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Looking for your next space exploration game? Astroneer is getting its first expansion soon and might be the playful odyssey you're looking for.

We think the Nikon z6 II mirrorless camera is one of the best cameras for astrophotography and now this bundle is $500 off.

Northern lights could be visible over mid-latitudes across the US and Europe tonight, Sept. 16. A geomagnetic storm watch has been issued by NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

The Apollo 11 mission in July 1969 completed the goal set by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth before the end of the decade. At the time, NASA planned nine more Apollo Moon landing missions of increasing complexity and an Earth orbiting experimental space station. No firm human space flight plans existed once these missions ended in the mid-1970s. After taking office in 1969, President Richard M. Nixon chartered a Space Task Group (STG) to formulate plans for the nation’s space program for the coming decades. The STG’s proposals proved overly ambitious and costly to the fiscally conservative President who chose to take no action on them.

Left: President John F. Kennedy addresses a Joint Session of Congress in May 1961. Middle: President Kennedy addresses a crowd at Rice University in Houston in September 1962. Right: President Lyndon B. Johnson addresses a crowd during a March 1968 visit to the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in Houston.

On May 25, 1961, before a Joint Session of Congress, President John F. Kennedy committed the United States to the goal, before the decade was out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. President Kennedy reaffirmed the commitment during an address at Rice University in Houston in September 1962. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who played a leading role in establishing NASA in 1958, under Kennedy served as the Chair of the National Aeronautics and Space Council. Johnson worked with his colleagues in Congress to ensure adequate funding for the next several years to provide NASA with the needed resources to meet that goal.

Following Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, now President Johnson continued his strong support to ensure that his predecessor’s goal of a Moon landing could be achieved by the stipulated deadline. But with increasing competition for scarce federal resources from the conflict in southeast Asia and from domestic programs, Johnson showed less interest in any space endeavors to follow the Apollo Moon landings. NASA’s annual budget peaked in 1966 and began a steady decline three years before the agency met Kennedy’s goal. From a budgetary standpoint, the prospects of a vibrant, post-Apollo space program didn’t look all that rosy, the triumphs of the Apollo missions of 1968 and 1969 notwithstanding.

Left: On March 5, 1969, President Richard M. Nixon, left, introduces Thomas O. Paine as the NASA Administrator nominee, as Vice President Spiro T. Agnew looks on. Middle: Proposed lunar landing sites through Apollo 20, per August 1969 NASA planning. Right: An illustration of the Apollo Applications Program experimental space station that later evolved into Skylab.

Less than a month after assuming the Presidency in January 1969, Richard M. Nixon appointed a Space Task Group (STG), led by Vice President Spiro T. Agnew as the Chair of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, to report back to him on options for the American space program in the post-Apollo years. Members of the STG included NASA Acting Administrator Thomas O. Paine (confirmed by the Senate as administrator on March 20), the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology. At the time, the only approved human space flight programs included lunar landing missions through Apollo 20 and three long-duration missions to an experimental space station based on Apollo technology that evolved into Skylab.

Beyond a general vague consensus that the United States human space flight program should continue, no approved projects existed once these missions ended by about 1975. With NASA’s intense focus on achieving the Moon landing within President Kennedy’s time frame, long-term planning for what might follow the Apollo Program garnered little attention. During a Jan. 27, 1969, meeting at NASA chaired by Acting Administrator Paine, a general consensus emerged that the next step after the Moon landing should involve the development of a 12-person earth-orbiting space station by 1975, followed by an even larger outpost capable of housing up to 100 people “with a multiplicity of capabilities.” In June, with the goal of the Moon landing almost at hand, NASA’s internal planning added the development of a space shuttle by 1977 to support the space station, the development of a lunar base by 1976, and the highly ambitious idea that the U.S. should prepare for a human mission to Mars as early as the 1980s. NASA presented these proposals to the STG for consideration in early July in a report titled “America’s Next Decades in Space.”

Left: President Richard M. Nixon, right, greets the Apollo 11 astronauts aboard the U.S.S. Hornet after their return from the Moon. Middle: The cover page of the Space Task Group (STG) Report to President Nixon. Right: Meeting in the White House to present the STG Report to President Nixon. Image credit: courtesy Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

Still bathing in the afterglow of the successful Moon landing, the STG presented its 29-page report “The Post-Apollo Space Program:  Directions for the Future” to President Nixon on Sep. 15, 1969, during a meeting at the White House. In its Conclusions and Recommendations section, the report noted that the United States should pursue a balanced robotic and human space program but emphasized the importance of the latter, with a long-term goal of a human mission to Mars before the end of the 20th century. The report proposed that NASA develop new systems and technologies that emphasized commonality, reusability, and economy in its future programs. To accomplish these overall objectives, the report presented three options:

Option I – this option required more than a doubling of NASA’s budget by 1980 to enable a human Mars mission in the 1980s, establishment of a lunar orbiting space station, a 50-person Earth orbiting space station, and a lunar base. The option required a decision by 1971 on development of an Earth-to-orbit transportation system to support the space station. The option maintained a strong robotic scientific and exploration program.

Option II – this option maintained NASA’s budget at then current levels for a few years, then anticipated a gradual increase to support the parallel development of both an earth orbiting space station and an Earth-to-orbit transportation system, but deferred a Mars mission to about 1986. The option maintained a strong robotic scientific and exploration program, but smaller than in Option I.

Option III – essentially the same as Option II but deferred indefinitely the human Mars mission.

In separate letters, both Agnew and Paine recommended to President Nixon to choose Option II. 

Left: Illustration of a possible space shuttle, circa 1969. Middle: Illustration of a possible 12-person space station, circa 1969. Right: An August 1969 proposed mission scenario for a human mission to Mars.

The White House released the report to the public at a press conference on Sep. 17 with Vice President Agnew and Administrator Paine in attendance. Although he publicly supported a strong human spaceflight program, enjoyed the positive press he received when photographed with Apollo astronauts, and initially sounded positive about the STG options, President Nixon ultimately chose not to act on the report’s recommendations.  Nixon considered these plans too grandiose and far too expensive and relegated NASA to one America’s domestic programs without the special status it enjoyed during the 1960s. Even some of the already planned remaining Moon landing missions fell victim to the budgetary axe.

On Jan. 4, 1970, NASA had to cancel Apollo 20 since the Skylab program needed its Saturn V rocket to launch the orbital workshop. In 1968, then NASA Administrator James E. Webb had turned off the Saturn V assembly line and none remained beyond the original 15 built under contract. In September 1970, reductions in NASA’s budget forced the cancellation of two more Apollo missions, and  in 1971 President Nixon considered cancelling two more. He reversed himself and they flew as Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 in 1972, the final Apollo Moon landing missions.

Left: NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher, left, and President Richard M. Nixon announce the approval to proceed with space shuttle development in 1972. Middle: First launch of the space shuttle in 1981. Right: In 1984, President Ronald W. Reagan directs NASA to build a space station.

More than two years after the STG submitted its report, in January 1972 President Nixon directed NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher to develop the Space Transportation System, the formal name for the space shuttle, the only element of the recommendations to survive the budgetary challenges.  NASA anticipated the first orbital flight of the program in 1979, with the actual first flight occurring two years later. Twelve years elapsed after Nixon’s shuttle decision when President Ronald W. Reagan approved the development of a space station, the second major component of the STG recommendation.  14 years later, the first element of that program reached orbit. In those intervening years, NASA had redesigned the original American space station, leading to the development of a multinational orbiting laboratory called the International Space Station. Humans have inhabited the space station continuously for the past quarter century, conducting world class and cutting edge scientific and engineering research. Work on the space station helps enable future programs, returning humans to the Moon and later sending them on to Mars and other destinations.

The International Space Station as it appeared in 2021.

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China's new Long March 8A rocket could fly for the first time by the end of the year, helping the country build a number of planned satellite megaconstellation.

Mars has always held a special place in our hearts, likely from hints over the decades of perhaps finding signs of life, albeit fossilised and primitive. It’s been the subject of study from telescopes and space missions alike, most notably ESA’s Mars Express which has been observing the red planet for 20 years. Over the two decades of observation it has studied an amazing variety of atmospheric phenomenon which have now been catalogued in a new ‘Cloud Atlas.’ Many will be familiar to sky watchers on Earth but some are very different. 

The atmosphere of the red planet is thin and mostly composed of carbon dioxide. There are traces of nitrogen and argon but with an atmospheric pressure of just 1% of the Earth’s it’s inhospitable for human life. The rarefied atmosphere provides insufficient insulation to the surface leading to aggressive temperature fluctuations from -125°C on night time side to 20°C during the day. It’s not unusual for dust storms to whip up in the atmosphere sometimes encircling the entire planet. It’s in this atmosphere that a multitude of cloud features have been observed. 

Mars, Credit NASA

Over the last 20 years, Mars Express has been studying the cloud formations in the Martian atmosphere. It was launched in June 2003 to study Mars remotely from an orbit around the red planet. Mars Express was not only studying atmospheric phenomenon but also the surface, subsurface and geological history. With a suite of scientific instruments from high resolution cameras and radar to spectrometers and atmospheric sensors, Mars Express is well equipped for the task. 

Using the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HSRC) on board Mars Express, images of a multitude of clouds have been captured. The clouds are usually the result of microscopic dust particles in the atmosphere around which, water and carbon dioxide crystals form. The dust particles themselves can be left hanging in the atmosphere following unusually strong winds that lift large quantities of dust into the atmosphere. They are occasionally seen as large beige coloured clouds. In the north polar regions it’s possible to see giant spiral dust storms as cyclonic storm systems develop. They are one of the drivers of the global weather systems seen on Mars and studying them is crucial to understanding the dynamics of the atmosphere. 

In January 2024, DLR’s HRSC on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft captured the Caralis Chaos region, which has several interesting and sometimes puzzling landscape features – such as a field of small, light-coloured hills to the northeast (bottom-right of the image). The mounds are located in the remains of a depression that was once filled by a lake. Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

So called ‘gravity waves’ are a common sight on Mars as they are on Earth. Somewhat resembling rolling hills or the rippling of water, they are usually seen in the mid-latitudes in the colder winter months. A particular type of these gravity waves, known as Lee waves, can build up on the downwind side of mountains and ridges. The presence of the mountain or other large obstacle disturbs the laminar flow of air to generate the effect.

The study has led to a Martian cloud spotters dream, the publication of a fully browsable 20-years of cloud images and data. It was created by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in Berlin and is proving invaluable helping researchers to gain a better understanding of the Martian atmosphere. In particular how the different dynamical processes can lead to the clouds seen. The ‘Atlas’ which is available to the public here has been presented at the Europlanet Science Congress in Berlin by Daniela Tirsch form DLR.

Source : Cloud Atlas of Mars Showcases Array of Atmospheric Phenomena

The post Mars has an Amazing Variety of Clouds appeared first on Universe Today.

Temperature fluctuations above Antarctica in winter show the earliest warming of the stratosphere on record.

Predators’ electricity gives caterpillars an early warning

We can’t yet tell how life got its start on Earth. That’s one great reason to keep looking for life elsewhere

A species of leaf chameleon newly named Brookesia nofy was discovered in a patch of coastal rainforest, a highly threatened habitat in Madagascar

A species of leaf chameleon newly named Brookesia nofy was discovered in a patch of coastal rainforest, a highly threatened habitat in Madagascar

The James Webb Space Telescope has taken things to the extreme, studying the outer edge of our own galaxy, the Milky Way and producing a stunning new image.

Manuel Retana arrived in the U.S. at 15 years old, unable to speak English and with nothing but a dream and $200 in his pocket. Now, he plays a crucial role implementing life support systems on spacecraft that will carry humans to the Moon and, eventually, Mars—paving the way for the next frontier of space exploration. 

A project manager for NASA’s Johnson Space Center Life Support Systems Branch in Houston, Retana helps to ensure astronaut safety aboard the International Space Station and for future Artemis missions. His work involves tracking on-orbit technical issues, managing the cost and schedule impacts of flight projects, and delivering emergency hardware. 

Manuel Retana stands in front of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

One of his most notable achievements came during the qualification of the Orion Smoke Eater Filter for the Artemis II and III missions. The filter is designed to remove harmful gases and particulates from the crew cabin in the event of a fire inside the spacecraft. Retana was tasked with creating a cost-effective test rig – a critical step for making the filter safe for flight. 

Retana’s philosophy is simple: “Rockets do not build themselves. People build rockets, and your ability to work with people will define how well your rocket is built.” 

Throughout his career, Retana has honed his soft skills—communication, leadership, collaboration, and conflict resolution—to foster an environment of success. 

Retana encourages his colleagues to learn new languages and share their unique perspectives. He even founded NASA’s first Mariachi ensemble, allowing him to share his cultural heritage in the workplace. 

He believes diversity of thought is a key element in solving complex challenges as well as creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their perspectives. 

“You need to be humble and have a willingness to always be learning,” he said. “What makes a strong team is the fact that not everyone thinks the same way.” 

Manuel Retana, center, performs with the Mariachi Ensemble group at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

For the future of space exploration, Retana is excited about the democratization of space, envisioning a world where every country has the opportunity to explore. He is eager to see humanity reach the Moon, Mars, and beyond, driven by the quest to answer the universe’s most enigmatic questions. 

To the Artemis Generation, he says, “Never lose hope, and it is never too late to start following your dreams, no matter how far you are.” 

AI fights conspiracy theories, Massachusetts leads the way on waste reduction, and more in this week’s science news roundup

Continuous human habitation of the Moon is the state aim of many major space-faring nations in the coming decades. Reaching that aim requires many tasks, but one of the most fundamental is feeding those humans. Shipping food consistently from Earth will likely be prohibitively expensive shortly, so DLR, Germany’s space agency, is working on an alternative. This semi-autonomous greenhouse can be used to at least partially feed the astronauts in residence on the Moon. To support that goal, a team of researchers from DLR released a paper about EVE, a robotic arm intended to help automate the operations of the first lunar greenhouse, at the IEEE Aerospace conference in March.

The EDEN Versatile End-effector (or EVE) is only possibly named as an homage to the life-seeking robot from WALL-E. But it is designed to interface with the EDEN LUNA greenhouse, a project at DLR meant to result in a fully functional greenhouse for use on the lunar surface. The advantages of such a greenhouse have been discussed in other articles, but needless to say, the EDEN LUNA is the best-supported project that will likely result in a fully functional system on the Moon when the time is right.

But as any gardener would tell you, greenhouses are a lot of work. And any time an astronaut spends on greenhouse maintenance is time they can’t spend doing other tasks, like scientific research. So, it would be extremely beneficial if there was a robot to assist with greenhouse operations, even if that robot had to be remotely controlled by an operator back on Earth.

Fraser discusses how to grow crops on the Moon.

Enter EVE, which consists of three main components. The transport rails allow the robot to move to the correct location in the greenhouse. Its robotic “arm” enables the robot to position itself effectively to complete its assigned task, and the end effector can push, pull, pick up, or perform other manual tasks. The system uses about 700W and weighs about 170 kg fully installed.

First, let’s look at the transport trails. It’s actually an off-the-shelf commercial system for use in industrial automation. The eXtended Transport System, made by Beckhoff, an industrial automation company, can be mounted in different configurations. It allows whatever is attached to it to be driven to various locations based on a series of signals that control the “mover” to which the robotic arm would be connected.

The robotic arm is based on DLR’s “This Is Not an Arm” (TINA) project. It has seven degrees of freedom, which allows for precise positioning of its end effector. Each of its three joints has around three electronic controllers for motor control, power management, and communication. It’s supported by a camera system that senses its surroundings and allows remote operators to tell where the end effector is positioned.

Isaac Arthur discusses how the Moon could support a biosphere.
Credit – Isaac Arthur YouTube Channel

The Compliant Low-Cost Antagonistic Servo Hand (CLASH) is the end effector. It has two “fingers” and a “thumb” to grip soft objects using force feedback sensors in its fingertips. It can also sense pressure from other components, such as the hand’s “tendons” and thumb and figure position.

These positioning and end-effector systems can work effectively together to perform the greenhouse’s daily maintenance tasks. For now, at least, it will require a skilled operator to do so, but that operator doesn’t have to be co-located with the greenhouse on the Moon – it could be back on Earth or even on the Lunar Gateway station orbiting above the lunar surface. Continuous operation is essential, though, as the first stages of the permanent occupation of the Moon involve temporary stays, where there will be long stretches with no human inhabitants.

DLR is fully backing the development of the EDEN LUNA greenhouse and the EVE robotic arm. Later this year, EVE will be fully integrated into the greenhouse at the Institute of Space Systems in Bremen, followed by a specially designed facility for the greater LUNA project of ESA/DLR in Cologne. As of now, both EVE and EDEN LUNA seem on track to be put through their paces before officially supporting the continual human occupation of the Moon within the next decade.

Learn More:
Prince et al. – EDEN Versatile End-effector (EVE): An Autonomous Robotic System to Support Food Production on the Moon
UT – Plants Could Grow in Lunar Regolith Using Bacteria
UT – A Greenhouse on the Moon by 2014?
UT – Practical Ideas for Farming on the Moon and Mars

Lead Image:
Greenhouse concept art on the Moon.
Credit – DLR

The post Can a Greenhouse with a Robotic Arm Feed the Next Lunar Astronauts? appeared first on Universe Today.

Of all the mysteries facing astronomers and cosmologists today, the “Hubble Tension” remains persistent! This term refers to the apparent inconsistency of the Universe’s expansion (aka. the Hubble Constant) when local measurements are compared to those of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Astronomers hoped that observations of the earliest galaxies in the Universe by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would solve this mystery. Unfortunately, Webb confirmed that the previous measurements were correct, so the “tension” endures.

Since the JWST made its observations, numerous scientists have suggested that the existence of Early Dark Energy (EDE) might explain the Hubble Tension. In a recent study supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggested that EDE could resolve two cosmological mysteries. In addition to the Hubble Tension, it might explain why Webb observed as many galaxies as it did during the early Universe. According to current cosmological models, the Universe should have been much less populated at the time.

The research was led by Xuejian Shen and his colleagues from the Department of Physics and the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MTK) at MIT. They were joined by researchers from the NSF AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI) at MIT, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmology (KICC) and Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. The paper detailing their findings was recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Cosmic Distance Ladder, which relies on different methods to gauge distance, has led to the realization that measurements of cosmic expansion don’t agree. Credit: NASA/ESA/A. Feild (STScI)/A. Riess (STScI/JHU)

To recap, Dark Energy is the theoretical form of energy that is believed to be driving the expansion of the Universe today. The theory first emerged in the 1990s to explain observations by the venerable Hubble Space Telescope, which showed that cosmic expansion appeared to be accelerating over time. EDE is similar but is thought to have briefly appeared shortly after the Big Bang, which disappeared after influencing the expansion of the early Universe. Like Dark Energy, this force would have counteracted the gravitational pull of early galaxies and temporarily accelerated the expansion of the Universe.

The existence of this energy would also explain why measurements of the Hubble Constant are inconsistent with each other. Short of General Relativity being wrong (despite being proven repeatedly for over a century), EDE is considered the most likely solution to the Hubble Tension. Similarly, Webb’s 2023 observations uncovered a surprising number of bright galaxies just 500 million years after the Big Bang that were comparable in size to the modern Milky Way. These findings challenge conventional models of galaxy formation, which predict that galaxies take billions of years to form and grow.

For their study, the team focused on the formation of “Dark Matter Halos,” the hypothetical region that allows protogalaxies to accumulate gas and dust, leading to star formation and growth. As when said in a recent MIT News story:

“The bright galaxies that JWST saw would be like seeing a clustering of lights around big cities, whereas theory predicts something like the light around more rural settings like Yellowstone National Park. And we don’t expect that clustering of light so early on. We believe that dark matter halos are the invisible skeleton of the universe. Dark matter structures form first, and then galaxies form within these structures. So, we expect the number of bright galaxies should be proportional to the number of big dark matter halos.”

Early Dark Energy could have caused early seeds of galaxies (depicted at left) to sprout many more bright galaxies (at right) than theory predicts. Credit: Josh Borrow/Thesan Team

The team developed an empirical framework for early galaxy formation that incorporated the six main “cosmological parameters”—the basic mathematical terms that describe the evolution of the Universe. This includes the Hubble Constant, which describes cosmic expansion, while parameters describe density fluctuations immediately after the Big Bang, from which dark matter halos formed. The team theorized that if EDE affects early cosmic expansion, it could also affect other parameters that might explain the appearance of many large galaxies shortly thereafter.

To test their theory, the team modeled the formation of galaxies within the first few hundred million years of the Universe. This model incorporated EDE to determine how early dark matter structures evolved and gave rise to the first galaxies in the Universe. As study co-author Rohan Naidu, a postdoc with MKI, explained:

“You have these two looming open-ended puzzles. We find that in fact, early dark energy is a very elegant and sparse solution to two of the most pressing problems in cosmology. What we show is, the skeletal structure of the early universe is altered in a subtle way where the amplitude of fluctuations goes up, and you get bigger halos, and brighter galaxies that are in place at earlier times, more so than in our more vanilla models. It means things were more abundant, and more clustered in the early universe.”

“We demonstrated the potential of early dark energy as a unified solution to the two major issues faced by cosmology,” added co-author Mark Vogelsberger, an MIT professor of physics. “This might be an evidence for its existence if the observational findings of JWST get further consolidated. In the future, we can incorporate this into large cosmological simulations to see what detailed predictions we get.”

Further Reading: MIT News, MNRAS

The post Early Dark Energy Could Resolve Two of the Biggest Mysteries in Cosmology appeared first on Universe Today.

Optical interferometry has been a long-proven science method that involves using several separate telescopes to act as one big telescope, thus achieving more accurate data as opposed to each telescope working individually. However, the Earth’s chaotic atmosphere often makes achieving ground-based science difficult, but what if we could do it on the Moon? This is what a recent study presented at the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2024 hopes to address as a team of researchers propose MoonLITE (Lunar InTerferometry Explorer) as part of the NASA Astrophysics Pioneers program. This also comes after this same team of researchers recently proposed the Big Fringe Telescope (BFT), which is a 2.2-kilometer interferometer telescope to be built on the Earth with the goal of observing bright stars.

Here, Universe Today discusses MoonLITE with Dr. Gerard van Belle, who is an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, regarding the motivation behind proposing MoonLITE, the science they hope to achieve, lunar surface location preference, the cost of MoonLITE, and next steps to make MoonLITE a reality. Therefore, what is the motivation behind proposing MoonLITE?

“The real barrier to doing super sensitive high resolution optical interferometry is the Earth’s atmosphere,” Dr. van Belle tells Universe Today. “It’s a boiling, turbulent medium that means the exposure time of your telescope is ultimately limited to less than a millisecond or so. Telescopes that expose longer than that can achieve greater sensitivity, but at the expense of angular resolution – things smear out. MoonLITE, with two-inch (50mm) apertures, would be more than a thousand times more sensitive than terrestrial apertures is 8-meter collecting apertures, because it can stare for many minutes at a time. In comparison to millisecond exposure times on the Earth, the amount of light grabbed by these tiny dime-store sized telescopes exceeds giant industrial facility telescopes within the first second of having the shutter open.”

Much like with the recently proposed BFT, MoonLITE has a number of scientific objectives it hopes to accomplish, as the study notes three science cases, including studying the radii of low-mass stars (M-dwarfs) and brown dwarfs, young stellar objects (YSOs), and active galactic nuclei (AGN). For the M-dwarfs and brown dwarfs, the team aspires to obtain long-sought data regarding their sizes and temperatures since observing them from ground-based telescopes has proven difficult.

For YSOs, the researchers hope to gain greater understanding of the formation and evolution of habitable exoplanets within the protoplanetary disks of pre-main sequence stars, with MoonLITE being capable of ascertaining the inner regions of these stars and the star sizes, as well. For AGNs, the researchers aspire to learn more about supermassive black holes, and specifically the jets that emanate from them, with MoonLITE being able to observe these objects in optical wavelengths for the first time. But what else can we learn from these three science cases?

“So, we actually have more science cases than that – so many, in fact, that we realized the new capabilities of MoonLITE were beyond our collective imagination for covering all the bases,” Dr. van Belle tells Universe Today. “So, we built into the program a 20% slice of the overall observing time to put up for competitive selection by the community – you know, crowdsource for the really creative ideas. The three we wrote up were just what we felt highlighted what one could do with greater sensitivity from the Earth’s surface. For example, the stars that are the smallest – 10% the size of our sun – are also the faintest. And measuring the sizes of those is out of reach of terrestrial interferometers. Same for YSOs and AGNs – there’s a few that can be done from Earth, but for more general samples – ones that represent the more typical objects, not the super-bright oddballs – you need lots of sensitivity.”

Diagram conveying the setup for MoonLITE on the lunar surface, beginning with a lander being delivered by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (1), which unrolls a fiber umbilical over 100 meters (328 feet) (2), concluding with deploying the siderostat station (3). Science operations begin once instrument calibration is performed. (Credit: van Belle et al. (2024))

One of the unique aspects of MoonLITE is it could be brought to the lunar surface via NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), which is a collaboration with the private sector to deliver scientific and technical payloads to the Moon to test technologies that can help with both human missions as part of the Artemis Program, and scientific missions to further our understanding of the universe, like MoonLITE. Examples of companies participating in upcoming CLPS missions include Intuitive Machines, Astrobiotic, Firefly Aerospace, and Draper, all of which are delivering payloads to various locations on the lunar surface. But is there a specific location where MoonLITE would work best?

“We designed MoonLITE to be entirely site agnostic,” Dr. van Belle tells Universe Today. “For a small experiment like this, it’s going to catch a ride on board a NASA CLPS lander as a minor guest – and putting a minimal number of requirements on your ride improves one’s chances of getting a ride assignment. So polar or equatorial latitudes both work, as well as nearside versus farside.”

As noted, this same team of researchers recently proposed the Big Fringe Telescope, which is slated to be a 2.2-kilometer interferometer telescope comprised of 16 smaller telescopes that are 0.5-meters in diameter. Along with conducting cutting-edge science, including observing binary star systems and making exoplanet transit “movies”, one of the most notable features of the BFT is its extremely low cost compared to current optical interferometers around the world, coming with an approximate price tag of $28,496,000.

In contrast, the cost of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), which is comprised of four 8.2-meter telescopes and four movable 1.8-meter telescopes, has been estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Therefore, what is the potential cost for MoonLITE compared to other Earth-based interferometers?

“MoonLITE was designed to work within the cost box for the NASA Pioneers call for proposals,” Dr. van Belle tells Universe Today. “This CfP [Call for Projects] stipulates a couple of things: a $20M cost cap, including a 25% uncommitted reserve, so the actual budgeted level of activities and hardware was $15M. The CfP does let you request some things – first off, a CLPS ride, though you have to then fit within the CLPS mass cap of 50kg. The notional CLPS lander in the CfP was to provide some other things as well – power, communications, mobility with a rover. So, there’s actually quite a bit of in-kind support wrapped up in that CLPS ride.”

Submitting a proposal to NASA is a very in-depth process involving several steps, also known as phases, resulting in a very small acceptance rate, often with several rejections and improvements before being accepted. These proposals range from CubeSats to full-blown, multi-billion-dollar space missions, with most taking years to become real-world missions even after selection, if at all. For example, of the four proposals selected for further development in January 2021 Astrophysics Pioneers Program, (Aspera, Pandora, StarBurst, and PUEO), only two of them have definitive launch dates (StarBurst in 2027 and PUEO in 2025). Therefore, if MoonLITE is to be selected for advancement, it could be years, or even decades, before it officially lands on the lunar surface to conduct science. Unfortunately, while Dr. van Bells says the 2024 Pioneers proposal term was canceled due to federal budget issues, what are the next steps to make MoonLITE a reality?

“We submitted for the 2023 NASA Pioneers call and got turned down,” Dr. van Belle tells Universe Today. “But we got a good review and have been encouraged to improve things, address perceived issues, and resubmit. We’re trying to reduce risk by doing some lab and ground-based tests. This is another nice element of MoonLITE – we can just build a representative system on the ground and test it straight up here. We don’t get the exquisite sensitivity like we would on the moon, but otherwise it’ll work just the same – we just need to look at bright things here from Earth. So, we’re keen to address some of these issues from the review panel and resubmit for 2025.” 

As NASA prepares to send humans back to the Moon with the Artemis Program for the first time since 1972, the level of science that can be achieved on the lunar surface is unprecedented. This is specifically evident given the lack of a Moon’s atmosphere, allowing for more accurate data to be obtained and potentially providing scientists with a greater understanding of our universe, and our place in it. With MoonLITE, scientists hope to gain insight into low-mass stars and brown dwarfs, young stellar objects, and active galactic nuclei from potentially anywhere on the lunar surface, allowing for greater diversity is site selection and what celestial objects can be observed.

Dr. van Belle concludes by telling Universe Today, “MoonLITE is super exciting, not just because it’s a really high-impact experiment in a remarkably affordable package – but because it will show the whole approach works and can be taken much, much further. As an example, high precision astrometry from a lunar interferometer could characterize the masses of terrestrial-scale extrasolar planets. Mass measures are needed in advance of the Habitable Worlds Observatory of the 2040’s, to understand the spectral HWO will get, and disentangle those spectra for signs of life.”

How will MoonLITE contribute to optical interferometry on the lunar surface 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 Studying Stars from the Lunar Surface with MoonLITE, Courtesy of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services appeared first on Universe Today.

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