The first time the Universe looked at high resolution: JWST’s Ariane 5 branch lifted from the sky with a giant mirror

I will never forget standing in steamy French Guiana on 25 December last year as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) lifted into the sky on the Ariane 5 rocket. A fortnight later, I watched as the final wing of the telescope’s 18-segment primary mirror, the largest mirror ever built for space, seamlessly expanded into its fully deployed form. I stared through tears at the first images. I was one of the first people to look at the Universe in high resolution.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04475-w

From NASA to Mars: A few unforgettable moments of terror during the last seven minutes of Earth science missions with the U.S. Department of Environment, Environment and Environment

Finding the right time to leave was important not just for me, but also for NASA. I wanted to go at a time when I was most confident in the strength of the organization. Even though the change will have a long term effect on the organization, it’s still vulnerable during transitions. At a US government agency, many transitions tend to happen as a result of the election cycle. It was crucial for me to step down quickly so I wouldn’t have to worry about stacking changeovers on each other. To prepare for such a transition, succession planning is key. We want to give future leaders the time to learn to lead well before we need them to take over.

NASA is midway through launching almost a dozen Earth-science missions focused on understanding our life-enabling planet — including a billion-dollar satellite to track the global water cycle in unprecedented detail — and is starting work on the next-generation observatory of the Earth system. We have the world’s largest programme devoted to Earth science in space, and for several years now the US government has invested close to US$2 billion annually in Earth science at NASA; it is currently considering increasing that to at least $2.4 billion. NASA does not work for the US government in building weather and space-weather-forecasting systems. We are on our way back to the Moon with the launch of the Artemis programme and we want to send people to Mars. And, in humanity’s first planetary-defence test in September, scientists intentionally smashed the DART spacecraft into an asteroid and redirected its orbit.

As NASA’s longest continually serving associate administrator of science, I have been part of incredible missions. Twice I have experienced seven minutes of terror — first when the robotic geologist Insight made its descent to the surface of Mars, then again when the Perseverance rover did the same — with both a success and failure speech in my bag. TheWright brothers made the first controlled flight on an atmosphere other than Earth’s, and flew a helicopter on Mars.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04475-w

What Am I supposed to do? How Did I Learn? What I’m doing with the James Webb Space Telescope and WASP-39b?

I have enjoyed this but every leader has weaknesses. It’s time for someone with fresh ideas to step in when the organization’s weaknesses become more pronounced over time. When was the right time for me to step aside?

I started by asking myself: was I still learning a lot? And was I still getting better? By ‘better’, I don’t mean approaching perfection or never making mistakes. Making the organization qualitatively and quantitatively stronger and enabling breakthrough innovation is what I mean by getting better. I knew that it was time for a new start when I could no longer respond to those two questions.

Nature is highlighting a package of five papers about the observations of WASP-39b, a hot exoplanet with a Saturn-like mass, that were made byNatalie Batalha and her daughter, who contributed to the James Webb Space Telescope.

Natalie was a college student. I entered UC Berkeley as a business major, not knowing what to do. My perspective changed dramatically when the astronaut Rhea Seddon came to my sorority; she was an alumna of the society. I wondered what I would do if I could do anything with her as a role model. I wanted to work for an organization that made space programs. I enjoyed a physics course and took it. Then I learnt the scientific method during a summer internship. I needed support and guidance while the process was addictive. The path wasn’t obvious. I didn’t think I was going to be a scientist when I wrote my PhD thesis. I was just doing what I loved, not knowing where it would take me.

Natasha was thinking about what a scientist would be like at a younger age. When we were young, my mom asked all her kids to draw a picture of an astronaut. (Natasha has three siblings.) I drew this horribly stereotypical picture of a white man. She was appalled that I, the daughter of a female scientist and my father a Latinx scientist, fell victim to this stereotype. She made sure I had other role models, such as Sally Ride (the first US woman to fly in space).

The study of the beginnings of life in the Universe was my undergraduate interest. But I got an internship studying the atmosphere of Gliese 1214b, an exoplanet orbiting a star 48 light years (14.7 parsecs) from Earth. I started my graduate career studying Mars, but found myself skewing towards exoplanets. The fields of astrobiology and exoplanets were also merging, after Kepler found the first Earth-sized, habitable-zone exoplanet in 2014, meaning that it was at a distance from its star such that liquid water could exist on the surface. It was an exciting niche to work in.

How did Natasha and Johannes Kepler comet to study their first big asteroseismology? It was a delight to see what happened

We complement each other in our approach to science. She’s good at identifying bite-size pieces of a problem. To use a jigsaw-puzzle analogy, whereas I could spend hours categorizing colours without ever connecting two pieces, Natasha would complete a whole corner of the puzzle. This happened recently when we were developing a research proposal. I started to think about the problem. We need to stay focused to meet the deadline. She wanted to pull me back from the edge by keeping it simple. Likewise, sometimes I need to push her to look at the big picture.

Natalie: I always say it’s in spite of me that she studies exoplanets. It shows the appeal of this field. This is an exciting time in history when we are learning of other worlds. I think that she planted the first seed in her mind when she was five years old, and that I was a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz. It was 1996 and comet Hyakutake was in the sky.

Natalie: I drove the kids to see it. The window on the car was looking at the comet and Natasha asked what it was. She got to discover it for herself, before we showed it to her. I perceived her wonder. Years later, I read biographies of the seventeenth-century astronomer Johannes Kepler. He attributed his own interest in science to a comet that his mother took him to see as a child. I love that connection. You have to arrange for a comet for your child to become a scientist.

One of the privileges of having a parent is that I can speak out about injustice. We give each other extra support.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00580-6

How to foster a culture of open science, from the Kepler to the JWST exoplanet’s models of the exoplanetary atmosphere

Natalie: Both Kepler and JWST represent new pieces of technology that break open a bottleneck in our knowledge. People feel pressure to be the first to publish or contribute. That creates a lot of tension that can be unhealthy for the field. I looked to create a culture for JWST that catalyses new science while minimizing this type of fear. That’s a fine edge to navigate. For JWST, we established a structure for collaboration that let go of the need to be first. I didn’t perceive any clashes in these initial JWST projects. I think I am proudest of that, more than the science itself.

Natasha: Last year, I was developing a curriculum on open science through a NASA programme, and I’d been learning about the US National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) guidelines for assigning authorship in large collaborations. We had conversations about how to make an open collaboration work, to be inclusive and give people credit for their contributions. Different models of the exoplanet’s atmosphere were created by at least ten teams. The scientific interpretation of our codes was so strong that many people were looking over their shoulders until all of the models were in agreement. It can be difficult to create an authorship list if hundreds of people have contributed. My mother used the guidelines from the NIH as a basis for their work. That was a very good marriage in our work.