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As the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, climate policy decisions taken by India will shape the fate of the entire world. But can it continue to develop its economy while keeping carbon dioxide down?

As the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, climate policy decisions taken by India will shape the fate of the entire world. But can it continue to develop its economy while keeping carbon dioxide down?

On 9 January 2024, the Einstein probe was launched, its mission to study the night sky in X-rays. The first image from the probe that explores the Universe in these energetic wavelengths has just been released. It shows Puppis A, the supernova remnant from a massive star that exploded 4,000 years ago. The image showed the expanding cloud of ejecta from the explosion but now, Einstein will continue to scan the skies for other X-ray events. 

The Chinese and European probe was designed to revolutionise our understanding of the Universe in X-rays. Named after none other than Albert Einstein, it houses cutting edge technology that will enable the observation of black holes, neutron stars and other events and phenomena emitting X-ray radiation. To achieve this it has two science instruments on board; the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) to give large field views of the sky and the Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT) which homes in on objects of interest identified by WXT.

The Einstein probe has three main questions it hopes to address focusing on black holes, gravity waves and supernovae. The recent image just released shows the stunning Puppis A supernova remnant. Supernova are a common process that takes place at the end of a massive star’s life. A star like the Sun is fusing hydrogen in its core into helium. The process is known as thermonuclear fusion and it releases heat, light and an outward pressure known as the thermonuclear force. While a star is stable, the thermonuclear force balances the force of gravity which is trying to collapse the star. 

Massive stars will continue fusing different elements in the core until an iron core remains. It’s not possible to fuse iron so the thermonuclear force ceases allowing gravity to win. the core collapses and the inward rushing material crashes down onto the core and rebounds into a massive explosion known as a supernova. 

Puppis A is one such object that is thought to have exploded 4,000 years ago. It lies about 7,000 light years from us which means the light that the radiation detected by the Einstein probe left about 7,000 years ago. 

In the image released from Einstein, the cloud like structure is all that remains of the star that went supernova. It is possible to see a bright dot at the centre of the cloud, this is the core of the star that remains, a neutron star. The FXT image was accompanied by a spectrum to show the distribution of energy to help understand the elements present. 

Source : Supernova remnant Puppis A imaged by Einstein Probe

The post First Light from Einstein Probe: A Supernova Remnant appeared first on Universe Today.

What created this giant X in the clouds?

The hypothetical ninth planet may be slingshotting Oort Cloud objects onto orbits that come closer to the sun than Neptune does.

Anyone familiar with astronomy will know that galaxies come in a fairly limited range of shapes, typically; spiral, elliptical, barred-spiral and irregular. The barred-spiral galaxy has been known to be a feature of the modern universe but a study from astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope has recently challenged that view. Following on observations using the James Webb Space Telescope has found the bar feature in some spiral galaxies as early as 11 billion years ago suggesting galaxies evolved faster in the early Universe than previously expected. 

Our own Galaxy, the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with a central nucleus and spiral arms emanating out from the centre. Our Solar System lies about 25,000 light years from the centre. Look at the galaxies in the sky though and you will see a real mix but generally they fall under the four main categories. Edwin Hubble tried to bring some structure to the different shapes by developing his galaxy classification scheme to articulate not only the shape but also the sub categories within them. 

This research published in Nature is the first direct confirmation that supermassive black holes are capable of shutting down galaxies

It has been known for some time that galaxies aren’t static. They move and they evolve and change. Spiral galaxies for example, as they age, they often develop a bar feature. The bar joins up the spiral arms instead of a nucleus connecting them and it is believed they are temporary, forming when a build of gas creates a burst of star formation. 

The existence of a bar in a spiral galaxy suggests that the galaxy is fairly stable. Understanding just how the bar feature forms is key to understanding the evolutionary process of the galaxy itself. All previous observations showed that the appearance of the bar significantly reduces from the nearby Universe to redshifts near a value of one. This tells us that the bar seemed to be a modern feature and not present in the early Universe. 

The barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300. Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

In a new paper by lead author Zoe A Le Conte, observations from the more sensitive James Webb Space Telescope report that galaxies to greater redshift are studied for bar features. Data is used from the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey and the observations from the Public Release Imaging for Extragalactic Research studies. Only the galaxies that also appear in the Cosmic Assembly Near Infra Red Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey are used giving a sample of 368 face on galaxies. 

The team visually searched through the 368 galaxy selection to classify and identify those with bars between redshifts 1 and 2 and then repeated the exercise for those between redshift 2 and 3. As expected, the fraction of bars reduced from around 17.8% between a red shift of 1 and 2 down to 13.8% at the greater red shift of 2 to 3. 

The study revealed that JWST’s infra-red sensitivity picked up twice as many barred-spiral galaxies than the HST’s more blue sensitive imaging platform. Le Conte and her team conclude that the evolution of bars in spiral galaxies began to appear at a much earlier epoch, around 11 billion years ago. 

Source : A JWST investigation into the bar fraction at redshifts 1 ? z ? 3

The post Galaxies Evolved Surprisingly Quickly in the Early Universe appeared first on Universe Today.

4 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is getting ready for the next big step in the evolution of its main campus in Huntsville, Alabama. Through a series of multi-year infrastructure projects, Marshall is optimizing its footprint to assure its place as a vibrant and vital hub for the aerospace community in the next era. 

Near-term plans call for the carefully orchestrated take-down of 19 obsolete and idle structures – among them the 363-foot-tall Dynamic Test Stand, the Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, and Neutral Buoyancy Simulator. These facilities are not required for current or future missions, and the demolitions will help the center transition to a more modern, sustainable, and affordable infrastructure.

Test engineers fire up the Saturn I rocket’s first stage (S-1-10) at the Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, or “T-tower,” at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in 1964.NASA

“These facilities helped NASA make history – the Dynamic Test Stand was the tallest manmade structure in North Alabama and helped us test both the Saturn V rocket and the space shuttle,” said Joseph Pelfrey, Marshall’s Center Director. “Without these structures, we wouldn’t have the space program we have today. While it is hard to let them go, the most important legacy remaining are the people that built and stewarded these facilities and the missions they enabled. That same bold spirit fuels us, today. We are committed to carrying it forward to inspire the workforce of tomorrow.” 

Built in 1964, the Dynamic Test Stand initially was used to test fully assembled Saturn V rockets. In 1978, engineers there also integrated all space shuttle elements for the first time, including the orbiter, external fuel tank, and solid rocket boosters.

The Propulsion and Structural Test Facility – better known at Marshall as the “T-tower” due to its unique shape – was built in 1957 by the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency and transferred to NASA when Marshall was founded in 1960. There, engineers tested components of the Saturn launch vehicles, the Army’s Redstone Rocket, and shuttle solid rocket boosters.

The Neutral Buoyancy Simulator, including its 1.3-million-gallon tank and control room, was built in the late 1960s. From 1969 until its closing in 1997, the facility enabled NASA astronauts and researchers to experience near-weightlessness, conducting underwater testing of space hardware and practice runs for servicing the Hubble Space Telescope. It was replaced in 1997 by a new facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Astronauts conduct underwater testing on the International Space Station’s power module in the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in 1995.NASA Honoring the Past, Building the Future

Marshall master planner Justin Taylor said the facilities team looked at every possibility for refurbishing the old sites.

“The upkeep of aging facilities is costly, and we have to put our funding where it does the most good for NASA’s mission,” he said. “These are tough choices, but we have to prioritize function and cost over nostalgia. We’re making way for what’s next.”

To preserve NASA history, the agency has worked with architectural historians over the years on detailed drawings, written histories, and large-format photographs of the sites. Those documents are part of the Library of Congress’s permanent Historic American Engineering Record collection, making their history and accomplishments available to the public for generations to come.

Marshall facilities engineers are still finalizing the details and timeline for the demolitions. Work is expected to begin in late 2024 and end in late 2025. Additionally, to support the center’s employees and all the mission work they are doing, Marshall has a few infrastructure projects in design stages that will include the construction of two state-of-the-art buildings within the decade ahead.

A new Marshall Exploration Facility will offer a two to three story facility at approximately 55,000 square feet located within the 4200 complex. The facility will include an auditorium, along with conferencing, training, retail, and administrative spaces. The new Engineering Science Lab – at approximately 140,000 square feet – will provide a modern, flexible laboratory environment to accommodate a new focus for research and testing capabilities.

Ultimately, NASA’s vision for Marshall is a dynamic, interconnected campus. The center’s master plan features a central greenway connecting its two most densely populated zones – its administrative complex and engineering complex.

“As we look towards the aspirational goals we have as an agency, Marshall’s contributions may look different than our past but be no less important,” said Pelfrey. “And we want our partners, employees, and the community to be part of the evolution with us, bringing complementary skills and capabilities, innovative ideas, and a passion for exploration and discovery.”

To learn more about NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/marshall

Molly Porter

Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
molly.a.porter@nasa.gov 

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How old is that star? That planet? That nebula? Figuring out the ages of astronomical objects is surprisingly challenging. Fortunately, astronomers have developed a series of techniques they can use to work out the ages of stuff.

Transcript

(This is an automatically generated transcript)

Fraser Cain [00:01:04] Astronomy Cast episode 717. How old is that thing in space? Welcome to Astronomy Cast, her weekly facts based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I’m Fraser Cain, I’m the publisher of Universe Today. With me, as always, is Doctor Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the planetary sciences, too, and the director of Cosmic Quest. Hey, Pavel, how you doing? 

Pamela Gay [00:01:27] I am doing well. It is hay fever. It is spring. Yeah. I do have a cool announcement to share out with all of our audience on, the. I should have had these dates in front of me. On Friday, May 24th, I’m going to be doing a meet and greet in Baltimore, at a cool old clock restoration place that has now been turned into a bar. And then on May 30th, I’m going to do a meet and greet in Orlando at the East Side Market. All of this information is going up on my social media and Cosmo Quest’s social media, and it will go on Astronomy Cast social media. It’s not there yet. So if you are going to be in either of those places, come say hi. I’ll be in Baltimore for the ball to con convention. So if you want to hear me give talks, that’s your opportunity. 

Fraser Cain [00:02:24] Read on. How old is that star? That planet, that nebula. Figuring out the ages of astronomical objects is surprisingly challenging. But fortunately, astronomers have developed a series of techniques they can use to work out the ages of stuff in space. So this is going to be like a collection of store like techniques overlapping. In some cases, it’s it’s like the distance ladder. 

Pamela Gay [00:02:51] Yeah, yeah. 

Fraser Cain [00:02:52] But it’s the age ladder which is, which is kind of sort of like a different, I don’t know, totally different perspective in how you think about stuff in space. So, I mean, we could talk about stuff in the solar system, stuff out in space, the beginning of the universe itself. Where where would you like to begin this conversation? 

Pamela Gay [00:03:10] So, so the way that we measure times falls into two categories. There is expanding stuff and we can just work backwards. Glorious, glorious B we can just work backwards. And then there is all of the stuff that has an age ladder that is usually, rooted in atoms and stuff. And I say, why don’t we start with all of the stuff that’s expanding? Okay? And. 

Fraser Cain [00:03:38] That sounds good, like Crab Nebula. 

Pamela Gay [00:03:39] Is that a good place to start? Yeah. 

Fraser Cain [00:03:41] Totally. Yes. Okay, so this is a great example, right? You look in space, you see this puff cloud of material and you ask yourself, how old is this thing? Now, in this specific case, we know how old it is because people watched it happen. 

Pamela Gay [00:03:57] And what’s cool is we figured out, yes, these two things exactly match because looking at the expansion rate and working backwards also matches the historic records. And and so to have this double confirmation is is kind of awesome. So with with the Crab Nebula we have photographic evidence of what it’s been doing since the early 1900s. We can look at this. We can see where the details in that. It kind of looks like a dead bug pattern of clouds and gas. We can see where it is relative to all the background stars. 

Fraser Cain [00:04:44] Right. And the point is that this is a supernova remnant that’s exactly expanding debris cloud from a supernova that went off. 

Pamela Gay [00:04:52] And then because we have these old images, we take new images and you can superimpose them, lining them up using the stars. Stars. Some of them have moved, but in general they haven’t. And you can see all of this dead bug of clouds of gas and dust have moved. And this allows us to work out the rate of expansion. And once you know the rate at which something is expanding, and we have enough images that we can now see, it’s also a continuous expansion. Once you know the rate at which something is expanding, you know the size that something is. That’s now just a distance equation that all of us have done when we were trying to figure out how long until I get to the place I’m going. Right, right. The total size of friends. Getting you a. 

Fraser Cain [00:05:43] Car? Yeah. In the car. They are traveling eastward at 50km/h. How long does it take for them to reach their destination? Yeah. Yeah. 

Pamela Gay [00:05:51] Yeah. So it’s exactly that math. You take the rate they’re moving, you take the distance, and you can figure out the time. It’s easy. 

Fraser Cain [00:06:01] Now, what are we seeing? Expanding. I mean, are we actually seeing this cloud of debris or. I know in some cases, you’re seeing the light that is leaving the explosion as it’s illuminating the surroundings. 

Pamela Gay [00:06:15] Right. So we have two different things we have to worry about with the Crab Nebula supernova remnant. We are actually seeing the the stuff move in some cases and the shockwave propagate. In other cases we’re looking at light echoes. One of the coolest side effects of the mantra project which looked at the nearby Magellanic Clouds was they saw these weird bright streaks through a lot of their images that they initially thought were errors in the optics. But as they went back year after year, they were able to see these bands did not remain in the same place. And as the bands moved when they ran the geometry, they were able to figure out this is an expanding shell of light. Oh, this is an expanding child, and the shell of light is moving at the speed of light, and it’s simply hitting gas and dust particles between the stars, getting reflected back at us. So we’re seeing this expanding shell and and then it’s just geometry problem to figure out where the center of that is and calculate when the supernova event that triggered the light was let off. 

Fraser Cain [00:07:39] And the example that we see in the sky more recently is supernova 1987 A, which has that really cool ring structure and has these weird, pearls. Yeah. This is embedded within the, the ring itself. And in fact, this material was hurled out as the star itself was dying. And that ring that we’re seeing is the light emanating away from the blast zone, illuminating all of the previous stuff that had been thrown out as it’s interacting with the interstellar medium. It’s a it’s a phenomenal idea. So so, you know, we sort of led into this idea that you can calculate back. And so when astronomers calculated, you know, use that simple geometry problem to figure out how long this expanding gas cloud has been going on with the Crab Nebula. When did they calculate the beginning? 

Pamela Gay [00:08:40] 1054. And there were Chinese records of something in 1054. And it now looks like that’s the match. This this is what it is. There’s archeological, records in the American Southwest as well. That may be datable because it’s thought that those carvings in rock may be the supernova and they’re in the right era. So we may also be able to use what we see with the light echo. What was confirmed in Chinese writing to get at the date of records in the American Southwest. Well, it all slowly allows things to go full circle as we create a time ladder, as he said at the beginning of the show. But in this case, it’s. Time of one thing and a whole lot of records. They get interrelated. And I just want to say it isn’t just supernovae that do this. One of my favorite light echoes is the 838 mine. This is a star that flashed amazingly. Two different color flashes. We were able to watch them evolve in this expanding shell, or pair of shells of light, allowed us to map out the distribution of material around this star or stars. After these Nova events took place. 

Fraser Cain [00:10:14] It, like almost everything that you see in space, is very static. You’re like, oh, there you’re looking at this nebula, you’re looking at this galaxy, and it is going to be unchanged for tens of thousands of years, millions of years in some cases. But in the 838 on it is this the time lapse of just from Hubble shows just how much it really looks like this explosion. It it yeah, it’s absolutely incredible. And so you can say, when did this event take place? We’ve done a ton of reporting on Universe Today about this, this stellar archeology that goes on where astronomers will find some, supernova remnant. They’ll use that technique that you mentioned, they’ll calculate the age of the blast wave, determine the date when this should have been visible, and then they go looking in historical records for anybody that noticed a bright star in the sky up here at this time. And it comes up again and again and again in ancient Chinese records, Japanese records, European records, Greek records, things like that. It’s it’s amazing how much there is this correlation, because these supernovae must have just been so exciting and scary for the people who saw them. They wrote it down. And we get to find out that this happened. All right. So we talked about, things that are expanding. Now let’s try and figure out the ages of more static objects. All right. So let’s talk about something simple a star. How old is that star. 

Pamela Gay [00:11:45] I was obsessed with, like, cratering, which is a whole lot easier. Okay, let’s go to the hard stuff first. I’m with you. With you. Okay. 

Fraser Cain [00:11:54] All right. Yeah. 

Pamela Gay [00:11:55] So? So with stars, we use nuclear cosmic chemistry, which is just a really fun word to say. The idea is there are a whole lot of atomic nuclei that are not entirely stable. And when a star forms, they will have a certain ratio, given the supernova material that went into them of the radioactive material and the water particles that come off when that material, decays into the water particles. And so when we look at some stars with just the right atmospheric conditions, we are able to see the ratios of the. Atoms that have the half lifes and do the decaying. And the daughter particles they get decayed into. And by looking at these ratios, we start to be able to say, this object appears to be this amount of time old. Now, this is an imperfect science because stars can eat their neighbors, they can eat their friends, they can eat their planets. So there’s always the potential for contamination. It’s also an imperfect science, because if a star is small enough, you have convection. If a star is big enough, it’s just gonna have a much more weird atmosphere to deal with. And if it’s a main sequence star, its surface gravity is just going to make things harder. It’s complicated. 

Fraser Cain [00:13:27] And and so. But to make lives easier, if it is in a globular star cluster, then you’ve got another vector to try and triangulate the age. 

Pamela Gay [00:13:38] Yes. So this is where we start getting into the do astronomers actually understand the lives of stars as a way of calculating the age? So we know in general that stars over time go from burning hydrogen in their core to burning more and more advanced atoms. Throughout this process, they change in color, they change in size. And when you make a plot of the color of the stars and the luminosity of the stars, they group up in different places in this plot according to what’s going on in their centers. And the first thing we see. Is because the biggest stars run out of hydrogen to burn in their cores. First, they leave the line that represents the main sequence of hydrogen burning first and is more complicated than that. There are things other than hydrogen being burned by the biggest stars on the main sequence. Do not at us, right? But by measuring where this turn off is, as you go to smaller and smaller stars, you can first rank. Okay, this is definitely older than this, right? Yeah. And as our modeling gets more and more advanced, we start to be able to say we are pretty sure that stars that have gone through all these different processes and have this combination of atoms, this metallicity scientifically, are going to be this age at this point. And so, this is how we went from when I was a graduate student being very confused that the globular clusters appeared to be older than the universe. We didn’t quite have our stellar evolution nailed down. We’re better now. 

Fraser Cain [00:15:29] Well, right. And I think that goes to the challenge of. 

Pamela Gay [00:15:33] Yeah. 

Fraser Cain [00:15:34] Any of these techniques and that like, really, I mean, we’ll get into this in a second, but really into the last couple of years, you were you would be off by billions of years occasionally. 

Pamela Gay [00:15:46] Yeah. That was a thing. 

Fraser Cain [00:15:48] It was not very accurate to know the age of that star. You say, look, it’s a means you would star. It’s it’s probably at this phase, you know, it’s 2 to 4 billion years old, right? Yeah. Which isn’t the level of accuracy, but but there has been a technique developed fairly recently. Astro seismology? 

Pamela Gay [00:16:07] Yes. 

Fraser Cain [00:16:07] Which is giving us much more accurate measurements of stellar ages. 

Pamela Gay [00:16:11] And this is because astro seismology, like making anything resonate, allows us to get at the density and size of that cavity in the outer atmosphere of the star. And, and one of my earliest things of research was actually looking at how our Laris, for instance, over time, their periods will evolve as the density of the star changes, with nucleosynthesis and stellar mixing and all these other things going on. And so by being able to get this check on the conditions in the outer layers of the star, getting this check on how the different forms of energy transfer taking place, the convective region, the radius transfer region. We are able to start saying from the data, we know these are boundary conditions and knowing boundary conditions. That reduces so much of the era. And we’ve also had another really cool check on a lot of this, which is as our telescopes get better, we’re able to see more and more white dwarfs in these clusters. And we know from how nuclear burning works what temperature the core of a star was when it decided to get rid of its atmosphere. And that gives us the starting temperature of a white dwarf star. And then we look at them and we can see what temperatures are the white dwarfs as they cool off. And that starts to tell us, okay, this distribution of white dwarf temperatures, in combination with this combination of evolved stars and the rest of the cluster, means it has to be a given age. So there’s lots of checksums coming into place. 

Fraser Cain [00:18:02] Yeah, it’s really cool, right? We look at the chemicals in the stars upper atmosphere, we look at its neighbors. We look at the tiny variations in its brightness, the the wobbles of seismic waves passing through the star. And you can triangulate on the age of that star three inch map. And there are more. But but those are, you know, if you’ve got other things that it’s interacting with other clues and hints and feels very much like, like a detective working on a very complex case. And if you notice something nearby, then you can draw that in as a hint to the age of this, of this object. So let’s talk about just the edges of surfaces on worlds. 

Pamela Gay [00:18:44] And this comes down to looking at cratering. And we can also get a ground truth by cheating and going there and grabbing rocks. So the moon is the best example. When we look at the moon, we see areas that are extremely cratered. We see areas that are quite smooth. And it all comes down to how old is that surface? If a region on the moon is sufficiently cratered such that. Every time a new rock comes in and hits it, it’s just a racing. Other craters. It’s basically at an equilibrium for the distribution of craters in that region. That is a very old region. Adding new craters does nothing right. If I’m looking at a region that has progressively fewer craters than that saturated region, I can then order the ages by. This is fewer. So it’s younger. This has even fewer. So it’s even younger than that. Bare naked crater lists. That’s a brand new section. And craters get erased through a variety of different means on the moon. Once upon a time, there was volcanism. Today, the biggest way to erase a region is you hit it with something sufficiently large that it flattens an area, probably melts the entire area as well, which is just a different form of lava flow. It’s no longer volcanic. Still have a crater, just not a volcanic crater. Blame craters. That’s the moral, I guess, for the moon. So you basically erase an area and then we know the rate at which rocks from space attack as a function of size. Right. There’s this regular onslaught of tiny stuff. There’s a less regular but frequent enough that we can actually see bright spots when we look at the crescent moon, where the bright spots appear on the dark part of the moon regularly, and imagery, which is super cool, that’s impacts taking place. And by knowing the rate at which cratering occurs, is a function of size of the thing doing the impacting, we can say, what is the difference in age between different areas? Now what we know with the moon we can put on a this is the actual time scale. Because the Apollo astronauts landed in a variety of different places. The, lunar samples taken from the Soviet Union were taken from a variety of places. And by saying this region where this rock came from is, related to this amount of cratering and this rock from over here that came from, this amount of cratering, has this actual age using radio, dating radio, active material dating then. We can correlate all of the the crater densities to actual ages. And what’s cool is we can then also take this and expand it out to the rest of the solar system. Now it’s a little bit more complex. We have to make assumptions about things closer to the sun are going to get hammered. A lot more things further out from the sun are generally going to get hit less. Exceptions get too close to Jupiter. All bets are off. And and by combining models ground truth with lunar samples and what we hope to someday get with ground truth from places like Mars and asteroids that aren’t rubble piles. We will be able to work out the cratering rate throughout our solar system, and thus get the age of various surfaces that aren’t being affected by weather and atmospheric conditions. Here on Earth, it’s a completely different story. We use sedimentation and radiocarbon dating, and other atoms depending on the ages you’re going towards. But, cratering is a great way to understand the rest of the solar system, and it’s from cratering that we know the surface of Pluto has been around for less time than insects belonging to the family of bees have been on the planet Earth. Bees have existed as bees longer than the surface of Pluto has existed based on cratering rates. And that’s right. 

Fraser Cain [00:23:27] Right. And so the just being that some, some active process is happening to resurface the, the, the, the surface of, of Pluto. Yeah. And and it’s the same thing like we look at the surface of Europa and it’s surprisingly smooth. Not a lot of craters there. So some process is actively smoothing it out. While we look at Mercury we look at the moon Ganymede. They look a lot older. Yeah. And and and again it’s back to this overlapping methods of, of measurement that you’ve got. On the one hand, you’ve got the actual samples that were brought home to Earth to allow you to sample, to figure out within the closest tens of millions of years when those samples, like when these regions were formed on the surface of the moon, was this lava flow, was that that lava flow, was it an ancient hilly terrain? Whatever. And then you count up the the crater counts, and now you start to realize how often these craters, these impacts are happening. And you can measure the ages with incredible precision across the surface. And that gets used on Mars as well. It’s kind of amazing. This crater happened before that crater, this. You can tell when this impact happened because of the amount of sub craters inside of it, which is bonkers. 

Pamela Gay [00:24:49] It’s it’s really amazing. And it it works in so many different ways. Even when you do have weathering here on Earth, it’s from our lack of of craters that we’re able to start to get at how young the surface of our planet has to be. When we look at Mars, we can see this region of Mars must have been wildly changed due to some factor, because it’s just dunes as far as the eye can see, and you don’t have craters. Now, admittedly, dunes are probably eating many craters. Our geology and our search for how worlds are changing is driven by what we do and don’t see with cratering. And that’s just a really cool dichotomy, and it really starts to get fascinating when you look at things like the radar data of what Venus looks like beneath all that cloud. Because yes, there are craters, but not as many as you would expect if it was a dead world. Highlight. Venus was not a dead world. It was very interesting until recently. 

Fraser Cain [00:26:00] Yeah, yeah, that that you don’t see the kinds of cratering that you would expect to see. And it all feels like it got a refresh at a very specific point in time to. And so you get this theory that, in fact, the entire crest of Venus turned itself inside out at some specific point in time, which is mind bending to think that’s that’s how a planet can evolve geologically. Sounds scary. Well, that was very cool. Powell I love this idea. Is there a name for this? The the age ladder? I don’t know if there’s a term for this, I wonder. 

Pamela Gay [00:26:37] There is not. I don’t think I’ve ever really heard anyone put it as age ladder before. And I love that. And yeah, I think I’m going to give you credit and use that whenever I can. So it sounds good. Thank you for making my life happier. 

Fraser Cain [00:26:57] That sounds good. Thanks very much. 

Pamela Gay [00:26:59] And thank you. Not just Fraser, but thank you everyone who’s out there supporting the show, allowing us to do this week after week. This week. I would like to thank Jordan Young, Boogieing that Stephen Veitch and that Wink burrow under a level, Christian manager Holt, Ziggy, Camilla, Andrew Lester, Brian. Cagle, David. Trobe, Ed David, Gerald. Schweitzer, buzz. Parsec, zero. Chill, Laura. Kelson, Robert. Plasma, Joe. Holstein, Richard. Drum, les. Howard, Gordon. Doers, Adam. Annas. Brown, Alexis. Brenda. Conrad, Holling. Kim, Baron. Astrocytes. I think this person made up their name, conveyed the role of love science Wanderer and 101 Felix Goot, William. Andrews. Gold. Jeff Collins. Marcy. Her. Leo. Simeon. Parton, Jeremy. Kerwin, Kellyanne and David. Parker. Slug. Harold. Barton. Hagen, Alex. Cohen. Claudia mastroianni. Conception. Franco, Matt. Rucker, Abraham. Cottrell, Mark. Steven. Rusnak and Esau. Alex. Rain. And. And if you too would like to hear me, attempt to pronounce your name with varying levels of success, join our Patreon at the $10 a month level or higher at Patreon.com Slash Astronomy Cast. You are the reason we get to do this pretty much stress free. We have the best group of humans behind us making everything happen. 

Fraser Cain [00:28:37] Awesome! Thanks everyone and we’ll see you next week. 

Pamela Gay [00:28:40] Bye bye. Astronomy cast is a joint product of the Universe Today and the Planetary Science Institute. Astronomy cast is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. So love it, share it, and remix it, but please credit it to our hosts, Fraser Cain and Doctor Pamela Gay. You can get more information on today’s show topic on our website. Astronomy. Cars.com. This episode was brought to you thanks to our generous patrons on Patreon. If you want to help keep the show going, please consider joining our community at Patreon.com Slash Astronomy Cast. Not only do you help us pay our producers a fair wage, you will also get special access to content right in your inbox and invites to online events. We are so grateful to all of you who have joined our Patreon community already. Anyways, keep looking up. This has been Astronomy Cast. 

Plastic production is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than flying – at a summit in Canada, countries were divided on how to deal with this under-recognised part of the plastic problem

Plastic production is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than flying – at a summit in Canada, countries were divided on how to deal with this under-recognised part of the plastic problem

Red foxes and Arctic foxes dive headfirst into snow at up to 4 metres per second to catch small rodents, and the shape of their snouts reduces the impact force

Red foxes and Arctic foxes dive headfirst into snow at up to 4 metres per second to catch small rodents, and the shape of their snouts reduces the impact force

The atlas, which is available in Chinese and English, depicts the surface of the moon with a scale of 1:2.5 million. It highlights many intriguing geological features, such as impact craters.

When a spacecraft arrives at its destination, it settles into an orbit for science operations. But after the primary mission is complete, there might be other interesting orbits where scientists would like to explore. Maneuvering to a different orbit requires fuel, limiting a spacecraft’s number of maneuvers.

Researchers have discovered that some orbital paths allow for no-fuel orbital changes. But the figuring out these paths also are computationally expensive. Knot theory has been shown to find these pathways more easily, allowing the most fuel-efficient routes to be plotted. This is similar to how our GPS mapping software plots the most efficient routes for us here on Earth.

In mathematics, knot theory is the study of closed curves in three dimensions. Think of it as looking at a knotted necklace or a tangle of fishing line, and figuring out how to untangle them in the most efficient manner.

In the same way, a spacecraft’s path could be computed in a crowded planetary system – around Jupiter and all its moons, for example – where the best, simplest and least tangled route could be computed mathematically.

A graphic showing the orbital path the Danuri Lunar Pathfinder spacecraft will take to go into orbit around the Moon. Credit: Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI)

According to a new paper in the journal Astrodynamics, “Applications of knot theory to the detection of heteroclinic connections between quasi-periodic orbits,” using knot theory to untangle complicated spacecraft routes would decrease the amount of computer power or just plain guesswork in plotting out changes in spacecraft orbits.

“Previously, when the likes of NASA wanted to plot a route, their calculations relied on either brute force or guesswork,” said Danny Owen, a postgraduate research student in astrodynamics, in a press release from the University of Surrey. “Our new technique neatly reveals all possible routes a spacecraft could take from A to B, as long as both orbits share a common energy level.”

Owen added that this new process makes the task of planning missions much simpler. “We think of it as a tube [subway] map for space,” he said.

Spacecraft navigation is complicated by the fact that nothing in space is a fixed position. Navigators must meet the challenges of calculating the exact speeds and orientations of a rotating Earth, a rotating target destination, as well as a moving spacecraft, while all are simultaneously traveling in their own orbits around the Sun.

Since fuel is a limited resource for most missions, it would be beneficial to require the least amount of fuel possible in making any changes to the course of a spacecraft in orbit.  

Spacecraft navigators use something called heteroclinic orbits — often called heteroclinic connections — which are paths that allow a spacecraft to travel from one orbit to another using the most efficient amount of fuel – or sometimes no fuel at all. But this usually takes a large amount of computer power or a lot of time to figure out.  

Artist’s impession of the Lunar Gateway with the Orion spacecraft docked on the left side. Credit: ESA

But Owen and co-author Nicola Baresi, a lecturer in Orbital Mechanics at the University of Surrey, wrote that by using knot theory, they have developed “a method of robustly detecting heteroclinic connections,” they wrote in their paper, to quickly generate rough trajectories – which can then be refined. This gives spacecraft navigators a full list of all possible routes from a designated orbit, and the one that best fits the mission can be chosen. They can then choose the one that best suits their mission.

The researchers tested their technique on various planetary systems, including the Moon, and the Galilean moons of Jupiter.

“Spurred on by NASA’s Artemis program, the new Moon race is inspiring mission designers around the world to research fuel-efficient routes that can better and more efficiently explore the vicinity of the Moon,” said Baresi. “Not only does our technique make that cumbersome task more straightforward, but it can also be applied to other planetary systems, such as the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter.”

The post How Knot Theory Can Help Spacecraft Can Change Orbits Without Using Fuel appeared first on Universe Today.

The list of chemicals found in space is growing longer and longer. Astronomers have found amino acids and other building blocks of life on comets, asteroids, and even floating freely in space. Now, researchers have found another complex chemical to add to the list.

The new chemical is known as 2-methoxyethanol (CH3OCH2CH2OH). It’s one of several methoxy molecules that scientists have found in space. But with 13 atoms, it’s one of the largest and most complex ones ever detected.

A team of scientists called the McGuire Group specializes in detecting chemicals in space. The McGuire Group and other researchers from institutions in Florida and France worked together to find 2-methoxyethanol.

The researchers published their findings in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. It’s titled “Rotational Spectrum and First Interstellar Detection of 2-methoxyethanol Using ALMA Observations of NGC 6334I.” The lead author is Zachary Fried, a graduate student in the McGuire Group at MIT.

A ball and stick model of 2-methoxyethanol (CH3OCH2CH2OH). With 13 atoms, it’s one of the largest complex chemicals ever found in space. Image Credit: By Ben Mills – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3081683

“There are a number of ‘methoxy’ molecules in space, like dimethyl ether, methoxymethanol, ethyl methyl ether, and methyl formate, but 2-methoxyethanol would be the largest and most complex ever seen,” said lead author Fried.

The researchers didn’t stumble upon the large molecule. It was found as part of a concerted effort to detect new chemicals in space. It all started with machine learning. In 2023, one machine-learning model suggested they look for 2-methoxyethanol. The next step was the lab, where researchers performed experiments that measured and analyzed the molecule’s rotational spectrum here on Earth.

“We do this by looking at the rotational spectra of molecules, the unique patterns of light they give off as they tumble end-over-end in space,” said Fried. “These patterns are fingerprints (barcodes) for molecules. To detect new molecules in space, we first must have an idea of what molecule we want to look for, then we can record its spectrum in the lab here on Earth, and then finally we look for that spectrum in space using telescopes.”

The researchers measured the molecule’s spectrum over a broadband region of frequencies ranging from the microwave to sub-millimetre wave regimes (from about 8 to 500 gigahertz).

With that data in hand, the researchers turned to ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimetre/sub-millimetre Array. ALMA gathered data from two star-forming regions: NGC 6334I and IRAS 16293-2422B. Researchers from the McGuire Group, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and the University of Copenhagen all worked on analyzing ALMA’s observations.

“Ultimately, we observed 25 rotational lines of 2-methoxyethanol that lined up with the molecular signal observed toward NGC 6334I (the barcode matched!), thus resulting in a secure detection of 2-methoxyethanol in this source,” said Fried. “This allowed us to then derive physical parameters of the molecule toward NGC 6334I, such as its abundance and excitation temperature. It also enabled an investigation of the possible chemical formation pathways from known interstellar precursors.”

NGC 6334m the Cat’s Paw Nebula. Image Credit: ESO

Here on Earth, 2-methoxyethanol is used mostly as a solvent. It’s toxic to bone marrow and testicles. But its status here on Earth isn’t relevant to its discovery.

The large molecule isn’t a building block for life, either. It’s significant because of its size and complexity. Scientists are interested in understanding how chemistry evolves and forms large molecules in regions where stars and planets are forming.

“Our group tries to understand what molecules are present in regions of space where stars and solar systems will eventually take shape,” explained Fried. “This allows us to piece together how chemistry evolves alongside the process of star and planet formation.”

Molecular complexity is the hallmark of life, so, of course, scientists want to understand molecular complexity in space. As of 2021, scientists only found six molecules in space larger than 13 atoms outside our Solar System. McGuire’s team found many of them.

Finding them is the first step. The next step is to figure out how and where they form. Though there are no direct links between 2-methoxyethanol and life, all complex chemistry has something to tell us about complex chemistry in general.

“Continued observations of large molecules and subsequent derivations of their abundances allows us to advance our knowledge of how efficiently large molecules can form and by which specific reactions they may be produced,” said Fried. “Additionally, since we detected this molecule in NGC 6334I but not in IRAS 16293-2422B, we were presented with a unique opportunity to look into how the differing physical conditions of these two sources may be affecting the chemistry that can occur.”

IRAS 16293?2422 in the star-forming region Rho Ophiuchi. Image Credit: ESO

NGC 6334I is a higher-mass star-forming region compared to IRAS 16293-2422B. That means it could have a potentially enhanced radiation field. That enhanced radiation could produce more precursors for 2-methoxyethanol, eventually leading to more of the molecule itself. Warmer dust temperatures may have contributed, too. Warmer dust allows greater dust mobility, leading to chemical fragments being allowed to recombine.

Thanks to ever-improving observational tools and methods, including machine learning, astrochemistry is a blossoming field. If we’re ever going to understand how life on Earth arose and where it may likely rise elsewhere in the galaxy, astrochemistry will play a leading role. Though 2-methoxyethanol isn’t directly related to life, its detection still tells scientists something.

The post Another New Molecule Discovered Forming in Space appeared first on Universe Today.

What would happen if our closest neighbor, the moon, disappeared? Here we explore the possible effects it could have on the environment and life on Earth.

Genomic analysis suggests that the outbreak probably began in December or January, but a shortage of data is hampering efforts to pin down the source

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft approaches the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will launch aboard Starliner on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test.Credits: NASA

NASA will provide live coverage of prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, which will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to and from the International Space Station.

Launch of the ULA (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V rocket and Boeing Starliner spacecraft is targeted for 10:34 p.m. EDT Monday, May 6, from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The flight test will carry Wilmore and Williams to the space station for about a week to test the Starliner spacecraft and its subsystems before NASA certifies the transportation system for rotational missions to the orbiting laboratory for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

Starliner will dock to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module at 12:48 a.m., Wednesday, May 8.

The deadline for media accreditation for in-person coverage of this launch has passed. The agency’s media credentialing policy is available online. For questions about media accreditation, please email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov.

NASA’s mission coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):

Wednesday, May 1

1:30 p.m. – Virtual news conference at Kennedy with the flight test astronauts:

• NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore
• NASA astronaut Suni Williams

Coverage of the virtual news conference will stream live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Media may ask questions via phone only. For the dial-in number and passcode, please contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 12:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 1, at: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov.

Friday, May 3
12:30 p.m. – Prelaunch news conference at Kennedy (no earlier than one hour after completion of the Launch Readiness Review) with the following participants:

• NASA Administrator Bill Nelson
• Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
• Dana Weigel, manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
• Emily Nelson, chief flight director, NASA
• Jennifer Buchli, chief scientist, NASA’s International Space Station Program
• Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, Commercial Crew Program, Boeing
• Gary Wentz, vice president, Government and Commercial Programs, ULA
• Brian Cizek, launch weather officer, 45th Weather Squadron, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

Coverage of the prelaunch news conference will stream live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Media may ask questions in person and via phone. Limited auditorium space will be available for in-person participation. For the dial-in number and passcode, media should contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 11:30 a.m., Friday, May 3, at ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov.

3:30 p.m. – NASA Social panel live stream event at Kennedy with the following participants:

• Ian Kappes, deputy launch vehicle office manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
• Amy Comeau Denker, Starliner associate chief engineer, Boeing
• Caleb Weiss, system engineering and test leader, ULA
• Jennifer Buchli, chief scientist, NASA’s International Space Station Program

Coverage of the panel live stream event will stream live at @NASAKennedy on YouTube, @NASAKennedy on X, and @NASAKennedy on Facebook. Members of the public may ask questions online by posting questions to the YouTube, X, and Facebook livestreams using #AskNASA.

Monday, May 6

6:30 p.m. – Launch coverage begins on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

10:34 p.m. – Launch

Launch coverage on NASA+ will end shortly after Starliner orbital insertion. NASA Television will provide continuous coverage leading up to docking and through hatch opening and welcome remarks.

Tuesday, May 7

12 a.m. – Postlaunch news conference with the following participants:

• NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy
• Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
• Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
• Dana Weigel, manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
• Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, Commercial Crew Program, Boeing
• Gary Wentz, vice president, Government and Commercial Programs, ULA

Coverage of the postlaunch news conference will air live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

NASA+ will resume coverage and NASA Television’s media channel will break from in-orbit coverage to carry the postlaunch news conference. Mission operational coverage will continue on NASA Television’s public channel and the agency’s website. Once the postlaunch news conference is complete, NASA+ coverage will end, and mission coverage will continue on both NASA channels.

Media may ask questions in person and via phone. Limited auditorium space will be available for in-person participation. For the dial-in number and passcode, media should contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 10:30 p.m., Monday, May 6, at ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov.

10:15 p.m. – Arrival coverage resumes on NASA+, the NASA app, and YouTube, and continues on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

Wednesday, May 8
12:48 a.m. – Targeted docking to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module

2:35 a.m. – Hatch opening

3:15 a.m. – Welcome remarks

4:15 a.m. – Post-docking news conference at Johnson with the following participants:

• NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free
• Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
• Dana Weigel, manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
• Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, Commercial Crew Program, Boeing

Coverage of the post-docking news conference will air live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

All times are estimates and could be adjusted based on operations after launch. Follow the space station blog for the most up-to-date operations information.

Audio Only Coverage

Audio only of the news conferences and launch coverage will be carried on the NASA “V” circuits, which may be accessed by dialing 321-867-1220, -1240 or -7135. On launch day, “mission audio,” countdown activities without NASA Television launch commentary, will be carried on 321-867-7135.

Launch audio also will be available on Launch Information Service and Amateur Television System’s VHF radio frequency 146.940 MHz and KSC Amateur Radio Club’s UHF radio frequency 444.925 MHz, FM mode, heard within Brevard County on the Space Coast.

Live Video Coverage Prior to Launch

NASA will provide a live video feed of Space Launch Complex-41 approximately 48 hours prior to the planned liftoff of the mission. Pending unlikely technical issues, the feed will be uninterrupted until the prelaunch broadcast begins on NASA Television, approximately four hours prior to launch. Once the feed is live, find it here: http://youtube.com/kscnewsroom.

NASA Website Launch Coverage

Launch day coverage of the mission will be available on the agency’s website. Coverage will include live streaming and blog updates beginning no earlier than 6:30 p.m., May 6 as the countdown milestones occur. On-demand streaming video and photos of the launch will be available shortly after liftoff.

For questions about countdown coverage, contact the Kennedy newsroom at 321-867-2468. Follow countdown coverage on the commercial crew or the Crew Flight Test blog.

Attend the Launch Virtually

Members of the public can register to attend this launch virtually. NASA’s virtual guest program for this mission also includes curated launch resources, notifications about related opportunities or changes, and a stamp for the NASA virtual guest passport following launch.

Watch and Engage on Social Media

Let people know you’re following the mission on X, Facebook, and Instagram by using the hashtags #Starliner and #NASASocial. You can also stay connected by following and tagging these accounts:

X: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASASocial, @Space_Station, @ISS_Research, @ISS National Lab, @BoeingSpace, @Commercial_Crew

Facebook: NASA, NASAKennedy, ISS, ISS National Lab

Instagram: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @ISS, @ISSNationalLab

Coverage en Espanol

Did you know NASA has a Spanish section called NASA en Espanol? Check out NASA en Espanol on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for additional mission coverage.

Para obtener información sobre cobertura en español en el Centro Espacial Kennedy o si desea solicitar entrevistas en español, comuníquese con Antonia Jaramillo: 321-501-8425; antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov; o Messod Bendayan: 256-930-1371; messod.c.bendayan@nasa.gov.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program has delivered on its goal of safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station from the United States through a partnership with American private industry. This partnership is changing the arc of human spaceflight history by opening access to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station to more people, science, and commercial opportunities. The space station remains the springboard to NASA’s next great leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and, eventually, to Mars.

For NASA’s launch blog and more information about the mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

-end-

Joshua Finch / Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov

Steven Siceloff / Danielle Sempsrott / Stephanie Plucinsky
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-867-2468
steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov / danielle.c.sempsrott@nasa.gov / stephanie.n.plucinsky@nasa.gov

Leah Cheshier
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
leah.d.cheshier@nasa.gov

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Details Last Updated Apr 29, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms

• Commercial Space
• Commercial Crew
• Humans in Space
• International Space Station (ISS)
• ISS Research
• Space Operations Mission Directorate