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar. This satellite will monitor the crops as they grow, and check things like ground moisture. The health of the plants will also be watched and analyzed. Crops will be monitored from the minute they are planted until they are harvested. This could produce some advances in farming.

Some stars are surrounded by gas clouds. NASA would like to investigate why. The Hubble telescope has produced some targets to investigate. One is in our neighbor galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud. It is felt that when some stars collapse, others can rise from the gas. It is believed the hydrogen in the clouds gets irradiated by radiation from other stars and the gas starts to glow.

NASA and the Italian Space Agency performed a first on the moon. They successfully tracked earth-based navigation signals on the Moon. The project was known as LuGRE. The reason this is so important is earth trackers can pinpoint positions on vehicles sent to the moon. LuGRE stands for Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment.

One of the problems NASA has encountered is biofilms forming on surfaces in space. To counter this, two new anti-microbial coatings are being used to reduce this hazard. It is important to note the coatings are also helpful in preventing corrosion and are helpful in preserving human health. It is thought they will be very useful on long term missions.

We just keep finding out how dangerous long term space flights are. A mysterious eye problem is now being studied which presents a risk on these flights. I would think the first thing to find out is the cause. It might turn out it is not the flight but something else, like lack of gravity which might be able to be solved by artificial gravity in the future. We already know how dangerous radiation is in space flight and that we have to do something to eliminate this risk. Will we finally do it with some sort of shield or will it be as simple as a pill, or wearing special clothes?

One of the ways NASA is preparing for future space flights and projects is with virtual reality. Crews picked for the next manned moon landing are being prepped using it. In 2024 a simulation was conducted to see how the moon walks would go and make sure communications were up to par. Virtual reality is improving every day and with the addition of artificial intelligence it could become impossible to tell it from reality.

One of the things NASA wants to find out more about is the auroras which glow in our sky, to do this they have organized a project know as EZIE or Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer. They plan to launch it this month if nothing goes wrong. NASA feels they will learn more about space weather and more about how the earth sun connection affects us. The mission is composed of three cube sats which are small satellites. They will fly at about 60 miles up in the ionosphere.