From Waxlight to Moonlight: 21st Century Standard Candles at NIST

A NIST physicist discusses the cutting-edge projects that promise to make measurements of light better than ever.

View as a Web Page Taking Measure Blog From Waxlight to Moonlight: 21st Century Standard Candles at NIST By Steven Brown, a physicist in NIST's Sensor Science Division One of the unexpected rewards of working at NIST has been the opportunity to see other disciplines through the NIST prism of measurement science and standards. By working with NASA scientists, astronomers, oceanographers and geologists, I have had the opportunity to witness the lives of scientists in a variety of fields. Often, my way of interacting with these researchers is by calibrating the sensors on their instruments. These calibrations help ensure that the instruments accurately measure the light and other electromagnetic radiation from objects the scientists are studying, whether it is the Pacific Ocean, a forest fire or a faraway galaxy. To calibrate these researchers' sensors properly, we need reliable ways to measure light itself. My NIST colleagues and I are currently engaged in some cutting-edge efforts to make these measurements better than they ever have been. But before I tell you about the high-altitude NASA aircraft we use and the lunar observatory we are building, let's talk about the earliest standard for measuring light output: the humble candle. Read More IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Fly Me (Partway) to the Moon Nov. 19, 2019 Last week, scientists from NIST, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of Guelph sent a telescope to the top of the sky, almost to space itself. The trip was a moonlight-gathering mission that has yielded some of the best measurements ever taken of the brightness, or more specifically the surface reflectance, of Earth's nearest neighbor, the Moon. Read More

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