Universe Today

There are plenty of problems that spacecraft designers have to consider. Getting smacked in the sensitive parts by a rock is just one of them, but it is a very important one. A micrometeoroid hitting the wrong part of the spacecraft could jeopardize an entire mission, and the years of work it took to get to the point where the mission was actually in space in the first place. But even if the engineers who design spacecraft know about this risk, how is it best to avoid them? A new programming library from research at NASA could help.

Admittedly, engineers already have a tool for this purpose. NASA’s Meteoroid Engineering Model (MEM) allows them to plug in a planned trajectory for their spacecraft and receive an output that defines where and from which direction they are likely to encounter micrometeoroids.

The James Webb Space Telescope is a perfect example of why such a system is necessary. On its way to the L2 Lagrange point, it has already suffered at least 20 micrometeoroid impacts, at least one of which hit the space telescope’s primary mirror, leaving a dent that still affects the quality of its images to this day.

How do micrometeroids affect spacecraft?
Credit – Chris Pattison YouTube Channel

Due to such high-profile occurrences, spacecraft designers are already aware of the risks. However, many don’t know their trajectories when designing their systems. Without a planned trajectory, the MEM is all but useless.

Enter Althea Moorhead from NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at Marshall Space Flight Center and her colleagues Katie Milbrandt from Auburn and Aaron Kingery from ERC, Inc., also based at Marshall. They improved the MEM’s functionality by introducing a library of known spacecraft trajectories and the MEM outputs for each.

Instead of knowing their end trajectory, spacecraft designers would be able to simply look at the library and determine whether there are any significant risks from meteoroids on any number of potential trajectories. In particular, the library includes data on orbital paths around every significant planet, some transfer orbits, and at least two “halo” orbits, where the spacecraft would take advantage of the relative stability of a planet’s Lagrange points.

How Webb deals with the micrometeroid impacts its already suffere.
Credit – Launch Pad Astronomy

The output of the library allows for visualizations of the risks the spacecraft would encounter, which is much easier to understand than complex equations and probabilities for designers who don’t necessarily specialize in micrometeoroid hazards. That was the original impetus for developing the library – to provide generalists who don’t necessarily have time to grok the details of micrometeoroid location and risks but still need to consider it as part of their mission design.

The paper authors stress that the library shouldn’t be used for the formal risk assessment that NASA requires of all missions destined for launch. That requirement can still be met by the MEM itself, along with a well-established orbit. But, if that orbit happens to be informed by the library described in the paper, all the better for it.

Learn More:
Moorhead, Milbrandt, & Kingery – A library of meteoroid environments encountered by spacecraft in the inner solar system
UT – NASA has a Plan to Minimize Future Micrometeoroid Impacts on JWST
UT – What Does Micrometeoroid Damage do to Gossamer Structures Like Webb’s Sunshield?
UT – Ouch. Canadarm2 Took a Direct Hit From a Micrometeorite

Lead Image:
Visualization of one of the trajectories planned out in the new micrometeroid library.
Credit – Moorhead, Milbrandt, & Kingery

The post NASA has a New Database to Predict Meteoroid Hazards for Spaceflight appeared first on Universe Today.

The Standard Model of particle physics does a good job of explaining the interactions between matter’s basic building blocks. But it’s not perfect. It struggles to explain dark matter. Dark matter makes up most of the matter in the Universe, yet we don’t know what it is.

The Standard Model says that whatever dark matter is, it can’t interact with itself. New research may have turned that on its head.

Physicists propose many different candidates for dark matter, including dark photons, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), primordial black holes, and more. Each one is intriguing in its own way, but there’s no confirmation regarding any of them. And each one is a proposed part of the Standard Model.

New research in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics suggests we may be barking up the wrong tree. It suggests that another model, called the Self-Interacting Dark Matter model, can explain dark matter while the Standard Model and its Lambda Cold Dark Matter (Lambda CDM) simply can’t.

The paper is “An N-body/hydrodynamical simulation study of the merging cluster El Gordo: A compelling case for self-interacting dark matter?” The lead author is Riccardo Valdarnini of SISSA’s (Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati) Astrophysics and Cosmology group.

El Gordo is an extremely massive, extremely distant galaxy cluster more than seven billion light-years away from Earth. It’s comprised of two galaxy sub-clusters that are colliding with one another at several million kilometres per hour. It’s at the center of a back-and-forth over dark matter and the Lambda CDM.

A 2021 paper claimed that El Gordo presents a challenge for the Lambda-CDM model because it appeared so early in cosmic history, is extremely massive, and has such a high collisional velocity. “Such a fast collision between individually rare massive clusters is unexpected in Lambda cold dark matter cosmology at such high z,” the authors of that paper wrote.

A later paper from 2021 arrived at a lower mass estimate for El Gordo, one that was consistent with Lambda CDM. “Such an extreme mass of El Gordo has stimulated a number of discussions on whether or not the presence of the cluster is in tension with the Lambda CDM paradigm,” those authors wrote. “The new mass is compatible with the current Lambda CDM cosmology.”

A key part of Lambda CDM is that dark matter is both cold and collisionless. In that model, it’s impossible for dark matter particles to collide with one another; they can only interact through gravity and possibly the weak force. This study challenges that notion.

Proving that dark matter can interact with itself via collisions is difficult and complicated. El Gordo is a good place to study the Self-Interacting Dark Matter (SIDM) idea. “There are, however, unique
laboratories that can prove very useful for this purpose, many light years away from us,” said lead author Valdarnini. “These are the massive galaxy clusters, gigantic cosmic structures that, upon collision, determine the most energetic events since the Big Bang.” El Gordo is one of them.

Galaxy clusters like El Gordo can be divided into three components: the galaxies, the dark matter, and the gas mass. The Standard Model says that the colliding gas loses some of its initial energy during the collision. “This is why, after the collision, the peak of gas mass density will lag behind those of dark matter and galaxies,” Valdarnini explained.

But the SIDM says something different. It says that the points where the dark matter reaches its maximum density, called centroids, should be physically separated from the other mass components. The peculiarities of that separation are a signature of SIDM.

Observations of El Gordo show that it consists of two large sub-clusters, the northwest (NW) and the southeast (SE), which are merging into one.

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows El Gordo’s two main components, the NW and SE sub-clusters. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Jee (University of California, Davis)

X-ray images show different peak locations for the different mass components. The X-ray image below shows a single X-ray emission peak in the SE subcluster and two faint tails elongated beyond the X-ray peak. The X-ray peak precedes the dark matter peak. The Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG) is also offset from the SE mass centroid. BCGs are the brightest galaxies in a given cluster, are extremely massive, and are centers of mass in clusters.

“Another notable aspect can be seen in the NW cluster, where the galaxy number density peak is spatially offset from the corresponding mass peak,” Valdarnini explained.

This combined X-ray and infrared image shows X-rays from Chandra in pink, and the blue shows where dark matter is found. Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/J. Hughes et al.; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA, J.M. Diego (IFCA), B.Frye (Univ. of Arizona), P.Kamieneski, T.Carleton & R.Windhorst (ASU)

But those observations alone aren’t enough. In the new paper in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Valdarnini employed a large number of N-body/hydrodynamical simulations to study El Gordo’s physical properties. The systematic simulations aim to match the observations. Each simulation has slightly different parameters, and when a simulation matches observations, those parameters are likely to offer some explanation of the observations.

Valdarnini explains it clearly in the paper. “… the aim of this paper is to determine whether it is possible to construct merger models for the El Gordo cluster that can consistently reproduce the observed X-ray morphology, as well as many of its physical properties.”

The critical part of this work and its simulations concerns the separations between the centers of mass in El Gordo. If simulations can produce that, it’s evidence in favour of SIDM.

“The most significant result of this simulation study is that the relative separations observed between the different mass centroids of the “El Gordo” cluster are naturally explained if the dark matter is self-interacting,” states Valdarnini.

This figure from the research shows some of the simulation results. The red contours show X-ray surface brightness, and the white shows mass density. Green crosses are mass centroids, and red crosses are X-ray surface brightness centroids. Each row is from a separate simulation run with different parameters, and each panel represents a different viewing angle. The middle top panel is of particular interest. It recreates El Gordo’s twin tails particularly well. Image Credit: Valdarnini et al. 2024.

“For this reason, these findings provide an unambiguous signature of a dark matter behaviour that exhibits collisional properties in a very energetic high-redshift cluster collision,” he continued.

It’s a classic “tip of the iceberg scenario.” While these results are in favour of the Self Interacting Dark Matter model, they’re nowhere near conclusive, as Valdarnini makes clear when he talks about inconsistencies in the results.

Valdarnini’s work shows that while the results are an approximation of how dark matter may behave during cluster mergers, there’s a lot more to it. The “underlying physical processes” are extremely complex.

“The study makes a compelling case for the possibility of self-interacting dark matter between colliding clusters as an alternative to the standard collisionless dark matter paradigm,” he concludes.

For most of the eight billion human beings alive today, dark matter is of little consequence in daily life. But if we want to entertain hopes and enjoy daydreams of human civilization lasting for centuries, millennia, or even longer, expanding into space and travelling to other stars, it’s critical that we understand everything we can about nature. The history of human progress parallels our growing understanding of nature.

Understanding dark matter is critical to understanding nature. If we want civilization to persist, a better understanding of everything about nature is the best way forward.

Now, back to our daily lives under the Standard Model.

The post Evidence of Dark Matter Interacting With Itself in El Gordo Merger appeared first on Universe Today.

Our Moon is shrinking and has been doing so since just after its formation ~4.5 billion years ago from a collision with the young Earth. That shrinkage, along with a constant rain of micrometeorites, causes lunar seismic activity. NASA plans to send two instruments to the Moon to measure its moonquakes. Those dual seismometers share technology first used on Mars by the InSight lander to measure more than a thousand marsquakes.

The seismometers make up part of the Farside Seismic Suite (FSS). It will be delivered to the Moon’s Schrödinger Basin at the South Pole, the first such instrument package deployed since the Apollo program seismic payload operated for a brief time in 1971. That program sent back the first moonquake measurements. Subsequent Apollo missions deployed other seismic instruments that transmitted lunar data until late 1977.

JPL engineers and technicians prepare NASA’s Farside Seismic Suite for testing in simulated lunar gravity, which is about one-sixth of Earth’s. The seismometers in the payload will gather the agency’s first seismic data from moonquakes in nearly 50 years. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The FSS will send back the first such measurements from the Moon’s far side since Apollo days. Its two seismometers will record a “hum” of seismic background vibrations from icrometeorites pelting the surface. In addition, they will record lunar quakes and return data about their intensity and location.

What Do Moonquakes Tell Us?

Quakes give a great deal of information about more than their location and intensity. The way seismic waves travel through the Moon’s structure should give some insight into the density of its various parts. In addition, they help scientists understand the lunar “shrinkage”.

On Earth, seismic waves travel differently through liquid and solid layers. On the Moon, the Apollo 11 seismic experiment gave planetary scientists the first “look” at the lunar interior. For each moonquake, the instrument recorded the strength, duration, and suspected direction of the event.

Apollo 15’s Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP). It carried a suite of science instruments, including a seismic experiment to detect moonquakes. Courtesy NASA.

Interestingly, that experiment and others did not detect much seismic activity on the lunar far side. Something in the Moon’s interior plays a role in absorbing the waves from far-side quakes. Scientists want to know what that structure is and what properties prevent transmission of quake waves. Of course, not as many quakes occur on the far side. Interestingly, the surface of the far side is much different than the near side. Are these two related? “FSS will offer answers to questions we’ve been asking about the Moon for decades,” said Mark Panning, the FSS principal investigator at JPL and project scientist for InSight. “We cannot wait to start getting this data back.”

From Marsquakes to Moonquakes

In late 2018, the Mars InSight Lander settled onto the surface of the Red Planet. Its mission was to study the interior of Mars. Essentially, it used the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) to take the planet’s pulse and measure its interior motions. It measured the strength, duration, and direction of marsquakes. It also detected tiny mini-quakes generated by meteorite impacts. Along with a suite of other instruments that measured wind, temperature, and magnetic field variations, SEIS was able to sense vibrations from wind storms and other atmospheric phenomena.

Engineers at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory adapted the seismometer technology used on InSight for the FSS suite. There were a few major differences, however. For one thing, lunar gravity is much less than Mars’s, so they had to adapt the seismic suite’s performance to take that into account. Also, temperatures on the Moon are much colder, and of course, there’s no atmosphere to measure.

The FSS suite contains the Very Broadband Seismometer, which is so sensitive it detects ground motions smaller than the size of a hydrogen atom. The other seismometer is called the Short Period sensor and it measures ground motion in three directions using tiny sensors etched onto chips.

FSS’s Science Goals

This payload, its power sources, and thermal controls are expected to operate for a long time, measuring quakes and background “noise” in the lunar structure. Although scientists know a fair amount about the Moon’s interior, the FSS’s sensitive instruments should help them get a more detailed understanding of its structure. The Moon is a differentiated body—meaning that it has layers beneath it crust.

The Apollo mission instruments measured the thickness of the lunar crust, and the GRAIL mission provided more detailed data. The FSS measurements should determine the thickness of the next layer—the deep mantle. That should come from data recordings and measurements of deep moonquakes. The FSS’s landing site in Schrödinger crater is a great location for quake measurements. It’s an impact basin refilled by rock melted during an impact that occurred some 3.8 billion years ago. There is a great deal of evidence for other volcanic activity in the region, including vents and subsequent lava flows.

Seen here during assembly in November 2023, Farside Seismic Suite’s inner cube houses the NASA payload’s large battery (at rear) and its two seismometers. The gold, puck-shaped device holds the Short Period sensor, while the silver enclosure contains the Very Broadband seismometer. These devices will detect moonquakes on the Moon’s far side. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The FSS seismometer package is slated for launch in 2025 with a projected landing date in 2026. It’s part of a NASA initiative to work with companies to deliver lunar science and technology packages during the Artemis mission timeline. Artemis astronauts will deploy a seismic network using a distributed acoustic sensing capability to do further work in assessing the Moon’s interior.

For More Information

NASA to Measure Moonquakes With Help From InSight Mars Mission
Apollo 11 Seismic Experiment
InSight Lander

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Radio telescopes have an advantage over optical telescopes, in that radio telescope can be used even in cloudy conditions here on Earth. That’s because the longer wavelengths of radio waves can pass through clouds unhindered. However, some wavelengths are still partially obscured by portions of Earth’s atmosphere, especially by the ionosphere which traps human-made Radio Frequency Interference (RFI).  

Astronomers have developed a new calibration technique that allows them to take sharp images in low radio frequencies — between 16 and 30 MHz — for the first time, bypassing the influence of the ionosphere. The astronomers say this will allow them to study things like plasmas emanating from ancient black holes and perhaps even detect exoplanets that orbit small stars.

The technique was developed by an international team of researchers led by astronomers from Leiden University in the Netherlands.

“It’s like putting on a pair of glasses for the first time and no longer seeing blurred,” said Christian Groeneveld from Leiden University, who led the research.

The LOFAR central stations on a specially engineered field (“superterp”) between Exloo and Buinen in Drenthe, in the north east of the Netherlands. Image: Aerophoto Eelde.

The astronomers used the LOFAR telescope in Drenthe, the Netherlands, which is currently one of the best low-frequency radio telescopes in the world. They modified a calibration technique that has been used to improve observations for observing in radio at higher frequencies, around 150 MHz.

“We hoped that we could also extend this technique to lower frequencies, below 30 MHz,” said, Reinout van Weeren, also from Leiden University, who came up with the idea. “And we succeeded.”

To test their technique, they studied several galaxy clusters that had previously only been studied in detail at higher frequencies.

“Our observing strategy consisted of simultaneously observing a bright primary calibrator and the target fields,” the team wrote in their paper. “By scheduling the observation after midnight, we minimized RFI caused by the internal reflection of terrestrial RFI by the ionosphere, which is significantly worse during the day, as ionizing radiation from the Sun increases the column density of ions in the ionosphere.”

Then, they split up their field of view into several smaller “facets” and self-calibrated each facet individually, against the calibrator object. “This yields an improved image and model of the sky, partly corrected for direction dependent effects,” they wrote. They then repeated the calibrations three more times.

Left shows an image of a piece of sky observed with the hitherto best calibration technique. Right shows the same piece of sky with the new technique. More detail is visible, and what were once large, blurry patches now appear as single points. (c) LOFAR/Groeneveld et al.

This was the first time radio images at frequencies between 16 and 30 MHz have been taken. Because of this data, the astronomers said that the radio emissions from these clusters is not evenly distributed across the entire cluster, but rather there is a spot pattern.

According to the researchers, the new calibration technique makes it possible to study radio phenomena in frequencies that were previously hidden.

“There is, of course, a chance that we will eventually discover something unexpected,” said Groeneveld.

Read the press release from Astronomy Netherlands
Read the team’s paper

The post Astronomers Have a New Way to Bypass Earth's Atmosphere appeared first on Universe Today.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been shut down temporarily after one of its gyroscopes sent faulty telemetry readings back to Earth in late May. The venerable space-based observatory, which has been responsible for some of the most remarkable scientific advances of the last three decades, and stunning astrophotography that became a cultural mainstay, is in its thirty-fourth year of operation.

Hubble’s many and varied accomplishments have been achieved despite a plague of technical challenges over the years. Right out of the gate, it launched with blurry vision, due to an improperly polished lens. The problem was fixed with a space shuttle servicing mission in 1993, three years after launch. Four more servicing missions between 1997 and 2009 repaired and upgraded various parts of the spacecraft.

With the retirement of the space shuttle, the space telescope has now been operating for 15 years without servicing.

Pauses in science operations like the current one are common events for Hubble these days, occurring several times a year in recent times. Hubble’s gyroscopes are the usual culprit.

In fact, a faulty gyroscope previously caused a shutdown barely a month ago, in April 2024, and did the same back in November 2023. In every case, NASA was able to get the space telescope back up and running in short order.

That doesn’t mean there is no cause for concern. Gyroscopes help the telescope orient itself in space, keeping it stable to point at astronomical targets in the distant universe. The last servicing mission in 2009 left the telescope with six operational gyroscopes, but it has been running on three since 2018.

Hubble needs all three to operate at full capacity.

The end of a Hubble gyro reveals the hair-thin wires known as flex leads. They carry data and electricity inside the gyro, and their corrosion has caused gyroscope failures in the past. NASA

But having two wouldn’t necessarily be the end of the mission. It would reduce the area of the sky Hubble can observe, and slow down science operations.

Regardless of the outcome of the current troubles, NASA appears confident that this is not the end of the line, stating in a press release on May 31:

“NASA anticipates Hubble will continue making discoveries throughout this decade and possibly into the next, working with other observatories, such as the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope for the benefit of humanity.”

It doesn’t appear that that will be the last word on the subject, however. A press conference has been called for 4PM EDT on June 4, where NASA’s Director of the Astrophysics Division, Mark Clampin, and Hubble’s project Manager, Patrick Crouse, are expected to give an update on Hubble’s condition.

In the event that Hubble is reduced to two working gyroscopes, NASA recently indicated that it would likely put one of them into safe mode, relying on just one gyroscope and keeping the last in good working order for the future.

With just one gyroscope in operation, magnetometers, sun sensors, and star trackers will need to make up for the work that the other gyroscopes used to do. This takes more time, and would reduce Hubble’s working capacity by 20-25%. Hubble would no longer be able to look at objects closer to Earth than Mars, it would be less capable of catching transient events at a moment’s notice, and it would have to pause observations during parts of its orbit when the Moon and Earth get in the way of its star trackers.

But it would keep the mission alive longer, which is good news for astronomers and astronomy fans everywhere. There is even hope for a future Hubble repair mission, an idea proposed by Jared Isaacman, a private astronaut who will command the upcoming Polaris Dawn mission aboard SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. Currently, Dragon is incapable of docking with Hubble, leaving the idea firmly in the speculative stage for the moment.

As for more immediate plans, we’ll have to see what NASA has to say. Stay tuned for the press conference at 4PM June 4.

The post Hubble Pauses its Science Again appeared first on Universe Today.

China says its Chang’e-6 spacecraft has gathered up soil and rocks from the far side of the moon and has lifted off from the surface, beginning a journey to bring the samples back to Earth. The probe’s payload represents the first lunar samples ever collected from the far side.

In a status update, the China National Space Administration said the Chang’e-6 ascent module successfully reached lunar orbit, where it’s due to transfer the samples to a re-entry capsule hooked up to the probe’s orbiter.

If all goes according to plan, the orbiter will leave the moon’s orbit, head back to Earth and drop off the re-entry capsule for retrieval in China’s Inner Mongolia region sometime around June 25.

This mosaic of color images was taken by the panoramic camera on China’s Chang’e-6 lander, looking toward the north. One of the lander’s legs is seen in the foreground of the fisheye view, and the upper part of the image shows Chaffee Crater, north of the landing site. (Credit: CLEP / CNSA)

Chang’e-6 was launched on its mission on May 3 and landed in the South Pole-Aitken Basin region on June 2 (Beijing time). Using its drill and its robotic arm, the lander collected as much as 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of rocks and soil from the landing site. Meanwhile, a mini-rover rolled out onto the surface and took pictures looking back at the lander.

CNSA said scientific readings were also collected, using a lunar mineral spectrometer, a negative ion analyzer, a radon detector and a lunar structure detector. An Italian-built retro-reflector, installed on the top of the lander, served as a position control point that can be used for distance measurement. Data and telemetry were transmitted back to Earth via China’s Queqiao-2 relay satellite.

“After the collection was completed, the five-star red flag carried by the Chang’e-6 lander was successfully unfolded on the far side of the moon,” CNSA said. “This is the first time that China has independently and dynamically displayed the national flag on the far side of the moon, The flag is made of new composite materials and special technology.”

Here's a taste of the sampling action from the past couple of days, since the Chang'e-6 landing late on June 1 UTC. pic.twitter.com/jw2DlPToVf

— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) June 4, 2024

The space agency said the Chang’e-6 ascent module lifted off at 7:38 a.m. June 4 Beijing time (11:38 p.m. GMT June 3) and fired its engine for about six minutes to reach lunar orbit. After the ascent module’s rendezvous with the orbiter and the transfer of the samples, the orbiter and the re-entry capsule will continue to circle the moon, “waiting for the right time to return for the lunar-to-Earth transfer,” CNSA said. The flight plan follows the model that was set in 2020 when Chang’e-5 brought back samples from the moon’s Earth-facing side.

The findings from Chang’e-6 could provide new insights about the moon’s south polar region. That area is of particular interest because it’s thought to contain water ice reserves that could support lunar settlement. NASA is targeting the south polar region for its upcoming VIPER rover mission — and for a crewed lunar landing that’s currently scheduled for 2026. China’s space program has its own ambitions for increased lunar exploration — including another robotic mission planned for 2026, known as Chang’e-7, and a crewed landing that it’s aiming to accomplish by 2030.

The lunar surface has been a popular destination for robotic probes over the past year or so. The successful missions include India’s Chandrayaan-3, Japan’s SLIM and Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus. Russia’s Luna 25, iSpace’s Hakuto-R and Astrobotic’s Peregrine were among the not-so-successful missions.

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The Artemis Program represents NASA’s effort to return to the Moon. One of the goals of the project is to set up long-term exploration of the Earth’s only natural satellite. This will need much bulkier equipment than what the Apollo astronauts carried though, and this equipment needs to be transported to the Moon’s surface. Blue Origin and SpaceX, contracted by NASA to provide human landing systems, have begun developing vehicles that can safely deliver this equipment from space to the Moon’s surface.

The Artemis program is far more ambitious than Apollo. The goal is not simply to land more humans on the moon, but to conduct scientific research, build a space station in lunar orbit, and lay a foundation for future expeditions to Mars. Artemis III, the first phase in which humans will land on the Moon, is currently expected to launch at a date no earlier than September 2026. NASA have contracted Blue Origin and SpaceX to build lander craft for Artemis III, and all future Artemis missions. The lander will dock with the lunar Gateway, bring the astronauts safely to the surface of the Moon, and then bring them back into orbit, where they will return to the Gateway station. But future Artemis missions will have much more demanding requirements, and involve much longer stays on the Moon. This will require a lot of heavy equipment that needs to be delivered from the Earth to the Moon.

“It’s essential that NASA has the capability to land not just astronauts, but large pieces of equipment, such as pressurized rovers, on the Moon for maximum return on science and exploration activities,” says Lisa Watson-Morgan, Human Landing System Program Manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Beginning this work now allows SpaceX and Blue Origin to leverage their respective human lander designs to provide cargo variants that NASA will need in the future.”

Since the vehicles that can fill this requirement do not exist yet, NASA has contracted SpaceX and Blue Origin to begin designing heavy cargo versions of their human lander craft. They must be able to cope with loads with a mass of 12 to 15 tonnes, in order to fulfill mission requirements, and must be ready to fly in time for Artemis VII. NASA does not expect a completely new design, however. They expect that the cargo landers will be modified versions of the human lander. The cargo version will need to include deployment mechanisms to unload the cargo, as well as payload interfaces. They will be uncrewed, though, which means that they will not need to include heavy and complicated life support systems.

The work is currently at an early stage. Both companies are working on preliminary designs, which will be submitted for review. Feedback from this process will inform further design work, and establish a baseline from which the final detailed designs can be created.

Artemis will allow NASA to explore the moon more completely than was ever possible with Apollo. Astronauts will spend far more time on the Moon’s surface, and learn how to live and work on another world. They will conduct research on previously unexplored regions of the Moon, and lay the critical groundwork to establishing a permanent base — a vital step on the road to building a settlement on Mars. It is a highly ambitious program, combining the efforts of space agencies around the world, private companies, and the academic sector. It requires massive investment and innovation, combining the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, the Orion spacecraft, the human and cargo landing systems, next generation space suits, pressurized rovers, and the Gateway lunar orbital space station. If successful, Artemis will mark the beginning of humanity’s settlement of deep space.

The Artemis program is supported by Space Policy Directive 1, which changed US space policy to work on a program to return humans to the Moon. It is meant to be a US-led international mission, involving the private sector, and calls on NASA to “lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the Solar System and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities” The goal is to build a foundation for the eventual human exploration of Mars.

Artemis 1, which launched in November 2022, was a test flight of the SLS, which ended with the Orion spacecraft splashing down into the Pacific Ocean. Artemis 2, currently scheduled for September 2025, will fly a crewed Orion spacecraft in a Lunar flyby. Artemis 3 will land astronauts on the Moon, and is planned to launch in September 2026. Artemis 4 is hoped to launch in September 2028. It will deliver the first components of the Lunar Gateway station, and also land a crew of astronauts on the Moon. Artemis 5 and 6, scheduled for 2030 and 2031, will both dock an Orion spacecraft with the Lunar Gateway, add additional segments to the station, and land astronauts on the Moon.

Reference: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/esdmd/artemis-campaign-development-division/human-landing-system-program/work-underway-on-large-cargo-landers-for-nasas-artemis-moon-missions/

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One underappreciated aspect of the current flood of exoplanet discoveries is the technical marvels that enable it. Scientists and engineers must capture and detect minute signals from stars and planets light years away. With the technologies of even a few decades ago, that would have been impossible – now it seems commonplace. However, there are still some technical hurdles to overcome before finding the “holy grail” of exoplanet hunting – an Earth analog. To help that discussion, a team of researchers led by Bertrand Mennesson at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released a paper detailing the current experimental and theoretical work around one of the most critical technical aspects of researching exoplanet atmospheres – starshades.

In particular, the paper discusses the technical hurdles of one of the most interesting upcoming space technology concepts. The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) was called for as part of NASA’s recent decadal survey. While it is still early in its development cycle, the general outlines of how the HWO will work are evident, even if some technical details aren’t. And those general outlines point to the need for a starshade or coronagraph – or both.

The paper details the difference between a starshade and a coronagraph. By its definition, a starshade is a filter placed between the primary telescope mirror and the object it is observing. In contrast, a coronagraph is a filter placed between the primary mirror and the telescope’s sensor. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages regarding the data they allow the telescope to collect, but they can also be combined.

Starshades aren’t only useful for space telescopes, as Fraser discusses with Dr. Markus Janson in this video.

Several labs worldwide have been working on developing starshade and coronagraph technology. However, several nuances to the test set-ups affect their work’s applicability to the HWO project. Some tests are performed in a vacuum, while others are performed in air. Some tests are performed on monolith mirrored telescopes, while others are performed on segmented mirrors. Currently, the baseline operational mode of HWO is a space-based telescope, which, given current launch size constraints, also means it has to be segmented. So, only some tests performed to validate coronagraph and starshade technologies apply to the HWO use case.

For the relevant tests, there are three particular “key performance parameters” (KPPs), as the paper calls them, which can impact the technology’s viability. These are the image’s “raw” contrast, the “post-calibration” contrast, and the “off-axis throughput.” Each of these has thoroughly technical definitions described in the paper. But the first two can be thought of as how easy it is to see an exoplanet before (“raw”) and after (“post-calibration”) an image is run through a data processing algorithm. Off-axis throughput is the percentage of light from the planet through the starlight suppression system.

Each of these three KPPs represents a trade-off with the other two. Optimizing a starlight suppression system, such as a coronagraph or starshade, requires understanding and validating those design trade-offs. The paper mentions that the details of the HWO are still in flux, so it is impossible to determine what trade-offs must be made to have a fully functional system. Factors such as the number of exoearths the HWO is expected to observe, their orbital parameters, and how long the observatory will be allowed to capture data on any particular planetary system will all feed into the simulated trade-offs considered in the paper.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is another candidate for exoplanet hunting with an advanced starlight suppression system, as Fraser discusses in this video.

Most importantly, the paper’s authors stated they intended to inform the technical committees of the HWO project about these trade-offs and to help guide the selection of mission parameters that might fit in with the current (or near-term) state of technical development of one of the most critical technologies for the optimal operation of the system. HWO is still in the early planning stages and has no expected launch date. Work has started around defining the teams that will make the technical determinations to inform the selection of a starlight suppression system for the HWO. Dr. Mennesson, the paper’s lead author, also happens to be one of the co-chairs of one of the committees.

But for now, there is plenty of time to flesh out the HWO design and continue developing and testing different starlight suppression technologies. If the remarkable pace of exoplanet discovery is any indication, with a little more time and attention, the telescope development community will develop an optimally designed system to help find one of the most sought-after discoveries in modern science.

Learn More:
Mennesson et al. – Current laboratory performance of starlight suppression systems, and potential pathways to desired Habitable Worlds Observatory exoplanet science capabilities
UT – Astronomers Identify 164 Promising Targets for the Habitable Worlds Observatory
UT – The Habitable Worlds Observatory Could See Lunar and Solar ‘Exo-Eclipses’
UT – Planning is Underway for NASA’s Next Big Flagship Space Telescope

Lead Image:
Image of exoplanets

The post Suppressing Starlight: How to Find Other Earths appeared first on Universe Today.

Back in December, NASA officials, space industry experts, members of the academic community, and science communicators descended on Washington, D.C., for the Achieving Mars Workshop X (AM X). This workshop is hosted by Explore Mars Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing leading experts from disparate fields together to contribute to creating the first crewed missions to Mars. On May 17th, the results of this year’s workshop were summarized in a report titled “The Tenth Community Workshop for Achievability and Sustainability of Human Exploration of Mars.”

Erik Antonsen, Bruce Jakosky, and Lisa May co-chaired the workshop, which took place from December 5th to 7th at George Washington University. Antonsen is the CTO of Advancing Frontiers, a consulting company providing spaceflight integration services, and an Associate Professor of Space Medicine and Emergency Medicine with the Center for Space Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). Jakosky is a Professor Emeritus of Geological Sciences and the Associate Director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at UC Boulder. May is the Chief Technologist for Lockheed Martin’s Commercial and Civil Space Advanced Programs.

As always, the workshop featured presentations and discussions that addressed the challenges, benefits, and ongoing efforts to realize the human exploration of Mars. But this year was special in several ways, not just because it was the tenth anniversary of the AM series. In addition, AM X took place during an auspicious time for NASA, space agencies, international organizations, and commercial space companies supporting human spaceflight. Between the impending return to the Moon through the Artemis programs and uncertainties about the first crewed missions to Mars, there was a lot to discuss!

For instance, last year’s workshop (AM IX) addressed the pressing question of whether NASA would be able to mount a crewed mission to Mars by 2033. This has been a key aspect of NASA’s Moon-to-Mars (M2M) mission architecture, detailed in the agency’s annual Architecture Concept Reviews (ACRs). It is also in keeping with Explore Mars’ goal of advancing the “human exploration of Mars and beyond no later than the 2030s.” Alas, in recent years, there has been growing skepticism that several key technologies will be ready to meet this deadline.

As Universe Today reported at the time, these doubts were raised at AM IX, and there was no consensus regarding potential solutions. This included the possibility of a flyby mission by 2033 and whether or not a nuclear-thermal propulsion (NTP) system, which can potentially reduce transit times to Mars (45 to 100 days), would be ready in time. In addition, there were the comments of Deputy Administrator Jim Reuters, who acknowledged that sending astronauts to Mars by 2040 was “an audacious goal for us to meet… It may sound like a lot, but it is [a] very short time to develop technologies we need to develop.”

As with previous AM workshops, cooperation and effective communication were emphasized. This includes coordinating robotic and human spaceflight missions and broader cooperation between space agencies, government, and industry. A key concern that was identified was the process through which NASA’s mission architecture evolves. While participants agreed that the M2M ADD “provides a strong starting point for an iterative architecture process,” they also concluded that the development process was insufficient. As stated in the AM X Report:

“Participants observed that despite recent progress, existing channels were insufficient to adequately integrate human capabilities and limitations as well as science objectives into the architecture development process. Similarly, sustainable human exploration of the Moon and Mars will not occur unless science and human exploration objectives are infused early and continuously into the systems engineering processes.”

Artwork for the AM X Workshop Report. Credit: Explore Mars Inc.

To address these concerns, the workshop participants came up with four recommendations for improving existing channels and the architecture development process. They include:

Public Outreach & Involvement

First, the AM X Workshop Report recommended that public interactive forums be more frequent to develop inputs to NASA’s Architecture Definition Documents. The communities emphasized for engagement include operations, human research, science, international organizations, and others “that empower cross-disciplinary teaming, welcome broad participation from external experts, and provide a pathway to incorporate community recommendations and findings into Mars mission planning.”

The need to coordinate with diverse science communities to prioritize and narrow science objectives was also noted, as was the possible need for certification paths for external groups “to provide input in
smaller settings and more frequently than once a year at the ACR.”

The Report also emphasizes the need for initiatives and workshops that focus on the development and integration of “intelligent systems” and “data analytics” that will be critical for missions operating farther from Earth for extended periods. According to NASA’s mission architecture, this applies to Phase III of the Moon to Mars plan (aka. “Earth Independent”), where operations will shift from cislunar to deep space. This will include transits to and from Mars using the Deep Space Transport (DST) and science operations on the Martian surface.

Risk Mitigation

Second, the Report acknowledges the historical trend where certain priorities (like discovery science, technology, and infrastructure development) are often sacrificed for short-term needs. To this end, it is recommended that NASA acknowledge and address tensions between scientific investment for “risk mitigation purposes and investment for discovery science in planning for M2M missions.” While there is no reference to the sacrifices made to realize the Artemis Program and a return to the Moon by 2024, there are some hints that this could be the case.

An illustration of the Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element and Habitation and Logistics Outpost in orbit around the Moon. Credits: NASA

The shifting priorities brought about by the expedited timetable have led to the deprioritizing of mission elements crucial to reaching Mars by the 2030s – like the Lunar Gateway. As acting Deputy Administrator Doug Loverro explained in March of 2020 during a NASA Advisory Council science committee, the Gateway was deprioritized to “de-risk” Artemis so NASA could focus on meeting the mandatory goals of Artemis and its 2024 deadline. Meanwhile, no design or feasibility studies have been performed for the DST or a Mars orbital habitat (a la the Mars Base Camp) since 2018/19, coinciding with the Artemis “shake-up.”

Regardless, the Report cites the need for increased funding to ensure “technology maturation, demonstration, and infusion to incorporate capabilities.” This is understandable, given that budget concerns have been an issue since NASA began planning missions to the Moon and Mars. In addition to speeding the development of technology, an increase in funding is also desirable to incorporate rapidly advancing technologies such as “artificial intelligence, data management, in-space manufacturing,” and others that are still relatively early in the development process.

Another important factor emphasized here is Health and Human Performance (HPP), which clearly refers to strategies for mitigating the health risks associated with deep space transits. These include extended periods spent in microgravity and long-term exposure to elevated levels of solar and cosmic radiation. To date, NASA has explored multiple possibilities for addressing these concerns, but no concrete plans have emerged just yet.

Evolving Architectures

Further to Recommendation I, the Report states that NASA and commercial companies invested in Mars exploration should continue designing “evolvable mission and campaign architectures.” The purpose of this is to allow for new technologies to be incorporated along the way and prevent the current state of technology from limiting plans. As per the Report, this will help ensure that “we do not design architecture and hardware applicable only for the first mission without allowing both to evolve for subsequent missions.” To this end, NASA and commercial industries are encouraged to:

• Develop common standards, requirements, and interfaces to allow the incorporation of multiple technologies, capabilities, and/or solutions as technology progresses over the next two decades.
• Create and implement a Human and System Readiness Level verification process to assess if the human, hardware, software, and planning systems are sufficiently mature as an integrated system.
• Ensure that the architecture is sufficiently flexible that it can address a wide range of missions beyond the first one.

Artist’s representation of NASA’s “Moon to Mars” mission architecture. Credit: NASA Commercial Partnerships

Finally, the Report encourages NASA to continue investing and cooperating with commercial partners to realize lunar capabilities and technologies that will help them reach Mars. This goes to the heart of the M2M mission architecture, which prioritized a return to the Moon during the 2020s to develop the necessary technologies, systems, and expertise to create a pathway to Mars by the 2030s. “The Moon is how we learn to get to Mars,” it reads, “and we want companies thinking not just about getting to the Moon but, at the same time, how getting there prepares us for the more challenging missions to Mars.”

As usual, the prospect of sending crewed missions to Mars raised many concerns at this year’s workshop. This should come as no surprise, as the goal itself is incredibly ambitious and presents many major challenges. If there is a takeaway from this year’s workshop, it is that there is plenty of work to be done before a mission can be realized. This work must take place at the architectural level, emphasizing wider public engagement, advancing technologies, and a commitment to long-term goals.

Further Reading: Explore Mars

The post Highlights from the 10th Achieving Mars Workshop appeared first on Universe Today.

The Martian surface shows ample evidence of its warm, watery past. Deltas, ancient lakebeds, and dry river channels are plentiful. When the Curiosity rover found organic matter in ancient sediments in the Jezero Crater paleolake, it was tempting to conclude that life created the matter.

However, new research suggests that non-living processes are responsible.

There are three carbon isotopes on Earth: carbon-12 (12C), carbon-13 (13C), and carbon-14 (14C). Earth’s carbon is almost entirely carbon-12. It makes up 99% of the carbon on Earth, with carbon-13 making up the other 1%. (14C is extremely rare and unstable, so it decays into nitrogen-14.)

In 2022, MSL Curiosity took an inventory of organic carbon in sediments at Gale Crater. Organic carbon is usually described as carbon atoms bonded covalently to hydrogen atoms and is the basis for organic molecules. The carbon in organic carbon can be either carbon-12 or carbon-13, and the amounts are important. At Gale Crater, Curiosity found about 200 to 273 parts per million of organic carbon. “This is comparable to or even more than the amount found in rocks in very low-life places on Earth, such as parts of the Atacama Desert in South America, and more than has been detected in Mars meteorites,” said Jennifer Stern, a Space Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center when the results came in.

This is the Stimson sandstone formation in Gale Crater on Mars. This is where the Curiosity Rover drilled the Edinburgh hole and found enriched Carbon 12. Image Credit: NASA/Caltech-JPL/MSSS

This carbon is important evidence in understanding Mars’ history. It can tell scientists about the planet’s atmospheric processes and environmental conditions and even shed light on potential life. In fact, understanding Martian carbon can aid our understanding of habitability and prebiotic chemistry on distant exoplanets. The isotope ratio in this carbon is different than on Earth. It has a lower amount of carbon-13 relative to carbon-12 compared to Earth. Why the discrepancy?

In recent research in Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers tried to understand the difference between Earth’s and Mars’s carbon isotope ratios. The work is titled “Synthesis of 13C-depleted organic matter from CO in a reducing early Martian atmosphere.” The lead author is Yuichiro Ueno, a biogeochemist in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

“Strong 13C depletion in sedimentary organic matter at Gale crater was recently detected by the Curiosity rover,” the authors write. “Although this enigmatic depletion remains debated, if correct, a mechanism to cause such strong 13C depletion is required.” 

The amount of carbon-13 in the Martian sediments is far lower than in Earth’s sediments.

“On measuring the stable isotope ratio between 13C and 12C, the Martian organic matter has a 13C abundance of 0.92% to 0.99% of the carbon that makes it up,” lead author Ueno explained in a press release. “This is extremely low compared to Earth’s sedimentary organic matter, which is about 1.04%, and atmospheric CO2, around 1.07%, both of which are biological remnants and are not similar to the organic matter in meteorites, which is about 1.05%.”

The meteorite data is important because a four billion-year-old Martian meteorite named ALH 84001 is enriched in carbon-13, adding to the enigma of Mars’ carbon. Somehow, carbon-13 became depleted in the intervening billions of years. Solar escape is one possible reason for the carbon-13 depletion, but the authors discount that. There likely wasn’t enough time for enough carbon-13 to escape. “Furthermore, based on geomagnetic observations, early Mars probably had a geomagnetic field before 4?Ga,” the authors write. That field would’ve prevented solar escape.

To determine what’s behind this discrepancy, Ueno and his co-researchers simulated different Martian atmospheric conditions to see what would happen.

Their results show that isotope fractionation by solar UV light is responsible for Mars’ 13C depletion.

This graphic outlines the process that creates atmospheric organic matter that finds its way into the Martian sediments sampled by MSL Curiosity. Image Credit: Ueno et al. 2024.

Carbon-12 and carbon-13 respond differently to UV light. Carbon-12 preferentially absorbs UV, which dissociates it into carbon monoxide that’s depleted in carbon-12. What’s left behind is CO2 enriched with carbon-13.

Scientists have observed this process in the upper atmospheres of Earth and Mars. In Mars’ reducing atmosphere, where oxygen was depleted, the CO2 enriched with carbon-13 would’ve transformed into formaldehyde and possibly methanol. But those compounds didn’t remain stable. In Mars’ early days, the surface temperature was close to the freezing point of water, and it never exceeded about 27 Celsius (80 F.) In that temperature range, the formaldehyde and other compounds could’ve dissolved in water. From there, they gathered in sediments.

But that’s not the end of Mars’ carbon isotope story.

The researchers used models to show that in a Mars atmosphere with a CO2 to CO ratio of 90:10, 20% of the CO2 would have converted to CO, leading to the sedimentary carbon isotope ratio we see today. The remaining atmospheric CO2 would be higher in C-13, and both values are in line with what Curiosity found, and with the ancient Martian meteorite ALH 84001.

This is a plausible scenario that can explain Curiosity’s curious carbon findings.

The team’s study also includes some other important details. For instance, atmospheric CO may not have come solely from photolysis by UV light. Some could have come from volcanic eruptions. And atmospheric CO may not have been the sole source of organics that found their way into the sediments. But either way, the results tell scientists something about Mars’ carbon cycle.

It also tells us to expect to find more organics in Martian sediments in the future.

“If the estimation in this research is correct, there may be an unexpected amount of organic material present in Martian sediments. This suggests that future explorations of Mars might uncover large quantities of organic matter,” said Ueno.

While the research shows us that life needn’t be present to produce these organics, it can’t rule life out. Nobody can, at least not yet.

The research also shows how complex atmospheric chemistry can be and how difficult it can be to draw conclusions from atmospheric studies of exoplanets. The JWST has examined several exoplanet atmospheres and found some interesting results. But there’s so much we don’t know. This research is a reminder that any conclusions are likely premature.

The post Life Probably Played No Role in Mars’ Organic Matter appeared first on Universe Today.

As we discover more and more exoplanets – and the current total is in excess of 5,200 – we continue to try to learn more about them. Astrobiologists busy themselves analysing their atmospheres searching for anything that provides a sign of life. It is quite conceivable of course that the Universe is teeming with life based on very different chemistry to ours but we often look to life on Earth to know what to look for. On Earth for example, ozone forms through photolysis of molecular oxygen and is an indicator of life. Using the James Webb Space Telescope astronomers are searching stars in the habitable zone of their star for the presence of ozone and how it impacts their climate.

It’s tantalising that 425 of the exoplanets detected so far, exist in their stars habitable zone. It is in this region where the climate on the planet may well be suitable to sustain life. A significant subset of those planets are Earth-like in nature and will therefore have a fairly temperate climate. In addition, they all seem to orbit M-dwarf type stars which means they are likely to be impacted by tidal spin-synchronisation (due to the effects of the tides, one face of the planet may well be kept facing the star). One impact of this is the potential for large contrast in daytime and night-time irradiation which can drive strong convection on the day side of the planet.  

The strong convection can drive winds around the equatorial region that are persistently higher faster than the rotation of the planet. It can also create Rosby Waves which naturally occur in the Earth’s ocean and atmosphere – in any rotating fluids or gas. Together these can control the distribution of chemicals in the atmosphere, in particular ozone. 

In Earth’s atmosphere the presence of molecular oxygen is an indicator of life since it is produced largely from photosynthesis in plants. The molecular oxygen collides with nitrogen in the atmosphere to produce ozone so the presence of the latter is an indicator of biological processes. There is a chance though that the molecular oxygen in exoplanet atmospheres are the result of different ratios of near and far UV that can drive a non-biological build up. 

In a new piece of research reported in a paper by lead author Paolo De Luca and team, they report their findings having leveraged climate model simulations on Proxima Centauri b. The Earth-sized exoplanet orbits the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our own at a distance of 4,.2 light years. 

An artist’s conception of a violent flare erupting from the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. Such flares can obliterate atmospheres of nearby planets. Credit: NRAO/S. Dagnello.

They report that the analysis of atmospheres of tidally locked Earth-like exoplanets received a massive boost as a result of the development of the James Webb Telescope. The team reveal that their climate modelling (including the use of interactive ozone) globally increases temperature in the stratosphere. This in turn induces regional variations of surface temperature and also reduces the temperature contrast between day and night side. 

Whilst the team have not been able to identify life on exoplanets, that was not their intention. What they have achieved is the ability to understand the exoplanet atmospheres using the James Webb Space Telescope, some of the processes that lead to atmospheric ozone and the impacts on temperatures. 

Source : The impact of Ozone on Earth-like exoplanet climate dynamics: the case of Proxima Centauri b

The post What Impact Does Ozone Have on an Exoplanet? appeared first on Universe Today.

To reach the Green Bank Observatory, you take the road less traveled, winding through scenic and remote regions of the Allegheny Mountains and the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia. About an hour away, you’ll start to lose cell phone service. The Green Bank Observatory – a collection of radio telescopes that search the heavens for faint radio signals from black holes, pulsars, neutron stars or gravitational waves — sits near the heart of the United States National Radio Quiet Zone, a unique area the encompasses an area of approximately 13,000 square miles, spanning the border between Virginia and West Virginia.

Here in the NRQZ, human-generated radio transmissions are limited to shield the radio telescopes from Earth-based radio signals called RFI (Radio Frequency Interference), which are high-frequency electromagnetic waves that emanate from electronic devices such as computers, cell phones, microwave ovens, and even digital cameras. Even the weakest RFI signals can drown out the faint radio waves coming from the cosmos.

A view of the Green Bank Observatory’s Science Center and some of the telescopes. Credit: Jay Young for the Green Bank Observatory.

“You can only use basic, old-style film cameras here within 2 miles of the Green Bank Telescope,” said Paul Vosteen, Media Specialist at Green Bank Observatory who provided a tour of the facilities. Vosteen recounted a time he took a group out to see the gigantic (and very photogenic) 100-meter Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and unwittingly, a member of the group started snapping photos with a digital camera. While he quickly got the photographer stopped, Vosteen later coyly checked in with technicians who had been running diagnostics on the GBT that day. They were scratching their heads about a strange spike in signals earlier that morning. Turns out, it was the exact moment the photographer used their digital camera. 

“The slightest electronic signal can cause interference,” Vosteen explained. “We can only use diesel vehicles here on the premises because gasoline engines have spark plugs. Everything that sparks produces radio waves.” Diesel engines, on the other hand, ignite by compression.

GBT Control Room. Credit NSF/GBO/Jill Malusky.

To keep the amount of interference on-site in check, the observatory’s control room and the nearby Science Center’s exhibit hall are completely surrounded by copper Faraday cages, wire-mesh devices built into the walls to block electromagnetic signals. Even windows are covered with a thin wire mesh, and the heavy door to the control room opens and closes like an entrance to a high-security bank vault.

Green Bank is home to six large radio telescopes ranging in size from 14 meters to 100 meters in diameter. The 20-meter and the 40-foot telescopes are full-time educational telescopes used by students around the country.

UT journalist Nancy Atkinson by the Reber Telescope, the world’s first parabolic dish built by Grote Reber in his Illinois backyard. The dish was moved to the Green Bank Observatory site in the 1960s. Credit: Nancy Atkinson.

The observatory also contains many relics of radio astronomy history. There’s an exact replica of the dipole array antenna Karl Jansky used when he discovered quite by accident that radio waves were emanating from the center of the Milky Way. That was the beginning of radio astronomy as we know it today. There’s also the actual parabolic dish radio telescope (the world’s first) built by Grote Reber in 1937 to follow up on Jansky’s detection. Then there’s the 85-foot Howard E. Tatel telescope that Frank Drake used in 1960 to perform the world’s first search for extraterrestrial intelligence with Project Ozma.

GBT – “Great Big Thing”

At 485 feet (148 meters) tall, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT – sometimes called ‘Great Big Thing’ by locals) is the tallest and most eye-catching dish at the observatory, and the largest steerable radio telescope in the world. The maneuverability of its large 100-meter dish allows it to quickly track objects across its field of view, and see 85% of the sky.

While the GBT has been in operation since 2000, as we discussed in an article last week, a new upgrade for the telescope is under development. ngRADAR is a next-generation radar system that will allow the GBT to track and map asteroids with unprecedented resolution, making GBT the most advanced planetary radar system in the world. It will also be able to study comets, moons and planets in our Solar System. When finished it will not only help astronomers study the composition of other planetary bodies, but also help defend against potential large meteor strikes on Earth by mapping the precise trajectories of asteroids that cross Earth’s orbit.

Astronomers study the Universe by capturing light from stars, planets, and galaxies. But they can also study nearby objects by shining radio light on them and analyzing the signals that echo back. This is called planetary radar, and the process can reveal incredibly detailed information about our planetary neighbors.

The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. Credit: Jay Young.

“When astronomers are studying light that is being made by a star, or galaxy, they’re trying to figure out its properties,” said Patrick Taylor, the project director for ngRADAR and the radar division head for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, in our article last week. “But with radar, we already know what the properties of the signals are, and we leverage that to figure out the properties of whatever we bounced the signals off of. That allows us to characterize planetary bodies – like their shape, speed, and trajectory. That’s especially important for hazardous objects that might stray too close to Earth.”

Previously, the workhorse for planetary radar was the 1,000-foot-diameter (305 meters) Arecibo Observatory which collapsed in 2020, as well as the Goldstone 70-meter dish in California, which is primarily used for communicating with spacecraft as part of NASA’s Deep Space Network. Taylor said that the idea for ngRADAR has been discussed for years — even before Arecibo’s demise — but with the loss of Arecibo, the upgrade is even more important.

Radar signals transmitted by the ngRADAR at the GBT will reflect off astronomical objects, and those reflected signals will be received by the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a network of ten observing stations located across the United States.

A Synthetic Aperture Radar image of the Moon’s Tycho Crater using the ngRADAR prototyope, showing 5-meter resolution detail. Image credit Raytheon.

“The idea is for GBT is to do the transmitting almost constantly and the VLBA — either all ten of those or any subset of those telescopes — doing the receiving,” said Taylor. “This new system will allow us to characterize the surfaces of many different objects in a different frequency or wavelength that hasn’t been used before.”

Radio Frequencies

All light travels through space in waves – think of how ripples move across a pond. Each ripple has a peak and a trough, which is called a cycle. An object emitting radio waves produces many cycles in a very short period. During each cycle, the wave moves a short distance, which is called its wavelength. Radio waves have the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. They range from sub-millimeter lengths to over 100 kilometers.

For radio waves of all wavelengths, the number of cycles per second is called a frequency, with one cycle per second being one hertz. That means one thousand cycles per second is a kilohertz and a billion cycles per second is a gigahertz. Radio astronomers are interested in objects in a wide range of frequencies, but mostly from between 3 kilohertz and about 900 gigahertz.

“Arecibo worked at 2.38 gigahertz, the Goldstone 70-meter primarily works at 8.56 gigahertz,” said Taylor. “For ngRADAR, we are looking at even higher frequencies, at 13.7 gigahertz, something that really hasn’t been used for planetary radar before. This is a way to offer something new and different, while the capabilities of the two instruments – GBT and Goldstone – also would complement each other.”

But more importantly, since Goldstone is now “the only planetary radar game in town,” as Taylor described it, that means planetary radar in the US has a single point failure. The antennas of Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex are busy 24 hours a day communicating with spacecraft around the Solar System.

“If Goldstone is down for whatever reason or if it’s not available because of its work with the DSN,” said Taylor, “having a radar transmitter on the GBT gives us more flexibility and redundancy.”

Taylor said there are several applications for the future of radar, from not only advancing our knowledge of objects in the Solar System and characterizing asteroids and comets, but also aiding in future robotic and crewed spaceflight.

The Green Bank Telescope Credit: Dave Green

The GBT worked with the Goldstone telescope to help confirm the success of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission in 2022, the first test to see if humans could successfully alter the trajectory of an asteroid. In a two-week campaign, the radio telescopes were able to track how the orbit of Dimorphos, the asteroid that was hit by DART, changed after the impact.

But the main goal ngRADAR is for is planetary defense.

“That will be one of the highest priority uses for the radar system, where we can track and characterize near earth-asteroids and comets to evaluate any hazard they might present to Earth in the future. Radar delivers very precise data that allows you to predict where these small bodies will be in the future. We can determine its size, how it rotates, what it might be made of, is it just a round ball, or does it look like a potato, or does it have a moon that you also must worry about.”

Building ngRADAR

Raytheon’s prototype radar system deployed on the prime focus boom of the Green Bank Telescope over its 100-meter collecting dish. Credit: Green Bank Observatory.

As we discussed last week, a scaled-down prototype of ngRADAR at the GBT produced some of the highest resolution planetary radar images ever captured from Earth. Not only will the new full-scale system need to be built, but several changes will need to be made to the GBT. 

“This will be a pretty intensive infrastructure project,” Taylor explained. “We’ll have to build the transmitter and mount it onto the GBT. With the size and weight of the system, as well as the cooling systems that will be needed, extra structures will be needed to support all that.”

Taylor said the timeline for completion would depend on funding, but a reasonable goal is that in the next five years – perhaps by 2029-2030 – ngRADAR could be up and running.

But Taylor feels that ngRADAR will allow the GBT to come full circle.

“Some of the first science done with GBT was receiving radar signals when it was first inaugurated,” he said. “It’s been a receiver for radar for over 20 years but now we are trying to take the next step and have it be a transmitter as well.”

Read part 1 of this series, Next Generation Radar Will Map Threatening Asteroids.

The post Part 2: The History and Future of Planetary Radar appeared first on Universe Today.

After touching down on the moon’s far side, China’s Chang’e-6 lander is collecting samples to bring back to Earth — and sending back imagery documenting its mission.

Chang’e-6, which was launched May 3, went through weeks’ worth of in-space maneuvers that climaxed with its weekend landing in the moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin region. The mission plan calls for the probe to collect samples of lunar soil and rock over the course of about two days, and then pack them up for the return trip.

If the operation is successful, Chang’e-6 would bring back the first fresh lunar samples ever collected on the moon’s far side — following up on the Chang’e-5 mission in 2020, which returned samples from the moon’s Earth-facing side.

The China National Space Administration said the lander used its onboard camera during its powered descent to detect obstacles autonomously and select a safe landing site. Chang’e-6 captured video imagery during the final phase of the lander’s descent and transmitted the views back to Earth. One video frame shows the shadow of the lander itself moments before touchdown.

Chang’e-6 is built to collect samples using a drill and a robotic arm. It’s also expected to gather scientific data about its surroundings using a radon detector, a negative-ion detector and a mini-rover. During surface operations, data and telemetry are being relayed between Chang’e-6 and Earth via China’s Queqiao-2 satellite.

Up to 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of lunar samples will be stowed inside the lander’s “ascender” stage. The rocket-powered ascender will then lift off from the surface and transfer the samples to the Chang’e-6 orbiter, which is currently in lunar orbit. Following the model set by Chang’e-5, the orbiter will head back toward Earth and release the sample capsule for atmospheric re-entry and touchdown in Inner Mongolia.

An image captured by a camera aboard the Chang’e-6 lander shows the spacecraft’s shadow on the lunar surface just moments before touchdown. (Credit: CLEP / CNSA)

The moon’s south polar region is of particular interest because it’s thought to harbor reserves of water ice that could support lunar settlement. Studying fresh samples from the South Pole-Aitken Basin could help scientists and mission planners learn more about the region’s resources.

Chang’e-6 is the latest spacecraft in an international armada of moon landers — including Russia’s Luna 25, iSpace’s Hakuto-R and Astrobotic’s Peregrine, which were unsuccessful, plus more fruitful missions such as India’s Chandrayaan-3, Japan’s SLIM and Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus.

Coming attractions include NASA’s VIPER rover, which is currently due to be delivered to the moon late this year; and China’s Chang’e-7 mission, which features a hopping probe and is set for launch in 2026. Looking further ahead, China aims to send astronauts to the lunar surface by 2030 — not long after NASA’s Artemis 3 crewed lunar landing, currently scheduled for 2026.

The post Chinese Probe Lands on Moon’s Far Side to Collect Samples for Return appeared first on Universe Today.

There was a time when maps of the Moon were created from telescopic observations and drawings. Indeed Sir Patrick Moore created maps of the Moon that were used during the historic Apollo landings. Now researchers have enhanced a technique to create accurate maps from existing satellite images. Their approach uses a technique called ‘shape-from-shading’ and involves analyzing shadows to estimate the features and shape of the terrain. Future lunar missions will be able to use the maps to identify hazards on the surface making them far safer. 

Researchers at the Brown University in Rhode Island have helped refine a process used to map the surface of the Moon making it more accurate than ever before. In their paper, published in the Planetary Science Journal and authored by Benjamin Boatwright and team details the enhancements to the mapping technique. It can generate detailed models of the Moon’s surface to highlight craters, ridges and slopes from composites of 2D images. 

Closeup of lunar surface (Credit NASA)

Highly detailed maps are of crucial importance to lunar missions and help the planners to identify the safest place to land. They can also use them to identify areas of particular interest that require further study enabling the whole mission to be far more efficient. Missions such as the Artemis project will benefit when it heads for the south pole of the Moon, an area which is not well mapped. High resolution maps of the area will aid the autonomous landing systems to avoid hazards. 

Artist impression of Artemis lunar landing

Creating the maps is a time consuming job and is difficult to be accurate when lighting levels on target area are poor. The interpretation of shadows has been less than effective until now with the team addressing the issues. In their paper, the team explain how advanced computer algorithms can automate a lot of the process and improve the resolution of the generated models. Their new software gives lunar astronomers the necessary tools and information to create larger more detailed maps of the surface. 

To allow lunar scientists to create a map from images requires at least two images of the same area. Each image must be perfectly aligned with its counterpart so that features in one are in exactly the same place in the other. Until now, the technology has not been able to take multiple images of an area and create a perfect map. Boatwright said ‘We implemented an image alignment algorithm where it picks out features in one image and tries to find those same features in the other and then line them up, so that you’re not having to sit there manually tracing interest points across multiple images, which takes a lot of hours and brain power.’

Along with the image alignment algorithm, the researchers created quality control algorithms and filters to remove poor quality images from the alignment process. By only inputing good quality images to the process means the output will be of far higher quality. It is a similar model that astronomical imaging employs when processing multiple images through stacking and alignment techniques. 

To evaluate the accuracy of their work, the team compared the output from existing maps of the Moon to look for errors. To their delight, they found that maps created using their enhanced ‘shape-from-shading’ technique was more precise compared to those acquired during traditional techniques. 

Source : New technique from Brown University researchers offers more precise maps of the Moon’s surface

The post A New Way to Make Precise Maps of the Lunar Surface appeared first on Universe Today.

Six years after he announced a grand plan to fly around the moon with a crew of artists in SpaceX’s Starship rocket, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said he was canceling the project due to delays in Starship’s development.

In a series of postings to the X social-media platform, Maezawa said he signed his contract with SpaceX “based on the assumption that dearMoon would launch by the end of 2023.”

“It’s a developmental project, so it is what it is, but it is still uncertain as to when Starship can launch,” he wrote. “I can’t plan my future in this situation, and I feel terrible making the crew members wait longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel at this point in time. I apologize to those who were excited for this project to happen.”

DearMoon crew member Yemi A.D., a Czech choreographer, talks about the mission’s cancellation.

After a selection process that attracted more than a million applicants, Maezawa named eight artists and communicators, plus two alternates, to the crew in late 2022. One of the chosen crew members was Tim Dodd, a science communicator and YouTube video creator who’s known as the “Everyday Astronaut.”

“Of course I’m extremely disappointed, having dreamt about this mission since I first heard about it in 2018 and even more for the last three years since the selection process started,” Dodd wrote in an extended posting to X.

Maezawa made his fortune by starting up what would become Zozo, Japan’s largest online clothing store. He sold most of his stake in the venture to Yahoo Japan in 2019 for around $2.3 billion. A fair amount of his riches has gone toward high-profile purchases, such as the $110.5 million acquisition of a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat in 2017 and the estimated $80 million fare for a trip to the International Space Station in 2021.

The mega-launch system now known as Starship was at an early stage of development in 2018 when Maezawa struck a deal with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to reserve a round-the-moon flight. The mission was envisioned as a roughly five-day trip that would give artists and performers on the level of Pablo Picasso and Michael Jackson the chance to experience space — and work that experience into their artistic creations.

The cost of the dearMoon project was never disclosed publicly, but at the time that the plan was revealed, Musk said Maezawa was providing a substantial deposit that “will have a material effect on paying for the cost of development” of the Starship system. Back then, Musk said the total development cost was on the order of $5 billion.

Developing and testing Starship has taken longer than Musk planned — which is par for the course when it comes to new types of spaceships. During the most recent Starship flight test, which took place in March, the rocket reached orbital altitude but broke up as it descended to a planned splashdown. Another flight test could take place as early as next week.

This isn’t the first time Maezawa has backtracked on his plans for spaceflight. In 2000, he pulled out of a reality-TV project that would have traced the selection of a female contestant to accompany him on a round-the-moon trip, presumably aboard Starship. Despite that precedent, the crew members for dearMoon said they were surprised by the cancellation of a trip they’d been so looking forward to.

“You didn’t ask us if we minded waiting or give us an option or discuss that you were thinking of canceling until you’d already made the decision,” Rhiannon Adam, an Irish-born photographic artist who was chosen for the crew, said in an X posting directed at Maezawa. “I can only speak for myself, but I’d have waited till it was ready.”

Another would-be spaceflier, night-sky photographer Brendan Hall, said in an online statement that “the cancellation of this mission was sudden, brief and unexpected.”

Dodd echoed that sentiment in his posting to X. “The one thing I have a hard time reconciling is the timeline,” he wrote. “Had I known that this could have ended within a year and a half of it being publicly announced, I would’ve never agreed to it. We had no prior knowledge of this possibility.”

Dodd said he remained optimistic about the long-term prospects for citizen spaceflight. “I still firmly believe that, within my lifetime, we will see missions like this happen, and while I will never be the first to do such a mission, it brings me great joy to know the future is bright and exciting,” he said.

The post Japanese Billionaire Calls Off His Starship Trip Around the Moon appeared first on Universe Today.

Universe Today has recently investigated a plethora of scientific disciplines, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, organic chemistry, black holes, and cryovolcanism, while conveying their importance of how each of them continues to teach researchers and the public about our place in the vast universe.

Here, we investigate the field of planetary protection, which involves preventing Earth-born organisms from contaminating other worlds or interfering with scientific analyses on those worlds, along with preventing contamination to Earth from returned samples. To investigate this, we present a 2023 paper in Acta Astronautica with additional insights from the study’s lead author, Dr. Athena Coustenis, who serves as the Chair of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Panel on Planetary Protection (PPP), regarding what planetary protection can teach us about finding life beyond Earth, exciting aspects about planetary protection, and advice for upcoming students who wish to study planetary protection.

The paper discusses the importance of planetary protection regarding space exploration, stating, “Planetary protection enables scientific return from solar system bodies investigations and at the same time protects life on Earth. As we continue to explore our solar system by landing machines and humans on other planets, we need to ascertain that we do not bring potentially dangerous material home to Earth or carry anything from Earth that may contaminate another planetary body and prevent scientific investigations.”

The paper discusses in greater detail the COSPAR PPP and its primary goals, including offering advice or guidance to government or private space-faring organizations and ensuring extraterrestrial samples returned from outer space do not contaminate the Earth, and specifically its biosphere. Additionally, the paper discusses recent policy actions taken by the PPP for the continued exploration of the Moon, Mars, and icy moons such as Europa, Enceladus, and Titan.

For the Moon, PPP recommended steps that need to be taken to prevent potential contamination of the permanently shadowed regions of the Moon, which are hypothesized to contain large quantities of water ice and are of significant interest for the upcoming Artemis missions. For Mars, the PPP focused on safeguarding more advanced scientific endeavors, including drilling, older areas of Mars that have yet to be explored, and sample return missions, to prevent contamination of potential scientific results and Earth’s biosphere, as well.

For icy moons, which the paper notes as being “possible habitable environments”, the PPP has already expressed concerns about exploring these worlds with the Planetary Protection of the Outer Solar System (PPOOS), which was led by the European Science Foundation and funded by the European Commission and is in the process of seeking additional insights in the future. Therefore, with these intriguing worlds being considered for exploration, what can planetary protection teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

Dr. Coustenis tells Universe Today, “Finding ways to preserve scientific research in our solar system helps the quest for finding life elsewhere and protecting our own biosphere during space exploration is essential for life on Earth. Working to that end with a large group of scientists, agency representatives and other expert stakeholders is one of the most rewarding activities in my career. The valuable outcome which represents thorough, long-term studies and reviews of knowledge is achieved through consensus and distributed to the large community. We are very excited to be able to offer such a service to the community via the COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection.”

Along with serving as Chair of the COSPAR PPP, Dr. Coustenis has extensive research experience regarding planetary surfaces and atmospheres, specifically outer solar system objects like Europa, Ganymede, Titan, and Enceladus, as these worlds are targets for future astrobiology research. Additionally, Dr. Coustenis’ research extends far beyond the solar system as she has helped distinguish and characterize exoplanetary atmospheres, as well. Regarding planetary protection, some notable publications include being a co-author on a March 2024 paper discussing planetary protection for a future crewed Mars mission and a 2023 paper discussing COSPAR requirements for exploring Venus. Given her knowledge and experience regarding planetary protection, what are some of the most exciting aspects about planetary protection that Dr. Coustenis has encountered during her career?

Dr. Coustenis tells Universe Today, “We have recently worked on the Moon exploration requirements to preserve the poles and the regions where liquid water could be found at some periods of time and are currently working on the missions that will explore icy worlds, like the moons of our giant planets that harbor liquid water oceans underneath their surfaces, as well as organic chemistry and energy sources. These could be habitable environments that we need to explore with care.”

As noted in the Acta Astronautica paper, the field of planetary protection requires international collaboration not only from a multitude of scientists, but also engineers, as they are the individuals responsible for building the spacecraft that are sent to far-off worlds for scientific exploration. Other disciplines that contribute to planetary protection include geology, physics, geophysics, biotechnology, astrobiology, biomedical, planetary science. It is through this constant collaboration of scientists, engineers, and medical professionals that planetary protection has successfully prevented contamination of planetary bodies outside the Earth, but also preventing contamination of the Earth from returned samples. Therefore, what advice can Dr. Coustenis offer to upcoming students who wish to pursue a career in planetary protection?

Dr. Coustenis tells Universe Today, “Planetary protection offers the possibility to contribute coming from many different fields, scientific, engineering, economic or legal. We need all these varied points of view in order to accomplish adequate characterizations of space missions and related requirements and also to establish the real value of planetary protection, the enabling capacity of this tool and to spread the word about what we do and how others can contribute, in particular the younger generations. So, we encourage students and early-career space aficionados to join COSPAR and learn more about our work and that of other commissions and panels within its structure so as to be able also to position themselves and engage with the space community.”

How will planetary protection teach us about our place in the cosmos in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

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The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), located on Mount Graham in Arizona and run by the University of Arizona, is part of the next generation of extremely large telescopes (ELTs). With two primary mirrors measuring 8.4 m (~27.5 ft), it has a collecting area slightly greater than that of a 30-meter (98.4 ft) telescope. With their resolution, adaptive optics, and sophisticated instruments, these telescopes are expected to probe deeper into the Universe and provide stunning images of everything from distant galaxies to objects in our Solar System.

An international team led by the University of Arizona recently acquired images of Jupiter’s moon Io that were the highest-resolution pictures ever taken by a ground-based telescope. The images revealed surface features measuring just 80 km (50 mi) across, a spatial resolution previously reserved for spacecraft. This includes NASA’s Juno mission, which has captured some of the most stunning images of Io’s volcanoes. These images were made possible by the LBT’s new SHARK-VIS instrument and the telescope’s adaptive optics system.

The team was led by Al Conrad, an Associate Staff Scientist with the University of Arizona’s Department of Astronomy, the Stewart Observatory, and the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory (LBTO). He was joined by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, the California Institute of Technology, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Their paper, “Observation of Io’s Resurfacing via Plume Deposition Using Ground-Based Adaptive Optics at Visible Wavelengths With LBT SHARK-VIS (GRL),” and the LBT images are set to be published in the Geophysical Research Letters.

The Large Binocular Telescope, showing the two imaging mirrors. Credit: NASA

SHARK-VIS is a high-contrast optical coronagraphic imaging instrument designed and built at INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma. The instrument is fed by the refurbished LBT extreme Adaptive Optics system, called the Single conjugated adaptive Optics Upgrade for LBT (SOUL). It was installed in 2023 on the LBT along with the near-infrared instrument, SHARK-NIR, to take advantage of the telescope’s outstanding adaptive optics system. The key to the instrument is its fast, ultra-low-noise “fast imaging” camera that captures slow-motion footage that freezes the optical distortions caused by atmospheric interference.

Gianluca Li Causi, the data processing manager for SHARK-VIS at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, explained how it works in a recent University of Arizona News release:

“We process our data on the computer to remove any trace of the sensor’s electronic footprint. We then select the best frames and combine them using a highly efficient software package called Kraken, developed by our colleagues Douglas Hope and Stuart Jefferies from Georgia State University. Kraken allows us to remove atmospheric effects, revealing Io in incredible sharpness.”

The SHARK-VIS image was so rich in detail that it allowed the researchers to identify a major resurfacing event around Pele, one of Io’s largest volcanoes located in the southern hemisphere near the equator (and named after the Hawaiin deity associated with fire and volcanoes). The image shows a plume deposit around Pele covered by eruption deposits from Pillan Patera, a neighboring volcano. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft observed a similar eruption sequence while exploring the Jupiter system between 1995 and 2003. However, this was the first time an Earth-based observatory took such detailed images.

An artist’s concept of the interior of Io. Credit: Kelvinsong/Wikimedia

“We interpret the changes as dark lava deposits and white sulfur dioxide deposits originating from an eruption at Pillan Patera, which partially cover Pele’s red, sulfur-rich plume deposit,” said co-author Ashley Davies, a principal scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Before SHARK-VIS, such resurfacing events were impossible to observe from Earth.” Io is the innermost of Jupiter’s largest moons (aka. Galilean moons), which include Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Since NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft flew through the Jupiter system in 1979, scientists have been fascinated by Io and its volcanic features.

Along with Europa and Ganymede, Io is locked in a 1:2:4 orbital resonance, where Europa makes two orbits for every orbit made by Ganymede, and Io makes four. Between its interaction with these moons and Jupiter’s powerful gravity, Io’s interior is constantly flexing, producing hot lava that erupts through the surface. While telescopes have taken infrared images that revealed hot spots caused by eruptions, they are not sharp enough to reveal surface details or identify the locations of the eruptions. By monitoring the eruptions on Io’s surface, scientists hope to gain insights into the tidal heating mechanism responsible for Io’s intense volcanism.

“Io, therefore, presents a unique opportunity to learn about the mighty eruptions that helped shape the surfaces of the Earth and the moon in their distant pasts,” said Conrad. Studies like this one, he added, will help researchers understand why some planets have active volcanoes while others do not. For instance, while Venus is thought to still be volcanically active, Mars is home to the largest volcanoes in the Solar System but is inactive. These studies may also shed light on volcanic exoplanets someday, helping astronomers to identify geological activity on distant planets (a possible indication of habitability).

SHARK-VIS instrument scientist Simone Antoniucci anticipates that it will enable new observations of objects throughout the Solar System with similar sharpness, revealing all manner of features that would otherwise require spacecraft.”The keen vision of SHARK-VIS is particularly suited to observing the surfaces of many solar system bodies, not only the moons of giant planets but also asteroids,” he said. “We have already observed some of those, with the data currently being analyzed, and are planning to observe more.”

Further Reading: University of Arizona

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It is truly wonderful to see so many nations aspiring to space exploration and trips to the Moon. Earlier this week on the 27th May, South Korea innaugurated its new space agency, the Korea AeroSpace Administration otherwise known as KASA. The group is headed up by former professor of aerospace engineering Yoon Young-bin. Whilst the group has yet to announce detailed plans for their upcoming missions Young-bin has stated they hope to land on the Moon by 2032 and to get to Mars by 2045.

The President of Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, had confirmed that the government was committed to the space sector. To that end, they intend to secure investments of billions of dollars to fund the project. In March this year Korean Space Agency was formed in a ceremony that took place in March this year. Suk-yeol pleduged to facilitate 1,000 space companies and he hoped that 10 of the companies would become top-tier space firms. They would work hard to increase Korea’s share of the space market, aiming to hit 10% instead of the existing 1%. and create over 100,000 jobs. 

The Korean goverment has for sometime been keen to expand the space industry, Young-bin also prioritised support for the private sector. “The establishment of KASA will be an important stepping stone that guides the way for Korea to become a powerhouse in space economy by setting up the private-led space ecosystem,” Young-bin said. 

Young-bin is no stranger to space exploration since he had been researching space propulsion at the time of his appointment. His research chiefly focuses on liquid rocket engine. He has also been a serving director of the Institute of Advanced Aerospace Technology. 

Mid to long term goals and visions for space development are important next steps along the journey. To achieve those, KASA are striving for active cooperation from public, private and academic sectors. All of this is of course subject to securing the necessary funding. 

The framework for operations of KASA have been established and will be implemented with a maximum of 293 employees. Currenly only 110 are in place which includes a number of officials who were originally part of the Science Ministry in Korea. With the establishment of KASA, the Ministry of Science and ICT have been reorganised to align to their reduced scope of work but to find the remaining employees KASA will continue to search at home and abroad for the right people.

Along with their plans to explore the Moon and Mars, KASA is also planning to explore the Lagrangian Point known as L4. These regions in space lie along the Earth’s orbit and usually a little ahead or a litle behind but at these points, the gravitational force of the Earth and that of the Sun balance out against each other making for a highly efficient location for a probe. No country has acehived this yet so it will really put KASA on the international space exploration map.

They also plan to restore the Apophis mission which had been scrapped some years ago. The asteroid will pass close by Earth in 2029. The plan is for this to become an international mission, calling upon international co-operation. Other projects include participation in the Event Horizon Telescope and black hole imaging from one of NASA’s solar coronagraph.

Source : Korea ushers in new space era with KASA launch

The post South Korea is Planning to Send a Mission to Mars by 2045 appeared first on Universe Today.

How can machine learning help astronomers find Earth-like exoplanets? This is what a recently accepted study to Astronomy & Astrophysics hopes to address as a team of international researchers investigated how a novel neural network-based algorithm could be used to detect Earth-like exoplanets using data from the radial velocity (RV) detection method. This study holds the potential to help astronomers develop more efficient methods in detecting Earth-like exoplanets, which are traditionally difficult to identify within RV data due to intense stellar activity from the host star.

The study notes, “Machine learning is one of the most efficient and successful tools to handle large amounts of data in the scientific field. Many algorithms based on machine learning have been proposed to mitigate stellar activity to better detect low-mass and/or long period planets. These algorithms can be classified into two categories: supervised learning and unsupervised learning. The advantage of supervised learning is that the proposed model contains a large set of variables and has the ability to produce relatively accurate predictions based on the training data.”

For the study, the researchers applied their algorithm to three stars to ascertain its ability to identify exoplanets within the stellar activity data: our Sun, Alpha Centauri B (HD 128621), and Tau ceti (HD 10700), with Alpha Centauri B being located approximately 4.3 light-years from Earth and Tau ceti being located approximately 12 light-years from Earth. After inserting simulated planetary signals within the algorithm, the researchers found their algorithm successfully identified simulated exoplanets with potential orbital periods ranging between 10 to 550 days for our Sun, 10 to 300 days for Alpha Centauri B, and 10 to 350 days for Tau ceti. It’s important to note that Alpha Centauri B currently has had several potential exoplanet detections but non confirmed while Tau ceti currently has eight exoplanets listed as “unconfirmed” within its system.

Additionally, the algorithm identified these results correspond to Alpha Centauri B and Tau ceti potentially having exoplanets approximately 4 times the size of Earth and within the habitable zones of those stars, as well. After inserting more stellar activity data into the algorithm, the researchers discovered the algorithm successfully identified a simulated exoplanet approximately 2.2 times the size of the Earth while orbiting the same distance as the Earth from our Sun.

The study noted in its conclusions, “In this paper, we developed a neural network framework to efficiently mitigate stellar activity at the spectral level, to enhance the detection of low-mass planets on periods from a few days up to a few hundred days, corresponding to the habitable zone of solar-type stars.”

While the study focused on finding Earth-like exoplanets within RV data, the researchers note that additional data, including transit time, phase, and space-based photometry, could be used to identify Earth-like exoplanets. They emphasize the European Space Agency’s PLATO space telescope mission could accomplish this, which is currently being developed and slated for launch sometime in 2026. Upon launch, it will be stationed at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point located on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun where it scan up to one million stars searching for exoplanets using the transit method with an emphasis on terrestrial (rocky) exoplanets.

PLATO mission discussed around the 9:00 mark

This study comes as the number of confirmed exoplanets by NASA has reached 5,632 as of this writing, which is comprised of 201 terrestrial exoplanets, and also provides the upcoming PLATO mission ample opportunity to discover many more terrestrial exoplanets within our Milky Way Galaxy.

How will machine learning help astronomers detect Earth-like exoplanets in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post A New Deep Learning Algorithm Can Find Earth 2.0 appeared first on Universe Today.

Universe Today has had the privilege of spending the last several months venturing into a multitude of scientific disciplines, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, organic chemistry, and black holes, and their importance in helping teach scientists and the public about our place in the cosmos.

Here, we discuss the intriguing field of cryovolcanism with Dr. Rosaly Lopes, who is the Directorate Scientist for the Planetary Science Directorate and a Senior Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, regarding the importance of studying cryovolcanism, examples throughout the solar system, what cryovolcanism can teach us about finding life beyond Earth, exciting aspects of studying cryovolcanism, and advice for upcoming students who wish to study cryovolcanism. So, what is the importance of studying cryovolcanism?

Dr. Lopes references Geissler (2015) and tells Universe Today, “My colleague Paul Geissler defined it well: ‘The eruption of liquid or vapor phases (with or without entrained solids) of water or other volatiles that would be frozen solid at the normal temperature of the icy satellite’s surface’.

While we associate volcanism on Earth as being when hot magma erupts from the Earth’s interior into a fiery blaze and melting everything in its path, cryovolcanism is the study of ice volcanism, as “cryo” is defined as “ice cold” or “frost”. The term was first used in an abstract at the 1987 Geological Society of America (GSA) Abstract with Programs by Steven K. Croft and has since been used to describe ice volcanoes throughout the solar system. Additional terms used in the context of cryovolcanism include cryomagma and cryolava—comparable to magma and lava from traditional volcanoes—and cryovolcanic edifice—comparable to traditional shield volcanoes seen both on Earth and other planetary bodies (i.e., Mars and Venus). Therefore, what are some examples of cryovolcanism in our solar system?

Dr. Lopes tells Universe Today, “We see active cryovolcanism on Enceladus, and signs of past cryovolcanism on Titan, Europa, Ganymede, and even Io (SO2 rather than water).” Dr. Lopes elaborates more on active and past volcanism in a 2010 book chapter, as well.

The reason we see active cryovolcanism on Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, is due to the large liquid water ocean it possesses beneath its icy crust, with NASA’s Cassini spacecraft having not only imaged active plumes erupting from Enceladus’ south pole “Tiger Stripes”, but Cassini also flew through the plumes in March 2008, using its Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) to identify water vapor, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and organic materials, whose levels were higher than the Cassini team had hypothesized prior to the flyby.

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is home to bodies of liquid methane and ethane across its surface due to the frigid surface temperatures of -182.55 degrees Celsius (-296.59 degrees Fahrenheit), whereas methane and ethane exist strictly as gases on Earth. Regarding evidence for past cryovolcanism on Titan, the Cassini spacecraft discovered Doom Mons in 2005 and Erebor Mons in 2007, with both currently being generally accepted as cryovolcanoes. Additionally, Cassini used its radar instruments in 2018 to identify topography on Titan that was identified as the “very best evidence” for a cryovolcano on Titan.

Like Enceladus, Jupiter’s two Galilean Moons, Europa and Ganymede, have exhibited significant evidence that they both contain interior liquid oceans beneath their icy crusts, and NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is slated to launch this October to explore this icy world in detail once it arrives sometime in 2030. Additionally, the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission launched in April 2023 with the goal of studying Ganymede in detail and is currently scheduled to enter Ganymede’s orbit sometime in late 2034.

Regarding evidence of past cryovolcanism on Europa, scientists postulated in 2020 that plumes observed to emanate from Europa could originate from directly within the icy crust. For Ganymede, specific surface features known as paterae have indicated “potential cryovolcanic regions”, but scientists remain skeptical and have listed these features as something the JUICE mission should investigate further.

Additional worlds in our solar system that also exhibit past or current evidence of cryovolcanism include the dwarf planet, Ceres; Neptune’s moon, Triton; the dwarf planet, Pluto and its moon, Charon; and other dwarf planets, as well. Therefore, with this plethora of worlds that exhibit current or past evidence of cryovolcanism within our solar system, what can cryovolcanism teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

Dr. Lopes tells Universe Today, “For life as we know it to exist, we need water and energy – cryovolcanism provides the heat (energy) and it is a way to bring material that may have biosignatures to the surface of bodies. If the material just stays in the ocean under an ice crust, it could be many decades before we are able to sample it.”

Regarding the most exciting aspects about cryovolcanism that she has studied during her career, Dr. Lopes tells Universe Today, “Finding Doom Mons and Erebor Mons on Titan was very exciting, as they are the most convincing evidence we have that cryovolcanism happened on Titan.”

Like the other scientific disciplines that Universe Today has explored, the field of cryovolcanism involves the collaboration of scientists from a multitude of backgrounds, including volcanology, planetary geology, physics, and computer science. Through this, scientists can create computer models of cryovolcanism based on existing data, along with using imagery from orbiters to confirm or update their models to ascertain the processes behind the cryovolcanism they have observed. Therefore, what advice can Dr. Lopes offer upcoming students who wish to study cryovolcanism?

Dr. Lopes tells Universe Today, “The physics of the process is still not well understood. Lab experiments are valuable. They should read the literature and figure out how to advance their understanding.”

How will cryovolcanism teach us about our place in the universe in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Cryovolcanism: Why study it? What can it teach us about finding life beyond Earth? appeared first on Universe Today.