Friday, 29 November 2024

December’s Night Sky Notes: Spot the King of Planets

4 min read

December’s Night Sky Notes: Spot the King of Planets

by Kat Troche of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

Jupiter is our solar system’s undisputed king of the planets! Jupiter is bright and easy to spot from our vantage point on Earth, helped by its massive size and banded, reflective cloud tops. Jupiter even possesses moons the size of planets: Ganymede, its largest, is bigger than the planet Mercury. What’s more, you can easily observe Jupiter and its moons with a modest instrument, just like Galileo did over 400 years ago.

Image of swirling cloud formation on Jupiter

This image taken on Feb. 7 by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, reveals swirling cloud formations in the northern area of Jupiter’s north temperate belt. Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill processed the image using data from the JunoCam imager.

NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS | Image processing by Kevin M. Gill, © CC BY

Jupiter’s position as our solar system’s largest planet is truly earned; you could fit 11 Earths along Jupiter’s diameter, and in case you were looking to fill up Jupiter with some Earth-size marbles, you would need over 1300 Earths to fill it up – and that would still not be quite enough! However, despite its formidable size, Jupiter’s true rule over the outer solar system comes from its enormous mass. If you took all of the planets in our solar system and put them together, they would still only be half as massive as Jupiter all by itself. Jupiter’s mighty mass has shaped the orbits of countless comets and asteroids. Its gravity can fling these tiny objects towards our inner solar system and also draw them into itself, as famously observed in 1994 when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, drawn towards Jupiter in previous orbits, smashed into the gas giant’s atmosphere. Its multiple fragments slammed into Jupiter’s cloud tops with such violence that the fireballs and dark impact spots were not only seen by NASA’s orbiting Galileo probe but also by observers back on Earth!

Sky map of an eastern horizon with the positions of Jupiter, the Moon, and Uranus labeled. Jupiter is in the center of the constellations Taurus, Orion, Gemini and Auriga.

Look for Jupiter near the Eye of the Bull, Aldebaran, in the Taurus constellation on the evening of December 15, 2024. Binoculars may help you spot Jupiter’s moons as small bright star-like objects on either side of the planet. A small telescope will show them easily, along with Jupiter’s famed cloud bands. How many can you count?

Credit: Stellarium Web

Jupiter is easy to observe at night with our unaided eyes, as well-documented by the ancient astronomers who carefully recorded its slow movements from night to night. It can be one of the brightest objects in our nighttime skies, bested only by the Moon, Venus, and occasionally Mars, when the red planet is at opposition. That’s impressive for a planet that, at its closest to Earth, is still over 365 million miles (587 million km) away. It’s even more impressive that the giant world remains very bright to Earthbound observers at its furthest distance: 600 million miles (968 million km)! While the King of Planets has a coterie of 95 known moons, only the four large moons that Galileo originally observed in 1610 – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Calisto – can be easily observed by Earth-based observers with very modest equipment. These are called, appropriately enough, the Galilean moons. Most telescopes will show the moons as faint star-like objects neatly lined up close to bright Jupiter. Most binoculars will show at least one or two moons orbiting the planet. Small telescopes will show all four of the Galilean moons if they are all visible, but sometimes they can pass behind or in front of Jupiter or even each other. Telescopes will also show details like Jupiter’s cloud bands and, if powerful enough, large storms like its famous Great Red Spot, and the shadows of the Galilean moons passing between the Sun and Jupiter. Sketching the positions of Jupiter’s moons during the course of an evening – and night to night – can be a rewarding project! You can download an activity guide from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific at bit.ly/drawjupitermoons

Now in its eighth year, NASA’s Juno mission is one of just nine spacecraft to have visited this impressive world. Juno entered Jupiter’s orbit in 2016 to begin its initial mission to study this giant world’s mysterious interior. The years have proven Juno’s mission a success, with data from the probe revolutionizing our understanding of this gassy world’s guts. Juno’s mission has since been extended to include the study of its large moons, and since 2021 the plucky probe, increasingly battered by Jupiter’s powerful radiation belts, has made close flybys of the icy moons Ganymede and Europa, along with volcanic Io. What else will we potentially learn in 2030 with the Europa Clipper mission?

Find the latest discoveries from Juno and NASA’s missions to Jupiter at science.nasa.gov/jupiter/

Originally posted by Dave Prosper: February 2023
Last Updated by Kat Troche: November 2024

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Thursday, 28 November 2024

Thanksgiving Celebrations in Space

The Thanksgiving holiday typically brings families and friends together in a celebration of common gratitude for all the good things that have happened during the previous year. People celebrate the holiday in various ways, with parades, football marathons, and attending services, but food remains the over-arching theme. For astronauts embarked on long-duration space missions, separation from family and friends is inevitable and they rely on fellow crew members to share in the tradition and enjoy the culinary traditions as much as possible.

Over the past decades, astronauts have celebrated the holiday during their time in space in a variety of unique ways. Enjoy the stories and photographs from orbital Thanksgiving celebrations over the years.

Three astronauts in brown shirts are positioned around a table are eating a Thanksgiving meal together. The astronauts are surrounding by the interior walls of NASA's Skylab. The walls are white with multiple drawers.

Skylab 4 astronauts Edward G. Gibson, left, William R. Pogue, and Gerald P. Carr demonstrate eating aboard Skylab during Thanksgiving in 1973.

NASA

Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald P. Carr, Edward G. Gibson, and William R. Pogue hold the distinction as the first crew to celebrate Thanksgiving in space on Nov. 22, 1973. On that day, their seventh of an 84-day mission, Gibson and Pogue completed a 6-hour and 33-minute spacewalk, while Carr remained in the Multiple Docking Adapter, with no access to food. All three made up for missing lunch by consuming two meals at dinner time, although neither included special items for Thanksgiving.

Twelve years passed before the next orbital Thanksgiving celebration. On Nov. 28, 1985, the seven-member crew of STS-61B, NASA astronauts Brewster H. Shaw, Bryan D. O’Connor, Jerry L. Ross, Mary L. Cleave, and Sherwood C. “Woody” Spring, and payload specialists Charles D. Walker from the United States and Rodolfo Neri Vela from Mexico, feasted on shrimp cocktail, irradiated turkey, and cranberry sauce aboard the space shuttle Atlantis.

An astronaut in a white shirt is eating Thanksgiving dinner onboard a spacecraft with two other astronauts.

STS-80 astronauts Tamara E. Jernigan, left, Kent V. Rominger, and Thomas D. Jones enjoy Thanksgiving dinner in Columbia’s middeck in 1996.

NASA

Neri Vela introduced tortillas to space menus, and they have remained favorites among astronauts ever since. Unlike regular bread, tortillas do not create crumbs, a potential hazard in weightlessness, and have multiple uses for any meal of the day. The crew of STS-33, NASA astronauts Frederick D. Gregory, John E. Blaha, Manley L. “Sonny” Carter, F. Story Musgrave, and Kathryn C. Thornton, celebrated Thanksgiving aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1989. Gregory and Musgrave celebrated their second Thanksgiving in space two years later, joined by fellow STS-44 NASA astronauts Terrence T. “Tom” Henricks, James S. Voss, Mario Runco, and Thomas J. Hennen aboard space shuttle Atlantis.

In 1996, Blaha celebrated his second Thanksgiving in space with Russian cosmonauts Valeri G. Korzun and Aleksandr Y. Kaleri aboard the space station Mir. Blaha watched the beautiful Earth through the Mir windows rather than his usual viewing fare of football. The STS-80 crew of NASA astronauts Kenneth D. Cockrell, Kent V. Rominger, Tamara E. Jernigan, Thomas D. Jones, and Musgrave, now on his third turkey day holiday in orbit, celebrated Thanksgiving aboard space shuttle Columbia. Although the eight crew members worked in different spacecraft in different orbits, they exchanged holiday greetings via space-to-space radio. This marked the largest number of people in space on Thanksgiving Day up to that time.

One year later, NASA astronaut David A. Wolf celebrated Thanksgiving with his Russian crewmates Anatoli Y. Solovev, who translated the holiday into Russian as den blagodarenia, and Pavel V. Vinogradov aboard Mir. They enjoyed smoked turkey, freeze-dried mashed potatoes, peas, and milk. Also in orbit at the time was the crew of STS-87, NASA astronauts Kevin R. Kregel, Steven W. Lindsey, Kalpana Chawla, and Winston E. Scott, Takao Doi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Leonid K. Kadenyuk of Ukraine, aboard Columbia. The nine crew members aboard the two spacecraft broke the one-year-old record for the largest number of people in space at one time for Thanksgiving, also setting the record for the most nations represented, four.

A man in a black shirt is on the left and a man in a white shirt is on the right. Both are eating Thanksgiving dinner together on a spacecraft. They are surrounded by equipment. The astronaut in the black shirt on the left is holding a spoon in his right hand.

NASA astronaut Frank L. Culbertson, left, and Vladimir N. Dezhurov of Roscosmos enjoy Thanksgiving dinner aboard the International Space Station in 2001.

NASA

The Expedition 1 crew of NASA astronaut William M. Shepherd, and Yuri P. Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev of Roscosmos celebrated the first Thanksgiving aboard the International Space Station on Nov. 23, 2000, three weeks after their arrival aboard the facility. The crew took time out of their busy schedule to enjoy ham and smoked turkey and send words of thanks to people on the ground who provided excellent support to their flight. Crews have celebrated Thanksgiving in space every November since then.

In 2001, Expedition 3 crew members NASA astronaut Frank L. Culbertson, and Vladimir N. Dezhurov and Mikhail V. Tyurin of Roscosmos enjoyed the first real Thanksgiving aboard the space station, complete with a cardboard turkey as decoration. The following year’s orbital Thanksgiving celebration included the largest number of people to that time, the combined 10 crewmembers of Expedition 5, STS-113, and Expedition 6. After a busy day that included the first Thanksgiving Day spacewalk from the space station, the crews settled down to a dinner of smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, and green beans with mushrooms. Blueberry-cherry cobbler rounded out the meal.

The crews of Expeditions 18 and STS-126 share a Thanksgiving meal in the space shuttle middeck in 2008.

NASA

Expedition 18 crew members NASA astronauts E. Michael Fincke and Gregory E. Chamitoff and Yuri V. Lonchakov representing Roscosmos, welcomed the STS-126 crew of NASA astronauts Christopher J. Ferguson, Eric A. Boe, Heidemarie M. Stefanyshyn-Piper, Donald R. Pettit, Stephen G. Bowen, R. Shane Kimbrough, and Sandra H. Magnus during Thanksgiving in 2008. They dined in the space shuttle Endeavour’s middeck on smoked turkey, candied yams, green beans and mushrooms, cornbread dressing and a cranapple dessert.

The following year saw the largest and an internationally diverse group celebrating Thanksgiving in space. The six Expedition 21 crew members, NASA astronauts Jeffrey N. Williams and Nicole P. Stott, Roman Y. Romanenko and Maksim V. Suraev of Roscosmos, Frank L. DeWinne of the European Space Agency, and Robert B. Thirsk of the Canadian Space Agency hosted the six members of the STS-129 crew, NASA astronauts Charles O. Hobaugh, Barry E. Wilmore, Michael J. Foreman, Robert L. Satcher, Randolph J. Bresnik, and Leland D. Melvin. The twelve assembled crew members represented the United States, Russia, Belgium, and Canada. The celebration took place two days early, since the shuttle undocked from the space station on Thanksgiving Day.

We hope you enjoyed these stories and photographs from Thanksgivings celebrated in space. We would like to wish everyone here on the ground and the seven-member crew of Expedition 72 aboard the space station a very Happy Thanksgiving! For NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” E. Wilmore and Donald R. Pettit, this will mark the third time they celebrate the holiday in space.

Three astronauts wearing black shirts, one astronaut wearing a burgundy shirt, one astronaut wearing a grey shirt with a red collar, and one astronaut wearing an orange shirt are all gathered together in a small space onboard NASA's International Space Station. Two astronauts (one in a burgundy shirt and one in a black shirt) are floating upside down. They are all eating. — Expedition 42 crew members enjoy Thanksgiving dinner aboard the space station in 2014.

NASA

Six astronauts are gathered together onboard NASA's International Space Station. Vaccuum sealed bags of food are floating in the air. The left and right walls, and ceiling, is visible. Wires, a laptop. and stickers are attached to the walls. The stickers are of various designs meant to reflect the patches for each crewed mission. — Expedition 45 crew members gather at the Thanksgiving dinner table aboard the orbital outpost in 2015.

NASA

Six astronauts are gathered around a small table while onboard a spacecraft. They are holding various food items and smiling into the camera. — Expedition 50 crew members at the Thanksgiving dinner table aboard the orbiting laboratory in 2016.

NASA

Six astronauts in matching colorful button down shirts with planets, stars, and spacecrafts on them in purple, orange, blues, and green are all floating around a small table. The table has food on it. They are onboard NASA's space station. The back wall is pink and the left wall and floors are light grey. Four of the astronauts are wearing beige pants, one is wearing blue shorts, and one is wearing black pants. They are all smiling into the camera. — The Expedition 53 crew awaits the start of Thanksgiving dinner aboard the space station in 2017.

NASA

Five astronauts, four men and one woman, are surrounding a table covered in bags of food. A pair of hands belonging to someone whose face is offscreen is holding a tortilla and a spoon. They are all focusing on what is in front of them. — Expedition 66 crew members enjoy a Thanksgiving feast in 2021.

NASA

Four astronauts in red shirts are smiling into the camera. They are holding various food items. Some of the food items are floating. One astronaut that is a man is standing in the back right of the image. He is reaching to grab the black microphone that is in the hand of the woman in front of him. — Expedition 70 crew members Andreas E. Mogensen, of the European Space Agency, front left, NASA astronauts Loral A. O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli, and Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency beam down their Thanksgiving message to everyone on the ground in 2023. The astronauts presented their favorite Thanksgiving space food items.

NASA

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Wednesday, 27 November 2024

NASA AI, Open Science Advance Natural Disaster Research and Recovery

4 min read

NASA AI, Open Science Advance Natural Disaster Research and Recovery

An image of Earth from space showing the swirling clouds of a hurricane forming over the ocean with a robotic arm extending from the International Space Station.

Hurricane Ida is pictured as a category 2 storm from the International Space Station as it orbited 264 miles above the Gulf of Mexico. In the foreground is the Canadarm2 robotic arm with Dextre, the fine-tuned robotic hand, attached.

NASA

By Lauren Perkins

When you think of NASA, disasters such as hurricanes may not be the first thing to come to mind, but several NASA programs are building tools and advancing science to help communities make more informed decisions for disaster planning.

Empowered by NASA’s commitment to open science, the NASA Disasters Program supports disaster risk reduction, response, and recovery. A core element of the Disasters Program is providing trusted, timely, and actionable data to aid organizations actively responding to disasters.

Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana Aug. 21, 2021, as a category 4 hurricane, one of the deadliest and most destructive hurricanes in the continental United States on record. The effects of the storm were widespread, causing devastating damage and affecting the lives of millions of people.

During Hurricane Ida, while first responders and other organizations addressed the storm’s impacts from the ground, the NASA Disasters program was able to provide a multitude of remotely sensed products. Some of the products and models included information on changes in soil moisture, changes in vegetation, precipitation accumulations, flood detection, and nighttime lights to help identify areas of power outages.

Image Before/After

The NASA team shared the data with its partners on the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal and began participating in cross-agency coordination calls to determine how to further aid response efforts. To further connect and collaborate using open science efforts, NASA Disasters overlaid publicly uploaded photos on their Damage Proxy Maps to provide situational awareness of on-the-ground conditions before, during, and after the storm.

Immediate post-storm response is critical to saving lives; just as making informed, long- term response decisions are critical to providing equitable recovery solutions for all. One example of how this data can be used is blue tarp detection in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) with NASA satellite images, the Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT), based at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, conducted a study to detect the number of blue tarps on rooftops in the aftermath of hurricanes, such as Ida, as a way of characterizing the severity of damage in local communities.

An aerial image that shows homes along a river. Some of the roofs appear blue where the blue tarps are covering damage.

An aerial photograph shows damaged roofs from Hurricane Maria in 2017 in Barrio Obrero, Puerto Rico. In the wake of the hurricane, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and United States Army Corps of Engineers distributed 126,000 blue tarps and nearly 60,000 temporary blue roofs to people awaiting repairs on damaged homes.

NASA

While disasters cannot be avoided altogether, timely and accessible information helps communities worldwide reduce risk, improve response, hasten recovery, and build disaster resilience.

Through an initiative led by NASA’s Office of the Chief Science Data Officer, NASA and IBM are developing five open-source artificial intelligence foundation models trained on NASA’s expansive satellite repositories. This effort will help make NASA’s vast, ever-growing amounts of data more accessible and usable. Leveraging NASA’s AI expertise allows users to make faster, more informed decisions. User applications of the Prithvi Earth Foundation Models could range from identifying flood risks and predicting crop yields to forecasting long range atmospheric weather patterns.

“NASA is dedicated to ensuring that our scientific data are accessible and beneficial to all. Our AI foundation models are scientifically validated and adaptable to new data, designed to maximize efficiency and lower technical barriers. This ensures that even in the face of challenging disasters, response teams can be swift and effective,” said Kevin Murphy, NASA’s chief science data officer. “Through these efforts, we’re not only advancing scientific frontiers, but also delivering tangible societal benefits, providing data that can safeguard lives and improve resilience against future threats.”

Hear directly from some of the data scientists building these AI models, the NASA disaster response team, as well as hurricane hunters that fly directly into these devastating storms on NASA’s Curious Universe podcast.

Learn more about NASA’s AI for Science models at https://science.nasa.gov/artificial-intelligence-science/.

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Last Updated

Nov 26, 2024

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Discovery Alert: a ‘Hot Neptune’ in a Tight Orbit

A dark planet, left, is shown in close orbit around its star, right; some of the planet's atmosphere is being blown outward by the star.

Artist’s concept of “hot Neptune” TOI-3261 b.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC)

By Grace Jacobs Corban

The Discovery

A Neptune-sized planet, TOI-3261 b, makes a scorchingly close orbit around its host star. Only the fourth object of its kind ever found, the planet could reveal clues as to how planets such as these form.

Key Facts

An international team of scientists used the NASA space telescope, TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), to discover the exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system), then made further observations with ground-based telescopes in Australia, Chile, and South Africa. The measurements placed the new planet squarely in the “hot Neptune desert” – a category of planets with so few members that their scarcity evokes a deserted landscape. This variety of exoplanet is similar to our own Neptune in size and composition, but orbits extremely closely to its star. In this case, a “year” on TOI-3261 b is only 21 hours long. Such a tight orbit earns this planet its place in an exclusive group with, so far, only three other members: ultra-short-period hot Neptunes whose masses have been precisely measured.

Details

Planet TOI-3261 b proves to be an ideal candidate to test new computer models of planet formation. Part of the reason hot Neptunes are so rare is that it is difficult to retain a thick gaseous atmosphere so close to a star. Stars are massive, and so exert a large gravitational force on the things around them, which can strip the layers of gas surrounding a nearby planet. They also emit huge amounts of energy, which blow the gas layers away. Both of these factors mean that hot Neptunes such as TOI-3261 b might have started out as much larger, Jupiter-sized planets, and have since lost a large portion of their mass.

By modeling different starting points and development scenarios, the science team determined that the star and planet system is about 6.5 billion years old, and that the planet started out as a much larger gas giant. It likely lost mass, however, in two ways: photoevaporation, when energy from the star causes gas particles to dissipate, and tidal stripping, when the gravitational force from the star strips layers of gas from the planet. The planet also might have formed farther away from its star, where both of these effects would be less intense, allowing it to retain its atmosphere.

The remaining atmosphere of the planet, one of its most interesting features, will likely invite further atmospheric analysis, perhaps helping to unravel the formation history of this denizen of the “hot Neptune desert.” Planet TOI-3261 b is about twice as dense as Neptune, indicating that the lighter parts of its atmosphere have been stripped away over time, leaving only the heavier components. This shows that the planet must have started out with a variety of different elements in its atmosphere, but at this stage, it is hard to tell exactly what. This mystery could be solved by observing the planet in infrared light, perhaps using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – an ideal way to see the identifying fingerprints of the different molecules in the planet’s atmosphere. This will not just help astronomers understand the past of TOI-3261 b, but also begin to uncover the physical processes behind all hot, giant planets.

Fun Facts

The first-ever discovery of an ultra-short-period hot Neptune, LTT-9779 b, came in 2020. Since then, TESS discoveries TOI-849 b and TOI-332 b have also joined the elite ultra-short-period hot-Neptune club (with masses that have been precisely measured). Both LTT-9779 b and TOI-849 b are in the queue for infrared observations with the James Webb Space Telescope, potentially broadening our understanding of these planets’ atmospheres in the coming years.

The Discoverers

An international science team led by astronomer Emma Nabbie of the University of Southern Queensland published their paper on the discovery, “Surviving in the Hot Neptune Desert: The Discovery of the Ultrahot Neptune TOI-3261 b,” in The Astronomical Journal in August 2024.

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This Thanksgiving, We’re Grateful for NASA’s Amateur Scientists!

A group of smiling people in cold-weather gear and life jackets pose on a boat surrounded by icy waters. They are holding scientific equipment, including a plankton net and collection bottles, with yellow bins and an orange traffic cone visible in the foreground.

FjordPhyto participants playing in an incredible phytoplankton bloom surrounded by early season sea ice at Damoy on the Antarctic Peninsula. They share knowledge with one another and take samples to better understand and protect Antarctica.

Allison Cusick

This year, we’re giving thanks to you for Doing NASA Science! You and the millions of other volunteers have enabled an incredible banquet of discoveries—by taking data, analyzing data, writing code, writing papers, and even inventing your own science projects. Your work helps us maintain our leadership in space science!

Our scientists have shared examples of many outstanding volunteers. Here are just a few of the remarkable amateur scientists/citizen scientists whose help we’re so grateful for:

Dani Abras from the FjordPhyto project.

“Dani Abras has been an exemplary facilitator of the FjordPhyto program with travelers in Antarctica. Her enthusiasm for engaging people in the natural world is infectious and her love of participatory science draws people into the wonderful microscopic world of phytoplankton. She is a very enthusiastic and engaged Expedition Guide and you might even see her featured in our new online training course on the NASA Infiniscope platform.” –Allison Cusick

Mr. Kevvy from the “Are we Alone in the Universe?” project.

“Mr. Kevvy goes above and beyond as a moderator of `Are we alone in the universe?’. He is always reaching out to me and letting me know what our volunteers have been experiencing, as well as going out of his way to look for other collaborations our project might be interested in. His insight is always extremely helpful, and many of his ideas have made it into our final products. I enjoy working with him and am grateful for his support.” –Megan Li

Nicholas Brereton, Emmanuel Gonzalez, and Stefan Green from the Genelab Microbes Analysis Working Group.

“Over the course of ~6 years, the open-access data in NASA GeneLab/Open Science Data Repository was mined by this 100% volunteer group in the Microbes Analysis Working Group, which resulted in this recent publication: Spaceflight alters host-gut microbiota interactions All authors in the publication could/should get kudos, but especially the ones listed above who saw it through” –Ryan Scott

Want to join this illustrious group and make a lasting mark on NASA science? You’ll find opportunities here at https://science.nasa.gov/citizen-science/. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Nov 26, 2024

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Tuesday, 26 November 2024

NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Dragonfly Mission

Caption: Artist’s concept of Dragonfly soaring over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

NASA has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for the Dragonfly mission, a rotorcraft lander mission under NASA’s New Frontiers Program, designed to explore Saturn’s moon Titan. The mission will sample materials and determine surface composition in different geologic settings, advancing our search for the building blocks of life.

The firm-fixed-price contract has a value of approximately $256.6 million, which includes launch services and other mission related costs. The Dragonfly mission currently has a targeted launch period from July 5, 2028, to July 25, 2028, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Dragonfly centers on novel approach to planetary exploration, employing a rotorcraft-lander to travel between and sample diverse sites on Saturn’s largest moon. With contributions from partners around the globe, Dragonfly’s scientific payload will characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment, investigate the progression of prebiotic chemistry on Titan, where carbon-rich material and liquid water may have mixed for an extended period, and search for chemical indications of whether water-based or hydrocarbon-based life once existed on Saturn’s moon.

NASA’s Launch Services Program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center is responsible for managing the launch service. Managed for NASA at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, the Dragonfly team comprises scientists, engineers, technologists, managers and more who have deep experience on missions that have explored the solar system from the Sun to Pluto and beyond, as well as experts in rotorcraft, autonomous flight, and space systems from around the globe. Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about NASA programs and missions, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

-end-

Julian Coltre / Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
julian.n.coltre@nasa.gov / tiernan.p.doyle@nasa.gov

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Station Science Top News: Nov. 22, 2024

Space-grown crystals could lead to targeted cancer drugs

Researchers used space-grown protein crystals to determine the structure of a helix-loop-helix (HLH) peptide (one with a double helix and connecting loop) in a complex with vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF). VEGF prompts the formation of new blood vessels and inhibiting it can stop tumor growth. This finding suggests that HLH peptides could be used to create drugs to target disease-related proteins like VEGF.

JAXA PCG, an investigation from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), grew protein crystals in microgravity and returned them to Earth for detailed analysis of their structures. Microgravity enables production of high-quality crystals, and examining their structures supports the design of new drugs and other types of research.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi works on the PCG experiment aboard the International Space Station.

NASA

Wood could make satellites more sustainable

Wood exposed to space for approximately 10 months showed no change in weight and no erosion due to atomic oxygen. This finding could inform selection of the appropriate species and thickness of wood for use in building satellites.

Metal satellites reentering Earth’s atmosphere can generate particles and aerosols that may harm the ozone layer. Wood becomes water and carbon dioxide on reentry, does not contribute to atmospheric pollution, and could provide a more sustainable option for future space exploration. JAXA’s Exposure of Wood to Outer Space evaluated how atomic oxygen, galactic cosmic rays, and solar energetic particles in space affect the mechanical properties of wood.

Six samples of different wood types are pictured on a white tabletop.

Different types of wood to be tested in space as a building material for satellites.

Kyoto University

Analyzing glass-forming ability of magnesium silicates

Researchers report detailed structural and atomic information for glassy and liquid magnesium silicates, which are important in glass science and geoscience. The results suggest that electronic structure does not play an important role in determining glass-forming ability, but atomic structure does.

JAXA’s Fragility measured thermophysical properties such as density and viscosity of oxidized molten metals using the International Space Station’s Electrostatic Levitation Furnace (ELF) to gain insight into glass formation and the design of novel materials. The ELF makes it possible to observe the behavior of materials without the use of a container, providing information crucial for examining glass formation.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly works on the Electrostatic Levitation Furnace aboard the International Space Station.

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Monday, 25 November 2024

NASA’s Europa Clipper: Millions of Miles Down, Instruments Deploying

5 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

An artist’s concept of NASA’s Europa Clipper shows the spacecraft in silhouette against Europa’s surface, with the magnetometer boom fully deployed at top and the antennas for the radar instrument extending out from the solar arrays.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Headed to Jupiter’s moon Europa, the spacecraft is operating without a hitch and will reach Mars in just three months for a gravity assist.

NASA’s Europa Clipper, which launched Oct. 14 on a journey to Jupiter’s moon Europa, is already 13 million miles (20 million kilometers) from Earth. Two science instruments have deployed hardware that will remain at attention, extending out from the spacecraft, for the next decade — through the cruise to Jupiter and the entire prime mission.

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched it away from Earth’s gravity, and now the spacecraft is zooming along at 22 miles per second (35 kilometers per second) relative to the Sun.

Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission. It will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) to arrive at Jupiter in 2030 and in 2031 will begin a series of 49 flybys, using a suite of instruments to gather data that will tell scientists if the icy moon and its internal ocean have the conditions needed to harbor life.

For now, the information mission teams are receiving from the spacecraft is strictly engineering data (the science will come later), telling them how the hardware is operating. Things are looking good. The team has a checklist of actions the spacecraft needs to take as it travels deeper into space. Here’s a peek:

Boom Times

Shortly after launch, the spacecraft deployed its massive solar arrays, which extend the length of a basketball court. Next on the list was the magnetometer’s boom, which uncoiled from a canister mounted on the spacecraft body, extending a full 28 feet (8.5 meters).

To confirm that all went well with the boom deployment, the team relied on data from the magnetometer’s three sensors. Once the spacecraft is at Jupiter, these sensors will measure the magnetic field around Europa, both confirming the presence of the ocean thought to be under the moon’s icy crust and telling scientists about its depth and salinity.

This animation shows how the boom of Europa Clipper’s magnetometer deployed — while the spacecraft was in flight — to its full length of 28 feet (8.5 meters).

NASA/JPL-Caltech

On the Radar

After the magnetometer, the spacecraft deployed several antennas for the radar instrument. Now extending crosswise from the solar arrays, the four high-frequency antennas form what look like two long poles, each measuring 57.7 feet (17.6 meters) long. Eight rectangular very-high-frequency antennas, each 9 feet (2.76 meters) long, were also deployed — two on the two solar arrays.

“It’s an exciting time on the spacecraft, getting these key deployments done,” said Europa Clipper project manager Jordan Evans of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Most of what the team is focusing on now is understanding the small, interesting things in the data that help them understand the behavior of the spacecraft on a deeper level. That’s really good to see.”

Instrument Checkout

The remaining seven instruments will be powered on and off through December and January so that engineers can check their health. Several instruments, including the visible imager and the gas and dust mass spectrometers, will keep their protective covers closed for the next three or so years to guard against potential damage from the Sun during Europa Clipper’s time in the inner solar system.

Mars-Bound

Once all the instruments and engineering subsystems have been checked out, mission teams will shift their focus to Mars. On March 1, 2025, Europa Clipper will reach Mars’ orbit and begin to loop around the Red Planet, using the planet’s gravity to gain speed. (This effect is similar to how a ball thrown at a moving train will bounce off the train in another direction at a higher speed.) Mission navigators already have completed one trajectory correction maneuver, as planned, to get the spacecraft on the precise course.

At Mars, scientists plan to turn on the spacecraft’s thermal imager to capture multicolored images of Mars as a test operation. They also plan to collect data with the radar instrument so engineers can be sure it’s operating as expected.

The spacecraft will perform another gravity assist in December 2026, swooping by Earth before making the remainder of the long journey to the Jupiter system. At that time, the magnetometer will measure Earth’s magnetic field, calibrating the instrument.

More About Europa Clipper

Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

Find more information about Europa Clipper here:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper

News Media Contacts

Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-287-4115
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov

2024-163

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Nov 25, 2024

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Hats Off to NASA’s Webb: Sombrero Galaxy Dazzles in New Image

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Hats Off to NASA’s Webb: Sombrero Galaxy Dazzles in New Image

Image of a galaxy on the black background of space. The galaxy is a very oblong, blue disk that extends from left to right at an angle (from about 10 o’clock to 5 o’clock). The galaxy has a small bright core at the center. There is an inner disk that is clearer, with speckles of stars scattered throughout. The outer disk of the galaxy is whiteish-blue, and clumpy, like clouds in the sky. There are different colored dots, distant galaxies, speckled among the black background of space surrounding the galaxy.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero galaxy with its MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), resolving the clumpy nature of the dust along the galaxy’s outer ring.

Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

In a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a galaxy named for its resemblance to a broad-brimmed Mexican hat appears more like an archery target.

In Webb’s mid-infrared view of the Sombrero galaxy, also known as Messier 104 (M104), the signature, glowing core seen in visible-light images does not shine, and instead a smooth inner disk is revealed. The sharp resolution of Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) also brings into focus details of the galaxy’s outer ring, providing insights into how the dust, an essential building block for astronomical objects in the universe, is distributed. The galaxy’s outer ring, which appeared smooth like a blanket in imaging from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, shows intricate clumps in the infrared for the first time.

Image A: Sombrero Galaxy (MIRI Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero galaxy with its MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), resolving the clumpy nature of the dust along the galaxy’s outer ring. This image includes filters representing 7.7-micron light as blue, 11.3-micron light as green, and 12.8-micron light as red.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Image B: Sombrero Galaxy (Hubble and Webb Image)

Image Before/After

Researchers say the clumpy nature of the dust, where MIRI detects carbon-containing molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, can indicate the presence of young star-forming regions. However, unlike some galaxies studied with Webb, including Messier 82, where 10 times as many stars are born than the Milky Way galaxy, the Sombrero galaxy is not a particular hotbed of star formation. The rings of the Sombrero galaxy produce less than one solar mass of stars per year, in comparison to the Milky Way’s roughly two solar masses a year.

Even the supermassive black hole, also known as an active galactic nucleus, at the center of the Sombrero galaxy is rather docile, even at a hefty 9-billion-solar masses. It’s classified as a low luminosity active galactic nucleus, slowly snacking on infalling material from the galaxy, while sending off a bright, relatively small, jet.

Also within the Sombrero galaxy dwell some 2,000 globular clusters, collections of hundreds of thousands of old stars held together by gravity. This type of system serves as a pseudo laboratory for astronomers to study stars — thousands of stars within one system with the same age, but varying masses and other properties is an intriguing opportunity for comparison studies.

In the MIRI image, galaxies of varying shapes and colors litter the background of space. The different colors of these background galaxies can tell astronomers about their properties, including how far away they are.

The Sombrero galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

Video: Sombrero Galaxy Fade (Spitzer, Webb, Hubble)

A Bright Future Ahead

Stunning images like this, and an array of discoveries in the study of exoplanets, galaxies through time, star formation, and our own solar system, are still just the beginning. Recently, scientists from all over the world applied for observation time with Webb during its fourth year of science operations, which begins in July 2025.

General Observer time with Webb is more competitive than ever. A record-breaking 2,377 proposals were submitted by the Oct. 15, 2024, deadline, requesting about 78,000 hours of observation time. This is an oversubscription rate, the ratio defining the observation hours requested versus the actual time available in one year of Webb’s operations, of around 9 to 1.

The proposals cover a wide array of science topics, with distant galaxies being among the most requested observation time, followed by exoplanet atmospheres, stars and stellar populations, then exoplanet systems.

The Space Telescope Science Institute manages the proposal and program selection process for NASA. The submissions will now be evaluated by a Telescope Allocation Committee, a group of hundreds of members of the worldwide astronomical community, on a dual-anonymous basis, with selections announced in March 2025.

While time on Webb is limited, data from all of Webb’s programs is publicly archived, immediately after it’s taken, or after a time of exclusive access, in the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) so it can be used by anyone in the world.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).