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11 million years ago, Mars was a frigid, dry, dead world, just like it is now. Something slammed into the unfortunate planet, sending debris into space. A piece of that debris made it to Earth, found its way into a drawer at Purdue University, and then was subsequently forgotten about.

Until 1931, when scientists studied and realized it came directly from Mars. What has it told them about the red planet?

11 million years ago, the Himalayas were rising on a warmer, more humid Earth. Early ape species made their home in an Africa covered by tropical forests. Diverse mammal species roamed the continents.

At the same time, on Mars, the frigid wind blew across a desiccated, forlorn world. The planet’s thin atmosphere is a weak barrier to meteorites, and the planet’s cratered surface bears witness to its nakedness. Some impacts were powerful enough to launch debris into space beyond the planet’s gravitational pull. The meteorite in the drawer is one such piece of debris.

“Many meteoroids are produced by impacts on Mars and other planetary bodies, but only a handful will eventually fall to Earth.”

Marissa Tremblay, Purdue University

The meteorite was long forgotten in its storage place until 1931. Scientists identified it as a piece of Mars, and now new research is uncovering clues about Mars’ past hidden in the 800-gram piece of rock.

This image shows a page from an article published in Popular Astronomy in 1935. Image Credit: Popular Astronomy.

11 million years ago is not a long time in geological and planetary terms, and the number fits neatly into most people’s imaginations. But rock has deep temporal roots, and the meteorite that reached Earth is an igneous rock that dates back 1.4 billion years. That much time is more difficult to understand, but science is at its best when it opens human minds to a more fulsome understanding of nature.

The meteorite, named “Lafayette” after the city in Indiana that’s home to Purdue University, is the subject of new research published in Geochemical Perspectives Letters. It’s titled “Dating recent aqueous activity on Mars,” and the lead author is Marissa Tremblay. Tremblay is an assistant professor with the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at Purdue University.

There’s ample evidence that some minerals on Mars formed in the presence of water. Though Lafayette itself is an igneous rock 1.4 billion years old, some of the minerals it contains are younger.

“Dating these minerals can therefore tell us when there was liquid water at or near the surface of Mars in the planet’s geologic past,” Tremblay said. “We dated these minerals in the Martian meteorite Lafayette and found that they formed 742 million years ago. We do not think there was abundant liquid water on the surface of Mars at this time. Instead, we think the water came from the melting of nearby subsurface ice called permafrost, and that the permafrost melting was caused by magmatic activity that still occurs periodically on Mars to the present day.”

Lafayette is one of the Nakhlite meteorites, an igneous rock that formed from basaltic lava around 1.4 billion years ago. Scientists think these rocks formed in one of Mars’ large volcanic regions: Elysium, Syrtis Major Planum, or the largest one, Tharsis, which is home to the three shield volcanoes, Tharsis Montes.

A colourized image of the surface of Mars taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The line of three volcanoes is the Tharsis Montes, with Olympus Mons to the northwest. Valles Marineris is to the east. The researchers think that the Lafayette meteorite came from the Tharsis volcanic region, or one of Mars’ other, smaller volcanic regions. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Arizona State University

Ancient rocks and their embedded minerals contain information about Mars’ ancient past. The history of Mars’ hydrological cycle is a key objective in our ongoing study of Mars. This research is focused on a particular mineral in Lafayette called iddingsite. It forms when basalt is weathered in the presence of water.

The difficulty with meteorites and the clues they contain about ancient Mars is that they’ve been exposed to and potentially altered by the heat of the initial impact and the heat of entry into Earth’s atmosphere. The chemical signals inherent in rock can become muddied. But Lafayette is different. It’s clear that it was blasted off of Mars 11 million years ago.

“We know this because once it was ejected from Mars, the meteorite experienced bombardment by cosmic ray particles in outer space that caused certain isotopes to be produced in Lafayette,” Tremblay says. “Many meteoroids are produced by impacts on Mars and other planetary bodies, but only a handful will eventually fall to Earth.”

“The age could have been affected by the impact that ejected the Lafayette Meteorite from Mars, the heating Lafayette experienced during the 11 million years it was floating out in space, or the heating Lafayette experienced when it fell to Earth and burned up a little bit in Earth’s atmosphere,” Tremblay said. “But we were able to demonstrate that none of these things affected the age of aqueous alteration in Lafayette.”

Study co-author Ryan Ickert is a senior research scientist in Purdue’s EAPS. Ickert uses heavy radioactive and stable isotopes to study geological processes over time. He showed how isotope data used to date water-rock interactions on Mars were problematic and that the data had likely been polluted by other processes. According to Ickert, he and his colleagues got it right this time.

“This meteorite uniquely has evidence that it has reacted with water. The exact date of this was controversial, and our publication dates when water was present,” he says.

This figure from the research shows a cross-section of the Lafayette meteorite. Ol is an olivine grain surrounded by augite crystals (Px). Iddingsite (Id) is present in veins that travel through the rock. Though Lafayette formed over 1.3 billion years ago, the Iddingsite veins formed later, about 742 million years ago, when water seeped through the cracks. Image Credit: Tremblay et al. 2024.

The researchers used a novel technique involving the isotopes Argon 40 and Argon 39 to date Lafayette’s exposure to water and its formation of Iddingsite. That showed them that the exposure occurred 742 million years ago. Their explanation is that magmatic activity melted subsurface ice, and the water subsequently found its way into cracks in the igneous rock, altering some of the olivine into Iddingsite.

All this from a meteorite that was lost in a drawer.

The Solar System is a puzzle. It’s an artifact of Nature’s ordered complexity, but at the same time, it’s shaped by Nature’s steadfast chaos. Each molecule, each tiny piece of rock, including the Lafayette meteorite, is a part of it. Each piece holds a clue to the puzzle.

“We can identify meteorites by studying what minerals are present in them and the relationships between these minerals inside the meteorite,” said Tremblay. “Meteorites are often denser than Earth rocks, contain metal, and are magnetic. We can also look for things like a fusion crust that forms during entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Finally, we can use the chemistry of meteorites (specifically their oxygen isotope composition) to fingerprint which planetary body they came from or which type of meteorite it belongs to.”

Dating these rocks, these pieces of the puzzle, is difficult. However, this research has made progress by developing a novel way to date minerals in the Lafayette meteorite.

“We have demonstrated a robust way to date alteration minerals in meteorites that can be applied to other meteorites and planetary bodies to understand when liquid water might have been present,” Tremblay concluded.

The post What a Misplaced Meteorite Told Us About Mars appeared first on Universe Today.

Media are invited to learn about a unique series of flight tests happening in Virginia in partnership between NASA and GE Aerospace that aim to help the aviation industry better understand contrails and their impact on the Earth’s climate. Contrails are the lines of clouds that can be created by high-flying aircraft, but they may have an unseen effect on the planet – trapping heat in the atmosphere.

The media event will occur from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 25 at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. NASA Langley’s G-III aircraft and mobile laboratory, as well as GE Aerospace’s 747 Flying Test Bed (FTB) will be on site. NASA project researchers and GE Aerospace’s flight crew will be available to discuss the Contrail Optical Depth Experiment (CODEX), new test methods and technologies used, and the real-world impacts of understanding and managing contrails. Media interested in attending must contact Brittny McGraw at brittny.v.mcgraw@nasa.gov no later than 12 p.m. EST, Friday, Nov. 22.

Flights for CODEX are being conducted this week. NASA Langley’s G-III will follow GE Aerospace’s FTB in the sky and scan the aircraft wake with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology. This will advance the use of LiDAR by NASA to generate three-dimensional imaging of contrails to better characterize how contrails form and how they behave over time.

For more information about NASA’s work in green aviation tech, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics/green-aero-tech

-end-

David Meade 

Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia 

757-751-2034  davidlee.t.meade@nasa.gov

A flying robot uses its bird-like tail to maintain stability in flight – a technique that could enable more aerodynamic aircraft designs that use less fuel

A flying robot uses its bird-like tail to maintain stability in flight – a technique that could enable more aerodynamic aircraft designs that use less fuel

"The Wizard of Oz" and space exploration are two topics that by all rights should have nothing in common. But as it turns out, if you follow the Yellow Brick Road long enough you reach the moon.

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The guitar shape in the “Guitar Nebula” comes from bubbles blown by particles ejected from the pulsar through a steady wind as it moves through space. A movie of Chandra (red) data taken in 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2021 has been combined with a single image in optical light from Palomar. X-rays from Chandra show a filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles, about two light-years long, blasting away from the pulsar (seen as the bright white dot). The movie shows how this filament has changed over two decades. X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./M. de Vries et al.; Optical full field: Palomar Obs./Caltech & inset: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare)

Normally found only in heavy metal bands or certain post-apocalyptic films, a “flame-throwing guitar” has now been spotted moving through space. Astronomers have captured movies of this extreme cosmic object using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope.

The new movie of Chandra (red) and Palomar (blue) data helps break down what is playing out in the Guitar Nebula. X-rays from Chandra show a filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles, about two light-years or 12 trillion miles long, blasting away from the pulsar (seen as the bright white dot connected to the filament).

Astronomers have nicknamed the structure connected to the pulsar PSR B2224+65 as the “Guitar Nebula” because of its distinct resemblance to the instrument in glowing hydrogen light. The guitar shape comes from bubbles blown by particles ejected from the pulsar through a steady wind. Because the pulsar is moving from the lower right to the upper left, most of the bubbles were created in the past as the pulsar moved through a medium with variations in density.

X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./M. de Vries et al.; Optical: (Hubble) NASA/ESA/STScI and (Palomar) Hale Telescope/Palomar/CalTech; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

At the tip of the guitar is the pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star left behind after the collapse of a massive star. As it hurtles through space it is pumping out a flame-like filament of particles and X-ray light that astronomers have captured with Chandra.

How does space produce something so bizarre? The combination of two extremes — fast rotation and high magnetic fields of pulsars — leads to particle acceleration and high-energy radiation that creates matter and antimatter particles, as electron and positron pairs. In this situation, the usual process of converting mass into energy, famously determined by Albert Einstein’s E = mc2 equation, is reversed. Here, energy is being converted into mass to produce the particles.

Particles spiraling along magnetic field lines around the pulsar create the X-rays that Chandra detects. As the pulsar and its surrounding nebula of energetic particles have flown through space, they have collided with denser regions of gas. This allows the most energetic particles to escape the confines of the Guitar Nebula and fly to the right of the pulsar, creating the filament of X-rays. When those particles escape, they spiral around and flow along magnetic field lines in the interstellar medium, that is, the space in between stars.

The new movie shows the pulsar and the filament flying towards the upper left of the image through Chandra data taken in 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2021. The movie has the same optical image in each frame, so it does not show changes in parts of the “guitar.” A separate movie obtained with data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (obtained in 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2021) shows the motion of the pulsar and the smaller structures around it.

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Hubble Space Telescope data: 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2021.X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./M. de Vries et al.; Optical full field: Palomar Obs./Caltech & inset: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare)

A study of this data has concluded that the variations that drive the formation of bubbles in the hydrogen nebula, which forms the outline of the guitar, also control changes in how many particles escape to the right of the pulsar, causing subtle brightening and fading of the X-ray filament, like a cosmic blow torch shooting from the tip of the guitar.

The structure of the filament teaches astronomers about how electrons and positrons travel through the interstellar medium. It also provides an example of how this process is injecting electrons and positrons into the interstellar medium.

A paper describing these results was published in The Astrophysical Journal and is available here.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:

https://www.nasa.gov/chandra

https://chandra.si.edu

Visual Description:

This release features two short videos and a labeled composite image, all featuring what can be described as a giant flame-throwing guitar floating in space.

In both the six second multiwavelength Guitar Nebula timelapse video and the composite image, the guitar shape appears at our lower left, with the neck of the instrument pointing toward our upper left. The guitar shape is ghostly and translucent, resembling a wispy cloud on a dark night. At the end of the neck, the guitar’s headstock comes to a sharp point that lands on a bright white dot. This dot is a pulsar, and the guitar shape is a hydrogen nebula. The nebula was formed when particles being ejected by the pulsar produced a cloud of bubbles. The bubbles were then blown into a curvy guitar shape by a steady wind. The guitar shape is undeniable, and is traced by a thin white line in the labeled composite image.

The pulsar, known as PSR B2224+65, has also released a long filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles approximately 12 trillion miles long. In both the composite image and the six second video, this energetic, X-ray blast shoots from the bright white dot at the tip of the guitar’s headstock, all the way out to our upper righthand corner. In the still image, the blast resembles a streak of red dots, most of which fall in a straight, densely packed line. The six second video features four separate images of the phenomenon, created with Chandra data gathered in 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2021. When shown in sequence, the density of the X-ray blast filament appears to fluctuate.

A 12 second video is also included in this release. It features four images that focus on the headstock of the guitar shape. These images were captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2021. When played in sequence, the images show the headstock shape expanding. A study of this data has concluded that the variations that drive the formation of bubbles in the hydrogen nebula also control changes in the pulsar’s blast filament. Meaning the same phenomenon that created the cosmic guitar also created the cosmic blowtorch shooting from the headstock.

Artist’s concept of a young, newly discovered planet, exposed to observation by a warped debris disk. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC)

  The Discovery

A huge planet with a long name – IRAS 04125+2902 b – is really just a baby: only 3 million years old. And because such infant worlds are usually hidden inside obscuring disks of debris, it is the youngest planet so far discovered using the dominant method of planet detection.

Key Facts

The massive planet, likely still glowing from the heat of its formation, lies in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, an active stellar nursery with hundreds of newborn stars some 430 light-years away. The cloud’s relative closeness makes it a prime target for astronomers. But while the cloud offers deep insight into the formation and evolution of young stars, their planets are usually a closed book to telescopes like TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. These telescopes rely on the “transit method,” watching for the slight dip in starlight when a planet crosses the face of its host star. But such planetary systems must be edge-on, from Earth’s vantage point, for the transit method to work. Very young star systems are surrounded by disks of debris, however, blocking our view of any potentially transiting planets.

A research team has just reported an extraordinary stroke of luck. Somehow, the outer debris disk surrounding this newborn planet, IRAS 04125+2902 b, has been sharply warped, exposing the baby world to extensive transit observations by TESS.

Details

While the warped outer disk is a great coincidence, it’s also a great mystery. Possible explanations include a migration of the planet itself, moving closer to the star and, in the process, diverging from the orientation of the outer disk – so that, from Earth, the planet’s orbit is edge-on, crossing the face of the star, but the outer disk remains nearly face-on to us. One problem with this idea: Moving a planet so far out of alignment with its parent disk would likely require another (very large) object in this system. None has been detected so far.

The system’s sun happens to have a distant stellar companion, also a possible culprit in the warping of the outer disk. The angle of the orbit of the companion star, however, matches that of the planet and its parent star. Stars and planets tend to take the gravitational path of least resistance, so such an arrangement should push the disk into a closer alignment with the rest of the system – not into a radical departure.

Another way to get a “broken” outer disk, the study authors say, would not involve a companion star at all. Stellar nurseries like the Taurus Molecular Cloud can be densely packed, busy places. Computer simulations show that rains of infalling material from the surrounding star-forming region could be the cause of disk-warping. Neither simulations nor observations have so far settled the question of whether warped or broken disks are common or rare in such regions.

Fun Facts

Combining TESS’s transit measurements with another way of observing planets yields more information about the planet itself. We might call this second approach the “wobble” method. The gravity of a planet tugs its star one way, then another, as the orbiting planet makes its way around the star. And that wobble can be detected by changes in the light from the star, picked up by specialized instruments on Earth. Such “radial velocity” measurements of this planet reveal that its mass, or heft, amounts to no more than about a third of our own Jupiter. But the transit data shows the planet’s diameter is about the same. That means the planet has a comparatively low density and, likely, an inflated atmosphere. So this world probably is not a gas giant like Jupiter. Instead, it could well be a planet whose atmosphere will shrink over time. When it finally settles down, it could become a gaseous “mini-Neptune” or even a rocky “super-Earth.” These are the two most common planet types in our galaxy – despite the fact that neither type can be found in our solar system.

The Discoverers

A science team led by astronomer Madyson G. Barber of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill published the study, “A giant planet transiting a 3 Myr protostar with a misaligned disk,” in the journal Nature in November 2024.

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Details Last Updated Nov 20, 2024 Related Terms

• Exoplanet Detection Methods
• Exoplanet Discoveries
• Exoplanet Transits
• Exoplanets
• Neptune-Like Exoplanets
• Radial Velocity
• Super-Earth Exoplanets
• TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite)

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A recent scandal over food hygiene ratings shows how deception destroys trust within society. We need to fight back, says Jonathan R. Goodman

How to Feed the World, Vaclav Smil's "big numbers" book about future food supply, fails to address the impact of climate change

A recent scandal over food hygiene ratings shows how deception destroys trust within society. We need to fight back, says Jonathan R. Goodman

How to Feed the World, Vaclav Smil's "big numbers" book about future food supply, fails to address the impact of climate change

Pluto and other large bodies in the Kuiper Belt are surprisingly rich in rock rather than ice. It may be because the early solar system consisted of much more carbon than previously thought, a new study suggests.

Could Mars have once hosted life? NASA's Perseverance rover has uncovered a tantalizing clue, but scientists remain divided on what it truly means for the search for extraterrestrial life.

llustration of BioSentinel’s spacecraft flying past the Moon.NASA/Daniel Rutter

Editor’s Note: This article was updated Nov. 20, 2024 shortly after BioSentinel’s mission marked two years of operation in deep space.

Astronauts live in a pretty extreme environment aboard the International Space Station. Orbiting about 250 miles above the Earth in the weightlessness of microgravity, they rely on commercial cargo missions about every two months to deliver new supplies and experiments. And yet, this place is relatively protected in terms of space radiation. The Earth’s magnetic field shields space station crew from much of the radiation that can damage the DNA in our cells and lead to serious health problems. When future astronauts set off on long journeys deeper into space, they will be venturing into more perilous radiation environments and will need substantial protection. With the help of a biology experiment within a small satellite called BioSentinel, scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center, in California’s Silicon Valley, are taking an early step toward finding solutions.

To learn the basics of what happens to life in space, researchers often use “model organisms” that we understand relatively well. This helps show the differences between what happens in space and on Earth more clearly. For BioSentinel, NASA is using yeast – the very same yeast that makes bread rise and beer brew. In both our cells and yeast cells, the type of high-energy radiation encountered in deep space can cause breaks in the two entwined strands of DNA that carry genetic information. Often, DNA damage can be repaired by cells in a process that is very similar between yeast and humans.                             

Conceptual graphic of a radiation particle causing a double-stranded DNA break.

BioSentinel set out to be the first long-duration biology experiment to take place beyond where the space station orbits near Earth. BioSentinel’s spacecraft is one of 10 CubeSats that launched aboard Artemis I, the first flight of the Artemis program’s Space Launch System, NASA’s powerful new rocket. The cereal box-sized satellite traveled to deep space on the rocket then flew past the Moon in a direction to orbit the Sun.  Once the satellite was in position beyond our planet’s protective magnetic field, the BioSentinel team triggered a series of experiments remotely, activating two strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to grow in the presence of space radiation. Samples of yeast were activated at different time points throughout the six- to twelve-month mission.

One strain is the yeast commonly found in nature, while the other was selected because it has trouble repairing its DNA. By comparing how the two strains respond to the deep space radiation environment, researchers will learn more about the health risks posed to humans during long-term exploration and be able to develop informed strategies for reducing potential damage.

During the initial phase of the mission, which began in December 2022 and completed in April 2023, the BioSentinel team successfully operated BioSentinel’s BioSensor hardware –a miniature biotechnology laboratory designed to measure how living yeast cells respond to long-term exposure to space radiation – in deep space. The team completed four experiments lasting two-weeks each but did not observe any yeast cell growth. They determined that deep space radiation was not the cause of the inactive yeast cells, but that their lack of growth was likely due to the yeast expiring after extended storage time of the spacecraft ahead of launch. 

Although the yeast did not activate as intended to gather observations on the impact of radiation on living yeast cells, BioSentinel’s onboard radiation detector – that measures the type and dose of radiation hitting the spacecraft – continues to collect data in deep space.

NASA extended BioSentinel’s mission in 2023 by up to an additional 18 months, or as late as November 2024, and again in 2024 by up to an additional 10 months, or as late as September 2025, to continue collecting valuable deep space radiation data in the unique, high-radiation environment beyond low Earth orbit.

Solar activity is expected to increase as we head into a solar maximum period in the Sun’s 11-year cycle. Activity on the Sun,  involving solar flares and giant eruptions called coronal mass ejections are predicted to peak in 2025. These events send powerful bursts of energy, magnetic fields and plasma into space which causes the aurora, interferes with satellite signals.  Solar radiation events from particles accelerated to high speeds can also pose a threat to astronauts in space.

Built on a history of small-satellite biology

The BioSentinel project builds on Ames’ history of carrying out biology studies in space using CubeSats – small satellites built from individual units each about four inches cubed. BioSentinel is a six-unit spacecraft weighing about 30 pounds. It houses the yeast cells in tiny compartments inside microfluidic cards – custom hardware that allows for the controlled flow of extremely small volumes of liquids that will activate and sustain the yeast. Data about radiation levels and the yeast’s growth and metabolism will be collected and stored aboard the spacecraft and then transmitted to the science team back on Earth.

A reserve set of microfluidic cards containing yeast samples will be activated if the satellite encounters a solar particle event, a radiation storm coming from the Sun that is a particularly severe health risk for future deep space explorers. 

BioSentinel’s microfluidics card, designed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, will be used to study the impact of interplanetary space radiation on yeast. Once in orbit, the growth and metabolic activity of the yeast will be measured using a three-color LED detection system and a dye that provides a readout of yeast cell activity. Here, pink wells contain actively growing yeast cells that have turned the dye from blue to pink color.NASA/Dominic Hart Multiple BioSentinels will compare various gravity and radiation environments

In addition to the pioneering BioSentinel mission that will traverse the deep space environment, identical experiments take place under different radiation and gravity conditions. One ran on the space station, in microgravity that is similar to deep space, but with comparatively less radiation. Other experiments took place on the ground, for comparison with Earth’s gravity and radiation levels. These additional versions show scientists how to compare Earth and space station-based science experiments – which can be conducted much more readily – to the fierce radiation that future astronauts will encounter in space.

Taken together, the BioSentinel data will be critical for interpreting the effects of space radiation exposure, reducing the risks associated with long-term human exploration, and confirming existing models of the effects of space radiation on living organisms. 

Milestones

• December 2021: The BioSentinel ISS Control experiment launched to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s 24th commercial resupply services mission.
• January 2022: The BioSentinel ISS Control experiment began science operations aboard the International Space Station.
• February 2022: The BioSentinel ISS Control experiment began ground control science operations at NASA Ames.
• June 2022: The BioSentinel ISS Control experiment completed science operations. The hardware was returned to Earth in August aboard SpaceX’s CRS-25 Dragon.
• October 2022: The BioSentinel ISS Control experiment completed ground control science operations at NASA Ames. 
• Nov. 16, 2022: BioSentinel launched to deep space aboard Artemis I.
• Dec. 5, 2022: BioSentinel began science operations in deep space.
• Dec. 19, 2022: BioSentinel began ground control science operations at NASA Ames.
• Nov. 16, 2024: BioSentinel marks two years of continuous radiation observations in deep space, now more than 30 million miles from Earth.

Partners:

• NASA Ames leads the science, hardware design and development of the BioSentinel mission.
• Partner organizations include NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. 
• BioSentinel is funded by the Mars Campaign Development (MCO) Division within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington.
• BioSentinel’s extended mission is supported by the Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington, the MCO, and the NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging Program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Learn more:

• NASA story: NASA’s BioSentinel Studies Solar Radiation as Earth Watches Aurora (Sept. 2024)
• NASA story: NASA Extends BioSentinel’s Mission to Measure Deep Space Radiation, Aug. 2023
• NASA story: First Deep Space Biology Experiment Begins, Follow Along in Real-Time, Dec. 2022
• NASA story: BioSentinel Underway After Successful Lunar Flyby, Nov. 2022
• NASA story: Artemis I to Launch First-of-a-Kind Deep Space Biology Mission, Aug. 2022
• NASA video: Why NASA is Sending Yeast to Deep Space, Feb. 2022
• NASA podcast: “Houston We Have a Podcast,” Deep Space Biology, Jan. 2022
• NASA blog: All Artemis I Secondary Payloads Installed in Rocket’s Orion Stage Adapter, Oct. 2021
• NASA blog; NASA Prepares Three More CubeSat Payloads for Artemis I Mission. Jul. 2021
• NASA story: NASA’s BioSentinel Team Prepares CubeSat For Deep Space Flight, Apr. 2021
• NASA in Silicon Valley podcast episode: Sharmila Bhattacharya on Studying How Biology Changes in Space, Mar. 2018
• NASA story: For Holiday Celebrations and Space Radiation, Yeast is the Key, Dec. 2018

For researchers: 

• NASA Space Station Research Explorer: BioSentinel ISS Control Experiment
• NASA technical webpage: BioSentinel

For news media:

• Members of the news media interested in covering this topic should reach out to the NASA Ames newsroom. 

The sixth test flight of SpaceX’s giant rocket ended with a fiery splashdown rather than a clean “chopstick” catch

By 2050, 70 per cent of the world's population will live in urban centres - that's just one reason why mayors will be essential to addressing the climate crisis, making vital adaptations to cities to make them more bearable in a warming world

By 2050, 70 per cent of the world's population will live in urban centres - that's just one reason why mayors will be essential to addressing the climate crisis, making vital adaptations to cities to make them more bearable in a warming world

5 min read

5 Surprising NASA Heliophysics Discoveries Not Related to the Sun

With NASA’s fleet of heliophysics spacecraft, scientists monitor our Sun and investigate its influences throughout the solar system. However, the fleet’s constant watch and often-unique perspectives sometimes create opportunities to make discoveries that no one expected, helping us to solve mysteries about of the solar system and beyond.

Here are five examples of breakthroughs made by NASA heliophysics missions in other fields of science.

This graphic shows missions in NASA’s Heliophysics Division fleet as of July 2024. NASA Thousands and Thousands of Comets

The SOHO mission — short for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, which is a joint mission between ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA — has a coronagraph that blocks out the Sun in order to see the Sun’s faint outer atmosphere, or corona. 

It turns out SOHO’s coronagraph also makes it easy to spot sungrazing comets, those that pass so close to the Sun that other observatories can’t see them against the brightness of our star.

Before SOHO was launched in December 1995, fewer than 20 sungrazing comets were known. Since then, SOHO has discovered more than 5,000. 

The vast number of comets discovered using SOHO has allowed scientists to learn more about sungrazing comets and identify comet families, descended from ancestor comets that broke up long ago.

Learn More Two sungrazing comets fly close to the Sun in these images captured by ESA/NASA’s SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory). They were the 3,999th and 4,000th comets discovered in SOHO images.ESA/NASA/SOHO/Karl Battams Dimming of a Supergiant

In late 2019, the supergiant star Betelgeuse began dimming unexpectedly. Telescopes all over the world — ​​​​and around it — tracked these changes until a few months later when Betelgeuse appeared too close to the Sun to observe. That’s when NASA’s STEREO (Sun-watching Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) came to the rescue. 

For several weeks in the middle of 2020, STEREO was the only observatory able to see Betelgeuse. At the time, the STEREO-A spacecraft was trailing behind Earth, at a vantage point where Betelgeuse was still far enough away from the Sun to be seen. This allowed astronomers to keep tabs on the star while it was out of view from Earth.  

STEREO’s observations revealed another unexpected dimming between June and August of 2020, when ground-based telescopes couldn’t view the star.

Astronomers later concluded that these dimming episodes were caused by an ejection of mass from Betelgeuse — like a coronal mass ejection from our Sun but with about 400 times more mass — which obscured part of the star’s bright surface.

Learn More The background image shows the star Betelgeuse as seen by the Heliospheric Imager aboard NASA’s STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft. The inset figure shows measurements of Betelgeuse’s brightness taken by different observatories from late 2018 to late 2020. STEREO’s observations, marked in red, revealed an unexpected dimming in mid-2020 when Betelgeuse appeared too close to the Sun for other observatories to view it.NASA/STEREO/HI (background); Dupree et al. (inset) The Glowing Surface of Venus

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe studies the Sun’s corona up close — by flying through it. To dive into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the spacecraft has flown past Venus several times, using the planet’s gravity to fling itself closer and closer to the Sun.

On July 11, 2020, during Parker’s third Venus flyby, scientists used Parker’s wide-field imager, called WISPR, to try to measure the speed of the clouds that obscure Venus’ surface. Surprisingly, WISPR not only observed the clouds, it also saw through them to the surface below.

The images from that flyby and the next (in 2021) revealed a faint glow from Venus’ hot surface in near-infrared light and long wavelengths of red (visible) light that maps distinctive features like mountainous regions, plains, and plateaus.

Scientists aimed WISPR at Venus again on Nov. 6, 2024, during Parker’s seventh flyby, observing a different part of the planet than previous flybys. With these images, they’re hoping to learn more about Venus’ surface geology, mineralogy, and evolution.

Learn More As Parker Solar Probe flew by Venus on its fourth flyby, it captured these images, strung into a video, showing bright and dark features on the nightside surface of the planet.NASA/APL/NRL The Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst

You’ve heard of the GOAT. But have you heard of the BOAT?

It stands for the “brightest of all time”, a gamma-ray burst discovered on Oct. 9, 2022.  

A gamma-ray burst is a brief but intense eruption of gamma rays in space, lasting from seconds to hours.

This one, named GRB 221009A, glowed brilliantly for about 10 minutes in the constellation Sagitta before slowly fading.

The burst was detected by dozens of spacecraft, including NASA’s Wind, which studies the perpetual flow of particles from the Sun, called the solar wind, just before it reaches Earth.

Wind and NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope measured the brightness of GRB 221009A, showing that it was 70 times brighter than any other gamma-ray burst ever recorded by humans — solidifying its status as the BOAT.

Learn More Astronomers think GRB 221009A represents the birth of a new black hole formed within the heart of a collapsing star. In this artist’s concept, the black hole drives powerful jets of particles traveling near the speed of light. The jets emit X-rays and gamma rays as they stream into space.NASA/Swift/Cruz deWilde A Volcano Blasts Its Way to Space

NASA’s ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) launched in 2019 to study how Earth’s weather interacts with weather from space. When the underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, 2022, ICON helped show that the volcano produced more than ash and tsunami waves — its effects reached the edge of space.

In the hours after the eruption, ICON detected hurricane-speed winds in the ionosphere — Earth’s electrified upper atmospheric layer at the edge of space. ICON clocked the wind speeds at up to 450 miles per hour, making them the strongest winds the mission had ever measured below 120 miles altitude.

The ESA Swarm mission revealed that these extreme winds altered an electric current in the ionosphere called the equatorial electrojet. After the eruption, the equatorial electrojet surged to five times its normal peak power and dramatically flipped direction.

Scientists were surprised that a volcano could affect the electrojet so severely — something they’d only seen during a strong geomagnetic storm caused by an eruption from the Sun.

Learn More The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption on Jan. 15, 2022, caused many effects, some illustrated here, that were felt around the world and even into space. Some of those effects, like extreme winds and unusual electric currents were picked up by NASA’s ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) mission and ESA’s (the European Space Agency) Swarm. Illustration is not to scale. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith

By Vanessa Thomas
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Details Last Updated Nov 20, 2024 Related Terms

• Comets
• Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope
• Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• Heliophysics
• Heliophysics Division
• ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer)
• Parker Solar Probe (PSP)
• SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory)
• Stars
• STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory)
• The Sun
• The Sun & Solar Physics
• Uncategorized
• Venus
• Volcanoes
• Wind Mission

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