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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) The original Mercury astronauts at the McDonnell Aircraft Corp. in May 1959. The astronauts are left to right: M. Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Walter M. “Wally” Schirra, Alan B. Shepard Jr., and Donald K. “Deke” Slayton.NASA The Mercury 7

On April 9, 1959, reporters and news media crammed into the ballroom of the Dolley Madison House in Washington—the location of NASA Headquarters at that time—to learn the names of the first American astronauts who came to be known as the Mercury 7. Public Information Director Walter Bonney kicked off the announcement by pointing to the seven men sitting on stage. “These are our astronaut volunteers,” he announced. “Take your pictures as you will, gentlemen.” One of those men on the dais, Deke Slayton, a test pilot from Edwards Air Force Base, recalled the pandemonium he witnessed. “I’ve never seen anything like it, before or since.” He described the event as, “a frenzy of light bulbs and questions…it was some kind of roar.” His colleague, Wally Schirra, a test pilot from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, called the media’s interest scary because he soon came to realize that their, “private lives were in jeopardy.”

I've never seen anything like it, before or since.

Deke Slayton

Former NASA Astronaut

The first class of astronauts were all test pilots: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. The men, as the media reported, had similar backgrounds, education, and skills. Obvious connections also included their age and race: all were white men in their thirties. Every one of them was married, had children, and were Protestants. They even donned similar outfits that day: suits with white shirts and ties.

The seven Mercury astronauts pose around a boiler plate capsule. Counterclockwise from the top left they are Walter M. Schirra, John H. Glenn Jr., Donald K. Slayton, Virgil I. Grissom, Alan B. Shepard Jr., M. Scott Carpenter, and Gordon Cooper Jr.NASA

Throughout the sixties, NASA considered jet pilot experience an important skill for anyone in the astronaut corps. Even when NASA selected two groups of scientist-astronauts, one in 1965 and another in 1967, they too learned to fly high-speed aircraft. Those without military jet pilot experience attended a year-long course that the Air Force called Undergraduate Pilot Training, and once they completed the program, they became military-qualified jet pilots.

Watch the story of the selection and training of the Mercury astronauts on NASA+ Adding Diversity to the Astronaut Corps

In the summer of 1976, NASA announced the space agency would be accepting applications for the first class of Space Shuttle astronauts, and encouraged women and minorities to apply. Almost 20 years after that first astronaut announcement, NASA included six women and four minority astronaut candidates in the 1978 class. Of the 35 selected, 15 were named pilots and 20 were mission specialists (scientists who would perform experiments in space and spacewalks). All the pilot astronauts named had similar backgrounds to the Mercury 7. Like their predecessors, they were white male test pilots with backgrounds in aviation, engineering, and science with one unique distinction: Frederick D. Gregory, an African American research test pilot from the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia. It was not until 1990 that Eileen Collins, a graduate of U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, became NASA’s first female pilot astronaut. Unlike the earlier scientist-astronauts, the mission specialists selected in 1978 and later classes did not have the opportunity to become military qualified jet pilots. They were required, however, to fly a certain number of hours per month in the back seat of a T-38, a jet trainer the pilot astronauts use to maintain their flight proficiency.

The astronaut class of 1978 was NASA’s first new group of astronauts since 1969. This class was notable for many reasons, including having the first African-American and Asian-American astronauts, and the first women.NASA

Even as NASA encouraged women and minorities to apply to be astronauts over the years, and more met the basic qualifications as they earned advanced degrees in engineering, medicine, and science, neither group was ever a majority of those selected as candidates. It was more than fifty years before women made up half of those selected in 2013; people of color have never been a majority of any class. Recent astronaut classes are more likely to reflect America’s diverse population, including the last group to be selected in 2021. This group, called the “Flies,” included several minority candidates and four women. (The class, which graduated in March 2024, also included two international astronauts from the United Arab Emirates, and all are now eligible for a flight assignment.) Flight experience continues to remain important, however. Of the ten Americans selected, four were test pilots. Another, Major Nichole Ayers, was a combat aviator from the United States Air Force.

NASA’s 2021 astronaut class graduated on Mar. 5, 2024. The 10 candidates, pictured here in an event at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston are Nichole Ayers, Christopher Williams, Luke Delaney, Jessica Wittner, Anil Menon, Marcos Berríos, Jack Hathaway, Christina Birch, Deniz Burnham, and Andre Douglas. UAE Astronaut Candidates Nora AlMatrooshi and Mohammad AlMulla stand alongside them. NASA/Robert Markowitz The Artemis II Crew

Almost 64 years to the day after the Mercury 7 announcement, NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) revealed the names of the four astronauts assigned to the Artemis II mission. The flight will test and prove that the Orion spacecraft’s systems—including its life support, communication, and navigation systems—function as they were designed while a crew is aboard, ahead of future crewed missions to the Moon.

As NASA Administrator Bill Nelson introduced the crew, which included a woman, a person of color, and a Canadian national, he identified them as representatives of America’s creed: “E pluribus unum—out of many, one.” The four-member team included Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. (Half of this crew came from the 2013 astronaut class, which was equally weighted between men and women.) Artemis II will be the first crewed mission to circle the Moon since Apollo. NASA’s Artemis Generation represents a distinct shift from the sixties—when white men from the United States of America landed on the Moon—and hopes to inspire and engage the next generation by demonstrating that space is for everyone, no matter their race or gender. This crew exemplifies the global coalition NASA has built and its commitment to include international partners as well as commercial partners in this grand adventure.

NASA astronauts (left to right) Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen were assigned to fly on the Artemis II mission to the Moon.NASA

Like many who came before them, three of the four astronauts assigned to this historic mission are military-qualified jet pilots. Wiseman and Glover were both test pilots; Hansen flew as a fighter pilot for the Canadian Air Force. Test pilots regularly assess how new vehicles perform and have experience evaluating experimental aircraft. Astronauts with backgrounds as test pilots have traditionally been among those selected to fly new spacecraft for the first time. They have a strong understanding of the systems that they are monitoring, which helps them to identify and gather the type of data the space agency is seeking from this flight. The safety of future Artemis crews depends on this information.

While the Astronaut Office might look different from how it did in 1959, the decision to select test pilots for the first class of astronauts continues to influence and shape ideas about who is best suited to be an astronaut and fly in space. They are accustomed to working in a fast-paced environment and thrive under pressure. Bob Gilruth, the father of human spaceflight, called the decision to select test pilots to fly on Project Mercury in 1959, “one of the best decisions in the program. It made it quite simple and logical to delegate flight control and command functions to the pilot,” of the spacecraft. The importance of that decision continues to endure today.

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Details Last Updated Apr 05, 2024 Related Terms

• NASA History
• Artemis 2
• Astronauts
• Becoming an Astronaut
• Project Mercury

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The next total solar eclipse to hit the United States will be in 2033, but it will only be visible in Alaska. The Lower 48 won't get one until 2044.

Video: 00:00:07

A total solar eclipse swept across North America yesterday, blocking out the Sun momentarily with parts of the continent plunged into darkness. Geostationary satellites orbiting 36 000 km away captured images of the rare celestial event. 

These images, captured by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-16), captured the moon’s shadow moving across North America from approximately 16:00 to 23:00 CEST (15:00 to 22:00 BST.)

A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth and, for a short period, blocks the face of the Sun, save for a visible ring of light, known as the Sun’s corona. 

The track of the moon’s shadow across Earth’s surface, called the path of totality, spanned across the North American continent – from Mexico to the very eastern tip of Canada.

The GOES series is a collaborative development and acquisition effort between National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. The GOES-16 (GOES-East) satellite, the first of the series, provides continuous imagery and atmospheric measurements of Earth's western hemisphere and monitors space weather.

The Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission also captured images of the eclipse with its Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR).

The eclipse also acts as a laboratory for researching what happens to weather when the Moon’s shadow passes over. The shadow makes air temperatures drop and can cause clouds to evolve in different ways. Data from GOES, Sentinel-3 and other satellites are now being used to explore these effects.

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Life on Earth depends on six critical elements: Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorous, and Sulfur. These elements are referred to as CHNOPS, and along with several trace micronutrients and liquid water, they’re what life needs.

Scientists are getting a handle on detecting exoplanets that might be warm enough to have liquid water on their surfaces, habitability’s most basic signal. But now, they’re looking to up their game by finding CHNOPS in exoplanet atmospheres.

We’re only at the beginning of understanding how exoplanets could support life. To grow our understanding, we need to understand the availability of CHNOPS in planetary atmospheres.

A new paper examines the issue. It’s titled “Habitability constraints by nutrient availability in atmospheres of rocky exoplanets.” The lead author is Oliver Herbort from the Department of Astrophysics at the University of Vienna and an ARIEL post-doctoral fellow. The paper has been accepted by the International Journal of Astrobiology.

At our current technological level, we’re just beginning to examine exoplanet atmospheres. The JWST is our main tool for the task, and it’s good at it. But the JWST is busy with other tasks. In 2029, the ESA will launch ARIEL, the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large survey. ARIEL will be solely focused on exoplanet atmospheres.

An artist’s impression of the ESA’s Ariel space telescope. During its four-year mission, it’ll examine 1,000 exoplanet atmospheres with the transit method. It’ll study and characterize both the compositions and thermal structures. Image Credit: ESA

In anticipation of that telescope’s mission, Herbort and his co-researchers are preparing for the results and what they mean for habitability. “The detailed understanding of the planets itself becomes important for interpreting observations, especially for the detection of biosignatures,” they write. In particular, they’re scrutinizing the idea of aerial biospheres. “We aim to understand the presence of these nutrients within atmospheres that show the presence of water cloud condensates, potentially allowing the existence of aerial biospheres.”

Our sister planet Venus has an unsurvivable surface. The extreme heat and pressure make the planet’s surface uninhabitable by any measure we can determine. But some scientists have proposed that life could exist in Venus’ atmosphere, based largely on the detection of phosphine, a possible indicator of life. This is an example of what an aerial biosphere might look like.

This artistic impression depicts Venus. Astronomers at MIT, Cardiff University, and elsewhere may have observed signs of life in the atmosphere of Venus by detecting phosphine. Subsequent research disagreed with this finding, but the issue is ongoing. Image Credits: ESO (European Space Organization)/M. Kornmesser & NASA/JPL/Caltech

“This concept of aerial biospheres enlarges the possibilities of potential habitability from the presence of liquid water on the surface to all planets with liquid water clouds,” the authors explain.

The authors examined the idea of aerial biospheres and how the detection of CHNOPS plays into them. They introduced the concept of nutrient availability levels in exoplanet atmospheres. In their framework, the presence of water is required regardless of other nutrient availability. “We considered any atmosphere without water condensates as uninhabitable,” they write, a nod to water’s primacy. The researchers assigned different levels of habitability based on the presence and amounts of the CHNOPS nutrients.

This table from the research illustrates the authors’ concept of atmospheric nutrient availability. As the top row shows, without water, no atmosphere is habitable. Different combinations of nutrients have different habitability potential. ‘red’ stands for redox, and ‘ox’ stands for the presence of the oxidized state of CO2, NOx, and SO2. Image Credit: Herbort et al. 2024.

To explore their framework of nutrient availability, the researchers turned to simulations. The simulated atmospheres held different levels of nutrients, and the researchers applied their concept of nutrient availability. Their results aim to understand not habitability but the chemical potential for habitability. A planet’s atmosphere can be altered drastically by life, and this research aims to understand the atmospheric potential for life.

“Our approach does not directly aim for the understanding of biosignatures and atmospheres of planets, which are inhabited, but for the conditions in which pre-biotic chemistry can occur,” they write. In their work, the minimum atmospheric concentration for a nutrient to be available is 10?9, or one ppb (part per billion.)

“We find that for most atmospheres at ( p gas, T gas) points, where liquid water is stable, CNS-bearing molecules are present at concentrations above 10?9,” they write. They also found that carbon is generally present in every simulated atmosphere and that sulphur availability increases with surface temperature. With lower surface temperatures, nitrogen (N2, NH3) is present in increasing amounts. But with higher surface temperatures, nitrogen can become depleted.

Phosphorus is a different matter. “The limiting element of the CHNOPS elements is phosphorus, which is mostly bound in the planetary crust,” they write. The authors point out that, at past times in Earth’s atmosphere, phosphorus scarcity limited the biosphere.

An aerial biosphere is an interesting idea. But it’s not the main thrust of scientists’ efforts to detect exoplanet atmospheres. Surface life is their holy grail. It should be no surprise that it still comes down to liquid water, all things considered. “Similar to previous work, our models suggest that the limiting factor for habitability at the surface of a planet is the presence of liquid water,” the authors write. In their work, when surface water was available, CNS was available in the lower atmosphere near the surface.

But surface water plays several roles in atmospheric chemistry. It can bond with some nutrients in some circumstances, making them unavailable, and in other circumstances, it can make them available.

“If water is available at the surface, the elements not present in the gas phase are stored in the crust condensates,” the authors write. Chemical weathering can then make them available as nutrients. “This provides a pathway to overcome the lack of atmospheric phosphorus and metals, which are used in enzymes that drive many biological processes.”

Artist’s impression of the surface of a hycean world. Hycean worlds are still hypothetical, with large oceans and thick hydrogen-rich atmospheres that trap heat. It’s unclear if a world with no surface can support life. Image Credit: University of Cambridge

This complicates matters on worlds covered by oceans. Pre-biotic molecules might not be available if there’s no opportunity for water and rock to interact with the atmosphere. “If indeed it can be shown that life can form in a water ocean without any exposed land, this constraint becomes weaker, and the potential for the surface habitability becomes mainly a question of water stability,” the authors write.

Some of the models are surprising because of atmospheric liquid water. “Many of the models show the presence of a liquid water zone in the atmospheres, which is detached from the surface. These regions could be of interest for the formation of life in forms of aerial biospheres,” Herbort and his colleagues write.

If there’s one thing that research like this shows, planetary atmospheres are extraordinarily complex and can change dramatically over time, sometimes because of life itself. This research makes some sense in trying to understand it all. Emphasizing the complexity is the fact that the researchers didn’t include stellar radiation in their work. Including that would’ve made the effort unwieldy.

The habitability issue is complicated, confounded by our lack of answers to foundational questions. Does a planet’s crust have to be in contact with water and the atmosphere for the CHNOPS nutrients to be available? Earth has a temporary aerial biosphere. Can aerial biospheres be an important part of exoplanet habitability?

But beyond all the simulations and models, as powerful as they are, what scientists need most is more data. When ARIEL launches, scientists will have much more data to work with. Research like this will help scientists understand what ARIEL finds.

The post Measuring the Atmospheres of Other Worlds to See if There are Enough Nutrients for Life appeared first on Universe Today.

During the total solar eclipse, skywatchers saw ruby-colored prominences sticking out of the moon's shadow. Here's the science of those red dots

The total solar eclipse of 2024 thrilled millions of people who turned up to watch the celestial event unfold across North America.

The next great eclipse is upon us, with viewers across North America witnessing the moon passing in front of the Sun. It’s an amazing experience, but also an opportunity to do science. Let’s talk about what we can learn from this momentous event.

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Scientific American staffers headed to locations ranging from Texas to Vermont to try to catch a glimpse of the total solar eclipse