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Stars give tiny planets a gravitational 'squeeze' to strip away their atmospheres
EarthCARE pre-launch press briefing
ESA’s Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) mission is designed to advance our understanding of the role that clouds and aerosols play in reflecting incident solar radiation back out to space and trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth’s surface.
Developed as a cooperation between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), this exciting mission will make a range of different measurements that together will shed new light on the role that clouds and aerosols play in regulating Earth’s delicate temperature balance.
With global climate change increasingly affecting our planet, EarthCARE is poised to provide data for climate research, improve the accuracy of climate models and support numerical weather prediction.
The EarthCare pre-launch press briefing featured: Simonetta Cheli, Director of Earth Observation Programmes, ESA, Dirk Bernaerts, EarthCARE project manager and Acting Head Earth Explorers Division, ESA, Futoshi Takiguchi, Vice President and Director General for the Space Technology Directorate, JAXA, Eiichi Tomita, EarthCARE/CPR Project Manager, JAXA and Maximilian Sauer, EarthCARE Project Manager, Airbus.
What neurodiversity means for psychiatrists and the people they help
What neurodiversity means for psychiatrists and the people they help
After Swirling Around a Black Hole, Matter Just Falls Straight In
The physics surrounding black holes is just plain weird. A gravitational well so strong that not even light can escape can do some pretty strange things to normal matter. Over the decades, plenty of theories have been put forward about what those strange things might be. And now, a new paper from physicists at the University of Oxford has proved that, once again, Einstein’s theory of gravity was right.
Their work focused on a “plunging region” immediately outside the black hole’s radius. In this region, matter “plunges” straight into the black hole rather than orbiting it via the more familiar laws of orbital mechanics. One of the paper’s authors, Dr. Andrew Mummery, equates it to watching a river turn into a waterfall. Matter flows nicely along a well-defined path and then seemingly drops off a cliff.
Theoretical work has been ongoing for this region for decades. The idea of the plunge came originally from Einstein’s theory of gravity. It noted that sufficiently close to a black hole, the matter would be forced into the black hole at close to the speed of light. However, no one had yet collected any data and proved this theory.
Fraser celebrates the first direct image of a black hole.However, data from NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) change that. They collected X-ray data on a relatively small black hole located in a star system about 10,000 light years away. That data showed that matter (which is all plasma at that point) rapidly moves toward the interior of the black hole once it reaches a certain threshold.
This discovery is only the first step in a long-term plan, where researchers hope to use a much bigger telescope to study much larger black holes. The Africa Millimetre Telescope is a proposed new ground-based telescope planned to begin operations in Namibia. Originally proposed back in 2016, the project is slowly moving toward first light and has so far received 10 million Euros in funding.
With this new telescope, the Oxford physicists hope to glimpse one of the supermassive black holes in the center of our galaxy. They could potentially even capture a video of it rotating—or at least the matter around it rotating. That would be a first for black hole astronomy and a major technical feat in and of itself.
Fraser discusses another weird aspect of the physics of black holes – how cold are they?For now, plenty of other smaller black holes can be analyzed using data from existing telescopes, such as NuSTAR and NICER, as well as other platforms. The paper also analyzed data from the International Space Station. With new tools and a better understanding of what to look for, there are undoubtedly more discoveries waiting to be made about black holes in the data we’ve already collected.
Learn More:
University of Oxford – First proof that “plunging regions” exist around black holes in space
Mummery et al – Continuum emission from within the plunging region of black hole discs
UT – New View Reveals Magnetic Fields Around Our Galaxy’s Giant Black Hole
UT – Black Hole Event Horizons Can Get So Big it’ll Boggle Your Imagination
Lead Image:
Artist’s illustration of a black hole.
Credit – NASA
The post After Swirling Around a Black Hole, Matter Just Falls Straight In appeared first on Universe Today.
Welcome Back to Planet Earth, Expedition 70 Crew!
On May 16, 2024, a crowd of more than 500 people gathered at Space Center Houston’s IMAX theater for the Expedition 70 crew debrief and awards ceremony. Crew members from NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 and Soyuz MS-24 missions shared reflections from their voyage aboard the International Space Station and bestowed well-deserved recognition upon Johnson Space Center employees and partners whose dedication and support contributed to the expedition’s success.
A group photo of participants from the Expedition 70 crew debrief and awards ceremony on May 16, 2024, at Space Center Houston’s IMAX theater. Credit: NASA/David DeHoyos
The special event featured four Expedition 70 astronauts:
- Jasmin Moghbeli, Crew-7 commander and Expedition 70 flight engineer, NASA
- Loral O’Hara, Soyuz MS-24 and Expedition 70 flight engineer, NASA
- Andreas Mogensen, Crew-7 pilot and Expedition 70 commander, ESA (European Space Agency)
- Satoshi Furukawa, Crew-7 mission specialist and Expedition 70 flight engineer, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)
NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen kicked off the event by striking the ceremonial bell to complete the 70th voyage to the orbiting laboratory.
Johnson Deputy Director Stephen Koerner honored the crew’s achievements. “Through the Johnson Space Center’s Dare | Unite | Explore initiatives, we are called to unite with our partners to complete these bold missions,” said Koerner. “Tonight, we are celebrating the completion of one of those such missions.”
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 crew inside the vestibule in between the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft and the International Space Station’s Harmony module. From left are Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa. Credit: NASA
The Crew-7 mission was the first in the history of the Commercial Crew Program to have each seat in the Dragon spacecraft occupied by a different international partner.
The Expedition 70 crew successfully conducted 286 experiments and received five cargo resupply missions that delivered thousands of pounds of scientific research, supplies, and hardware to the orbital outpost.
The astronauts performed numerous science experiments and technology demonstrations, including the first robotic surgery (on simulated tissue) in space. The crew also encountered several other notable firsts. O’Hara and Moghbeli undertook their inaugural spacewalk together, while ESA astronaut Andy Mogensen became the first non-US pilot to fulfill that role on the Dragon vehicle. The crew also welcomed the third private astronaut mission, Ax-3, aboard the orbiting laboratory, along with Marina Vasilevskaya, the first female Belarusian in space as a spaceflight participant.
“Even after more than 25 years of operations, we continue to experience exciting firsts aboard station,” said Dana Weigel, program manager for the International Space Station Program. “On behalf of the ISS Program, I want to thank the crew and the ground teams around the world for your passion and commitment to the International Space Station mission. The incredible advancements we make that benefit life here on Earth and inspire future generations are a direct result of your work.”
Watch below to recap the Expedition 70 crew members’ unique journey aboard the International Space Station and to celebrate those who helped make the mission a success.
Snow and rising sea levels may have triggered Japan's earthquake swarm
Snow and rising sea levels may have triggered Japan's earthquake swarm
Quantum biology: New clues on how life might make use of weird physics
Quantum biology: New clues on how life might make use of weird physics
NASA Leaders to Host Agency Town Hall on Artificial Intelligence
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy are hosting an employee town hall at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday, May 22, to discuss how the agency is using and developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to advance missions and research.
The event will steam live on NASA+, NASA Television, and the agency’s website.
The town hall also will feature the NASA experts pioneering and leading the use of AI across the agency, including:
- A.C. Charania, chief technologist
- David Salvagnini, chief artificial intelligence officer
- Jeff Seaton, chief information officer
- Kate Calvin, chief scientist
A wide variety of AI tools are used by NASA to benefit humanity from supporting missions and research projects across the agency, analyzing data to reveal trends and patterns, and developing systems capable of supporting spacecraft and aircraft autonomously.
On May 13, Nelson named Salvagnini as NASA’s first chief artificial intelligence officer. The agency continues developing recommendations on leveraging emerging AI technology for a variety of missions including sifting through Earth science imagery to identifying areas of interest, to searching for data on planets outside our solar system from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, scheduling communications from the Perseverance Mars rover through the Deep Space Network, and more.
Learn more about artificial intelligence at NASA at:
https://www.nasa.gov/artificial-intelligence
-end-
Faith McKie / Jennifer Dooren
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
faith.d.mckie@nasa.gov / jennifer.m.dooren@nasa.gov
Hillary Smith
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley
650-604-4789
hillary.smith@nasa.gov
Young 'cotton candy' exoplanet the size of Jupiter may be shrinking into a super-Earth
NASA “Wildfire Digital Twin” Pioneers New AI Models and Streaming Data Techniques for Forecasting Fire and Smoke
5 min read
NASA “Wildfire Digital Twin” Pioneers New AI Models and Streaming Data Techniques for Forecasting Fire and SmokeNASA’s “Wildfire Digital Twin” project will equip firefighters and wildfire managers with a superior tool for monitoring wildfires and predicting harmful air pollution events and help researchers observe global wildfire trends more precisely.
The tool, developed with funding from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office and NASA’s FireSense Program, will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to forecast potential burn paths in real time, merging data from in situ, airborne, and spaceborne sensors to produce global models with high precision.
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Whereas current global models describing the spread of wildfires and smoke have a spatial resolution of about 10 kilometers per pixel, the Wildfire Digital Twin would produce regional ensemble models with a spatial resolution of 10-to-30 meters per pixel, an improvement of two orders of magnitude.
These models could be generated in a span of mere minutes. By comparison, current global models can take hours to produce.
Models with such high spatial resolution produced at this speed would be immensely valuable to first-responders and wildfire managers trying to observe and contain dynamic burns.
Milton Halem, a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, leads the Wildfire Digital Twin project, which includes a team of more than 20 researchers from six universities.
“We want to be able to provide firefighters with useful, timely information,” said Halem, adding that in the field, “there is generally no internet, and no access to big supercomputers, but with our API version of the model, they could run the digital twin not just on a laptop, but even a tablet,” he said.
NASA’s FireSense project is focused on leveraging the agency’s unique Earth science and technological capabilities to achieve improved wildfire management across the United States.
NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office supports this effort with its newest program element, Technology Development for support of Wildfire Science, Management, and Disaster Mitigation (FireSense Technology), which is dedicated to developing novel observation capabilities for predicting and managing wildfires –including technologies like Earth System Digital Twins.
Earth System Digital Twins are dynamic software tools for modeling and forecasting climate events in real time. These tools rely on data sources distributed across multiple domains to create ensemble predictions describing everything from floods to severe weather.
In addition to assisting first responders, an Earth System Digital Twin dedicated to modeling wildfires would also be valuable to scientists monitoring wildfire trends globally. In particular, Halem hopes Wildfire Digital Twins will improve our ability to study wildfires across global boreal forests of cold-hardy conifers, which sequester vast amounts of carbon.
When these forests burn, all of that carbon is released back into the atmosphere. One study, released in August of 2023, found that boreal wildfires alone accounted for 25% of all global CO2 emissions for that year to date.
“The reason CO2 emissions from Boreal wildfires are taking place at an increasing yearly rate is because global warming is rising faster at high latitudes than the rest of the planet, and as a result, boreal summers there are becoming longer,” said Halem. “Whereas the rest of the planet may have warmed one degree Celsius since the pre-industrial revolution, this region has warmed well over two degrees.”
Halem’s work builds on other wildfire models, particularly the NASA-Unified Weather Research and Forecasting (NUWRF) model, developed by NASA, and WRF-SFIRE, developed by a team of researchers with support from the National Science Foundation. These models simulate phenomena like wind speed and cloud cover, which makes them the perfect foundation for a Wildfire Digital Twin.
Specifically, Halem’s team is working on new satellite data assimilation techniques that will blend information from space-based remote sensors into their Wildfire Digital Twin, enabling improved global data forecasts that will be useful for emergencies and science missions alike.
In October, Halem’s team participated in the first FireSense field campaign in collaboration with the National Forest Service’s Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE) to observe smoke as it traveled more than 10 miles during a controlled burn in Utah, using a ceilometer. Now the team is feeding that data into their modeling software to help it track plumes more accurately.
They’re especially interested in tracking particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers, which are small enough to pass through a person’s lungs and enter the bloodstream. These particles, also known as PM 2.5, can cause serious health issues even if a person is nowhere near an active burn.
“When these fires ignite and start to burn, they produce smoke, and this smoke travels considerable distances. It affects people not only locally, but also at distances of thousands of kilometers or more,” said Halem.
Data from the controlled burn will also help Halem and his team quantify the relationship between aerosols and precipitation. Increased aerosols from wildfires have a huge impact on cloud formation, which in turn impacts how precipitation occurs downstream of an affected fire burn.
Assimilating all this information as it streams from sensors in real time is essential for detailing the full impact of wildfires at local, regional, and global scales.
PROJECT LEADMilton Halem, University of Maryland at Baltimore County
SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONNASA’s FireSense Technology Program, a part of the agency’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), funds this project.
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