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NASA's Mars sample return mission is in trouble. Could a single SLS megarocket be the answer?
What does EarthCARE mean to me?
A new satellite called EarthCARE launching later this month will provide unprecedented data on clouds and aerosols, contributing to our understanding of climate change. As we approach its launch, join us as we delve into the minds of some of the individuals who have contributed to EarthCARE over the years.
The mission will shed new light on the role that clouds and aerosols play in regulating Earth’s temperature.
This video features interviews with: Dave Donovan, Senior Scientist at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, Robin Hogan, Senior Scientist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Ulla Wandinger, Senior Scientist at Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, Alain Lefebvre, Retired Project Manager of EarthCARE at ESA, Hajime Okamoto, Director, Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, Bjoern Frommknecht, EarthCARE Mission Manager at ESA, Edward Baudrez, Scientific Assistant at the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, Thorsten Fehr, EarthCARE Mission Scientist at ESA, Pavlos Kollias from Stony Brook University – McGill University and Dirk Bernaerts, EarthCARE Project Manager at ESA.
Follow the EarthCARE launch campaign blog for more updates.
Aviary: A New NASA Software Platform for Aircraft Modelling
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Christopher Bennett, left, and Jason Kirk are seen in an Aeronautics Systems Analysis Branch laboratory at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, discussing computer code that is part of Aviary, a new digital modeling tool that helps engineers innovate new aircraft designs.
NASA has created a new digital modelling tool for aeronautical engineers to innovate new aircraft designs, building on decades of experience using highly advanced computer code for aviation.
Using this tool, researchers can create simulations of conceptual aircraft featuring never-flown technology and receive detailed data about how it would work.
Named “Aviary” for enclosures where birds are kept and studied, the tool creates virtual models of airplanes based on information provided by the user. In this analogy, Aviary is the enclosure, and the birds are the virtual airplane models.
Researchers can input information about an aircraft’s shape, range, and other characteristics. Then, Aviary creates a corresponding digital model of that airplane.
“Aviary is flexible enough that you can decide what you want to learn more about, then configure it to teach you.”Jennifer Gratz
Aviary Task Lead
Aviary is a significant leap in progress. Unlike past aviation modelling tools, Aviary can link with other codes and programs to expand and customize its capabilities.
“We wanted to make it easy to extend the code and tie it in with other tools,” said Jennifer Gratz, who leads Aviary’s integration and development. “Aviary is intentionally designed to be able to integrate disciplines together more tightly.”
Aviary is free and accessible to all. The code continues to grow as contributions are made by the public. The code is hosted on GitHub, along with its key documentation.
This image of a Transonic Truss Braced Wing airplane represents a digital model created by Aviary, a new computer modelling tool aeronautical engineers can use to innovate new aircraft designs, The Aviary code builds on NASA’s decades of experience using highly advanced computer code for aviation. Aviary is a resource created by NASA’s Transformational Tools and Technologies project. Building Aviary from a Legacy
Aviary is a descendant of two prior modelling tools created by NASA decades ago: the Flight Optimization System, and the General Aviation Synthesis Program.
These older legacy codes, however, were comparatively limited in terms of flexibility and detail.
“The older legacy codes were not designed to handle these more modern-day concepts such as hybrid-electric aircraft,” Gratz said. “They viewed certain systems as more separated than they really are in the vehicles we envision now.”
Aviary bridges that gap, enabling researchers to seamlessly incorporate detailed information reflecting the more integrated, enmeshed systems needed to model newer aircraft.
The team began creating Aviary by taking the best parts of the legacy codes and merging them, then adding in new code to make Aviary extendable and compatible with other tools.
“That’s one of its most important characteristics,” Gratz said. “Aviary is flexible enough that you can decide what you want to learn more about, then configure it to teach you.”
Members of the NASA team responsible for developing Aviary, a new computer-based digital modeling tool for designing aircraft, pose for a group picture outside an office building at the Langley Research Center in Virginia. Front row from left: Eric Hendricks, Rob Falck, Jennifer Gratz, Ben Phillips, Eliot Aretskin-Hariton, and Ken Moore. Back row from left: Darrell (DJ) Caldwell, Greg Wrenn, Carl Recine, John Jasa, and Jason Kirk.NASA / Rich Wahls Expanded Capabilities
Learning specific, tailored information ahead of time can inform researchers what direction the aircraft design should take before doing costly flight tests.
Instead of having to use built-in estimates for certain parameters such as a battery’s power level, as would be done with past tools, Aviary users can easily use information generated by other tools with specific information catered to batteries.
Another capability Aviary touts is gradients. A gradient, essentially, is how much a certain value affects another value when changed.
Say a researcher is considering how powerful a battery should be to successfully power an aircraft. Using older systems, the researcher would have to run a separate simulation for each battery power level.
But Aviary can accomplish this task in one simulation by considering gradients.
“You could tell Aviary to figure out how powerful a battery should be to make using it worthwhile. It will run a simulated flight mission and come back with the result,” Gratz said. “Older tools can’t do that without modification.”
Aviary can simulate all these concepts simultaneously – no other modelling tool can easily consider prior legacy tools, separate tools introduced by users, and gradients.
“Other tools have some of these things, but none of them have all of these things,” Gratz said.
What’s more, Aviary comes with extensive documentation.
“Documentation is another important part of Aviary,” Gratz said. “If nobody can understand the tool, nobody can use it. By having a good record of Aviary’s development and changes, more people can benefit. You don’t have to be an expert to use it.”
NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ames Research Center in California, and Langley Research Center in Virginia contributed to Aviary.
About the AuthorJohn GouldAeronautics Research Mission DirectorateJohn Gould is a member of NASA Aeronautics' Strategic Communications team at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. He is dedicated to public service and NASA’s leading role in scientific exploration. Prior to working for NASA Aeronautics, he was a spaceflight historian and writer, having a lifelong passion for space and aviation.
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Share Details Last Updated May 16, 2024 EditorJim BankeContactDiana Fitzgeralddiana.r.fitzgerald@nasa.gov Related TermsWhat’s Turning Cape Cod’s Water ‘Pea-Soup Green’?
Cape Cod’s water is turning “pea-soup green”—and after decades of scientific detective work, we know why.
This Week's Sky at a Glance, May 17 – 26
This week the Moon occults Beta Virginis, then Antares. The last star of the Summer Triangle finally rises before bedtime. On the other side of the sky, the Arch of Spring sinks low.
The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, May 17 – 26 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Electromagnetic Levitator turns ten
This summer marks the ten-year anniversary of the electromagnetic levitation facility on the International Space Station.
Earth from Space: New Zealand’s North Island
EarthCARE mission kit
Explore this mission kit to learn more about EarthCARE – ESA’s new mission that will shed new light on the role that clouds and aerosols play in regulating Earth’s climate.
Cosmic "Hand" Reaches for the Stars
This oddly shaped cloud of dusty gas is shaped by the winds and radiation from nearby stars.
The post Cosmic "Hand" Reaches for the Stars appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Nomads thrived in Greece after the collapse of the Roman Empire
Nomads thrived in Greece after the collapse of the Roman Empire
Webb Sees Black Holes Merging Near the Beginning of Time
A long time ago, in two galaxies far, far away, two massive black holes merged. This happened when the Universe was only 740 million years old. A team of astronomers used JWST to study this event, the most distant (and earliest) detection of a black hole merger ever.
Such collisions are fairly commonplace in more modern epochs of cosmic history and astronomers know that they lead to ever-more massive black holes in the centers of galaxies. The resulting supermassive black holes can contain millions of billions of solar masses. They affect the evolution of their galaxies in many ways.
Using JWST and HST, astronomers have found behemoth black holes earlier and earlier in cosmic time, within the first billion years of the Universe’s history. That raises the question: how did they get so massive so fast? Black holes accrete matter as they grow, and for the most supermassive ones, their colliding galaxies are part of that matter-harvesting history.
What JWST Shows Us about Early Black Holes MergingThe most recent JWST observations focused on a system called ZS7. It’s a galaxy merger where two very early systems come together, complete with colliding black holes. This is not something astronomers can detect with ground-based telescopes. The merger itself lies quite far away. Plus, the expansion of the Universe stretches its light into the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. That makes it inaccessible from Earth’s surface. However, infrared is detectable with JWST’s Near-infrared Spectrometer (NIRSpec). It can find signatures of mergers in the early Universe, according to astronomer Hannah Übler of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Zeroing in on the ZS7 galaxy system and the colliding black holes. Courtesy: The field in which the ZS7 galaxy merger was observed by JWST. Courtesy ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, J. Dunlop, D. Magee, P. G. Pérez-González, H. Übler, R. Maiolino, et. al“We found evidence for very dense gas with fast motions in the vicinity of the black hole, as well as hot and highly ionized gas illuminated by the energetic radiation typically produced by black holes in their accretion episodes,” said Übler, who is lead author on a paper about the discovery. “Thanks to the unprecedented sharpness of its imaging capabilities, Webb also allowed our team to spatially separate the two black holes.”
Those black holes are pretty massive: one contains about 50 million solar masses. The other probably has about the same mass, but it’s hard to tell because it’s embedded in a dense gas region. The stellar masses of the galaxies puts them in about the same stellar-mass population as the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, according to astronomer Pablo G. Pérez-González of the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC/INTA, in Spain. “We can try to imagine how the evolution of merging galaxies could be affected if each galaxy had one supermassive black hole as large or larger than the one we have in the Milky Way”.
Other Implications of Black Hole Mergers at Cosmic DawnThe analysis of the JWST observations reinforces the idea that mergers are an important way for black holes to grow. That’s particularly true in the early Universe, according to Ühler. “Together with other Webb findings of active, massive black holes in the distant Universe, our results also show that massive black holes have been shaping the evolution of galaxies from the very beginning.”
Many active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the very early Universe are associated with somewhat massive black holes. These are likely part of a general merger process in early epochs. Astronomers want to know when these mergers began. That would help them pinpoint the growth of the central supermassive black holes. Mergers of that kind are a likely route for the growth of black holes so early in cosmic time.
An artist’s impression of two merging black holes. Image: NASA/CXC/A. HobartThat’s why astronomers are so anxious to spot them with JWST and future telescopes. They hold the key to understanding the evolution of galaxies and black holes in the infancy of the Universe. Uhler and her team members point this out in their paper, saying: “Our results seem to support a scenario of an imminent massive black hole merger in the early universe, highlighting this as an additional important channel for the early growth of black holes. Together with other recent findings in the literature, this suggests that massive black hole merging in the distant universe is common.”
Of course, these mergers don’t just generate light we can detect with JWST. They also generate very faint gravitational waves. But, there’s hope of detecting those waves with the upcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). It will be in place in the 2030s and should be able to focus on the types of galaxy and black-hole mergers JWST is detecting today in infrared light.
For More InformationWebb Detects Most Distant Black Hole Merger to Date
GA-NIFS: JWST Discovers an Offset AGN 740 Million Years After the Big Bang
The post Webb Sees Black Holes Merging Near the Beginning of Time appeared first on Universe Today.
NASA's Juno probe captures fascinating high-resolution images of Jupiter's icy moon Europa
The Sun Hurls its Most Powerful Flare in a Decades
The Sun has been vying for attention these last couple of weeks. First with the appearance of a fabulous complex sunspot region and then with a plethora of solar flares. On the 14th May, yet another was released, this time an X8.7 class flare from the same complex sunspot regions. It was significantly more powerful than the flare that set off the aurora displays which enchanted much of the planet but alas it was not pointing toward the Earth (
NASA Earns Best Place to Work in Government for 12 Straight Years
NASA was named Thursday as the 2023 Best Place to Work in the Federal Government – large agency – for the 12th year in a row by the Partnership for Public Service. The title serves as a reflection of employee satisfaction with the workplace and functioning of the overall agency as NASA explores the unknown and discovers new knowledge for the benefit of humanity.
“Once again, NASA has shown that with the world’s finest workforce, we can reach the stars,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Through space exploration, advances in aviation, groundbreaking science, new technologies, and more, the team of wizards at NASA do what is hard to achieve what is great. That’s the pioneer spirit that makes NASA the best place to work in the federal government. With this ingenuity and passion, we will continue to innovate for the benefit of all and inspire the world.”
The agency’s workforce explored new frontiers in 2023, including shattering an American record for longest astronaut spaceflight, announcing the Artemis II crew, launching the Deep Space Optical Communications experiment, partnering on a sustainable flight demonstration later designated as X-66, and celebrating a year of science gathered from the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope. Feats beyond our atmosphere persisted with NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) mission – the first U.S. mission to collect an asteroid sample. Insights from the asteroid data will further NASA’s studies on celestial objects, while the agency also continues its pursuit to return astronauts to the Moon as part of the Artemis campaign.
Along with being the 65th anniversary of the agency, 2023 brought new climate data with the launching of the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center and Earth Information Center, new perspectives on Earth’s surface water through NASA’s SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) mission, and accrued air quality data from NASA’s TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) mission.
The Partnership for Public Service began to compile the Best Places to Work rankings in 2003 to analyze federal employee’s viewpoints of leadership, work-life balance, and other factors of their job. A formula is used to evaluate employee responses to a federal survey, dividing submissions into four groups: large, midsize, and small agencies, in addition to their subcomponents.
Read about the Best Places to Work for 2023 online.
To learn more about NASA’s missions, visit:
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Faith McKie / Cheryl Warner
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202-358-1600
faith.d.mckie@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov
Juno Reveals Secrets About Europa’s Icy Surface
Europa has always held a fascination to me. I think it’s the concept of a world with a sub-surface ocean and the possibility of life that has inspired me and many others. In September 2022, NASAs Juno spacecraft made a flyby, coming within 355 kilometres of the surface. Since the encounter, scientists have been exploring the images and have identified regions where brine may have bubbled to the surface. Other images revealed possible, previously unidentified steep-walled depressions up to 50km wide, this could be caused by a free-floating ocean!
Juno was launched to Jupiter on 5 August 2011. It took off from the Cape Canaveral site on board an Atlas V rocket and travelled around 3 billion kilometres. It arrived at Jupiter on 4 July 2016 and in September 2022 made its closest flyby of Europa. The frozen world is the second of the four Galilean satellites that were discovered by Galileo over 400 years ago. Visible in small telescopes, the true nature of the moon is only detectable by visiting craft like Juno.
Artist’s impression of NASA’s Galileo space probe in orbit of Jupiter. Credit: NASADuring its close fly-by, one of the onboard cameras known as Juno-Cam took the highest resolution images of the moon since Galileo took a flyby in 2000. The images supported the long held theory that the icy crusts at the north and south poles are not where they used to be. Another instrument on board, known as the Stellar Reference Unit (SRU), revealed possible activity resembling plumes where brine may have bubbled to the surface.
The ground track over Europa that was followed by Juno enabled imaging around the equatorial regions. The images revealed the usual, expected blocks of ice, walls, ridges and scarps but also found something else. Steep walled depressions that measured 20 to 50 kilometres across were also seen and they resembled large ovoid pits.
One of Juno’s enormous solar panels, unfurled on Earth. NASA/JPL. SWrIThe observations of the meanderings of the north/south polar ice and the varied surface features all point towards an outer icy shell that is free-floating upon the sub surface ocean. This can only happen if the outer shell is not connected to the rocky interior. When this happens, there are high levels of stress on the ice which then causes the fracture pattern witnessed. The images represent the first time such patterns have been seen in the southern hemisphere, the first evidence of true polar wandering.
The images from the SRU surprisingly provided the best quality images. It was originally designed to detect faint light from stars for navigation. Instead, the team used it to capture images when Europa was illuminated by the gentle glow of sunlight reflected from Jupiter. It was quite a novel approach and allowed complex features to become far more pronounced than before. Intricate networks of ridges criss-crossing the surface were identified along with dark stains from water plumes. One feature in particular stood out, nicknamed ‘the Platypus’, it was a 37 kilometre by 67 kilometre region shaped somewhat like a platypus.
Source : NASA’s Juno Provides High-Definition Views of Europa’s Icy Shell
The post Juno Reveals Secrets About Europa’s Icy Surface appeared first on Universe Today.