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Washington State High Schooler Wins 2024 NASA Student Art Contest
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)A 12th grade artist with a passion for NASA and space took home the top prize for the 2024 NASA Student Art Contest, a nationwide competition hosted by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
Esther Lee, of Washington State, was selected as the grand prize winner for her submission “Beyond Imagination,” which depicts a young girl and her dog in a cardboard box exploring the universe. Lee said she was inspired by memories of her adventurous childhood.
“Beyond Imagination,” 2024 NASA Student Art Contest grand prize winnerNASA / Esther Lee“The underlying inspiration from this piece actually originates from childhood memories. As a kid, I used to sit down in cardboard moving boxes and shuffle along the carpet or wood floors, pretending that I was a pirate or adventurer on a ship exploring the vast unknowns,” Lee said. “Ultimately, I wanted my piece to capture that same childlike innocence and joy from all those years ago.”
Lee’s piece stood out among a crowded and creative field. This year’s theme, “Connecting the Dots”, encouraged K-12 students to explore innovative ideas about the intersection of science, technology, and art.
“The milky ways party” by Ziyo Cui, 1st Place Kindergarten DivisionNASA / Ziyo CuiArt contest coordinator, Kristina Cors, said this year’s contest, which brought in more than 2000 entries, was one of the best. “The art contest received a record number of entries this year and the quality of the art was absolutely incredible. From the impressive skills of our winners to the joyful imagination of our youngest entries, each piece represented an excitement for exploration and creativity,” remarked Cors.
“We’re going back” by Hannah Kim, 1st Place 8th Grade DivisionNASA/ Hannah KimLee’s victory is a product of years of continued efforts and inspirations, as well as a personal interest in NASA’s missions and space science. “I’ve been drawing on and off since elementary school. As I had more time during the pandemic, I had the opportunity to explore digital art more seriously. NASA and space have always been a huge inspiration for me,” she said.
Esther Lee holding her grand prize-winning artwork, “Beyond Imagination”.NASA / Esther LeeUsing the software Procreate on her iPad, Esther took her interpretation of the prompt “Connect the Dots” skyward by imagining a connection between dreams and reality. She said “Beyond Imagination” emerged from a personal philosophy. “As a child, your dreams could take you far beyond your ordinary world. Equipped with just a cardboard box, paper hat, and plushies, you could travel all the way up to space and beyond. Your future is only restricted by your imagination.”
To view this year’s contest submissions, click here.
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Well over 5,000 planets have been found orbiting other star systems. One of the satellites hunting for them is TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Astronomers using TESS think they are made a rather surprising discovery; their first free-floating – or rogue – planet. The planet was discovered using gravitational microlensing where the planet passed in front of a star, distorting its light and revealing its presence.
We are all familiar with the eight planets in our Solar System and perhaps becoming familiar with the concept of exoplanets. But there is another category of planet, the rogue planets. These mysterious objects travel through space without being gravitationally bound to any star. Their origin has been cause for much debate but popular theory suggests they were ejected from their host star system during formation, or perhaps later due to gravitational interaction.
Artist impression of glory on exoplanet WASP-76b. Credit: ESASimulations have suggested that these ‘free-floating planets’ or FFPs should be abundant in the Galaxy yet until now, not many have been detected. The popular theory of ejection from star systems may not be the full story though. It is now thought that different formation mechanisms will be responsible for different FFP masses. Those FFPs that are high mass may form in isolation from the collapse of gas whilst those at the low mass end (comparable to Earth) are likely to have been subjected to gravitational ejection from the system. A paper published in 2023 even suggests that those FFPs are likely to outnumber those bound planets across the Galaxy!
Detecting such wandering objects among the stars is rather more of a challenge than you might expect. Their limited emission (or reflection) of electromagnetic radiation makes them pretty much impossible to observe. Enter gravitational microlensing, a technique that relies upon an FFP passing in front of a star, it’s gravity then focussing light from the distant star resulting in a brief brightness change as the planet moves along its line of sight. To date, only three FFPs have been detected from Earth using this technique.
A team of astronomers have been using TESS to search for such microlensing events. TESS was launched in April 2018 and whilst in orbit, scans large chunks of sky to monitor the brightness of tens of thousands of stars. The detection of light changes may reveal the passage of an FFP as it drifts silently in front of the star. It’s not an easy hunt though as asteroids in our Solar System, exoplanets bound to stars and even stellar flares can all give false indications but thankfully the team led by Michelle Kunimoto have algorithms that will help to identify potential targets.
Illustration of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterThe team published their findings recently in the Astrophysical Journal and reported one FFP candidate event associated with the star TIC-107150013 which is 3.2 parsec away. The event lasted 0.074 days +/- 0,002 and revealed a light curve with features expected of a FFP. This marks the first FFP discovered by TESS, an exciting step along the way to start to unravel the mysteries surrounding these strange alien worlds.
Source : Searching for Free-Floating Planets with TESS: I. Discovery of a First Terrestrial-Mass Candidate
The post TESS Finds its First Rogue Planet appeared first on Universe Today.