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Watch this video to learn more about XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission), a collaboration between JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and NASA. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre Music Credits: Universal Production Music Lights On by Hugh Robert Edwin Wilkinson Dreams by Jez Fox and Rohan Jones Changing Tide by Rob Manning Wandering Imagination by Joel Goodman In Unison by Samuel Sim A powerful satellite called XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) is set to provide astronomers with a revolutionary look at the X-ray sky. XRISM is led by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in collaboration with NASA and with contributions from ESA (European Space Agency). XRISM detects X-rays with energies ranging from 400 to 12,000 electron volts. (For comparison, the energy of visible light is 2 to 3 electron volts.) This range will provide astrophysicists with new information about some of the universe’s hottest regions, largest structures, and objects with the strongest gravity. The mission has two instruments, Resolve and Xtend. Resolve is a microcalorimeter spectrometer developed in collaboration between JAXA and NASA. When an X-ray hits Resolve’s 6-by-6-pixel detector, its energy causes a tiny increase in temperature. By measuring each individual X-ray’s energy, the instrument provides information about the source, such as its composition, motion, and physical state. To detect these tiny temperature changes, Resolve must operate at just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. It reaches this state in orbit after a multistage mechanical cooling process inside a refrigerator-sized container of liquid helium. XRISM’s second instrument, Xtend, was developed by JAXA. It will give XRISM one of the largest fields of view of any X-ray imaging satellite flown to date, observing an area about 60% larger than the average apparent size of the full moon. The images it collects will complement the data collected by Resolve. Each instrument is at the focus of an XMA (X-ray Mirror Assembly) designed and developed at Goddard. X-ray wavelengths are so short, they can pass straight between the atoms of the dish-shaped mirrors used to capture visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light. Instead, X-ray astronomers use nested curved mirrors turned on their sides. The X-rays skip off the surfaces like stones across a pond and into the detectors. Each of XRISM’s XMAs houses hundreds of concentric, precisely shaped aluminum shells built in quadrants and assembled into a circle. In all, there are over 3,200 individual mirror segments in the two mirror assemblies. After launch, XRISM will begin a months-long calibration phase, during which Resolve will reach its operating temperature.

The sun is always changing and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is always watching. Launched on February 11, 2010, SDO keeps a 24-hour eye on the entire disk of the sun, with a prime view of the graceful dance of solar material coursing through the sun's atmosphere, the corona. SDO captures images of the sun in 10 different wavelengths, each of which helps highlight a different temperature of solar material. Different temperatures can, in turn, show specific structures on the sun such as solar flares, which are gigantic explosions of light and x-rays, or coronal loops, which are stream of solar material travelling up and down looping magnetic field lines. Scientists study these images to better understand the complex electromagnetic system causing the constant movement on the sun, which can ultimately have an effect closer to Earth, too. Flares and another type of solar explosion called coronal mass ejections can sometimes disrupt technology in space. Moreover, studying our closest star is one way of learning about other stars in the galaxy. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. built, operates, and manages the SDO spacecraft for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. All tracks are written and produced by Lars Leonhard. Credit: The SDO Team, Genna Duberstein and Scott Wiessinger, Producers

Perhaps more than all other federal agencies, NASA tells stories about big things: big places, big data, big ideas. Using extraordinarily high resolution data sets from some of the most innovative and powerful scientific instruments ever built, the media team at NASA Goddard presents PURSUIT OF LIGHT. The presentation showcases top level goals of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, with an eye toward capturing the imagination of mainstream audiences. Data visualizations at resolutions far greater than HDTV present NASA's science goals like never before. Interspersed with inventive live action footage also designed to make use of that vast canvas, this six and a half minute presentation captivates and moves viewers. PURSUIT OF LIGHT was designed expressly for a screen technology called The Hyperwall, a system largely perfected at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The Hyperwall itself is a platform best suited for big themes. With colossal screen resolution and an ultrawide presentational style, moving images played there take on a vast sense of scale and power. PURSUIT OF LIGHT employs the strength of this remarkable system and pushes it further than ever before, presenting stories about the Earth, The Moon, The Sun, The Planets, and the deep sky, wrapped in poetic implication about the humanity's imperative need to explore. This show will play prominently on touring Hyperwalls around the country as well as on the web. Credits: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC): Animator Alex Kekesi (GST): Animator Ernie Wright (USRA): Animator Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC): Animator Tom Bridgman (GST): Animator Victoria Weeks (HTSI): Video Editor, Videographer Michael Starobin (HTSI): Producer, Videographer, Writer

Space Ship Satellite Deployment

Airplane Landing

Rocket Launch Cape Canaveral Nasa

A Lunar Eclipse Taking Place In The Sky

Team members reflect on what has made the NASA/ESA Cassini mission such an epic journey—the extraordinary spacecraft, tremendous science and historic international collaboration.

Earth Views from the ISS

The Milky Way's supermassive black hole is generally a picky eater, but NASA's NuSTAR spacecraft recently caught it in the act of having a snack!