National Aeronautics and Space Administration Volume 10 Issue 10 August 2014 www.nasa.gov GoddardView Trending – 2 NASA Gets ‘A’ Grade in Small Business Contracting – 3 NASA Sounding Rocket Detects Best Evidence Yet For Coronal Heating Theory – 4 Revolutionary Microshutter Technology Hurdles Challenges – 6 Algae Bloom on Lake Erie Measuring Gravitational Waves Algae blooms are a regular occurrence on Lake Erie in summer. The micro- with eLISA – 8 NASA GETS AN ‘A’ IN SMAll scopic, floating plants flourish in June NASA Postdoctoral Fellow Selected for and July as the water warms. It’s not ev- AGU Award – 9 ery year that a bloom leads to the shut- 2014 Intern Poster Session – 10 down of water supplies in an American Outside Goddard: Amber Straughn – 12 BUSINESS CONTRACTING city. Click on the image to see more. By: Izumi Hansen On the cover: Goddard Center Director he Small Business Administration gave NASA an The Scorecard considers overall involvement of small “A” for awarding 22 percent of its federal contracts businesses as well as specific goals concerning small Chris Scolese speaks to gathered media Melt Ponds Shine in Laser to small businesses in 2013—5 percent higher than businesses in areas designated to be historically unde- at Goddard’s Visior Center. NASA Admin- Altimeter Flight Images Ttargeted. rutilized, small businesses with socially or economically On July 16 and July 17, NASA’s istratr Charles Bolden is in the back- disadvantaged owners, and small businesses owned by ER-2 aircraft flew above Alaskan gla- ground. Photo credit: NASA/Goddard/Bill On Aug. 1, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden joined women or service-disabled veterans. ciers and to the North Pole, carrying Hrybyk Small Business Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet and MABEL, a laser altimeter, measuring U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland at NASA’s Goddard Agencies and the Small Business Administration decide the elevation of glaciers, mountains, Space Flight Center’s Visitor Center in Greenbelt, Mary- goals every two years to determine each agency’s prog- forests and other topography below. land to announce the results of the 2013 Small Business ress. The SBA ensures the sum of all goals accounts for Learn more by clicking on the photo. Federal Procurement Scorecard. 23 percent of the federal workforce. “At NASA, we’re in the business of shooting for the stars “Innovation comes from the smaller companies,” said Car- Conversations with Goddard Info and learning along the way how we can get better,” Bolden din, who is a member of the Senate Finance Committee Thermal engineer Christine Cottingham said. “We also take our commitment to small business and Senate Committee for Small Business and Entrepre- very seriously.” neurship. “[NASA] contracts with small business because thinks it’s cool to work on Goddard’s ther- Goddard View is an official publication of it helps create the mission.” mally hottest program. Read more about NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The annual scorecard measures federal agencies’ inclu- Cottingham and other Conversations with Goddard View showcases people and achieve- sion of small business in federal contracts by the agency’s Goddard Center Director Chris Scolese, Greenbelt Mayor Goddard by clicking on the image. ments in the Goddard community that support progress to reach small business inclusion goals. Emmett Jordan, Edge Space Systems owner and Presi- Goddard’s mission to explore, discover and dent Cindy Edgerton and members of the media attended understand our dynamic universe. Goddard “When we hit our small business procurement project it’s the meeting. View is published by NASA Goddard’s Office of a win-win-win,” said Contreras-Sweet. “NASA’s mission Communications. Spritely Prominence may be galaxies away, but are creating jobs right here at Following the media presentation, Bolden, Contreras- home.” Sweet and Cardin met to discuss small business. n A thin solar prominence appeared You may submit contributions to the editor above the Sun, then sprouted numer- at [email protected]. Ideas for new About 400 small businesses support Goddard in institu- Above from left: NASA Goddard Center Director Chris ous streams of plasma back into the Sun stories are welcome but will be published as tional maintenance, engineering design and technology Scolese, Edge Space Systems founder and President before disappearing a day later (July 28- space allows. All submissions are subject to support. Cindy Edgerton, Small Business Administrator Maria 29, 2014). Forces associated with strong editing. magnetic fields beneath the prominence Contreras-Sweet (at podium), NASA Administrator Charles are controlling the prominence and its Edge Space System of Maryland is one of those small Bolden and U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, at God- streams. Click the image for more. businesses. Edge Space System is currently working on dard’s visitor center on Aug. 1, 2014. Photo credit: NASA/ five contracts and develops thermal engineering designs Goddard/Bill Hrybyk for many NASA projects including the James Webb Space Telescope and Global Precipitation Measurement mission. Volume 10 Issue 10 • August 2014 3 NASA SOUNDING ROCkET DETECTS BEST EVIDENCE YET FOR CORONAl Heating Theory By: karen C. Fox cientists have recently gathered some of the strongest The EUNIS spectrograph was tuned to a range of wave- evidence to date to explain what makes the sun’s outer lengths useful for spotting material at temperatures of 10 atmosphere so much hotter than its surface. The new million kelvin, which are a signature of nanoflares. Scientists Sobservations of the small-scale, extremely hot temperatures have hypothesized that a myriad of nanoflares could heat up are consistent with only one current theory: something called solar material in the atmosphere to temperatures of up to 10 nanoflares—a constant peppering of impulsive bursts of heat- million kelvins. This material would cool very rapidly, produc- ing, none of which can be individually detected—provide the ing ample solar material at the 1 to 3 million degrees regularly mysterious extra heat. seen in the corona. What’s even more surprising is these new observations come Looking over the EUNIS data, the team spotted a wavelength from just six minutes worth of data from one of NASA’s least of light corresponding to that 10 million degree material. expensive type of missions, a sounding rocket. The EUNIS mission, short for Extreme Ultraviolet Normal Incidence Spec- “This weak line observed over such a large fraction of an ac- trograph, launched on April 23, 2013, obtaining a snapshot of tive region really gives us the strongest evidence yet for the data every 1.3 seconds to track the properties of material over presence of nanoflares,” said Brosius. a wide range of temperatures in the complex solar atmo- sphere. Scientists will continue to explore various theories further, gathering additional observations as their tools and instru- The sun’s visible surface, called the photosphere, is some ments improve. However, no other theory predicts material 6,000 kelvins, while the corona regularly reaches tempera- of this temperature in the corona, so this is a strong piece of tures that are 300 times as hot. evidence in favor of the nanoflare theory. “That’s a bit of a puzzle,” said Jeff Brosius, a space scientist at “This is a real smoking gun for nanoflares,” said Adrian Daw, Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and NASA’s Goddard the current principal investigator for EUNIS at Goddard. “And Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Things usually it shows that these smaller, less expensive sounding rockets get cooler farther away from a hot source. When you’re roast- can produce truly robust science.” ing a marshmallow you move it closer to the fire to cook it, not farther away.” In addition to having a lower cost, sounding rockets offer a valuable test bed for new technology that may subsequently Several theories exist for how the magnetic energy cours- be flown on longer-term space missions and the instruments ing through the corona is converted into the heat that raises parachute back to the ground so they can be recovered and the temperature. Different theories make different predictions re-used. The EUNIS mission will be re-tuned to focus on a about what kind of—and what temperature—material might be different set of solar wavelengths—ones that can also spot the observable, but few observations have high enough resolution extremely high temperature material representative of nano- over a large enough area to distinguish between these predic- flares and fly again sometime in 2016. n “...a real smok- tions. Opposite: Caption: NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory cap- NASA equipped the EUNIS rocket with a spectrograph to tured this image of what the sun looked like on April 23, 2013, ing gun for gather information about how much material is present at at 1:30 p.m. EDT when the EUNIS mission launched. EUNIS a given temperature, by recording different wavelengths of focused on an active region of the sun, seen as bright loops in light. To observe the extreme ultraviolet wavelengths neces- the upper right in this picture. Image credit: NASA/SDO nanoflares...” sary to distinguish between various coronal heating theories, a spectrograph can only work properly in space above the atmosphere surrounding Earth that blocks ultraviolet light. So EUNIS flew up nearly 200 miles above the ground and gath- ered about six minutes worth of observations. 4 Volume 10 Issue 10 • August 2014 5 REVOlutionary MICROSHUTTER TECHNOlOGY HURDlES CHAllENGES By: lori J. keesey ASA technologists have hurdled a number of sig- Considered among the most innovative technologies to adds weight, and is prone to mechanical failure. Perhaps provement. According to Li, a 3,000-cycle laboratory test nificant technological challenges in their quest to im- fly on the Webb telescope, the microshutter assembly is more important, the magnet cannot be easily scaled up in indicated that a third of the shutters stuck.