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For more information, contact Joel W. Sills, Langley Research Center, joel.w.sills@nasa.gov.

Download the PDF version

An instrumented hammer test does not require an idealized single half-sine waveform. When the complete force and response are measured accurately, crest ripples and separated contacts remain known inputs. Force shape changes excitation, but does not inherently invalidate the record. Adequacy depends on measurement accuracy, bandwidth, signal-to-noise ratio, and coverage of the test objective.

Background: What the Hammer Actually Measures
Hammer tests support modal analysis [2–4] and can precede pyroshock testing [6]. Figure 1 compares a half-sine, maintained-contact rippling, and separated contacts. During a zero-force interval, the structure continues to vibrate; re-contact acts on that vibration.

If an exact model and test article receive the same force and initial conditions, uniqueness gives identical responses for each bounded measured history. An approximate model can show different errors as inputs excite different frequencies, amplitudes, or nonlinear states. See [1] for the exact-model derivation.

Analysis: A Half-Sine Is Broadband, but Not Flat
Figure 2 shows that a finite half-sine is broadband but contains spectral zeros at f/fo = 3, 5, 7, …, with fo = 1/(2T) for pulse duration T. Its appearance alone cannot establish adequate excitation.

Analysis: Spectral Content Is Determined by the Measured Force History
Figure 3 normalizes each spectrum to its own DC value. Crest rippling adds content and can fill half-sine notches. Timing between separated contacts creates deterministic interference. For adequacy, inspect the unnormalized measured spectrum and response signal-to-noise ratio.

Recommended Practice: Evaluate Test Adequacy Against the Intended Objective
• Measure the complete applied force with adequate bandwidth, calibration, dynamic range, and time synchronization.
 • Verify that the response measurements have adequate bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio and are not clipped or saturated.
 • Confirm that the excitation covers the frequency, amplitude, and nonlinear-response ranges required by the intended test objective.
• Reject or repeat a test only for an identified measurement, excitation, or coverage deficiency.

Conclusion
Half-sine appearance neither establishes validity nor guarantees adequacy. Judge each hammer test by its purpose and by accurate, complete force and response measurements over the required range.

References
1. A. Majed, J. Sills, E. Henkel, V. Babuska, S. Yunis, D. Hamilton, J. Akers, and T. Kinney, Validity and Predictability of Measured Hammer Tap Inputs: Linear and Nonlinear Structural Systems, September 2026.
2. D. J. Ewins, Modal Testing: Theory, Practice and Application, 2nd ed., 2000.
3. ISO 7626-5:2019, Mechanical Vibration and Shock—Experimental Determination of Mechanical Mobility—Part 5
4. K. G. McConnell and P. S. Varoto, Vibration Testing: Theory and Practice, 2nd ed., 2008.
5. A. H. Nayfeh and D. T. Mook, Nonlinear Oscillations, 1979. 6. NASA-STD-7003, Pyroshock Test Criteria, 1999

The four-member Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) crew poses outside for the first time in more than a year following the end of their simulated Mars journey on Oct. 31, 2026. Crew members Matthew Montgomery (left), James Spicer (middle left), Ross Elder (middle right), and Ellen Ellis (right) spent more than a year testing systems, maintaining crops, managing limited resources and communication delays, conducting extravehicular activities and more in efforts to help NASA better understand how crews adapt to long-duration stays. Insights from their experiences will help NASA design its future Moon Base and plan for missions on Mars.

Image credit: NASA/James Blair

Meteor Showers, a Spacecraft Milestone, and a Supermoon

Catch Taurid and Leonid meteors, spot Mars near Jupiter, celebrate Voyager 1’s light-day milestone, and watch November’s supermoon.

Skywatching Highlights

• Around Nov. 5: Southern Taurids peak; occasional bright fireballs
• Around Nov. 12: Northern Taurids peak; around five meteors per hour under ideal conditions
• Nov. 15-16: Mars and Jupiter appear 1.2 degrees apart before sunrise
• Nov. 17: Shine Bright for Voyager’s Light-Day activation
• Nov. 17-18: Leonids before dawn after moonset; up to around 15 meteors per hour under ideal conditions
• Nov. 24: Full supermoon; first in a series of three consecutive supermoons

Transcript

A month of meteor showers … a close pairing of Mars and Jupiter … and a supermoon!

That’s What’s Up for November.

November offers a buffet of opportunities to see a meteor streak across the sky!

The Southern Taurids peak around November 5th, followed by the Northern Taurids around November 12th.

Those names refer to the two areas in the constellation Taurus, where the meteors appear to originate.

Each Taurid shower produces only a handful of meteors per hour—around five, under ideal conditions—but an occasional bright fireball can make the wait worthwhile.

Next up are the Leonids. For the best viewing times, try the early morning hours of November 17th and 18th, after the Moon sets. Under ideal conditions, the shower could produce around 15 meteors per hour, though most viewers will see fewer.

To level up your viewing experience, you will want to find a dark location, give your eyes about half an hour to adjust, and take in as much sky as you can.

Around mid-month, there’s another reason to head outside early. On the mornings of November 15th and 16th, look southeast before sunrise to see Mars and Jupiter close together.

They’ll appear about 1.2 degrees apart—a little more than the width of two full Moons side by side. Jupiter is the brighter point of light, with reddish Mars nearby.

Both planets are easy to see with the unaided eye. They’re still far apart in space, but from Earth, they appear almost side by side.

Watch over several mornings to see them draw closer together – and then go their separate ways.

This month, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft will reach a historic milestone, becoming the first human-made object to travel one light-day from Earth.

That means a signal traveling at the speed of light takes 24 hours to reach the spacecraft – and another 24 hours for us to hear back from it!

If you want to imagine where Voyager 1 is currently traveling, look in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer.

And on November 17th, join us in celebrating this milestone by participating in our Shine Bright for Voyager’s Light-Day activation. Learn more at nasa.gov/voyager.

On November 24th, the evening sky will be lit by a supermoon.

Because the Moon’s orbit is slightly oval, its distance from Earth changes. When it’s closer, the full Moon appears larger and brighter than average – though the difference can be subtle.

This kicks off a series of three consecutive supermoons in November, December, and January.

Look east around sunset to watch it rise. It may look even bigger near the horizon, but that’s the Moon illusion —a common effect with any full Moon.

Here are the phases of the Moon for November:

You can stay up to date on all of NASA’s missions exploring the solar system and beyond at NASA Science.

I’m Raquel Villanueva from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and that’s What’s Up this month.

Media accreditation is open for the next launch to deliver NASA science investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. A Northrop Grumman Cygnus XL spacecraft will launch in November to the orbital laboratory on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for NASA.

The mission is known as NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 25, or NASA’s Northrop Grumman CRS-25. Liftoff is targeted for no earlier than 10:49 a.m. EST, Sunday, Nov. 29, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Following launch, astronauts aboard the space station will use the Canadarm2 robotic arm to capture Cygnus and install the spacecraft to the Unity module’s Earth-facing port for cargo unloading. The spacecraft will remain at the space station until May 2027. This is the company’s 25th spacecraft built to deliver supplies to the International Space Station under contract with NASA.

Credentialing to cover prelaunch and launch activities is open to U.S. media. The application deadline for U.S. citizens is 11:59 p.m. EST, Thursday, Nov. 12. All accreditation requests must be submitted online at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

Credentialed media will receive a confirmation email following approval. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, or to request special logistical support, email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other questions, please contact NASA’s Kennedy Space Center newsroom at: 321-867-2468.

In addition to food, supplies, and equipment for the crew, Cygnus will deliver several new experiments, including hardware to manufacture tiny, DNA-inspired particles in space that could improve drug delivery for cancer and osteoarthritis, as well as a study that could guide cancer treatments by predicting whether a patient’s cancer is likely to spread to other parts of the body. Cygnus also will carry human muscle cells and medications to test therapeutics for muscle loss associated with spaceflight and aging on Earth, and a compact radiation sensor designed to improve crew safety on future missions. 

Each resupply mission to the station delivers scientific investigations in the areas of biology and biotechnology, Earth and space science, physical sciences, and technology development and demonstrations. Cargo resupply from U.S. companies ensures a national capability to deliver scientific research to the space station, increasing NASA’s ability to conduct new investigations aboard humanity’s laboratory in space.

For 26 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs that are not possible on Earth. The space station is an important testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit. As commercial companies concentrate on providing human space transportation services and destinations as part of a strong low Earth orbit economy, NASA is focusing its resources on deep space missions to the Moon as part of the Artemis and Moon Base programs to build on our foundation for the first astronaut missions to Mars.

Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

-end-

Josh Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov

Steven Siceloff
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-876-2468
steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov

Sandra Jones / Leah Cheshier
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov / leah.d.cheshier@nasa.gov

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope just revealed a mystery in our cosmic neighborhood. In a paper published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers using Hubble studied 37 nearby dwarf galaxies — small galaxies containing a few thousand to hundreds of millions of stars — and found that much of the oxygen they expected to see is missing. 

Simulations predict that significantly more oxygen, a tracer of a wider set of heavy elements, should reside in these galaxies. So where did it go? 

“Oxygen is produced by stars, which are inside of galaxies. We know that the oxygen had to be inside of the galaxies at some point in the past, so the oxygen must have been ejected,” said co-investigator Grace Telford, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah. “And to do that, you need energy from massive stars and supernova explosions to drive material out of the host galaxies and into the space between galaxies.”

Galactic winds unleashed by supernovae are apparently more effective at removing oxygen from low-mass galaxies than current models predict, according to the new study. The findings show that dwarf galaxies can hold onto only a small fraction of the oxygen made by stars. 

In the Galaxies Losing Oxygen via Winds (GLOW) project, funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation, scientists traced the oxygen to understand how it is distributed inside stars, in the gas between stars, and in the space between galaxies. But, of all the elements in the galaxies, why study oxygen?

Oxygen, the most abundant element after hydrogen and helium, is relatively easy to detect and measure, and its production is well understood — making it a reliable indicator of how chemical elements are distributed in a galaxy. 

“So, it’s really for practical reasons that we’ve chosen oxygen,” said Kristen Wingfield McQuinn, GLOW principal investigator and mission head of the Science Operations Center for NASA’s newly launched, panoramic Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. She also is an associate professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. 

“Oxygen is one of the primary elements formed by stars. Being able to trace how much oxygen gets made, and then how much is distributed inside and outside of galaxies, helps us understand galaxy evolution,” said McQuinn. “It also helps us learn where and how much galaxies are enriching the space between galaxies, called the intergalactic medium.” 

The study used archival optical imaging data from Hubble to resolve stellar populations and determine star-formation histories and compositions. Along with data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope as well as the ground-based Very Large Array and Australian Telescope Compact Array, the researchers analyzed 37 nearby dwarf galaxies to trace oxygen atoms produced by stars. 

The team wanted to understand how oxygen is distributed across the stars, gas, and dust in the galaxies. These dwarf galaxies were selected because their masses fall in the range where simulations and theory predict that an increasing amount of their oxygen will be expelled from the galaxies via supernovae explosions. These 37 galaxies also are all close enough for Hubble to resolve their individual stars. That’s not true for the vast majority of known dwarf galaxies, which are too far away for this kind of study.

Although astronomers already suspected that galaxies expel a large fraction of oxygen and other heavy elements, an open question has been where these metals end up. A previous study from 2014 addressed this question for Milky Way-like, star-forming galaxies, finding that these galaxies lost a large fraction of their oxygen, some of which is found in the diffuse haloes of gas surrounding galaxies outside their disks, called the circumgalactic medium.

In the GLOW study, McQuinn and her team extended this research to low-mass galaxies across a wide range of masses and environments. While previous teams have measured oxygen in the circumgalactic medium of dwarf galaxies, it is still unclear if most of the missing oxygen is in this region, or if it has been completely ejected from the galaxy’s surroundings. 

In the future, McQuinn hopes to study even lower-mass galaxies in the nearby universe. She has an approved program to use the Roman Space Telescope to find these faint and tiny systems across a wide swath of sky. Once she’s identified these galaxies, McQuinn hopes to use Hubble and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to get deeper observations of their stars. This would allow her to reconstruct the galaxies’ histories to understand how they formed stars across cosmic time. 

Telford’s future work involves using Hubble to zoom in on the individual, massive stars that produce oxygen and eject it from their host galaxies. She’s using some of the nearby GLOW targets to get very detailed observations to characterize how the massive stars are different in these small galaxies.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

German lawmakers and a filmmaker are among the people who received notifications from Apple warning that their phones may have been hacked.

The website builder said that the job losses are part of a broader restructuring of its organization.

The New York Times is suing privacy-focused web browser company Brave for allegedly scraping the outlet’s copyrighted content and unlawfully distributing it to its own customers, like Anthropic and Perplexity.

The plaintiffs said they started using YouTube as young as age 3 and other social media platforms at around age 9 and developed compulsive usage habits that they attributed to features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling.

Marvell's planned purchase of Lumentum is one of the biggest acquisitions in tech history. And they both have the same strategic investor: Nvidia.