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#728 Eugene Parker
In our last episode, we talked about the Parker Solar Probe. As always, we like to talk about the person who inspired the mission. What makes this amazing and different is that Eugene Parker was there to watch the launch of the mission that shares his name. Why is he so influential on solar astronomy?
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The Milky Way's 2 biggest satellite galaxies are oddly lonely, study finds
NASA Continues Advancing STEM for Students Through New Partnership
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) President and CEO of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation Jose Antonio Tijerino, left, and NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, sign a Space Act Agreement between the HHF and NASA to collaborate and expand STEM opportunities for Latino K-12 and university students and reduce barriers to agency activities and opportunities, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, at the NASA Headquarters Mary W. Jackson Building in Washington.NASA/Bill Ingalls
During an event at NASA Headquarters in Washington Monday, the agency and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation signed a Space Act Agreement to collaborate and expand STEM opportunities for Latino K-12 and university students and reduce barriers to agency activities and opportunities.
The signing is the latest in a series of efforts by NASA to expand access to STEM education for underrepresented communities across the nation.
“Through this agreement, NASA and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation are not just formalizing a partnership; we are igniting a commitment to innovation that will shape the future of our endeavors,” said Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “This initiative will help build a diverse future science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce, showcasing our commitment to making America’s space agency accessible to all.”
As part of the agreement, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation will incorporate NASA STEM education resources, content, and themes into its Latinos on the Fast Track (LOFT) program, which aims to connect, inspire, and empower young Latino professionals and college students on their career journey. In turn, NASA will provide access to aerospace STEM education professionals to support technical reviews for the development of new curriculum materials and facilitate information sharing with NASA experts and mentors who will lead presentations and workshops to expose students to STEM careers.
“The Hispanic Heritage Foundation is thrilled to partner with NASA to expand STEM opportunities and expose Latinos to career pathways in aerospace and space travel,” said Antonio Tijerino, president and CEO of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation. “This innovative partnership with NASA will allow us to expand our mission even beyond our planet!”
While initial efforts will be led by NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, the umbrella agreement also allows for further collaboration and partnership in the future. Specifically, the agency and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation will look to support certain areas of NASA’s Equity Action Plan.
NASA works to explore the secrets of the universe and solve the world’s most complex problems, which requires creating space for all people to participate in and learn from its work in space. Providing access to opportunities where young minds can be curious and see themselves potentially at NASA and beyond is how the agency will continue to inspire the next generation of STEM innovators.
For more information on how NASA inspires students to pursue STEM visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources
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Was the Moon Captured?
The general consensus is that Theia crashed into Earth billions of years ago and led to the formation of the Moon. The story doesn’t end there though since there are a few lines of evidence to suggest the Moon could have been captured by the gravitational pull of the Earth instead. The orbit of the Moon is one such observation that leads to a different conclusion for it’s in-line with the plane of the ecliptic rather than the Earth’s equator. A team of researchers have suggested capture theory was the Moon’s origin.
The Giant Impact Theory is by far the most widely accepted theory to explain the origin of the Moon. In the theory, Theia is thought to have crashed into the Earth 4.5 billion years ago. Following the catastrophic impact, debris from Earth and Theia was ejected out into space and, over time the material is thought to have coalesced to form the Moon. There is a lot of evidence to suggest this, such as the lunar composition which is very similar to the mantle of Earth.
This image shows what the collision between Earth and Theia might have looked like. Image: Hagai PeretsThe data collected from lunar soil samples from over 6 Apollo missions revealed calcium rich, basaltic rocks. The composition was identified by chemical and isotopic analysis and was dated at 60 million years after the formation of the Solar System. Using this information, planetary scientists concluded that, due to the similar with the Earth’s mantle, the Moon must have formed from the collision. That was back in 1984.
A new piece of research published in the Planetary Science Journal by Darren Williams from Penn State Behrend in Pennsylvania and Michael Zugger from the Applied Research Lab at Penn State proposes an alternative. They suggest that instead, the moon was captured during a close encounter between a young Earth and a terrestrial binary — the moon and another rocky object.
This is not a unique idea though since it has been seen to happen elsewhere in the Solar System. Williams points out that Triton, the largest moon of Neptune may have experienced a similar origin. Triton is thought to have been a Kuiper Belt object that got pulled into an orbit by Neptune. Of the Kuiper Belt objects, 1 in every 10 are thought to be binary objects supporting the theory that the Moon’s formation could well have involved a binary pair. The orbit of Triton around Neptune is retrograde, meaning it moves opposite to the direction of the rotation of the planet. It’s also tilted by 67 degrees to the equator of Neptune.
Global color mosaic of Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, taken by NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1989. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS)The team argue that, even though Earth could have captured an object larger than the Moon, the orbit is unlikely to have been stable. In the capture scenario, the original lunar orbit would have started as an ellipse but, through the effects of tides, been altered. By calculating the tidal changes, the team identify that initial lunar orbit would have contracted over thousands of years, becoming more circular at the same time. It’s this orbit that we see today.
Now we see the tidal forces causing the Moon to slowly drift away from Earth at a rate of 3cm per year. The team’s calculations showed mathematically that a binary exchange captured satellite may well have led to the behaviour shown by the Earth-Moon system. If this was the case, it doesn’t explain how the Moon formed, just how it came to be a part of our planetary system.
Source : What is the moon’s true origin story?
The post Was the Moon Captured? appeared first on Universe Today.
The ESO Releases the Most Detailed Infrared Map of our Galaxy Ever Made
Despite decades of large-scale optical surveys, there are still mysteries about the Milky Way galaxy that astronomers are eager to resolve. This is particularly true of its internal structure and the core region, which is difficult to survey due to clouds of gas and dust in the interstellar medium (ISM). This material absorbs visible light, making fainter objects difficult to see in optical wavelengths. Luckily, advances in infrared astronomy have enabled surveys of the Milky Way that have revealed things that would otherwise remain invisible to us.
For more than 13 years, an international team of astronomers has been observing the Milky Way using the ESO’s 4.1-meter Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). In a recently published study, they announced the release of their final data product: a gigantic infrared map of the Milky Way containing more than 1.5 billion objects—the most detailed map our galaxy has ever created! With over 200,000 images and 500 terabytes of data, this map is also the largest observational project ever carried out with an ESO telescope.
Located at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile, the VISTA telescope is responsible for mapping large areas of the sky. This latest map contains data gathered by the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) survey and its companion project, the VVV eXtended (VVVX) survey. Led by Dante Minniti, an astrophysicist at Universidad Andrés Bello in Chile, these surveys used the VISTA InfraRed CAMera (VIRCAM) to survey the Milky Way, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds (SMC, LMC), and extragalactic space.
This spectacular view of the VISTA telescope was taken from the roof of the building during the opening of the enclosure at sunset. The VLT is visible on the neighboring mountain. Credit: VVV Survey/ESOThis latest map contains about ten times as many objects as the previous version, which the VVV Survey team released in 2012. As always, the ability to see the Universe in the infrared wavelength allows astronomers to see objects that would otherwise be obscured by clouds of gas and dust. These include newborn stars embedded in dusty globular clusters, brown dwarfs, and free-floating planets (FFP)—aka rogue planets—that do not orbit stars. “We made so many discoveries, we have changed the view of our Galaxy forever,” said Minniti in a recent ESO press release.
The observations began in 2010, using the camera’s 16 special detectors with a combined resolution of 67 million pixels to survey billions of point sources of light in an area measuring 520 deg2. By observing each patch of sky many times, the team could determine the locations and proper motions of the 1.5 billion objects and monitor them for changes in brightness. The team also tracked hypervelocity stars kicked out of our galaxy’s central region due to gravitational interaction with the supermassive black hole (SMBH) there – Sagittarius A*.
The observations lasted for 420 nights, ending in the first half of 2023. The resulting map provides an accurate 3D view of the Milky Way’s inner regions that were previously obscured by dust. With the surveys now complete, the ESO’s Paranal Observatory is preparing for future surveys by upgrading the VISTA with the 4-meter Multi-Object Spectrograph Telescope (4MOST) instrument. This new instrument will allow VISTA to perform large spectroscopic surveys, capturing the spectra of 2400 objects simultaneously over an area of the sky equivalent to 20 full Moons.
Meanwhile, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) will receive the new Multi-Object Optical and Near-infrared Spectrograph (MOONS) instrument. MOONS consists of two identical cryogenic spectrographs (with 500 fibers each), allowing astronomers to obtain optical and near-infrared spectra for about 1000 objects simultaneously. The combined power of these instruments will provide spectra for millions of the objects surveyed by VVV and VVX, and many more discoveries are anticipated!
Further Reading: ESO, Astronomy & Astrophysics
The post The ESO Releases the Most Detailed Infrared Map of our Galaxy Ever Made appeared first on Universe Today.
Heart tissues beat half as strongly on the ISS as they do on Earth
NASA Invites Media to Preview its Museum Earth Information Center
Media is invited to preview and interview NASA leadership ahead of the opening of the Earth Information Center at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History at 10 a.m. EDT, Monday, Oct. 7.
The 2,000-square-foot exhibit includes a 32-foot-long, 12-foot-high video wall displaying Earth science data visualizations and videos, an interpretive panel showing Earth’s connected systems, information on our changing world, and an overview of how NASA and the Smithsonian study our home planet. Visitors also can explore Earth observing missions, changes in Earth’s landscape over time, and how climate is expected to change regionally through multiple interactive experiences.
The event will take place at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History 1000 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Members of the media interested in attending should email Liz Vlock at: elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
Participants will be available for media interviews starting at the following times:
- 10 a.m.: NASA Administrator Bill Nelson
- 10 a.m.: Kirk Johnson, Sant director, Museum of Natural History
- 10:30 a.m.: Karen St. Germain, division director, NASA Earth Sciences Division
- 10:30 a.m.: Julie Robinson, deputy director, NASA Earth Sciences Division
The Earth Information Center draws insights from across all NASA centers and its fellow partners – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Agency for International Development, Environmental Protection Agency, and Federal Emergency Management Administration. It allows viewers to see how our home planet is changing and gives decision makers information to develop the tools they need to mitigate, adapt, and respond to climate change.
NASA’s Earth Information Center is a virtual and physical space designed to aid people to make informed decisions on Earth’s environment and climate. It provides easily accessible, readily usable, and scalable Earth information – enabling global understanding of our changing planet.
The expansion of the physical Earth Information Center at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Museum makes it the second location in the Washington area. The first is located at NASA Headquarters in Washington at 300 E St., SW.
To learn more about the Earth Information Center visit:
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Elizabeth Vlock
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov
Stranded Astronauts To Get Their Ride Home
You might remember the story of the two astronauts on board the International Space Station that went for an 8 day mission, that was back in June 2024! Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been stranded there ever since but their ride home has just arrived at the ISS. A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov has just docked so that the two can join the Expedition 72 crew already on board. There are now 11 people on boar the ISS but the Crew-9 capsule will return in February carrying Wilmore and Williams finally back home.
Being stranded in space sounds like the stuff of nightmares but the reality is a little more mundane….if space travel can ever be classed as mundane! The two astronauts living this reality, Wilmore and Williams have been stuck on board the ISS as a result of thruster problems on the trouble stricken Starliner capsule. Tests were completed, analysis undertaken but the module was autonomously returned home for further tests without the risk to an onboard crew.
International Space Station. Credit: NASAEnter the Dragon capsule. Developed by SpaceX, the state of the art spacecraft was designed to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS. It’s been a key part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and has been a significant development in the private space sector. One of the key features of the capsule is in its automation, not requiring any pilot to complete its journey but it, if needed, be controlled manually. Somewhat more reliably than the Starliner, the Dragon capsule safely docked and its hatch opened at 7.04pm EDT (23:04 GMT.)
The Dragon capsule is launched into low Earth orbit by the Falcon 9 rocket. The two stage rocket was also developed by Space X and has operated reliably since its first launch in June 2010. Together with the Dragon capsule, they can deliver crewed and uncrewed missions into low Earth orbit.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched from Launch Complex 39A on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley onboard, Saturday, May 30, 2020, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Demo-2 mission is the first launch with astronauts of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The test flight serves as an end-to-end demonstration of SpaceX’s crew transportation system. Behnken and Hurley launched at 3:22 p.m. EDT on Saturday, May 30, from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. A new era of human spaceflight is set to begin as American astronauts once again launch on an American rocket from American soil to low-Earth orbit for the first time since the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)The occupants of the Dragon, Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov joined the 9 existing crew members of the Expedition 72 crew. The astronauts on board are Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, Don Petitt, Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams and cosmonauts Alexander Grebenkin, Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner.
Assuming all goes to plan, Wilmore and Williams will return back with the Dragon capsule in February turning their 8 day mission to an 8 month mission! Fingers crossed for them.
Source : Expedition 72 Welcomes Crew-9 Duo Aboard Station
The post Stranded Astronauts To Get Their Ride Home appeared first on Universe Today.
NASA Seeks Innovators for Lunar Waste Competition
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)By Savannah Bullard
A new NASA competition, the LunaRecycle Challenge, is open and offering $3 million in prizes for innovations in recycling material waste on deep space missions.
As NASA continues efforts toward long-duration human space travel, including building a sustained human presence on the Moon through its Artemis missions, the agency needs novel solutions for processing inorganic waste streams like food packaging, discarded clothing, and science experiment materials. While previous efforts focused on the reduction of trash mass and volume, this challenge will prioritize technologies for recycling waste into usable products needed for off-planet science and exploration activities.
NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge will incentivize the design and development of energy-efficient, low-mass, and low-impact recycling solutions that address physical waste streams and improve the sustainability of longer-duration lunar missions. Through the power of open innovation, which draws on the public’s ingenuity and creativity to find solutions, NASA can restructure the agency’s approach to waste management, support the future of space travel, and revolutionize waste treatments on Earth, leading to greater sustainability on our home planet and beyond.
“Operating sustainably is an important consideration for NASA as we make discoveries and conduct research both away from home and on Earth,” said Amy Kaminski, program executive for NASA’s Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program. “With this challenge, we are seeking the public’s innovative approaches to waste management on the Moon and aim to take lessons learned back to Earth for the benefit of all.”
NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge will offer two competition tracks: a Prototype Build track and a Digital Twin track. The Prototype Build Track focuses on designing and developing hardware components and systems for recycling one or more solid waste streams on the lunar surface. The Digital Twin Track focuses on designing a virtual replica of a complete system for recycling solid waste streams on the lunar surface and manufacturing end products. Offering a Digital Twin track further lowers the barrier of entry for global solvers to participate in NASA Centennial Challenges and contribute to agency missions and initiatives.
Teams will have the opportunity to compete in either or both competition tracks, each of which will carry its own share of the prize purse.
The LunaRecycle Challenge also will address some of the aerospace community’s top technical challenges. In July 2024, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate released a ranked list of 187 technology areas requiring further development to meet future exploration, science, and other mission needs. The results integrated inputs from NASA mission directorates and centers, industry organizations, government agencies, academia, and other interested individuals to help guide NASA’s space technology development and investments. This list and subsequent updates will help inform future Centennial Challenges.
The three technological needs that LunaRecycle will address include logistics tracking, clothing, and trash management for habitation; in-space and on-surface manufacturing of parts and products; and in-space and on-surface manufacturing from recycled and reused materials.
“I am pleased that NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge will contribute to solutions pertaining to technological needs within advanced manufacturing and habitats,” said Kim Krome, acting program manager for agency’s Centennial Challenges, and challenge manager of LunaRecycle. “We are very excited to see what solutions our global competitors generate, and we are eager for this challenge to serve as a positive catalyst for bringing the agency, and humanity, closer to exploring worlds beyond our own.”
NASA has contracted The University of Alabama to be the allied partner for the duration of the challenge. The university, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, will coordinate with former Centennial Challenge winner AI Spacefactory to facilitate the challenge and manage its competitors.
To register as a participant in NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge, visit: lunarecyclechallenge.ua.edu.
NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge is led by the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida, with support from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The competition is a NASA’s Centennial Challenge, based at NASA Marshall. Centennial Challenges are part of NASA’s Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
For more information on LunaRecycle, visit:
LunaRecycle Challenge WebsiteJasmine Hopkins
Headquarters, Washington
321-432-4624
jasmine.s.hopkins@nasa.gov
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
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NASA Astronaut Tracy C. Dyson to Discuss Science, Station Mission
NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson will share details of her recent six-month mission aboard the International Space Station in a news conference at 11 a.m. EDT Friday, Oct. 4, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The news conference will air live on NASA+ and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Media interested in participating in person must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom no later than 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov.
Media wishing to participate by phone must contact the newsroom no later than two hours before the start of the event. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. To ask questions by phone, media must dial into the news conference no later than 10 minutes prior to the start of the call. Questions may also be submitted on social media by using #AskNASA.
Spanning 184 days in space, Dyson’s third spaceflight covered 2,944 orbits of the Earth and a 78-million-mile journey as an Expedition 70/71 flight engineer. Dyson also conducted one spacewalk of 31 minutes, bringing her career total to 23 hours, 20 minutes on four spacewalks. Dyson returned to Earth on Sept. 23, as planned, along with her crewmates, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.
Dyson launched on March 23 and arrived at the station March 25 alongside Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus. Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya were aboard the station for 12 days before returning home with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara on April 6.
While aboard the orbiting lab, Dyson conducted dozens of scientific and technology activities to benefit future exploration in space and life back on Earth. She remotely controlled a robot on Earth’s surface from a computer aboard the station and evaluated orbit-to-ground operations. She operated a 3D bioprinter to print cardiac tissue samples, which could advance technology for creating replacement organs and tissues for transplants on Earth.
Dyson also participated in the crystallization of model proteins to evaluate the performance of hardware that could be used for pharmaceutical production and ran a program that uses student-designed software to control the station’s free-flying robots, inspiring the next generation of innovators.
Learn more about space station activities by following @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook, ISS Instagram, and the space station blog.
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Joshua Finch / Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov
Courtney Beasley
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
courtney.m.beasley@nasa.gov