Astronomy

Boeing will launch its first-ever Starliner astronaut mission for NASA as early as this evening (May 6).

A rocket issue with United Launch Alliance's Atlas V caused Boeing Starliner to wave off its historic 1st launch attempt with astronauts on May 6. A backup launch date has not been announced.

What has one horn, two crewmates and shares a name with its ride into orbit? "Calypso," the plush sequined narwhal that is flying on the crew flight test of "Calypso," Boeing's CST-100 Starliner.

What happens to a star that goes near a black hole?

Despite their resemblance to

Temperatures on Exoplanet WASP 43b

Majestic on a truly cosmic scale, M100 is appropriately known as a

The star system GK Per is known to be associated

This is how the Sun disappeared from the daytime sky last month.

It’s that time again. NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) has announced six concepts that will receive funding and proceed to the second phase of development. This is always an interesting look at the technologies and missions that could come to fruition in the future.

The six chosen ones will each receive $600,000 in funding to pursue the ideas for the next two years. NASA expects each team to use the two years to address both technical and budgetary hurdles for their concepts. When this second phase comes to an end, some of the concepts could advance to the third stage.

“These diverse, science fiction-like concepts represent a fantastic class of Phase II studies,” said John Nelson, NIAC program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Our NIAC fellows never cease to amaze and inspire, and this class definitely gives NASA a lot to think about in terms of what’s possible in the future.”

Here they are.

Fluidic Telescope (FLUTE): Enabling the Next Generation of Large Space Observatories

Telescopes are built around mirrors and lenses, whether they’re ground-based or space-based. The JWST’s large mirror is 6.5 meters in diameter but had to be folded up to fit inside the rocket that launched it and then unfolded in space. That’s a tricky engineering feat. Engineers are building larger and larger ground-based telescopes, too, and they’re equally tricky to design and build. Could FLUTE change this?

FLUTE envisions lenses made of fluid, and the FLUTE team’s concept describes a space telescope with a primary mirror 50 meters (164 ft.) in diameter. Creating glass lenses for a telescope this large isn’t realistic. “Using current technologies, scaling up space telescopes to apertures larger than approximately 33 feet (10 meters) in diameter does not appear economically viable,” the FLUTE website states.

But in the microgravity of space, fluids behave in an intriguing way. Surface tension holds liquids together at their surfaces. We can see this on Earth, where some insects use surface tension to glide along the surfaces of ponds and other bodies of water. Also, on Earth, surface tension holds small drops of water together. But in space, away from Earth’s dominating gravity, surface tension is much more effective. There, water maintains the most energy efficient shape there is: a sphere.

Another force governs water: adhesion. Adhesion causes liquids to cling to surfaces. In the microgravity of space, adhesion can bind liquid to a circular, ring-like frame. Then, due to surface tension, the liquid will naturally adopt a spherical shape. If the liquid can be made to bulge inward rather than outward, and if the liquid is reflective enough, it creates a telescope mirror.

The FLUTE team would like to make optical components in space. The liquid would stay in the liquid state and form an extremely smooth light-collecting surface. As a bonus, FLUTE would also self-repair after any micrometeorite strike.

The FLUTE study is led by Edward Balaban from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The FLUTE team has already done some tests on the ISS and on zero-g flights.

FLUTE researchers experience microgravity aboard Zero Gravity Corporation’s G-FORCE ONE aircraft while operating an experiment payload during a series of parabolic flights. Image Credits: Zero Gravity Corporation/Steve Boxall

Pulsed Plasma Rocket (PPR): Shielded, Fast Transits for Humans to Mars

It takes too long to get to Mars. It’s a six-month journey each way, plus time spent on the surface. All that time in microgravity, exposure to radiation, and other challenges make the trip very difficult for astronauts. PPR aims to fix that.

PPR isn’t a launch vehicle for escaping Earth’s gravity well. It would be launched on a heavy lift vehicle like SLS and then sent on its way.

PPR was originally derived from the Pulsed Fission Fusion concept. But it’s more affordable, and also smaller and simpler. PPR might generate 100,000 N of thrust with a specific impulse (Isp) of 5,000 seconds. Those are good numbers. PPR could reduce the travel time to Mars to two months.

It has other benefits as well. It could propel larger spacecraft to Mars on trips longer than two months, carrying more cargo and also provide heavier shielding against cosmic rays. “The PPR enables a whole new era in space exploration,” the team writes.

PPR is basically a fusion system ignited by fission. It’s similar to a thermonuclear weapon. But rather than a run-away explosion, the combined energy is directed through a magnetic nozzle to produce thrust.

In phase two, the PPR team intends to optimize the engine design to produce more specific impulse, perform proof-of-concept experiments for major components, and design a shielded ship for human missions to Mars.

This study is led by Brianna Clements with Howe Industries in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The Great Observatory for Long Wavelengths (GO-LoW)

One of modern astronomy’s last frontiers is the low-frequency radio sky. Earth’s ionosphere blocks our ground-based telescopes from seeing it. And space-based telescopes can’t see it either. It’s because the wavelengths are so long, in the meter to the kilometre scale. Only extremely massive telescopes could see these waves clearly.

GO-LoW is a potential solution. It’s a space-based array of thousands of identical Small-Sats arranged as an interferometer. It would sit at an Earth-Sun Lagrange point and observe exoplanet and stellar magnetic fields. Exoplanet magnetic fields emit radio waves between 100 kHz and 15 MHz. The GO-LoW team says their interferometer could perform the first survey of exoplanetary magnetic fields within 5 parsecs (16 light years.) Magnetic fields tell scientists a lot about an exoplanet, its evolution, and its processes.

GO-LoW is a Great Observatory concept to open the last unexplored window of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. The Earth’s ionosphere becomes opaque at approximately 10m wavelengths, so GO-LoW will join Great Observatories like HST and JWST in space to access this spectral window. Image Credits: NASA/GO-LoW

While there’s no doubt that large telescopes like the JWST are powerful and effective, they’re extremely complex and expensive. And if something goes wrong with a critical component, the mission could end.

GO-LoW takes a different approach. By using thousands of individual satellites, the system is more resilient. GO-LoW would have a hybrid constellation. Some of the satellites would be smaller and simpler satellites called “listener nodes” (LN,) while a smaller number of them would be “communication and computation” nodes (CCNs). They would collect data from the LNs, process it, and beam it back to Earth.

The GO-LoW says it would only take a few heavy launches to place an entire 100,000 satellite constellation in space.

The technology for the SmallSats already exists. The challenge the GO-LoW team will address with their phase two funding is developing a system that will harness everything together effectively. “The coordination of all these physical elements, data products, and communications systems is novel and challenging, especially at scale,” they write.

GO-LoW is led by Mary Knapp with MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Radioisotope Thermoradiative Cell Power Generator

It’s sort of like solar power in reverse.

The RTCPG is a power source for spacecraft visiting the outer planets. They promise smaller, more efficient power generation for smaller science and exploration missions that can’t carry a solar power system or nuclear power system. Both those systems are bulky, and solar power is limited the further away from the sun a spacecraft goes.

The thermoradiative cell (TRC) uses radioisotopes to create heat as an MMRTG does. But the TRC uses the heat to generate infrared light which generates electricity. In initial testing, the system generated 4.5 times more power from the same amount of PU-238.

Much of phase two’s work will involve materials. “Metal-semiconductor contacts capable of surviving the required elevated temperatures will be investigated,” the team explains. The team developed a special cryostat testing apparatus in phase one.

“Building on our results from Phase I, we believe there is much more potential to unlock here,” the team writes.

This power generation concept study is from Stephen Polly at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.

FLOAT: Flexible Levitation on a Track

What if Artemis is enormously successful? How will astronauts move their equipment around the lunar surface efficiently?

If the team behind FLOAT has their way, they’ll build the Moon’s first railway. Sort of. This artist’s concept shows a possible future mission depicting the lunar surface with planet Earth on the horizon. Image Credit: Ethan Schaler

FLOAT would provide autonomous transportation for payloads on the Moon. “A durable, long-life robotic transport system will be critical to the daily operations of a sustainable lunar base in the 2030’s,” the FLOAT team writes.

The heart of FLOAT is a three-layer flexible track that’s unrolled into position without major construction. It consists of three layers: a graphite layer, a flex-circuit layer, and a solar panel layer.

The graphite layer allows robots to use diamagnetic levitation to float over the track. The flex-circuit layer supplies the thrust that moves them, and the thin-film solar panel layer generates electricity for a lunar base when it’s in sunlight.

The system can be used to move regolith around for in-situ resource utilization and to transport payloads around a lunar base, for example, from landing zones to habitats.

“Individual FLOAT robots will be able to transport payloads of varying shape/size (>30 kg/m^2) at useful speeds (>0.5m/s), and a large-scale FLOAT system will be capable of moving up to 100,000s kg of regolith/payload multiple kilometres per day,” the FLOAT team explains.

With their phase two funding, the FLOAT team intends to design, build, and test scaled-down versions of FLOAT robots and track. Then, they’ll test their system in a lunar analog testbed. They’ll also test environmental effects on the system and how they alter the system’s performance and longevity.

Ethan Schaler leads FLOAT at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

SCOPE: ScienceCraft for Outer Planet Exploration

Some of the most intriguing planets and moons in the Solar System are well beyond Jupiter. But exploring them is challenging. Extremely long travel times, restrictive mission windows, and large expenses limit our exploration. But SCOPE aims to address these limitations.

Typically, a spacecraft carries a propulsion and power system along with its instruments and communication systems. NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter, for example, carries a chemical rocket engine for propulsion, 50 square meters of solar panels, and 10 science instruments. The solar panels alone weigh 340 kg (750 lbs.) Juno is powerful, produces a wide variety of quality science data, and is expensive.

ScienceCraft takes a different approach. It combines a single science instrument and spacecraft into one monolithic structure. It’s basically a solar sail with a built-in spectrometer. They’re aiming their design at the Neptune-Triton system.

This artist’s depiction shows ScienceCraft, which integrates the science instrument with the spacecraft by printing a quantum dot spectrometer directly on the solar sail to form a monolithic, lightweight structure.
Image Credit: Mahmooda Sultana

“By printing an ultra-lightweight quantum dot-based spectrometer, developed by the PI Sultana, directly on the solar sail, we create a breakthrough spacecraft architecture allowing an unprecedented parallelism and throughput of data collection and rapid travel across the solar system,” the ScienceCraft team writes.

Instead of merely providing the propulsion, the sail doubles as the spacecraft’s science instrument. The small mass means that ScienceCraft could be carried into orbit as a secondary payload. The team says they’ll use phase two to identify and develop key technologies for the spacecraft and to further mature the mission concept. They say that because of the low cost and simplicity, they could be ready by 2045.

“By leveraging these benefits, we propose a mission concept to Triton, a unique planetary body in our solar system, within the short window that closes around 2045 to answer compelling science questions about Triton’s atmosphere, ionosphere, plumes and internal structure,” the ScienceCraft team explains.

ScienceCraft is led by NASA’s Mahmooda Sultana at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The post NASA Takes Six Advanced Tech Concepts to Phase II appeared first on Universe Today.

It’s time to begin a new mini-series, where we’ll look at different classes of galaxies. Today, we’ll start with the dwarf galaxies, which flock around larger galaxies like the Milky Way. Are they the building blocks for modern structures?

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Two asteroids are expected to make close but safe approaches to Earth this week, and you can watch them live.

The video gives an insight into the energetic events that transfer energy and plasma into the solar corona that ultimately drives the solar wind.

NASA and Boeing are working together to send the first astronauts to space on Starliner on May 6. Among the Mission Control support team is Kennedy Space Center's chief engineer.

On Friday, May 3rd, the sixth mission in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (Chang’e-6) launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in southern China. Shortly after, China announced that the spacecraft separated successfully from its Long March 5 Y8 rocket. The mission, consisting of an orbiter and lander element, is now on its way to the Moon and will arrive there in a few weeks. By June, the lander element will touch down on the far side of the Moon, where it will gather about 2 kg (4.4 lbs) of rock and soil samples for return to Earth.

The mission launched four years after its predecessor, Chang’e-5, became China’s first sample-return mission to reach the Moon. It was also the first lunar sample return mission since the Soviet Luna 24 mission landed in Mare Crisium (the Sea of Crisis) in 1976. Compared to its predecessor, the Chang’e-6 mission weighs an additional 100 kg (220 lbs), making it the heaviest probe launched by the Chinese space program. The surface elements also face lesser-known terrain on the far side of the Moon and require a relay satellite for communications.

Speaking of surface elements, the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) has since released images showing how the mission also carries a rover element. This payload was not part of mission data disclosed by China before the flight. But as SpaceNews’ Andrew Jones pointed out, the rover can be seen in the CAST images (see above) integrated onto the side of the lander.

Yeah, okay. That looks like a previously undisclosed mini rover on the side of the Chang'e-6 lander lol. Via CAST: https://t.co/gS0Jy5L9hw pic.twitter.com/9vvTnribpl

— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) May 3, 2024

“Little is known about the rover, but a mention of a Chang’e-6 rover is made in a post from the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics (SIC) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS),” he wrote. “It suggests the small vehicle carries an infrared imaging spectrometer.” This rover is no doubt intended to assist the lander with investigating resources on the far side of the Moon. This is consistent with China’s long-term plans for building the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) around the southern polar region in collaboration with Roscosmos and other international patterns.

Similar to NASA’s plans for the Lunar Gateway and Artemis Base Camp, this requires that building sites be selected near sources of water ice and building materials (silica and other minerals). Ge Ping, the deputy director of the Center of Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering (CLESE) with the China National Space Administration (CNSA), related the importance of the sample-return mission to CGTN (a state-owned media company) before the launch:

“The Aitken Basin is one of the three major terrains on the Moon and has significant scientific value. Finding and collecting samples from different regions and ages of the Moon is crucial for our understanding of it. These would further study of the moon’s origin and its evolutionary history.”

In addition, the Chang’e-6 orbiter carries four international payloads and satellites including a French radon detector contributed by the ESA. Known as the Detection of Outgassing Radon (DORN), this payload will study how lunar dust and other volatiles (especially water) are transferred between the lunar regolith and the lunar exosphere. Then there’s the Italian INstrument for landing-Roving laser Retroreflector Investigations (INRRI), similar to those used by the Schiaparelli EDM module and InSight lander, that precisely measures distances from the lander to orbit.

The Chang’e-6 spacecraft stack shows a lunar rover attached to the mission lander. Credit: CAST

There’s also the Swedish Negative Ions on Lunar Surface (NILS), an instrument that will detect and measure negative ions reflected by the lunar surface. Lastly, there’s the Pakistani ICUBE-Q CubeSat developed by the Institute of Space Technology (IST) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), which will take images of the lunar surface using two optical cameras and measure the Moon’s magnetic field. The data these instruments provide will reveal new information about the lunar environment that will inform plans for long-duration missions on the surface.

By 2026, the Chang’e-6 mission will be joined by Chang’e-7, including an orbiter, lander, rover, and a mini-hopping probe. The data provided by the program will assist China’s plans to land taikonauts around the lunar south pole by 2030, followed by the completion of the ILRS by 2035.

Further Reading: CGTN

The post China is Going Back to the Moon Again With Chang'e-6 appeared first on Universe Today.

Earth is the only life-supporting planet we know of, so it’s tempting to use it as a standard in the search for life elsewhere. But the modern Earth can’t serve as a basis for evaluating exoplanets and their potential to support life. Earth’s atmosphere has changed radically over its 4.5 billion years.

A better way is to determine what biomarkers were present in Earth’s atmosphere at different stages in its evolution and judge other planets on that basis.

That’s what a group of researchers from the UK and the USA did. Their research is titled “The early Earth as an analogue for exoplanetary biogeochemistry,” and it appears in Reviews in Mineralogy. The lead author is Eva E. Stüeken, a PhD student at the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews, UK.

When Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago, its atmosphere was nothing like it is today. At that time, the atmosphere and oceans were anoxic. About 2.4 billion years ago, free oxygen began to accumulate in the atmosphere during the Great Oxygenation Event, one of the defining periods in Earth’s history. But the oxygen came from life itself, meaning life was present when the Earth’s atmosphere was much different.

This isn’t the only example of how Earth’s atmosphere has changed over geological time. But it’s an instructive one and shows why searching for life means more than just searching for an atmosphere like modern Earth’s. If that’s the way we conducted the search, we’d miss worlds where photosynthesis hadn’t yet appeared.

In their research, the authors point out how Earth hosted a rich and evolving population of microbes under different atmospheric conditions for billions of years.

“For most of this time, Earth has been inhabited by a purely microbial biosphere albeit with seemingly increasing complexity over time,” the authors write. “A rich record of this geobiological evolution over most of Earth’s history thus provides insights into the remote detectability of microbial life under a variety of planetary conditions.”

It’s not just life that’s changed over time. Plate tectonics have changed and may have been ‘stagnant lid’ tectonics for a long time. In stagnant lid tectonics, plates don’t move horizontally. That can have consequences for atmospheric chemistry.

The main point is that Earth’s atmosphere does not reflect the solar nebula the planet formed in. Multiple intertwined processes have changed the atmosphere over time. The search for life involves not only a better understanding of these processes, but how to identify what stage exoplanets might be in.

This figure from the research shows how the abundance of major gases in Earth’s atmosphere has changed over time due to various factors. Image Credit: Stüeken et al. 2024.

It’s axiomatic that biological processes can have a dramatic effect on planetary atmospheres. “On the modern Earth, the atmospheric composition is very strongly controlled by life,” the researchers write. “However, any potential atmospheric biosignature must be disentangled from a backdrop of abiotic (geological and astrophysical) processes that also contribute to planetary atmospheres and would be dominating on lifeless worlds and on planets with a very small biosphere.”

The authors outline what they say are the most important lessons that the early Earth can teach us about the search for life.

The first is that the Earth has actually had three different atmospheres throughout its long history. The first one came from the solar nebula and was lost soon after the planet formed. That’s the primary atmosphere. The second one formed from outgassing from the planet’s interior. The third one, Earth’s modern atmosphere, is complex. It’s a balancing act involving life, plate tectonics, volcanism, and even atmospheric escape. A better understanding of how Earth’s atmosphere has changed over time gives researchers a better understanding of what they see in exoplanet atmospheres.

Earth’s Hadean Eon is a bit of a mystery to us because geologic evidence from that time is scarce. During the Hadean, Earth had its primary atmosphere from the solar nebula. But it soon lost it and accumulated another one via outgassing as the planet cooled. Credit: NASA

The second is that the further we look back in time, the more the rock record of Earth’s early life is altered or destroyed. Our best evidence suggests life was present by 3.5 billion years ago, maybe even by 3.7 billion years ago. If that’s the case, the first life may have existed on a world covered in oceans, with no continental land masses and only volcanic islands. If there had been abundant volcanic and geological activity between 3.5 and 3.7 billion years ago, there would’ve been large fluxes of CO2 and H2. Since these are substrates for methanogenesis, then methane may have been abundant in the atmosphere and detectable.

The third lesson the authors outline is that a planet can host oxygen-producing life for a long time before oxygen can be detected in an atmosphere. Scientists think that oxygenic photosynthesis appeared on Earth in the mid-Archean eon. The Archean spanned from 4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago, so mid-Archean is sometime around 3.25 billion years ago. But oxygen couldn’t accumulate in the atmosphere until the Great Oxygenation Event about 2.4 billion years ago. Oxygen is a powerful biomarker, and if we find it in an exoplanet’s atmosphere, it would be cause for excitement. But life on Earth was around for a long time before atmospheric oxygen would’ve been detectable.

Earth’s history is written in chemical reactions. This figure from the research shows the percentage of sulphur isotope fractionation in sediments. The sulphur signature disappeared after the GOE because the oxygen in the atmosphere formed an ozone shield. That blocked UV radiation, which stopped sulphur dioxide photolysis. “Anoxic planets where O2 production never occurs are more likely to resemble the early Earth prior to the GOE,” the authors explain. Image Credit: Stüeken et al. 2024.

The fourth lesson involves the appearance of horizontal plate tectonics and its effect on chemistry. “From the GOE onwards, the Earth looked tectonically similar to today,” the authors write. The oceans were likely stratified into an anoxic layer and an oxygenated surface layer. However, hydrothermal activity constantly introduced ferrous iron into the oceans. That increased the sulphate levels in the seawater which reduced the methane in the atmosphere. Without that methane, Earth’s biosphere would’ve been much less detectable. Complicated, huh?

“Planet Earth has evolved over the past 4.5 billion years from an entirely anoxic planet
with possibly a different tectonic regime to the oxygenated world with horizontal plate
tectonics that we know today,” the authors explain. All that complex evolution allowed life to appear and to thrive, but it also makes detecting earlier biospheres on exoplanets more complicated.

We’re at a huge disadvantage in the search for life on exoplanets. We can literally dig into Earth’s ancient rock to try to untangle the long history of life on Earth and how the atmosphere evolved over billions of years. When it comes to exoplanets, all we have is telescopes. Increasingly powerful telescopes, but telescopes nonetheless. While we are beginning to explore our own Solar System, especially Mars and the tantalizing ocean moons orbiting the gas giants, other solar systems are beyond our physical reach.

“We must instead remotely recognize the presence of alien biospheres and characterize their biogeochemical cycles in planetary spectra obtained with large ground- and space-based telescopes,” the authors write. “These telescopes can probe atmospheric composition by detecting absorption features associated with specific gases.” Probing atmospheric gases is our most powerful approach right now, as the JWST shows.

The JWST has made headlines for examining exoplanet atmospheres and identifying chemicals. A transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-39 b, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on July 10, 2022, revealed the first definitive evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the Solar System. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and L. Hustak (STScI). Science: The JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Team

But as scientists get better tools, they’ll start to go beyond atmospheric chemistry. “We might also be able to recognize global-scale surface features, including light interaction with photosynthetic pigments and ‘glint’ arising from specular reflection of light by a liquid ocean.”

Understanding what we’re seeing in exoplanet atmospheres parallels our understanding of Earth’s long history. Earth could be the key to our broadening and accelerating search for life.

“Unravelling the details of Earth’s complex biogeochemical history and its relationship with remotely observable spectral signals is an important consideration for instrument design and our own search for life in the Universe,” the authors write.

The post What Can Early Earth Teach Us About the Search for Life? appeared first on Universe Today.

SpaceX revealed its new spacesuit designed for Crew Dragon passengers to unbuckle and float outside the spacecraft.

Starliner’s first crewed launch will mark just the sixth time ever that NASA astronauts have flown in a brand-new spacecraft

SpaceX launched another batch of its Starlink internet satellites today (May 6), the company's 46th orbital mission of the year already.