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The Largest Camera Ever Built Arrives at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory
It’s been 20 years in the making, but a 3200-megapixel camera built especially for astrophysics discoveries has finally arrived at its home. The Legacy of Space and Time (LSST) camera was delivered to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile in mid-May, 2024.
The camera traveled from its construction lab at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The technical crew outfitted it with specialized data loggers, monitors, and GPS attached to track the conditions of its trip. Then they put it into a specially built container and the whole assemblage made the trip from San Francisco airport to Santiago on the 14th of May via a chartered flight. Once in Chile, it traveled up to the site for five hours up a 35-kilometer dirt road. It arrived on the 16th, completing a huge step toward opening the Rubin Observatory, according to construction project manager. “Getting the camera to the summit was the last major piece in the puzzle,” he said. “With all Rubin’s components physically on-site, we’re on the home stretch towards transformative science with the LSST.”
This video documents the journey of the LSST Camera from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California to Rubin Observatory on the summit of Cerro Pachón in Chile. The camera arrived on the summit on 16 May 2024. Credit:RubinObs/NSF/AURA/S. Deppe/O. Bonin, T. Lange, M. Lopez, J. Orrell (SLAC National Lab)The LSST Camera is the final major component of Rubin Observatory’s Simonyi Survey Telescope to arrive at the summit. It’s about the size of a small car. Inside, its focal plane contains 189 CCD sensors arranged on an array of “rafts”. The sensors deliver a combined 3200-megapixel view.
Now that it has arrived, the camera undergoes several months of testing in the observatory’s white room. After that, it goes on the Simonyi Survey Telescope, with its newly-coated 8.4-meter mirror and 3.4-meter secondary mirror.
About the Vera Rubin ObservatoryThis unique observatory is named after astronomer Vera C. Rubin. Her work focused on the mysterious “dark matter” that seems to permeate the Universe. Along with her team, she studied dozens of galaxies to understand what was influencing their motions. It turned out to be dark matter. The search for dark matter and its existence throughout the Universe is one of the main goals of the observatory that now bears her name.
Understanding the distribution of dark matter is where the LSST Camera will come in handy. For one thing, it will spend a decade taking images of the sky each night, performing a massive survey that will provide a complete image of the visible sky every 3-4 mights. Each area it images will be about the size of 40 full moons and the survey will take advantage of the 8.4-meter telescope moving quickly between imaging positions. In full operation, the Observatory will deliver a 500-petabyte set of images and data products about the sky.
The complete focal plane of the future LSST Camera is more than 2 feet wide and contains 189 individual sensors that will produce 3,200-megapixel images. Crews at SLAC have now taken the first images with it. (Jacqueline Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)Not only will the Rubin Observatory perform this unprecedented survey in very high resolution, but will also track objects that change in brightness—called “transients.” That includes supernovae, variable stars, mergers of dense objects such as neutron stars or black holes, and other quickly changing events and objects. In addition, it will track asteroids and other objects that wander through the Solar System.
The formation and evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy is another research area for telescope users. Rubin should be able to track stellar streams throughout the Galaxy and chart their paths. That information could give precious insight into just how our Galaxy formed and how stars from cannibalized galaxies move through it.
What’s Next for Vera Rubin Observatory and the LSST CameraOnce the LSST Camera got delivered to the Cerro Pachón site, technicians moved it into an immense white room. That’s a controlled environment that protects the instrument while they work to get it ready for installation on the telescope. They inspected the camera and downloaded data about the “ride” from the U.S. to Chile from all the instruments attached to it. “Our goal was to make sure the camera not only survived, but arrived in perfect condition,” said Kevin Reil, Observatory Scientist at Rubin. “Initial indications—including the data collected by the data loggers, accelerometers, and shock sensors—suggest we were successful.”
View of Rubin Observatory at sunset in December 2023. The 8.4-meter telescope at Rubin Observatory, equipped with the highest-resolution digital camera in the world, will take enormous images of the southern hemisphere sky, covering the entire sky every few nights. Rubin will do this over and over for 10 years, creating a timelapse view of the Universe. Image Credit: RubinObs/NSF/AURA/H. StockebrandThe observatory is still in the final stages of construction. The telescope is in place, and other instruments and infrastructure are being finalized. It should all be ready for “first light” and the beginning of science operations sometime in 2025. Between now and then, more parts of the telescope and its mirrors should be installed, and there will be tests of various other instruments both on and off the sky as scientists get ready to start using Rubin next year. Once observations begin, astronomers using Rubin could discover around 17 billion stars and ~20 billion galaxies in the distant Universe.
For More InformationLSST Camera Arrives at Rubin Observatory in Chile, Paving the Way for Cosmic Exploration
Vera C. Rubin Observatory
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This is the Largest Planet-Forming Disk Ever Seen
Roughly 1,000 light-years from Earth, there is a cosmic structure known as IRAS 23077+6707 (IRAS 23077) that resembles a giant butterfly. Ciprian T. Berghea, an astronomer with the U.S. Naval Observatory, originally observed the structure in 2016 using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS). To the surprise of many, the structure has remained unchanged for years, leading some to question what IRAS 2307 could be.
Recently, two international teams of astronomers made follow-up observations using the Submillimeter Array at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Hawaii to better understand IRAS 2307. In a series of papers describing their findings, the teams revealed that IRAS 23077 is actually a young star surrounded by a massive protoplanetary debris disk, the largest ever observed. This discovery offers new insight into planet formation and the environments where this takes place.
The first paper, led by Berghea, reports the discovery that IRAS 23077 is a young star located in the middle of what appeared to be an enormous planet-forming disk. In the second paper, led by CfA postdoc Kristina Monsch, the researchers confirm the discovery of this protoplanetary disk using data from Pan-STARRS and the Submillimeter Array (SMA). The first paper has been accepted for publication, while the second was published on May 13th in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (respectively).
An illustration of a protoplanetary disk. The solar system formed from such a disk. Astronomers suggest this birthplace was protected by a larger filament of molecular gas and dust early in history. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)Protoplanetary disks are basically planetary nurseries consisting of the gas and dust that have settled around newly formed stars. Over time, these disks become rings as material coalesces into protoplanets in certain orbits, where they will eventually become rocky planets, gas giants, and icy bodies. For astronomers, these disks can be used to constrain the size and mass of young stars since they rotate with a specific signature. Unfortunately, obtaining accurate observations of these disks is sometimes hampered by how they are oriented relative to Earth.
Whereas some disks appear “face-on” in that they are fully visible to Earth observers, some planet-forming disks (like IRAS 23077) are only visible “edge-on,” meaning the disk obscures light coming from the parent star. Nevertheless, the dust and gas signatures of these disks are still bright at millimeter wavelengths – which the SMA observes. When the Pan-STARRS and SWA teams observed IRAS 23077 using the combined power of their observatories, they were quite surprised by what they saw.
Kristina Monsch, an SAO astrophysicist and a postdoctoral fellow at the CfA, led the SMA campaign. As she related their findings in a recent CfA news release:
“After finding out about this possible planet-forming disk from Pan-STARRS data, we were keen to observe it with the SMA, which allowed us to understand its physical nature. What we found was incredible – evidence that this was the largest planet-forming disk ever discovered. It is extremely rich in dust and gas, which we know are the building blocks of planets.”
“The data from the SMA offer us the smoking–gun evidence that this is a disk, and coupled with the estimate of the system’s distance, that it is rotating around a star likely two to four times more massive than our own Sun. From the SMA data we can also weigh the dust and gas in this planetary nursery, which we found has enough material to form many giant planets – and out to distances over 300 times further out than the distance between the Sun and Jupiter!”
The inset for this image shows compelling evidence that IRAS 23077 contains a planet-forming disk. Along with dust grains, the SMA can also observe the cold carbon monoxide gas that comprises the bulk of a planet-forming disk. Credit: SAO/ASIAA/SMA/K. Monsch et al.; Optical: Pan-STARRSAfter Berghea observed IRAS 23077, he suggested the nickname “Dracula’s Chivito,” which paid tribute to “Gomez’s Hamburger,” another protoplanetary disk that is only visible edge-on. First, Since Berghea grew up in the Transylvania region in Romania, close to where Vlad the Impaler (the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s tale) lived, he suggested Dracula. Having grown up in Uruquay, Berghea’s co-author Ana suggested “chivito,” a hamburger-like sandwich and the national dish of her ancestral country. Said co-author Joshua Bennett Lovell, an SAO astrophysicist and an SMA Fellow at CfA:
“The discovery of a structure as extended and bright as IRAS 23077 poses some important questions. Just how many more of these objects have we missed? Further study of IRAS 23077 is warranted to investigate the possible routes to form planets in these extreme young environments, and how these might compare to exoplanet populations observed around distant stars more massive than our Sun.”
The discovery of this disk also incentivizes astronomers to search for similar objects in our galaxy. These observations could yield valuable information on planetary systems in the earliest stage of formation, which could lead to new insights into how the Solar System came to be. The SMA is an array of telescopes in Hawaii jointly operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) in Taiwan.
Further Reading: CfA
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Maybe Ultra-Hot Jupiters Aren’t So Doomed After All
Ultra-hot Jupiters (UHJs) are some of the most fascinating astronomical objects in the cosmos, classified as having orbital periods of less than approximately 3 days with dayside temperatures exceeding 1,930 degrees Celsius (3,500 degrees Fahrenheit), as most are tidally locked with their parent stars. But will these extremely close orbits result in orbital decay for UHJs eventually doom them to being swallowed by their star, or can some orbit for the long term without worry? This is what a recent study accepted to the Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of international researchers investigated potential orbital decays for several UHJs, which holds the potential to not only help astronomers better understand UHJs but also the formation and evolution of exoplanets, overall.
Here, we discuss this research with study lead author, Dr. Elisabeth Adams, who is a Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, regarding the motivation behind the study, significant results, follow-up studies, and the importance of studying orbital decay for UHJs and UHJs, overall. So, what was the motivation behind this study regarding the orbital decay of UHJs?
“Ever since the first exoplanet, 51 Peg b aka Dimidium, was announced in a 4-day orbit, scientists have been deeply concerned about the long-term stability of these giant planets,” Dr. Adams tells Universe Today. “We’ve known for a while that objects the size of Jupiter can’t exist with orbits shorter than about 19 hours (that’s the Roche limit), but even giant planets with orbits of a few days are unstable over the long term because the tidal forces will inexorably cause their orbits to decay. The big unknown is what ‘long-term’ means: will the planet decay while the star is still on the main sequence, or will the process take so long that the star dies first?”
For the study, the researchers used a combination of ground- and space-based telescopes to conduct stellar photometry and exoplanet light curve analyses of 43 UHJs with orbital periods ranging from 0.67 days (TOI-2109 b) to 3.03 days (TrES-1 b) with the goal of ascertaining their orbital period rate of change (i.e., increasing orbital period or decreasing orbital period (orbital decay)) measured in milliseconds per year (ms/yr). This study consisted of both previously measured and new transit light curve data with the team performing some calculations to determine the orbital period rate of change for each of the 43 UHJs. Additionally, more than half of the 43 UHJs for this study have observational data of more than a decade with one exceeding 20 years of data (WASP-18 b at 32 years). So, what were the most significant results from this study?
Dr. Adams tells Universe Today, “The interesting thing is not only that this study didn’t find any new cases of orbital decay, but also that we are starting to see several orders of magnitude difference in how long orbital decay takes. The two best cases for decaying planets (WASP-12 b and Kepler-1658 b) are decaying at rates that are >10-1000 times faster than the planets that we don’t find decay around (e.g., WASP-18 b, WASP-19b, and KELT-1b); if those latter planets were decaying as fast as WASP-12 b, we definitely would have detected it by now.”
As noted, this comprehensive study helped identify new information regarding the orbital decay of UHJs, specifically pertaining to the lack of orbital decay for most of them, meaning some orbits could potentially be stable for the long-term despite orbiting extremely close to their respective parent stars. Additionally, it helped challenge previous measurements pertaining to orbital decay of certain UHJs, which could help astronomers better understand the formation and evolution of UHJs throughout the universe. Therefore, given the comprehensiveness of the study, what follow-up studies are currently in the works or being planned?
Dr. Adams tells Universe Today, “We’re just going to have to keep looking! This paper is the first one from our survey, and only covers about half the known UHJs, more of which keep being found; among our targets, half of them haven’t been observed long enough, or with enough transits, to say if even very rapid orbital decay is happening. For the others, we may just need another few more years, or maybe a few decades, to observe it. Theorists are also hard at work to explain how the age and structure of the star contribute to different rates of decay, though the high uncertainty between theoretical models is why I like being able to empirically measure the decay rate.”
Studying orbital decay is essential in better understanding both if and when two astronomical objects will collide with each other, including a planet and its satellite (most often a moon), a star and another planet or comet orbiting it (resulting in the latter’s incineration), a star and another star (resulting in gravitational waves or gamma-ray bursts), and any astronomical objects orbiting each other (binary system). For Earth, measuring orbital decay has been vital in learning when artificial satellites could burn up in our planet’s atmosphere. But, regarding exoplanets, what is the importance of studying orbital decay for UHJs, and are they limited to only UHJs?
“Tidal decay is most important for large planets,” Dr. Adams tells Universe Today. “Crazily enough, Earth-sized planets have been found in orbits as short as 4 hours and yet are predicted to be tidally stable for many billions of years. (I have previously published work on these smaller ultra-short period planets.) The bigger the planet and the closer it is to the star, the stronger the tidal effects and the faster the orbit will decay.”
UHJs are unofficially designated as a sub-class of “hot” Jupiters. Like this study, past UHJs have also been examined using a combination of ground- and space-based telescopes. As noted by Dr. Adams, this study examined approximately half of the known UHJs, meaning there are approximately 100 known UHJs populating the cosmos. As also noted, most UHJs are tidally locked with their parent star, meaning one side continuously faces the star throughout its orbit with the searing dayside temperatures causing molecules to break apart and recombine on the night side. These characteristics make UHJs some of the most intriguing and mysterious astronomical objects to be studied. But what is the importance of studying UHJs, overall?
“Ultra-hot Jupiters allow us to measure a fundamental property of stars (the tidal quality factor, which sets the decay rate),” Dr. Adams tells Universe Today. “Modeling their pasts and futures allows us to refine our theories of planet formation and migration. Some of them might also be losing their atmospheres, which we can look for. They are also some of the easiest planets to observe because they are big and hot and close to their star and make excellent targets for both high-precision observations (e.g., atmospheric studies with JWST) and outreach (they are excellent targets for interested amateurs with decent telescopes).”
This study comes as NASA and other space agencies around the world continue to discover exoplanets at an incredible rate, with NASA listing the number of confirmed exoplanets at 5,630 as of this writing. Of that number, 1,805 are classified as gas giants (Saturn- or Jupiter-sized), with countless numbers of these worlds orbiting their parent stars in just a few days or less. As our understanding of exoplanets continues to expand, so will our understanding of UHJs, including their formation and evolution, along with the formation and evolution of their parent stars.
“My motto for studying exoplanets is to expect the unexpected,” Dr. Adams tells Universe Today. “Even after three decades of observations we keep finding planets in unexpected places doing strange things, and then we learn a lot about the universe by figuring out what they are doing and why. Definitely keeps you on your toes!”
What new discoveries will researchers make about ultra-hot Jupiters 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 Maybe Ultra-Hot Jupiters Aren’t So Doomed After All appeared first on Universe Today.
Safety first: NASA pledges to use AI carefully and responsibly
Could Alien Solar Panels Be Technosignatures?
If alien technological civilizations exist, they almost certainly use solar energy. Along with wind, it’s the cleanest, most accessible form of energy, at least here on Earth. Driven by technological advances and mass production, solar energy on Earth is expanding rapidly.
It seems likely that ETIs (Extraterrestrial Intelligence) using widespread solar energy on their planet could make their presence known to us.
If other ETIs exist, they could easily be ahead of us technologically. Silicon solar panels could be widely used on their planetary surfaces. Could their mass implementation constitute a detectable technosignature?
The authors of a new paper examine that question. The paper is “Detectability of Solar Panels as a Technosignature,” and it’ll be published in The Astrophysical Journal. The lead author is Ravi Kopparapu from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
In their paper, the authors assess the detectability of silicon-based solar panels on an Earth-like habitable zone planet. “Silicon-based photovoltaic cells have high reflectance in the UV-VIS and in the near-IR, within the wavelength range of a space-based flagship mission concept like the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO),” the authors write. The HWO would search for and image Earth-like worlds in habitable zones. There’s no timeline for the mission, but the 2020 Decadal Survey recommended the telescope be built. This research looks ahead to the mission or one like it sometime in the future.
Naturally, the authors make a number of assumptions about a hypothetical ETI using solar power. They assume that an ETI is using large-scale photovoltaics (PVs) based on silicon and that their planet orbits a Sun-like star. Silicon PVs are cost-effective to produce, and they are well-suited to harness the energy from a Sun-like star.
Kopparapu and his co-authors aren’t the first to suggest that silicon PVs could constitute a technosignature. In a 2017 paper, Avi Loeb and Manasvi Lingam from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics wrote that silicon-based PVs create an artificial edge in their spectra. This edge is similar to the ‘red edge‘ detectable in Earth’s vegetation when viewed from space but shifted to shorter wavelengths. “Future observations of reflected light from exoplanets would be able to detect both natural and artificial edges photometrically if a significant fraction of the planet’s surface is covered by vegetation or photovoltaic arrays, respectively,” Lingam and Loeb wrote.
“The “edge” refers to the noticeable increase in the reflectance of the material under consideration when a reflected light spectrum is taken of the planet,” the authors of the new research explain. Satellites monitor the red edge on Earth to observe agricultural crops, and the same could apply to sensing PVs on other worlds.
This figure shows the reflection spectrum of a deciduous leaf (data from Clark et al. 1993). The large sharp rise (between 700 and 800 nm) is known as the red edge and is due to the contrast between the strong absorption of chlorophyll and the otherwise reflective leaf. Image Credit: Seager et al. 2005.While Lingam and Loeb suggested the possibility, Kopparapu and his co-authors dug deeper. They point out that we could generate enough energy for our needs (as of 2022) if only 2.4% of the Earth’s surface was covered in silicon-based PVs. The 2.4% number is only accurate if the chosen location is optimized. For Earth, that means the Sahara Desert, and something similar may be true on an alien world.
The authors explain, “This region is both close to the equator, where a comparatively greater amount of solar energy would be available throughout the year, and has minimal cloud coverage.”
The authors also work with a 23% land coverage number. This number reflects previous research showing that for a projected maximum human population of 10 billion people, 23% land coverage would provide a high standard of living for everyone. They also use it as an upper limit because anything beyond that seems highly unlikely and would have negative consequences. On Earth, the entire continent of Africa is about 23% of the surface.
The authors’ calculations show that an 8-meter telescope similar to the HWO would not detect an Earth-like exoplanet with 2.4% of its surface covered with PVs.
If an ETI covered 23% of its surface with energy-harvesting PVs, would that be detectable? It would be difficult to untangle the planet’s light from the star’s light and would require hundreds of hours of observation time to reach an acceptable Signal-to-Noise (S/N) ratio.
“Because we have chosen the 0.34 ?m–0.52?m range to calculate the impact of silicon panels on the reflectance spectra, the difference between a planet with and without silicon is not markedly different, even with 23% land cover,” the authors explain.
Technological progress adds another wrinkle to these numbers. As PV technology advances, an ETI would cover less of its planet’s surface area to generate the same amount of energy, making detection even more difficult.
This figure from the research shows the planet-star contrast ratio as a function of wavelength for2.4 % land coverage with PVs (blue solid), 23 % PVs (red solid) and 0% (green dashed) land coverage of solar panels. “This suggests that the artificial silicon edge suggested by Lingam & Loeb (2017) may not be detectable,” the authors write. Image Credit: Kopparapu et al. 2024.
Solar energy is expanding rapidly on Earth. Each year, more individual homes, businesses, and institutions implement solar arrays. Those might not constitute technosignatures, but individual installations aren’t the only thing growing.
China built a vast solar power plant called the Gonghe Photovoltaic Project in its sparsely populated Qinghai Province. It generates 3182 MW. India has the Bhadla Solar Park (2,245 MW) in the Thar Desert. Saudi Arabia has built several new solar plants and intends to build more. Other innovative solar projects are announced regularly.
But will we realistically ever cover 2.4% of our planet in solar arrays? Will we need to? There are many questions.
Generating solar power in the heat of the Sahara Desert is challenging. The extreme heat reduces efficiency. Building the infrastructure required to deliver the energy to population centres is also another challenge. Then consider that silicon-based PVs may not be the end point in solar panel development. Perovskite-based PVs hold a lot of promise to outperform silicon. They’re more efficient than silicon, and researchers frequently break energy records with them (in laboratories.) Would perovskite PVs create the same “edge” in a planet’s spectra?
The authors didn’t consider specific technological advances like perovskite because it’s beyond the scope of their paper.
The bottom line is that silicon-based solar arrays on a planetary surface are unlikely to create an easily detectable technosignature. “Assuming an 8-meter HWO-like telescope, focusing on the reflection edge in the UV-VIS, and considering varying land coverage of solar panels on an Earth-like exoplanet that match the present and projected energy needs, we estimate that several hundreds of hours of observation time is needed to reach a SNR of ~5 for a high land coverage of ~23%,” the authors write.
The Bhadla Solar Park is a large PV installation that aims to generate over 2,000 MW of solar energy. Image Credit: (Left) Google Earth. (Right) Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2020, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90537462The authors also wonder what this means for the Kardashev Scale and things like Dyson Spheres. In that paradigm, ETIs require more and more energy and eventually build a mega engineering project that harvests all of the energy available from their star. A Dyson Sphere would create a powerful technosignature, and astronomers are already looking for them.
But if the numbers in this research are correct, we may never see one because they’re not needed.
“We find that, even with significant population growth, the energy needs of human civilization would be several orders of magnitude below the energy threshold for a Kardashev Type I civilization or a Dyson sphere/swarm which harnesses the energy of a star,” they conclude. “This line of inquiry reexamines the utility of such concepts and potentially addresses one crucial aspect of the Fermi paradox: We have not discovered any large-scale engineering yet, conceivably because advanced technologies may not need them.”
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Sols 4193-4194: Stay Overnight? No, Touch-and-Go!
4 min read
Sols 4193-4194: Stay Overnight? No, Touch-and-Go! This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4192 (2024-05-22 06:36:49 UTC).NASA/JPL-Caltech
Earth planning date: Wednesday, May 22, 2024
One of the biggest challenges that comes with operating a rover on another planet is that we don’t always know exactly what we’re going to have in front of us when we park after driving. The science teams and our rover planners (who actually plan out the drives) do their best of what we have available, consisting of a combination of high-resolution imagery from the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and images from Curiosity looking off in our planned drive direction.
Ultimately though, we don’t know what we’re going to be dealing with on any given planning day until we actually get there. Sometimes that’s because the drive “faults” and ends early, something that happens when driving over rocky or sandy terrain that causes the rover’s mobility systems to exceed their maximum allowable limits. That wasn’t the case today, as the 30 metre drive further towards the Gediz Vallis channel crossing that we planned on Monday executed perfectly. Instead, our “workspace” (the area in front of the rover that is reachable by the arm) was not as exciting as we had anticipated, consisting mostly of sand and smaller rocks.
Consequently, it was decided to convert today from a “contact science” plan where we unstow the arm on the first sol for a lengthy list of activities before driving away on the second sol, to a “touch and go” plan where we mostly focus on remote sensing and a more limited list of contact science activities (the “touch”) and drive away on the first sol (the “go”). From the environmental science side, these kinds of major plan reorganizations can be a bit stressful as they often involve lots of last-minute shuffling around of our pre-planned activities, but the transition today was thankfully fairly straightforward.
The decision to convert the plan ended up being a good decision anyway, as we parked with our left front wheel on top of a pile of small rocks, which limited the kinds of arm activities we could safely perform regardless of how interesting the workspace was. Moving the drive from the second to the first sol also means that we’ll be able to get more useful data down to Earth before planning for the long weekend begins on Friday.
Despite the less interesting workspace (and setting aside the fact that calling any part of the surface of another planet “less interesting” feels a little crazy), we’re still fitting a decent amount of science into this plan. The first sol kicks off with our remote sensing, beginning with ChemCam LIBS on “Lake Catherine” and two ChemCam RMI mosaics, one on the Kukenán butte that’s filled up our eastern view for many months now and another on “Echo Ridge,” a feature near the rover that we’re currently driving towards in the hopes of understanding its origin. Mastcam then performs its documentation of the LIBS target and takes a couple of images of “Evelyn Lake” and “Emerson Lake,” two of the slightly larger rocks that lie just outside of the current workspace.
We wrap this remote sensing session up with some environmental science, including a Mastcam tau to monitor the amount of dust in the atmosphere, a dust devil movie, and Navcam monitoring of the dust and sand on the rover deck. Before we drive, we briefly unstow the arm to take some MAHLI observations of Lake Catherine. Curiosity finishes its first sol in this plan by driving away, followed by our standard suite of post-drive images to help us with planning on Friday, including another Navcam deck monitoring mosaic to see if the drive moved around any of the sand and dust.
Because we’ll be in a new location, the second sol of this plan is all untargeted remote sensing. ChemCam will use AEGIS to autonomously search for a LIBS target in our new location, then we’ll take a series of short Navcam movies to look for dust devils around the rover and a Navcam 3×1 line-of-sight mosaic to determine the amount of dust currently in the atmosphere within Gale. Shortly after noon, Curiosity will call it a day (or sol, really) and head back to sleep for the rest of this plan, occasionally waking up to phone home with the data it has gathered. As always, DAN, REMS, and RAD remain hard at work in the background, RAD particularly so given the high solar activity that has been seen recently.
Written by Conor Hayes, Graduate Student at York University
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The Marshall Star for May 22, 2024
By Celine Smith
Engineers, researchers, and scientists at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center had the opportunity to showcase their vast range of projects and learn about others at Marshall’s annual Science, Technology, and Engineering Jamboree and Poster Expo.
Tom Inman, lead organizer of the jamboree and assistant director of Marshall’s Science and Technology Office, greets attendees of the 2024 Science, Technology, and Engineering Jamboree and Poster Expo. NASA/Danielle Burleson
The jamboree took place May 16 in Activities Building 4316. Team members created and displayed more than 100 posters summarizing their projects at the center. From engineering easier ways for astronauts to take pictures in space to studying galaxies light years away, the projects represented Marshall’s diverse capabilities. The jamboree also included eight flash talks, which are brief speeches from team members about their research and experiments.
The idea to host a jamboree originated from flash talks presented during past holiday luncheons at the National Space Science Technology Center (NSSTC) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
“Scientists were only allowed to speak about their discoveries and research for two minutes and were limited to one slide,” said Tom Inman, lead organizer and assistant director of Marshall’s Science and Technology Office. A cowbell was rung if the speaker went over their time, which added to the fun.
Kagen Crawford, left, building manager and controls engineer for the Environmental Control and Life Support System with Jesus Dominguez, a subject matter expert, on their study, “Metal Extraction Lunar Technology from Carbothermal Production (MELT-CR).” NASA/Danielle Burleson
The event became its own entity to bring together NSSTC and other Marshall technologists. With Marshall team members becoming more aware of all that’s happening at the center, they can better connect with each other, according to Inman. In addition, learning about existing work could aid another project or create an entirely new one.
“If we know what other people are working on it sparks more work and more innovation, while also building our portfolio and Marshall,” Inman said. “It’s an opportunity to see our colleagues and potentially collaborate.”
During the expo, engineers, researchers, and scientists stood alongside their poster, educating viewers and answering questions about their work. Food trucks were present right outside the building for the lunch. The event also was open to attendees from other government agencies at Redstone Arsenal. The jamboree attracted about 850 people.
Hannah Pankratz, center, NASA Postdoctoral Program fellow in the Earth Science branch, talks about her poster with Mitzi Adams, assistant manager of the Heliophysics and Planetary Science branch of the Science and Technology Office, during the 2024 Science, Technology, and Engineering Jamboree and Poster Expo. Pankratz’s poster represented the Disaster Team at Marshall, highlighting some of the center’s response work and recent research. NASA/Danielle Burleson
Larry Leopard, Marshall’s associate director, technical, welcomed attendees to the event.
“Innovation thrives in an environment where connections are nurtured, ideas are shared, and collaboration flourishes,” Leopard said. “That’s why today’s event is so important. It provides us with a platform to come together, exchange ideas, and forge new connections that will drive us forward.”
Smith, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.
Rae Ann Meyer Selected as Marshall’s Deputy DirectorRae Ann Meyer has been selected for the position of deputy director at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, effective June 2.
Rae Ann Meyer has been selected for the position of deputy director at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.NASA
In this role, Meyer will assist in leading Marshall’s nearly 7,000 on-site and near-site civil service and contractor employees and an annual budget of approximately $5 billion. She will also help guide the center as it continues to deliver vital propulsion systems and hardware, flagship launch vehicles, world-class space systems, state-of-the-art engineering technologies and cutting-edge science and research projects and solutions.
Prior to this assignment, Meyer served as Marshall’s associate director from 2022-2024, where she led execution and integration of the center’s business operations, mission support enterprise functions, and budget management.
Meyer was previously deputy manager of Marshall’s Science and Technology Office. Named to the Senior Executive Service position in May 2019, she assisted in leading the organization responsible for planning, developing, and executing a broad range of science and technology investigations, programs, projects, and activities in support of NASA’s science, technology, and exploration goals. The office also leads the pursuit of new partnership opportunities with other government agencies and private industry. Meyer helped oversee an annual budget of more than $475 million and managed a diverse, highly technical workforce of approximately 300 civil service and contractor employees.
Among her other roles over the years, she was manager of Marshall’s Science and Technology Partnerships and Formulation Office from 2017-2019, worked a detail as technical advisor in 2016 for the Office of Strategy and Plans at NASA Headquarters in Washington, and was chief of key Engineering Directorate structure and flight analysis divisions at Marshall from 2007-2017. Meyer was manager of the Constellation Support Office from 2006-2007. She led Marshall’s In-Space Propulsion Technology Office from 2004-2006 and was assistant manager of the Space Transfer Technology Project from 2000-2002, managing in-space technology program funding at NASA centers nationwide.
Meyer’s NASA career began in 1989 as a control mechanisms engineer in Marshall’s Propulsion Laboratory.
Among her achievements and awards, Meyer received a Meritorious Presidential Rank Award in 2023, a NASA Silver Achievement Medal in 2019; the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal in 2012 for leading development of strategies for pursuing new program/project opportunities; a NASA Certificate of Appreciation in 2001 for leading formulation efforts to augment in-space propulsion technology budgets across NASA; and Marshall Director’s Commendations in 2004 and 2009, honoring her work on advanced technology development efforts supporting future science missions and major product development for the Ares Project Preliminary Design Review, respectively.
A native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Meyer earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1989.
Julie Bilbrey Named Director of OSAC at Marshall; Jeramie Broadway Named Deputy DirectorJulie Bilbrey has been named director of the Office of Strategic Analysis and Communications (OSAC), and Jeramie Broadway as OSAC’s deputy director, at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, effective May 20.
Julie Bilbrey has been named as director of the Office of Strategic Analysis and Communications (OSAC) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.NASA
In Bilbrey’s new role, she will lead the organization in providing strategic planning, objective analysis, and comprehensive communication to support the policy, program, and budget decisions for Marshall. She has been deputy director of the Safety & Mission Assurance Directorate (SMA) at Marshall since May 2021. In that capacity, Bilbrey was jointly responsible for planning and directing the safety, reliability, and quality engineering and assurance operations for the center.
Prior to that, she held several leadership positions within SMA, including the Vehicle Systems Department manager from 2018-2021, Mission Systems Assurance and Technical Support Department manager (2016-2018) and the Program Analysis and Systems Integration branch chief (2009-2016).
Before joining SMA, Bilbrey’s previous roles have included associate manager of the Science and Mission Systems Office from 2006-2009, where she also held the position of chief operating officer of the National Space Science and Technology Center; associate manager of Space Systems Program Project Office (2005-2006); and team lead of the Flight Training Integration Team (1998-2004). From 1987 to 2004, Bilbrey was in payload operations where she supported various Spacelab missions and International Space Station increments as a flight controller and crew training manager.
Bilbrey has received numerous awards, including a Silver Snoopy, Space Flight Awareness Honoree award, NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, and Center Director’s Commendations.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial and systems engineering from Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
Jeramie Broadway has been named as OSAC’s deputy director.NASA
As OSAC deputy director, Broadway will assist in providing strategic planning, objective analysis, and comprehensive communication to support the policy, program, and budget decisions for Marshall.
He moves into his new role after being named as the center strategy lead for the Office of the Center Director in 2022. In that capacity, Broadway led and implemented the director’s strategic vision, leveraging and integrating Marshall’s strategic business units, in coordination and collaboration with all center organizations, to ensure alignment with the agency’s strategic priorities.
Before assuming that role, he was senior technical assistant to the Marshall associate director, technical, from September 2021 to October 2022. Prior to that detail, he was the assistant manager of Marshall’s Partnerships and Formulation Office, providing strategic planning and business development support and creating new partnering and new mission opportunities for the center.
Broadway, who joined NASA full-time in 2008, began his career in Marshall’s Materials and Processes Laboratory, supporting and leading production operations for the Ares I and Space Launch System program. Over the years, he served as project engineer or deputy project manager for a variety of work, including the Nuclear Cryogenic Propulsion Stage Project, for which he led development of advanced, high-temperature nuclear fuel materials. He was assistant chief engineer for launch vehicles for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and assistant chief engineer for NASA’s Technology Demonstration Mission Program, managed for the agency at Marshall.
A native of Dallas and a U.S. Air Force veteran, Broadway earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 2008 from the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering in 2011 from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Marshall, Michoud Leadership Join Industry at State Capitol for Louisiana Space Day 2024By Heather Keller
NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, leading aerospace companies, and GNO Inc. hosted Louisiana Space Day 2024 at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge on May 8.
NASA astronaut Josh Cassada and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Director Joseph Pelfrey lead students from area schools across the Louisiana State Capitol grounds to attend a series of panel discussions as part of Louisiana Space Day 2024. NASA/Michael DeMocker
The event marked a return to the Capitol following a year-long hiatus, and a rebranding from its former incarnation as NASA Day in Baton Rouge. While NASA maintained a major role in the day’s activities, Louisiana Space Day included participation from commercial and educational partners with emphasis on Louisiana’s contribution to space exploration, the critical impact the industry has on the state’s economy, as well as the importance of STEM education to maintain a skilled workforce.
From left, NASA Michoud Assembly Facility Director Hansel Gill, Pelfrey, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, and Cassada pose with an Artemis I-flown flag presented to the governor during Louisiana Space Day. NASA/Michael DeMocker
Dispersed among the various activities of the day, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Director Joseph Pelfrey, Michoud Director Hansel Gill, and NASA astronaut Josh Cassada met with Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, and Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, presenting them with certificates of appreciation to the state, which included flags flown on Artemis I. The NASA delegation also joined Louisiana Legislators for the reading of the Louisiana Space Day 2024 proclamation, and later joined the House and Senate Floors for readings of the resolutions.
Other activities included a chat with Cassada at the State Library for area middle-school, high-school, and college students, followed by a workforce development panel, which featured speakers from Boeing, GNO Inc., and directors Pelfrey and Gill.
Lockheed Martin Multi-Functional Manufacturing Associate Manager Corey Riddle hands out Artemis II crew posters and talks Orion production with students and visitors at the Louisiana State Capitol. NASA/Michael DeMocker
Exhibitors from Michoud, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance (ULA), Blue Origin, American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, University of Louisiana Lafayette, LA STEM, Partners for Stennis and Michoud, and select robotics teams from throughout the state were stationed within the Capitol building rotunda where they educated Louisiana lawmakers and visitors on the NASA mission, industry contributions, workforce development, and STEM opportunities for local youth. Passersby in the rotunda were able to watch videos, view robotics demonstrations, engage with exhibitors, collect giveaways, and take selfies with Cassada.
Keller, a Manufacturing Technical Solutions Inc. employee, supports Michoud Assembly Facility.
NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, several aerospace companies, and GNO Inc. hosted Louisiana Space Day 2024 at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge on May 8. Area middle-school, high-school, and college students participated in STEM activities, a chat with NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, and heard from NASA leadership during an Artemis Generation panel discussion. The event also included a reading of a Space Day resolution by Louisiana legislators with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Director Joseph Pelfrey, NASA Michoud Director Hansel Gill, and other NASA personnel, highlighting Louisiana’s contributions to space exploration. (NASA/Eric Bordelon) NASA Earns Best Place to Work in Government for 12 Straight YearsNASA was named May 16 as the 2023 Best Place to Work in the Federal Government – large agency – for the 12th year in a row by the Partnership for Public Service. The title serves as a reflection of employee satisfaction with the workplace and functioning of the overall agency as NASA explores the unknown and discovers new knowledge for the benefit of humanity.
A 2023 image capturing the Sun’s glint in between a cloudy stretch of the south Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Argentina.NASA
“Once again, NASA has shown that with the world’s finest workforce, we can reach the stars,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Through space exploration, advances in aviation, groundbreaking science, new technologies, and more, the team of wizards at NASA do what is hard to achieve what is great. That’s the pioneer spirit that makes NASA the best place to work in the federal government. With this ingenuity and passion, we will continue to innovate for the benefit of all and inspire the world.”
The agency’s workforce explored new frontiers in 2023, including shattering an American record for longest astronaut spaceflight, announcing the Artemis II crew, launching the Deep Space Optical Communications experiment, partnering on a sustainable flight demonstration later designated as X-66, and celebrating a year of science gathered from the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope. Feats beyond our atmosphere persisted with NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) mission – the first U.S. mission to collect an asteroid sample. Insights from the asteroid data will further NASA’s studies on celestial objects, while the agency also continues its pursuit to return astronauts to the Moon as part of the Artemis campaign.
Along with being the 65th anniversary of the agency, 2023 brought new climate data with the launching of the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center and Earth Information Center, new perspectives on Earth’s surface water through NASA’s SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) mission, and accrued air quality data from NASA’s TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) mission.
“NASA has proven yet again that we have the most dedicated workforce in the federal government,” said Joseph Pelfrey, director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “At Marshall and Michoud Assembly Facility, I am confident that our contributions to the agency’s missions have secured our place in this new era of space exploration.”
The Partnership for Public Service began to compile the Best Places to Work rankings in 2003 to analyze federal employee’s viewpoints of leadership, work-life balance, and other factors of their job. A formula is used to evaluate employee responses to a federal survey, dividing submissions into four groups: large, midsize, and small agencies, in addition to their subcomponents.
Read about the Best Places to Work for 2023 online.
Mission Success is in Our Hands: Brandon ReevesBy Wayne Smith
Mission Success is in Our Hands is a safety initiative collaboration between NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and Jacobs. As part of the initiative, eight Marshall team members are featured in testimonial banners placed around the center. This is the seventh in a Marshall Star series profiling team members featured in the testimonial banners. The Mission Success team also awards the Golden Eagle Award on a quarterly basis to Marshall and contractor personnel who are nominated by their peers or management. Candidates for this award have made significant, identifiable contributions that exceed normal job expectations to advance flight safety and mission assurance. Nominations for 2024 are open now online on Inside Marshall.
Brandon Reeves is the deputy manager of the Integrated Avionics Test Facility (IATF) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
Brandon Reeves is the deputy manager of the Integrated Avionics Test Facility (IATF) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. His key responsibilities include providing leadership and decisiveness to design and build avionics hardware in the loop test facilities that support SLS (Space Launch System) flight software and mission verification.
Reeves has worked at Marshall for eight years. His previous roles include drafter, hardware in the loop tester, emulator test lead, IATF analysis lead, and IATF system engineering lead.
A native of Pike Road, Alabama, Reeves earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Birmingham Southern College and an aerospace engineering degree from Auburn University.
Question: How does your work support the safety and success of NASA and Marshall missions?
Reeves: The Integrated Avionics Test Facility provides NASA with the highest fidelity hardware in the loop simulation of the Space Launch System vehicle. The ability to integrate and test flight like hardware within an integrated simulation allows NASA to know how the vehicle will react in every situation.
Question: What does the initiative campaign “Mission Success is in Our Hands” mean to you?
Reeves: Each individual plays a significant role in helping NASA achieve the impossible.
Question: Do you have a story or personal experience you can share that might help others understand the significance of mission assurance or flight safety? What did you learn from it?
Reeves: The testing performed in the Integrated Avionics Test Facilities demonstrates the numerous nominal and off nominal flight scenarios. This capability helps NASA improve vehicle algorithms and provides assurance that all vehicle systems will communicate as expected during each vehicle flight.
Question: How can we work together better to achieve mission success?
Reeves: NASA’s work is unlike any other in the entire world, our teamwork is leading humanity toward a better future that includes interplanetary travel. Communication with each other is always helpful and go see someone in person, when possible.
Smith, a Media Fusion employee and the Marshall Star editor, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.
Finding The Age Of A Contact Binary “Moon”
There are millions of asteroids floating around the solar system. With so many of them, it should be no surprise that some are weirdly configured. A recent example of one of these weird configurations was discovered when Lucy, NASA’s mission to the Trojan asteroids, passed by a main-belt asteroid called Dinkinesh. It found that Dinkinesh had a “moon” – and that moon was a “contact binary”. Now known as Selam, it is made up of two objects that physically touch one another through gravity but aren’t fully merged into one another. Just how and when such an unexpected system might have formed is the subject of a new paper by Colby Merrill, a graduate researcher at Cornell, and their co-authors at the University of Colorado and the University of Bern.
The paper, in particular, looks at when the system might have formed and does so through modeling. A theory in asteroid formation called the binary Yarkovsky-O’Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack effect, which, since no one wants to say the full name, is shortened to the acronym BYORP. This model explains how binary asteroid systems happen in the first place.
Essentially, the asteroid speeds up its rotation due to radiation pressure. Eventually, due to those rotational forces, it gets to a point where its gravity is no longer capable of holding all of its material on its surface, and some of that material is ejected out into space, eventually coalescing into a “moon” for the slightly larger asteroid.
Video from NASA Goddard showing the image from Lucy that found Selam.Credit – NASA Goddard YouTube Channel
Dinkinesh isn’t a “large” asteroid by any measure – at its widest point, it only measures about 790 meters in diameter. It’s also named after the Amharic word for Lucy; the fossil remains of a potential human ancestor found in Ethiopia and the namesake of NASA’s mission. Its satellite, Salem, is the Amharic word for “peace,” but another fossil set found in 2000 which, though that of a child, predated Lucy’s by 100,000 years. But it is even smaller than Dinkinesh – only about 220 m at its widest point.
But Selam actually has two widest points because it is shaped in what is technically called a bilobate but is more commonly thought of as a “dumbbell” shape. This might be partially due to another force that influences the formation of asteroids—tides.
Traditionally, people think of tides as caused by our Moon moving around the Earth. However, tides can also happen on the insides of asteroids when there is a gravitational force on a small body by an even smaller one that happens to be nearby. For example, Selam induces tides on Dinkinesh, and understanding how the two developed together requires understanding how those tidal forces played out.
Close up of Dinkinesh & Selam from Lucy.Credit – NASA/Goddard/SwRI/John Hopkins APL/NOIRLab/Brian May/Claudia Manzoni
Modeling both tidal forces and the BYROP acceleration process is complex mathematically. This is especially true because the inputs to the equations used to model them contain plenty of uncertainties. Luckily, there is a mathematical technique to help with that.
The Monte Carlo method uses statistics to find a “correct” answer by varying the inputs to equations and randomly sampling the results. The authors used this technique to determine how long the Dinkinesh / Selam system had been in orbit around each other, using inputs like each object’s sizes and orbital speeds. They came up with an answer of between 1 and 10 million years – not very long in the grand scheme of the solar system’s evolution.
Given that binaries are thought to make up at least 15% of near-Earth asteroids, and contact binaries make up between 14% and 30% of small bodies that are still larger than 200 m, studying these kinds of unexpected systems could prove fruitful in understanding how asteroids more generally are formed. As the paper mentions, more work is needed, especially an analysis of the craters present on Selam, which could provide an alternative view of its age. Given that we only just discovered this binary system by chance in November 2023, that data, and much else from the Lucy mission, will doubtless be forthcoming soon.
Fraser discusses the discovery of Selam.Learn more:
Merrill et al. – Age of (152830) Dinkinesh I Selam constrained by secular tidal-BYORP theory
UT – Contact Binary Asteroids are Common, but We’ve Never Seen One Form. So Let’s Make One
UT – Awesome Radar Images Reveal Asteroid 2014 HQ124’s Split Personality
UT – What? Wow! That New Asteroid Image from Lucy Just Got Even More Interesting
Lead Image:
Dinkinesh and Selam in situ via a Lucy snapshot.
Credit – NASA/Goddard/SwRI/John Hopkins APL
The post Finding The Age Of A Contact Binary “Moon” appeared first on Universe Today.
SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites on 2nd leg of spaceflight doubleheader (video)
Modern soldiers test ancient Greek armour to show it worked for war
Modern soldiers test ancient Greek armour to show it worked for war
NASA’s Compact Infrared Cameras Enable New Science
A new, higher-resolution infrared camera outfitted with a variety of lightweight filters could probe sunlight reflected off Earth’s upper atmosphere and surface, improve forest fire warnings, and reveal the molecular composition of other planets.
The cameras use sensitive, high-resolution strained-layer superlattice sensors, initially developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, using IRAD, Internal Research and Development funding.
Their compact construction, low mass, and adaptability enable engineers like Tilak Hewagama to adapt them to the needs of a variety of sciences.
Goddard engineer Murzy Jhabvala holds the heart of his Compact Thermal Imager camera technology – a high-resolution, high-spectral range infrared sensor suitable for small satellites and missions to other solar-system objects.
“Attaching filters directly to the detector eliminates the substantial mass of traditional lens and filter systems,” Hewagama said. “This allows a low-mass instrument with a compact focal plane which can now be chilled for infrared detection using smaller, more efficient coolers. Smaller satellites and missions can benefit from their resolution and accuracy.”
Engineer Murzy Jhabvala led the initial sensor development at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, as well as leading today’s filter integration efforts.
Jhabvala also led the Compact Thermal Imager experiment on the International Space Station that demonstrated how the new sensor technology could survive in space while proving a major success for Earth science. More than 15 million images captured in two infrared bands earned inventors, Jhabvala, and NASA Goddard colleagues Don Jennings and Compton Tucker an agency Invention of the Year award for 2021.
The Compact Thermal Imager captured unusually severe fires in Australia from its perch on the International Space Station in 2019 and 2020. With its high resolution, detected the shape and location of fire fronts and how far they were from settled areas — information critically important to first responders. Credit: NASA
Data from the test provided detailed information about wildfires, better understanding of the vertical structure of Earth’s clouds and atmosphere, and captured an updraft caused by wind lifting off Earth’s land features called a gravity wave.
The groundbreaking infrared sensors use layers of repeating molecular structures to interact with individual photons, or units of light. The sensors resolve more wavelengths of infrared at a higher resolution: 260 feet (80 meters) per pixel from orbit compared to 1,000 to 3,000 feet (375 to 1,000 meters) possible with current thermal cameras.
The success of these heat-measuring cameras has drawn investments from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), Small Business Innovation and Research, and other programs to further customize their reach and applications.
Jhabvala and NASA’s Advanced Land Imaging Thermal IR Sensor (ALTIRS) team are developing a six-band version for this year’s LiDAR, Hyperspectral, & Thermal Imager (G-LiHT) airborne project. This first-of-its-kind camera will measure surface heat and enable pollution monitoring and fire observations at high frame rates, he said.
NASA Goddard Earth scientist Doug Morton leads an ESTO project developing a Compact Fire Imager for wildfire detection and prediction.
“We’re not going to see fewer fires, so we’re trying to understand how fires release energy over their life cycle,” Morton said. “This will help us better understand the new nature of fires in an increasingly flammable world.”
CFI will monitor both the hottest fires which release more greenhouse gases and cooler, smoldering coals and ashes which produce more carbon monoxide and airborne particles like smoke and ash.
“Those are key ingredients when it comes to safety and understanding the greenhouse gases released by burning,” Morton said.
After they test the fire imager on airborne campaigns, Morton’s team envisions outfitting a fleet of 10 small satellites to provide global information about fires with more images per day.
Combined with next generation computer models, he said, “this information can help the forest service and other firefighting agencies prevent fires, improve safety for firefighters on the front lines, and protect the life and property of those living in the path of fires.”
Probing Clouds on Earth and Beyond
Outfitted with polarization filters, the sensor could measure how ice particles in Earth’s upper atmosphere clouds scatter and polarize light, NASA Goddard Earth scientist Dong Wu said.
This applications would complement NASA’s PACE — Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem — mission, Wu said, which revealed its first light images earlier this month. Both measure the polarization of light wave’s orientation in relation to the direction of travel from different parts of the infrared spectrum.
“The PACE polarimeters monitor visible and shortwave-infrared light,” he explained. “The mission will focus on aerosol and ocean color sciences from daytime observations. At mid- and long-infrared wavelengths, the new Infrared polarimeter would capture cloud and surface properties from both day and night observations.”
In another effort, Hewagama is working Jhabvala and Jennings to incorporate linear variable filters which provide even greater detail within the infrared spectrum. The filters reveal atmospheric molecules’ rotation and vibration as well as Earth’s surface composition.
That technology could also benefit missions to rocky planets, comets, and asteroids, planetary scientist Carrie Anderson said. She said they could identify ice and volatile compounds emitted in enormous plumes from Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
“They are essentially geysers of ice,” she said, “which of course are cold, but emit light within the new infrared sensor’s detection limits. Looking at the plumes against the backdrop of the Sun would allow us to identify their composition and vertical distribution very clearly.”
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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