New NASA Office Will Study Strange Cosmic Phenomena

NASA created a new office, the Einstein Probes Office, in Greenbelt, Maryland, hosted by the Goddard Space Flight Center, which will study some of the strange phenomena of the Universe, ranging from black holes and cosmic microwave background radiation to the elusive dark energy.

It will host many science missions trying to understand some of the cosmic mysteries and to further explore recently discovered events and phenomena. Part of the Beyond Einstein Program, five missions were proposed to be housed by the new office.

Two large observatories and three smaller probes will be built and developed there, like the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), designed to orbit the sun and measure gravitational waves in our galaxy and even farther, or the Constellation-X mission, that will look for matter as it falls into the supermassive black holes discovered so far.

Dark energy is one phenomenon this new office will address, a mysterious force that could drive the quickening pace of the expansion of our universe. Other issues, like the physics of the Big Bang and the distribution and types of black holes in the universe, will also be studied in detail by the new missions.

A National Research Council committee has been commissioned by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy to determine which of the Beyond Einstein missions should be developed and launched first.

"We look forward to receiving the recommendations of the committee," said Jon Morse, director of the Astrophysics Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. "Adding this new office to the existing logistical support for the Beyond Einstein Program will help us react swiftly to the committee's assessment."

The new spacecraft will be built on the same platform as other NASA missions that have proved to be valuable assets in understanding the origin and evolution of the universe, like the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.