Vreemde witte stenen gevonden op Mars: Perseverance heeft er duizenden gevonden

 Door Janine

Vreemde stenen op het oppervlak van Mars: Perseverance heeft ze geïdentificeerd

NASA/JPL

We weten allemaal dat Mars de rode planeet is, dankzij de ijzeroxiden die hem zijn karakteristieke kleur geven. Toch bevinden zich op het oppervlak duizenden lichtgekleurde stenen, verspreid over de krater Jezero, het gebied dat door Perseverance is bestudeerd. De kleur neigt bijna naar wit en de stenen lijken bijna op kiezelstenen, willekeurig verspreid over het oppervlak. Maar wat zijn ze precies?

Op dit moment is er niet veel bekend over de vreemde witte stenen op Mars, en er zijn verschillende wetenschappers die ze graag zouden willen analyseren om te begrijpen waar het om gaat. Vanuit dit oogpunt kan zelfs een beetje informatie helpen enkele geheimen van de rode planeet te onthullen. Op dit moment is uit de eerste analyses van Perseverance gebleken dat de stenen geen water of andere mineralen zoals ijzer, magnesium, calcium en natrium bevatten. Dit is een indicatie die ons al in staat stelt te veronderstellen dat deze stenen werden verwarmd door lavastromen of werden aangetast door de inslag van asteroïden. Maar voor een vollediger antwoord moeten we misschien wachten.

De missie van Perseverance naar de rode planeet

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Zoals we al zeiden, was het mogelijk om veel gegevens te verzamelen, vooral dankzij de inspanningen van de Perseverance rover en de Ingenuity quadcopter. Nu is de missie Ingenuity helaas beëindigd vanwege een probleem met de vleugels van de quadcopter, na meer dan 70 vluchten. Perseverance heeft daarentegen ruim 20 kilometer afgelegd sinds zijn aankomst op Mars en heeft al meer dan de helft van de beschikbare buisjes voltooid om gesteentemonsters van Mars te verzamelen. Bovendien is de rover onlangs begonnen zich te verplaatsen naar de rand van de Jezero-krater, waar hij tot nu toe zijn verkenningen heeft uitgevoerd, waarbij hij daar ook de lichtgekleurde stenen heeft gevonden die van groot belang zijn voor astronomen.

Eenmaal vrijgegeven zal Perseverance oudere gesteenten kunnen bestuderen dan die aanwezig in de Jezero-krater, die ook biosignaturen kunnen bevatten, oftewel sporen van complexe moleculen of ingrediënten voor leven. Als het echter nodig is om enige tijd te wachten om deze informatie te verkrijgen, zal het onderzoek van de witte stenen op korte termijn niet mogelijk zijn. Alleen op aarde zullen wetenschappers de door Perseverance verzamelde monsters kunnen bestuderen en misschien een antwoord kunnen vinden.

De toekomst van de verkenning van Mars, beginnend bij de terugkeer naar de aarde

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Bij de terugkeer naar de aarde via het programma Mars Sample Return van NASA, zal Perseverance de verzamelde monsters terug naar onze planeet brengen. Als naar Mars gaan helemaal niet gemakkelijk is, is terugkeren naar de blauwe planeet zelfs nog moeilijker. Tot op heden, en ondanks de begrotingsproblemen waar NASA helaas altijd last van heeft gehad, bevindt de MSR zich nog in de voorbereidingsfase, maar zou binnenkort klaar kunnen zijn.

Als alles volgens plan verloopt, zal dit niet alleen de eerste “terugreis” zijn van de rode planeet naar de aarde. We zullen voor het eerst in de geschiedenis ook monsters van Mars-gesteente kunnen aanraken. En misschien begrijpen wat die witte stenen zijn, waarom ze op Mars waren en wat ze ons kunnen vertellen over een planeet die veel op de onze lijkt, maar ook heel verschillend.

 { https://www.curioctopus.nl/ }

04-05-2024 om 00:13 geschreven door peter  

New Starfield Update Will Finally Add These Widely Requested Features

Getting lost in Neon will be a thing of the past.

BY TRONE DOWD

 

Bethesda Game Studios

Bethesda will also give players more control over how they want to experience Starfield. New difficulty modes and setting sliders will let them adjust everything from combat encounters, how XP is distributed, carrying capacity, and the damage players dole out and receive. More customization options are being added for players who opt into the game’s interesting twist on new game plus, allowing them a chance to roll a character with different traits and new appearance.

For the sickos who spent hours in New Atlantis’ ship ports getting their rigs just right, the developer is adding not just new ship pieces, but an entirely new element to the creation suite: customizable interiors. They’ll now be able to furnish their ships with chairs, carpets, posters, and visual decor to make space travel a little cozier.

Lastly, Starfield is getting a handful of presentation and performance options. Console players will now have a 60 frames per second mode for smoother, more responsive action. Conversations with NPCs can now be had without Bethesda’s signature zoom-in thanks to a toggle for the dialogue camera.

Bethesda also teased what additions are on the game’s event horizon: new quests, and the oft-request land vehicles. The latter in particular is something players have wanted since launch, as the on-foot-only approach to planet exploration slowed a crucial, frequent pillar of the game’s loop to a crawl.

Wednesday’s announcement was a welcome surprise for Starfield players. It was proof that the Maryland-based developer is listening to the community, and is working hard to improve their first original game in more than 30 years.

But as exciting as these additions are, one can’t help but wonder why the features weren’t added to the game closer to launch. Starfield received a mixed reception when it finally hit digital storefronts last September, and much of that was because of many missing quality-of-life features. The aforementioned absence of land vehicles, clunky UI and inventory system, and a lack of performance options all held back an otherwise wonderfully ambitious role-playing game.

It goes without saying that a substantial amount of work obviously went into Starfield’s promising new update. But when Bethesda releases a patch for an older game (one that did more harm than good on certain platforms) after promising big changes and fixes every six weeks for their newest one, you can’t help but wonder why Starfield wasn’t more of a priority these last seven months.

Thankfully players won’t have to wait much longer for these long-overdue additions. Bethesda says Update 4 will drop on May 15. Other features, like the planetary land vehicles, and the game’s first expansion, Shattered Space, are expected later this year.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

02-05-2024 om 22:24 geschreven door peter  

This New Telescope Could Create the Greatest Space Movie of All Time

The world’s largest digital camera is epic, from its size to its ambitious movie.

BY DORIS ELÍN URRUTIA

 

Jacqueline Ramseyer Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

The camera, the team behind it purports, will take the greatest movie of all time. Observations will begin around January 2025.

Trilogy enthusiasts be warned: to watch all the video clips back to back, each packed with a decade’s worth of observations of just one slice of the southern sky, would take a year. That’s without sleeping, too, Rubin Observatory construction director ´eljko Ivezić tells Inverse.

The camera will record our celestial family. That includes close cousin asteroids, infrequent visitors like comets, the Sun’s community of stars whizzing around the center of the Milky Way and outside the galaxy, to the far reaches of our celestial family tree. Ivezić is optimistic the LSST Camera will discover five million asteroids, and see about 20 billion stars in our galaxy, plus about 20 billion galaxies.

Imaging the cosmos and how it changes at varying distances will help reveal many dynamics at play. The camera’s work will complement other missions surveying the night sky such as Gaia and Euclid. The science produced can help answer questions about whether or not Albert Einstein had it entirely right with his theory of general relativity, reveal new transient phenomena like supernovas and variable stars, and quintuple the number of known asteroids zipping through the Solar System.

The idea of a massive digital camera isn’t revolutionary. But the technology is. The University of Arizona produced the camera’s most critical component, the three mirrors, for the low price of $30 million. Ivezić says before modern advancements in manufacturing, the mirrors would have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The camera’s field of view required computers to be capable of storing 3,200 megapixels and processing them. This wasn’t possible until recently.

LSST Camera will hone in on a section of the southern night sky, about 45 times larger than the size of the Full Moon, for 30 seconds. It rapidly repoints to the next 9.6 square degrees slice of space, and repeats. This way, the camera shoots the entire night sky in three nights. To observe the southern sky in its totality in all six color filters of its carousel takes about three weeks. When the round is complete, the camera starts all over again. This will go on and on for ten years.

The repetition increases the exposure time of each segment. This makes the images more sensitive to dimmer objects. The numerous exposures reveal an average appearance. That’s how the team hopes to discover interlopers, like asteroids and comets.

Over more repetitions, the subtle motions of stars relative to the Sun will also become apparent. Star motions are much gnarlier than they seem. “Those motions are actually faster than the motion of Earth around the Sun,” Ivezić says. “The relative speed is actually higher between the stars, but when you look at images, it’s much smaller because they are thousands of times farther away.”

Astronomers will use the LSST Camera to measure galaxy traits. Their colors reveal their distances. Distortion to their shapes would hint at gravitational lensing, as extraordinarily massive structures bend light. Their placements would fine-tune ideas about how galaxies distribute over time. The expansion of the universe may also get less mysterious.

The SUV-sized camera will soon begin a daunting journey. The Boeing 747 that will fly it across the Americas can land in La Serena, Chile. But it cannot take off from this small airport. So the big plane will have to land farther from the observatory site, in Santiago. A truck carrying the camera will sojourn out of the capital into the Andean highlands. Once it reaches the road that leads up to the 8,900-foot-high summit of Cerro Pachón, it won’t go more than a few miles an hour.

To say the cargo is precious is putting it mildly. It’s covered by insurance, but the team never wants to have to cash in. “They would get money back, but there is no place to go to buy a new camera,” Ivezić says.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

02-05-2024 om 22:14 geschreven door peter  

Boeing Starliner Is Just Days Away From Its First Human Test Flight

All eyes are on Starliner.

BY DORIS ELÍN URRUTIA

 

Anadolu/Anadolu/Getty Images

The Boeing Starliner is less than a week away from its critical Crew Flight Test.

NASA astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore will be the first humans to fly aboard the low-Earth orbit spacecraft. Their flight will take off as early as Monday, May 6 at 10:34 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. NASA will be streaming the event live, which you can watch here.

Williams and Wilmore will run tests onboard the spacecraft. Starliner will then dock with the International Space Station (ISS). After a week inside the orbiting laboratory, they’ll reboard Starliner. The reusable spacecraft will land back to Earth in the southwestern United States.

WHY IS THIS LAUNCH SO IMPORTANT?

Starliner flew crewless in late 2019 for Orbital Flight Test 1. But it failed to dock with the ISS. This important maneuver finally happened on the following test, Orbital Flight Test 2, in mid-2022. On Friday, NASA announced Williams and Wilmore had completed a start-to-finish mission dress rehearsal for the upcoming launch.

If Starliner aces Crew Flight Test, NASA will have a second company to take its astronauts into Earth’s atmosphere. NASA has already ordered six Starliner crew rotation missions to the space station. It can carry up to four astronauts, or a mix of passengers and cargo.

A MUCH NEEDED BACK UP PLAN

Currently only one spacecraft, the SpaceX Crew Dragon, launches astronauts from the United States. After the Space Shuttle Program ended in July 2011, spacefarers could only launch from Russia or China.

NASA awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing to develop spacecraft that could carry astronauts into low-Earth orbit as part of its Commercial Crew Program. SpaceX debuted Crew Dragon on May 30, 2020. Monday will be Boeing’s first crewed flight.

Boeing would provide a backup plan. The ISS must be continuously occupied and if something unexpected happens in orbit, station maintenance and upkeep must continue.

If a spacecraft cannot continue its work, having two low-Earth orbit providers rather than one would provide greater flexibility. In a press conference on March 22, Dana Weigel, deputy manager of the ISS Program at NASA, cited a recent example. A micrometeoroid strike in December 2022 left a Russian Soyuz capsule defunct in space. But since Crew Dragon was in operation, other crews could fly up and back. NASA also had to depend on another country to return NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to Earth. Stranded until a rescue Russian Soyuz replaced it, Rubio wound up breaking the record for longest single spaceflight in U.S. history, at 371 days.

It’s a situation NASA hopes never to repeat. Starliner may soon be ready to answer the call.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

02-05-2024 om 22:04 geschreven door peter  

The researchers behind the novel accomplishment believe their work may open up several practical applications, ranging from sensing and on-chip routing to lasing and quantum light-matter interfaces.

“This principle offers a new approach to slow down light fields and thereby enhance their strength,” explained AMOLF group leader Ewold Verhagen. “Realizing this on a chip is particularly important for many applications.”

EXPLORING TWISTRONICS AND MAGIC ANGLES TO STOP LIGHT IN ITS TRACKS

In their research, published in the journal Nature Photonics, the AMOLF team explains how the unique properties of two-dimensional materials allowed them such precise control over light waves. Sometimes referred to as “Twistronics,” researchers have found that simply deforming or “twisting” two-dimensional materials can create a number of unexpected and sometimes useful consequences.

For example, researchers have been able to induce certain types of superconductivity by twisting a two-layered stack of graphene, which consists of two sheets of individual carbon atoms, to exactly 1.08 degrees. This so-called “magic angle” has offered hope that these types of materials may one day lead to functional, room-temperature superconductors.

Of course, manipulating electrons, which have a charge, is completely different from manipulating individual light waves since they are essentially massless and do not possess an electromagnetic charge. As the researchers explain, “In electronic crystals, magnetic fields can be used to induce a multitude of unique phenomena; [however] the uncharged nature of photons necessitates alternative approaches to bring about similar control over photons at the nanoscale.”

PHOTONIC CRYSTALS AND LANDAU LINES

To successfully stop light in its tracks, the team tapped into a type of two-dimensional material known as a photonic crystal. Like graphene, this material is made up of individual atoms attached at their sides to create a two-dimensional sheet. However, the carbon used to make graphene is replaced with silicon, and the resulting two-dimensional sheet also contains a regular pattern of holes.

“A photonic crystal normally consists of a regular—two–dimensional—pattern of holes in a silicon layer,” explained first author René Barczyk, who successfully defended his PhD thesis on this topic last year. Barczyk also noted that light can move freely in this material, “just like electrons in graphene.”

“In general, graphene is a good electronic conductor, but this changes when the crystal array is deformed, for instance, by stretching it like elastics,” Verhagen explained. “Such mechanical deformation stops conduction; the material turns into an insulator, and consequently, the electrons are bound to Landau levels.”

In effect, stretching the graphene had the same effect as applying a magnetic field, only without a magnet. Verhagen says that given how this artificial creation of these “Landau levels” controls the motion of electrons, his team wondered “if a similar approach would also work for photons.”

Sure enough, after multiple experiments, the team found success. The twisting and stretching of the photonic crystals created the desired Landau levels, offering the ability to manipulate the flow of light through the material.

“By playing with the deformation pattern, we even managed to establish various types of effective magnetic fields in one material,” Verhagen explained. “As a result, photons can move through certain parts of the material but not in others. Hence, these insights also provide new ways to steer light on a chip.”

Perhaps more significantly, the process allowed the researchers to stop light in its tracks, offering a unique level of control over individual photons.

02-05-2024 om 21:53 geschreven door peter  

The leading image shows JWST’s view of the Horsehead Nebula alongside two other views. The Euclid image was captured in November 2023. Euclid features a wide-angle, 600-megapixel camera, and its primary job is to measure the redshift of galaxies and the Universe’s expansion due to dark energy. It took Euclid about one hour to capture the image, showcasing the telescope’s ability to gather highly detailed images quickly.

The Hubble captured its image in 2013 and was released as the telescope’s 23rd-anniversary featured image. The venerable Hubble does a good job of revealing structures hidden by dust. There’s nothing left to say about the Hubble that hasn’t been said already. It’s the revered elder among telescopes, and if you feel no reverence towards it, its contribution to science, and the people responsible for it, you may have a bad case of ennui.

The third image is a new one from the JWST’s NIRCam instrument. It’s described as the sharpest image of the Horsehead ever taken. It shows a small part of the iconic nebula in detail we don’t usually see. The JWST is so powerful it even shows background galaxies.

The Horsehead Nebula is the result of stellar erosion. The nebula itself was formed by a collapsing cloud of material, and a nearby hot star called Sigma Orionis illuminates the structure. The nebula is denser than its surrounding gas and has resisted the dissipative energy of the star, while the gas that used to surround it is long gone.

This definitely isn’t the last we’ll see of Horsehead. New, powerful telescopes coming online soon, like the Giant Magellan Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope will likely take a crack at the nebula. Prepare to be wowed.

There’s no rush. According to astronomers, the Horsehead Nebula will eventually be eroded away, too, but not for another five million years or so.

The “mane” of the Horsehead Nebula is shown here imaged by Webb’s MIRI instrument. The mid-infrared light captured by MIRI reveals substances like dusty silicates and soot-like molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. 

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona) and A. Abergel (IAS/University Paris-Saclay, CNRS)

The Horsehead Nebula, imaged by the NIRCam instrument on NASA’s Webb Telescope, features a portion of the horse’s “mane” about 0.8 light-years wide. The blue clouds at the bottom of the image are dominated by cold, molecular hydrogen. Red wisps above the nebula represent mainly atomic hydrogen gas.

 Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona) and A. Abergel (IAS/University Paris-Saclay, CNRS)

• https://youtu.be/PSygeyDXW_c

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

02-05-2024 om 17:45 geschreven door peter  

The team’s samples recorded a magnetic field strength of 15 microteslas at the time they formed. Today, Earth’s field strength is closer to 30 microteslas, so it’s obvious that our magnetic field and magnetosphere have been there for billions of years. It’s also clear that the field changes over time. The science team also found that early Earth’s magnetosphere was amazingly similar to the one it has today.

Tracking Earth’s Magnetosphere through Time

Our planet has a main dynamo at its heart. There are two cores—an inner one and an outer one. Motions in the core regions generate the magnetic field that defines our magnetosphere. Molten iron mixes and moves in the fluid outer core and the inner core solidifies. The two actions together create that dynamo. That’s what’s happening inside our planet today.

However, when Earth was first forming some 4.5 billion years ago, that solid inner core didn’t exist. Without the interaction we see today between the two parts of the core, it’s hard to know how any early magnetic field existed. That’s an open question among geologists and planetary scientists: how did it form and how was it sustained?

Another question relates to how much the planetary magnetic field has varied over time. Answering that one would help geologists understand just when the solid inner core formed. It would also show how much heat has escaped our planet from deep inside over time. Heat escape drives plate tectonics, which uses large “plates” of rock to shift things around on the surface over hundreds of millions of years.

What Do the Rocks Tell Us?

Rocks have a long and complex history. They form as a molten mixture that solidifies, or in the case of sandstones, are laid down in layers that then harden. In the case of molten rocks, they have magnetic field fingerprints entrained at the time of formation. In measuring those fingerprints, geologists account for any heating that could “reset” the magnetic signatures over time. The Greenland rocks are relatively pristine, meaning they haven’t been significantly heated since they formed. That means their magnetic fingerprints haven’t changed since formation.

Rocks also get weathered by wind, temperature changes and erosion, but the Isuan samples seem to be relatively pristine, according to Benjamin Weiss of MIT. “Northern Isua has the oldest known well-preserved rocks on Earth,” Weiss said. “Not only have they not been significantly heated since 3.7 billion years ago but they have also been scraped clean by the Greenland ice sheet.”

Rocks Through Time

The rocks the team studied date back to the Archean Eon—the second-oldest geologic eon in Earth’s history. That period began about 4 billion years ago, and during that time Earth was largely an ocean world with a limited amount of continental surface. Since then, Earth’s surface has changed a great deal, destroying or burying rocks from earlier times. So, finding rocks that date back that far in time is a big deal.

The Isuan rocks are relatively unchanged since they formed, and bear proof of a magnetic field existing less than a billion years after the planet formed. That same early magnetic field could have played a role in the development of our planet’s atmosphere, by assisting in removing xenon gas. Other old rocks may well tell scientists more about the birth of the magnetic field. There are rocks in Canada, Australia and South Africa that could give unique insight into the formation of the field and its role in making Earth habitable for life.

For More Information

• Researchers Find Oldest Undisputed Evidence of Earth’s Magnetic Field
• Possible Eoarchean Records of the Geomagnetic Field Preserved in the Isua Supracrustal Belt, Southern West Greenland

{ https://www.universetoday.com }

02-05-2024 om 16:44 geschreven door peter  

The mission plans to use the backup spacecraft from China’s first sample return mission, which occurred in 2020, marking the first successful retrieval of materials from the lunar surface in decades and another significant advancement in China’s exploration of space.

The mission presents several technological hurdles and will require the assistance of the Quequao-2 relay satellite the country recently sent into lunar orbit, which will help to facilitate communications with the Chang’e-6 spacecraft from its position on the far side of the Moon.

China plans to use Quequao-2 on future missions at least through the end of 2028, in advance of its exploration of the lunar South Pole that are expected to include the establishment of a lunar base, followed by crewed missions by the beginning of the next decade.

China’s lunar ambitions are the foreign counterpart to NASA’s Artemis program, which currently plans to send astronauts back to the Moon. Following an initial pair of test missions, Artemis III will send astronauts back to the lunar surface by 2026, marking the time humans have walked on the lunar surface in more than half a century.

Artemis III astronauts will similarly explore areas near the lunar South Pole, where NASA hopes they will be able to locate water and other resources that could be hidden in its permanently shadowed regions.

Previously, the presence of ice was confirmed within craters near the Moon’s poles by India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission.

If successful, the Chang’e-6 mission will place its spacecraft near the South Pole-Aitkin Basin, home to the oldest known crater that is presently known, where it will use a mechanical drill and a scooping instrument to collect samples that may be capable of revealing insights into the Moon’s origins, as well as the formation of the solar system.

Prior to China’s successful sample return in 2020, samples collected during past lunar missions had all been retrieved from the near side of Earth’s natural satellite, either by the U.S. or during lunar explorations conducted by the Soviet Union.

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

01-05-2024 om 00:27 geschreven door peter  

Whoa! The Webb Telescope Zoomed Way into the Iconic Horsehead Nebula

This dense cloud of interstellar gas is 3,000 light years away, but it looks close enough to touch.

BY KIONA SMITH

 

STSCI

The Horsehead Nebula looks just like what its name implies: the cloudy silhouette of a horse, sticking its head up for a look above the surrounding clouds of gas and dust. It’s actually a plume of especially dense gas, left behind when stellar winds carved away the wispier material around it (like a gassy version of the sandstone pillars carved by erosion here on Earth). And in cosmic terms, the Horsehead Nebula is a fleeting sight: It, too, will erode in about 5 million years, based on physicists’ computer simulations.

New stars are forming in the nearby clouds of interstellar gas, as dense clumps of gas collapse under their own mass. The powerful ultraviolet light from those stars has already eroded away the lighter gas around the Horsehead Nebula, and it’s what lights up the nebula itself. In the process, the radiation also triggers chemical reactions in the gas, and on the surfaces of dust grains. Some of those reactions could eventually lead to chemicals essential for life.

MIRI and NIRCam view the universe in slightly different wavelengths of light, so each instrument’s image of the nebula looks slightly different and contains slightly different information for scientists. You can compare the two on the European Space Agency’s website.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

01-05-2024 om 00:17 geschreven door peter  

Asteroid Psuche was discovered in March 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis. Because he discovered it, he was allowed to name it and settled on Psyche after the Greek goddess of the soul. It orbits the Sun at a distance of between 378 million to 497 million kilometres and takes about 5 Earth years to complete an orbit. Shaped like a potato, or perhaps more accurately classed as ‘irregular’ it is actually a little ellipsoid in shape measuring 280 km across wide at its widest part and 232 km across long. 

Of more interest than the objectives perhaps (although I for one am looking forward to learn more about this wonderful asteroid) was the trial communication system. The newly developed Deep Space Optical Communications technology (DSOC) is not the primary communications platform but it is there as a prototype. 

The optical system which relies upon laser technology successfully sent back engineering data at a distance of 226 million kilometres. Perhaps more impressively though, the spacecraft has shown that it can transmit at a rate of 267 Mbps (YES you read that right, just over quarter of a Gbps!) The impressive download speed was achieved on 11 December last year when a 15 second ultra high definition video was sent to Earth. Sadly though, as the spacecraft recedes, its data transmission capability will reduce. Still far better than normal radio communications though. 

Using a powerful modulated laser, the Optical Communication Telescope Laboratory in California will be able to send data at a low rate to Psyche. To receive data, a photon counting receiver has been installed at the Caltech Palomar Observatory to pickup information sent by the spacecraft. Communication has always been a great challenge in space exploration and, whilst we cannot reduce transit time for data, we can improve the amount of data sent at any one time. A great step forward in space exploration. 

Source : 

• NASA’s Optical Comms Demo Transmits Data Over 140 Million Miles

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

29-04-2024 om 21:47 geschreven door peter  

Bestaan er levensvormen op de maan van Jupiter? Een nieuw instrument zal ons dat eindelijk kunnen vertellen

Door Janine

Zijn er levensvormen op Europa, een van de manen van Jupiter? Volgens wetenschappers is er een manier om daar achter te komen dankzij een nieuwe techniek: laten we eens kijken waar het uit bestaat.

Een sonde vliegt over Europa en pikt ijskorrels op

unknown author of the NASA - NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/Wikimedia commons - Public domain

Het zou voldoende zijn om één enkele ijskoude korrel die Europa bedekt te analyseren om te ontdekken of de satelliet cellulair leven herbergt. Makkelijker gezegd dan gedaan, maar wetenschappers hebben een manier gevonden die in de nabije toekomst getest kan worden, wanneer Europa Clipper, de sonde van NASA, over Europa vliegt.

In de praktijk zetten wetenschappers alles in op een van de instrumenten van de sonde, genaamd SUDA, Surface Dust Analyser, die ijskorrels moet oppikken als hij door de bevroren waterpluimen op het oppervlak van de satelliet vliegt en deze vervolgens moet analyseren. Fabian Klenner, planeetwetenschapper aan de Universiteit van Washington en hoofdauteur van het onderzoek naar deze methode, zei: "Het is verbazingwekkend hoe de analyse van deze kleine ijskorrels ons kan vertellen of er leven is op een ijskoude maan. We weten nu in ieder geval dat SUDA over deze mogelijkheden beschikt."

SUDA en de analyse van een enkele ijskorrel van Europa

NASA-JPL/Wikimedia commons - Public domain

SUDA zal in staat zijn om de chemische elementen in het verzamelde materiaal direct te onderzoeken, dankzij een proces dat bekend staat als “impact ionisatie massaspectrometrie”. Het unieke aan deze techniek is dat het instrument een enkele ijskorrel kan analyseren in plaats van een grote massa ijsdeeltjes. Hierdoor kunnen onderzoekers ontdekken of een enkele korrel hoge percentages ingrediënten van een enkele cel bevat.

Wetenschappers geloven dat verschillende manen van zowel Jupiter als Saturnus, waaronder Europa, Enceladus, Ganymedes en Callisto, reservoirs van vloeibaar water bedekt met ijs bevatten. NASA's missie Cassini naar Saturnus heeft ontdekt dat pluimen ijskorrels die via het ijsoppervlak uit de verborgen zeeën van Enceladus spuwen verschillende organische verbindingen bevatten (en een hoge aanwezigheid van fosfor). Dit leidde tot de hypothese dat hetzelfde zou kunnen gebeuren op Europa.

Volgens Klenner zou de grote hoeveelheid ijskorrels rond de satelliet Jupiter het gevolg zijn van interplanetaire meteoroïden die het oppervlak raken, "waardoor er een vage wolk van ijskorrels rond de maan ontstaat - een paradijs voor een instrument als SUDA".

Is er cellulair leven in het ijs van Europa?

NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/Wikimedia commons - Public domain

Het idee dat Europa levensvormen zou kunnen herbergen, is niet nieuw: in de jaren negentig opperde de natuurkundige Freeman Dyson de aanwezigheid van “gevriesdroogde vis” in de ring van ruimtepuin rond Jupiter: hoewel dit een ver verwijderde hypothese is, zou er cellulair leven, zelfs in gefragmenteerde vorm, kunnen worden gevonden in de ijskorrels van de maan. Voordat ze SUDA op hun missie stuurden, testten Klenner en zijn team de capaciteiten door middel van laboratoriumsimulaties met experimentele apparatuur, die in staat bleek om bacteriën in afzonderlijke waterdruppels te onderscheiden. De sonde Europa Clipper wordt volgens de planning in oktober gelanceerd en komt in 2030 in een baan om Jupiter, waar hij ongeveer vier jaar zal blijven.

Een ander recent onderzoek suggereerde dat de ijzige schil van Europa meer dan 20 km dik zou kunnen zijn, wat een voortdurend omvallen van de ijslagen zou kunnen veroorzaken en dus een uitwisseling van het oppervlak met de oceaan. Sascha Kempf, de hoofdonderzoeker van SUDA, legde uit: “Als Europa Clipper de uitwisselingsprocessen tussen ijs en oceaan zou bevestigen, dan heeft deze maan een mechanisme om materiaal van de oceaan naar het oppervlak te transporteren, en zouden instrumenten aan boord van de sonde materiaal kunnen analyseren dat ooit uit de oceaan kwam – misschien zelfs celmateriaal, indien aanwezig."

Bestaat er echt leven in het water van deze maan van Jupiter? Er rest ons niets anders dan afwachten.

Source:

{ https://www.curioctopus.nl/ }

29-04-2024 om 18:09 geschreven door peter  

NASA reist naar een asteroïde van onschatbare waarde: hij is rijk aan kostbare metalen en dat niet alleen

 Door Janine

In de familie van asteroïden die de kosmos bevolken, heeft er één in het bijzonder de aandacht getrokken van wetenschappers vanwege zijn mogelijk onschatbare waarde. Hier lees je waarom en waar hij te vinden is.

De belangrijke asteroïde Psyche

NASA

Psyche zou niet alleen een gigantische, maar ook een “zeer rijke” asteroïde kunnen zijn, die indrukwekkende hoeveelheden edelmetalen zou kunnen bevatten. Het bevindt zich ongeveer drie keer verder van de zon dan onze planeet en heeft een onregelmatige vorm, die doet denken aan een aardappel. Het breedste punt meet 280 km, terwijl het hoogste punt 232 km lang is, met een totaal van 165.800 vierkante kilometer.

De samenstelling ervan wordt geschat op een mix van 30% rotsen en 60% metal. Het 3D-model van de asteroïde suggereert de aanwezigheid van twee kraters, wat zou kunnen wijzen op een grote verandering in het metaalgehalte en de uiterlijke kleur van Psyche. Dit kan echter pas worden bevestigd als NASA's missie Pysche het voor het eerst van dichtbij kan zien. Wetenschappers geloven dat zijn oorsprong voortkomt uit een reeks talrijke en gewelddadige botsingen, die hij heeft overleefd sinds de vorming van het zonnestelsel. Om deze reden zou het kunnen onthullen hoe de kern van de aarde en die van andere planeten is gevormd.

Hoe lang zal NASA's missie Psyche duren?

Raysastrophotograhy/Wikimedia commons - CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED

Psyche is een ontdekking van de Italiaanse astronoom Annibale de Gasparis, die de asteroïde op 17 maart 1852 voor het eerst zag en hem de naam gaf van de Griekse godin van de ziel die trouwde met Eros, de god van de liefde. Omdat het de zestiende ontdekte asteroïde is, is de volledige naam 16 Psyche en vertegenwoordigt het een belangrijk doelwit voor NASA: het gelijknamige ruimtevaartuig werd op 13 oktober 2023 gelanceerd vanaf NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, en zal over Mars vliegen om in augustus 2029 zijn bestemming te bereiken. In totaal zes jaar en 3,6 miljard kilometer.

De missie is van plan het oppervlak en de eigenschappen van het hemellichaam in kaart te brengen, dat een blootliggende kern van een planeet lijkt te zijn. Maar dit is niet de enige reden van belangstelling die Psyche omhult: er wordt geschat dat de kostbare metalen die het bevat, waaronder ijzer, nikkel en goud, ongeveer 10.000 biljoen dollar waard zijn.

Wat zal er gebeuren na de lange reis naar Psyche?

NASA /JPL-Caltech/ASU/Peter Rubin/Wikimedia commons - Public domain

Deskundigen werkten dag en nacht om het ruimtevaartuig te lanceren en het een baanbrekende reis naar de asteroïde te laten maken, die niet alleen de geheimen van de oorsprong van de aarde kon bevatten, maar ook een onschatbare economische waarde zou kunnen hebben. Er zal echter nog een lange weg te gaan zijn voordat deze voorspellingen worden bevestigd.

Constante monitoring van de orbiter zorgt ervoor dat deze zijn reis naar de diepe ruimte kan voortzetten, met mogelijke koersaanpassingen. Tegen de tijd dat het ruimtevaartuig Psyche bereikt in de belangrijkste asteroïdengordel tussen Jupiter en Mars, zal het ongeveer twee jaar rond de asteroïde draaien en verschillende aspecten onderzoeken, zoals de magnetische eigenschappen, de zwaartekracht en de samenstelling. In 2026 zal het ruimtevaartuig Mars naderen om een ​​zwaartekrachtboost te krijgen, waardoor het zijn reis kan voortzetten. De missie zou in 2031 moeten eindigen.

{ https://www.curioctopus.nl/ }

29-04-2024 om 17:50 geschreven door peter  

Comprehensive 3D map of the universe fills 11-billion-year gap

The new SDSS map of the universe is the result of over 20 years of data, and reveals new details about the cosmos

A 20-year study of the night sky has allowed astronomers to produce a comprehensive 3D map of the universe, covering 11 billion years of expansion. A new analysis of this map has highlighted a mismatch in the Hubble Constant, and revealed when the expansion of the universe began to accelerate.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has been collecting data for over 20 years now, with each data release resulting in more and more detailed maps of the cosmos. Now, scientists have combined it all into one huge three-dimensional map that covers almost the entire history of the universe. Importantly, the team says that the new study fills in a massive gap in the middle that has long bothered astronomers.

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“We know both the ancient history of the universe and its recent expansion history fairly well, but there’s a troublesome gap in the middle 11 billion years,” says Kyle Dawson, a lead researcher on the project. “For five years, we have worked to fill in that gap, and we are using that information to provide some of the most substantial advances in cosmology in the last decade."

The new map uses data from different phases of the Sloan survey to chart objects at different distances from Earth – therefore representing different time periods in the universe’s history. In this map, Earth is the dot at the very center, and the differently colored rings represent different data sets, circulating outwards in ever greater distances in space and time.

Anand Raichoor (EPFL), Ashley Ross (Ohio State University) and the SDSS Collaboration

The green section highlights galaxies closest to Earth, from data gathered during the first two SDSS runs. The pink and red circles cover the region up to about six billion light-years away, from observations of large, old, red galaxies. A little beyond that, the data comes from younger blue galaxies. To map even further out, to about 11 billion years ago, data was collected from quasars, which are bright galaxies with very active supermassive black holes at their centers.

The resulting map revealed a few new tidbits of information for astronomers. The researchers were able to use the map to measure the rate that the universe is expanding – a value known as the Hubble Constant. Strangely enough, they found the current value to be about 10 percent lower than when it’s calculated by measuring distances to nearby galaxies.

The team says that the data from the map is very precise, and made up of different data sets that all have the same conclusion. Exactly why there’s a mismatch for the Hubble Constant is a mystery that will require further study, the researchers say.

The study also showed that the expansion of the universe seemed to speed up about six billion years ago. It’s well known that the rate of expansion is accelerating, but nailing down when this began has been tricky in the past. Previous studies have suggested it started some four billion years ago, but the new data indicates it was earlier. A force dubbed "dark energy" is our current best guess for what is causing this acceleration.

And finally, since the study covers such a large section of space and time, it’s able to give one of the clearest pictures of what “shape” the universe is. Whether it’s flat or curved is the subject of ongoing argument for astrophysicists, but the new SDSS map adds evidence to it being flat.

The SDSS will continue to study the cosmos in ever more detail, with a new phase of operations due to begin later this year.

The research was published in a series of studies, as Sloan’s 16th data release. The team discusses the work in the video below.

Source: 

• SDSS

{https://newatlas.com/ }

29-04-2024 om 01:13 geschreven door peter  

Why is it so hard to send humans back to the moon?

Related: 

• Astronauts won't walk on the moon until 2026 after NASA delays next 2 Artemis missions
• https://youtu.be/WLC8vlH7vgw

In comparison, today NASA commands less than half a percent of the total federal budget, with a much broader range of priorities and directives. Over the past decade, NASA has spent roughly $90 billion on the Artemis program. Naturally, with less money going to a new moon landing, we're likely to make slower progress, even with advancements in technology.

Closely tied to the financial realities are the political realities. In the 1960s, America was in the midst of the space race, a competition with the Soviet Union to achieve as many firsts in space, especially landing humans on the moon. The public was on board and energized by this idea, as were lawmakers who directed NASA's expansive budget. 

That kind of spending, however, was deeply unsustainable. As soon as America "won," the public quickly lost interest and NASA funding tumbled. There simply isn't the political or public will to spend that amount of money for a second shot at the moon.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

29-04-2024 om 00:48 geschreven door peter  

(NASA, ESA, CSA, and L. Hustak (STScI))

ASTRONOMERS REVEAL AN ‘ACTIVE MOON’ MAY BE HIDING IN ORBIT NEAR THIS RECENT JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE DISCOVERY

MICAH HANKS 

Located approximately 47 light years from Earth, one of these brown dwarfs, CWISEP J193518.59–154620.3 (also known simply as W1935), possesses a surface temperature of about 400° Fahrenheit and a likely mass of somewhere between six and 35 times that of Jupiter.

During their studies, Faherty and her team found that W1935 was unlike other brown dwarfs they had observed; specifically, it appeared to be emitting methane. This is unusual since methane is most often associated with larger planets like gas giants.

“We were confused about what we were seeing at first but ultimately that transformed into pure excitement at the discovery,” Faherty said.

The initial detection of methane emanating from W1935 was reported in January, baffling astronomers at the time since the object is relatively cold and lacks any host star to provide its upper atmosphere with the energy that usually drives such methane emissions.

Faherty and her team relied on computer modeling in their observations of W1935, which revealed that it also appears to possess a temperature inversion, which is fairly common for planets orbiting stars. However, without any external heat source, it seemed odd that W1935 would possess this characteristic due to its isolation.

Ben Burningham, a researcher from the University of Hertfordshire and co-author of a new paper describing the team’s findings, says the team was “pleasantly shocked” by this discovery and went to work on trying to locate the source of the extra heat in W1935’s upper atmosphere.

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

29-04-2024 om 00:27 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Stumbled On A Glistening Lava Lake On Jupiter’s Moon Io

Loki Patera is like no place on Earth.

BY KIONA SMITH

 

NASA

Loki Patera isn’t the first lava lake scientists have spotted on Io; previous spacecraft, including Galileo (RIP) have also sent home images of similar features, but Juno’s pics are the clearest and most detailed. Based on Juno’s data, NASA created this animation of what a flight over Loki Patera might look like.

On Io, lava lakes like Loki Patera probably form when the ground over a magma reservoir sinks or collapses. Earth has similar features called calderas, which form when a volcano erupts and its top collapses inward because there’s less magma underneath to support it. Io’s paterae (the plural of patera) are similar to calderas on Earth and Mars, but they’re also different in ways that suggest they may form a little differently. A 2001 study, which used data from Galileo, suggested that tectonic movements may pull pieces of Io’s crust apart, leaving gaps that collapse and form paterae.

Once a patera like Loki forms, lava usually floods its floor – and often spreads well beyond the edges of the patera. The lava pours in from underground magma chambers like the one planetary scientists say probably lies beneath Loki Patera. Galileo captured an image of a patera on Io, with magma gushing in from fissures at the base of its rocky walls, back in 2000.

The surface of Loki Patera is exposed to the poisonous atmosphere of Io, so it slowly cools into a hard, thin crust of volcanic glass, which reflects sunlight so brightly in Juno’s images. Islands of rock — rock with a higher melting point than the magma beneath the patera — dot the middle of the lava lake. Glowing hot magma lines their shores and the lake's edges, peeking through cracks that form at the edges of the glassy crust.

Picture a frozen lake here on Earth: smooth ice on the surface and liquid water beneath. Now imagine that it’s all lava instead of water, and that’s Loki Patera.

But unlike ice, rock gets heavier, not lighter, when it cools and solidifies. Eventually, the crust will be too heavy to float on top of the liquid, molten rock beneath, and it will sink into the magma. This happens every Earth year or two, leaving the bubbling molten surface of the lava lake exposed, which spacecraft like Juno can see because the molten rock radiates about ten times more heat than the cooled, glassy crust.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

28-04-2024 om 21:49 geschreven door peter  

Nevertheless, small spacecraft will need to be able to perform challenging propulsive maneuvers like achieving escape velocity, orbital capture, and other maneuvers that require significant acceleration (delta-v). The thrust required to perform these maneuvers – 8 km/s (~5 mps) of delta-v – is beyond the capability of current and commercially available propulsion technology. Moreover, low-cost commercial electric propulsion systems have limited lifetimes and typically process only about 10% of a small spacecraft’s propellant mass.

Similarly, secondary spacecraft are becoming more common thanks to rockets with excess capacity (enabling rideshare programs). Still, these are generally limited to scientific targets that align with the primary mission’s trajectory. Additionally, secondary missions typically have limited time to collect data during high-speed flybys. What is needed is an electric propulsion system that requires low power (sub-kilowatt) and has high-propellant throughout – meaning it is capable of using lots of propellant over its lifetime.

To meet this demand, engineers at NASA Glenn are taking many advanced high-power solar electric propulsion (SEP) elements developed over the past decade and are miniaturizing them. These elements were developed as part of NASA’s Moon to Mars mission architecture, with applications including the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) of the Lunar Gateway. A SEP system was also part of the design for a Deep Space Transport (DST), the vehicle that will conduct the first crewed missions to Mars by 2040. The NASA-H71M system, however, is expected to have a major impact on small spacecraft, expanding mission profiles and durations.

According to NASA, missions using the NASA-H71M system could operate for 15,000 hours and process over 30% of the small spacecraft’s initial mass in propellant. This system could increase the reach of secondary spacecraft, allowing them to deviate from the primary mission’s trajectory and explore a wider range of scientific targets. By allowing spacecraft to decelerate and make orbital insertions, this technology could increase mission durations and the amount of time they have to study objects.

It’s also beyond the needs of most commercial LEO missions, and the associated costs are generally higher than what commercial missions call for. As such, NASA continues to seek partnerships with commercial developers working on small commercial spacecraft with more ambitious mission profiles. One such partner is SpaceLogistics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman that provides in-orbit satellite servicing to geosynchronous satellite operators using its proprietary Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV).

This vehicle relies on Northrop Grumman NGHT-1X Hall-effect thrusters based on the NASA-H71M design. This propulsive capability will allow the MEV to reach satellites in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO), where it will dock with customer’s satellites, extending their lives for at least six years. Through a Space Act Agreement (SAA), Northrop Grumman is conducting long-duration wear tests (LDWT) at NASA Glenn’s Vacuum Facility 11. The first three MEP spacecraft are expected to launch in 2025 and extend the lives of three GEO communication satellites.

Further Reading: 

• NASA

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

28-04-2024 om 17:16 geschreven door peter  

Solar Sails are an enigmatic and majestic way to travel across the gulf of space. Drawing an analogy to the sail ships of the past, they are one of the most efficient ways of propelling craft in space. On Tuesday a RocketLab Electron rocket launched NASA’s new Advanced Composite Solar Sail System. It aims to test the deployment of large solar sails in low-earth orbit and on Wednesday, NASA confirmed they had successfully deployed a 9 metre sail. 

In 1886 the motor car was invented. In 1903 humans made their first powered flight. Just 58 years later, humans made their first trip into space on board a rocket. Rocket technology has changed significantly over the centuries, yes centuries. The development of the rocket started way back in the 13th Century with the Chinese and Mongolians firing rocket propelled arrows at each other. Things moved on somewhat since then and we now have solid and liquid rocket propellant, ion engines and solar sails with more technology in the wings. 

Solar sails are of particular interest because they harness the power of sun, or star light to propel probes across space. The idea isn’t knew though, Johannes Kepler (of planetary motion fame) first suggested that sunlight could be used to push spacecraft in the 17th Century in his works entitled ‘Somnium’. We had to wait until the 20h Century though before Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky outlined the principle of how solar sails might actually work. Carl Sagan and other members of the Planetary Society start to propose missions using solar sails in the 70’s and 80’s but it wasn’t until 2010 that we saw the first practical solar sail vehicle, IKAROS.

 

The concept of solar sails is quite simple to understand, relying upon the pressure of sunlight. The sails are angled such that photons strike the reflective sail and bounce off it to push the spacecraft forward. It does of course take a lot of photons to accelerate a spacecraft using light but slowly, over time it is a very efficient propulsion system requiring no heavy engines or fuel tanks. This reduction of mass makes it easier for solar sails to be accelerated by sunlight but the sail sizes have been limited by the material and structure of the booms that support them. 

NASA have been working on the problem with their Next Generation Solar Sail Boom Technology. Their Advanced Composite Solar Sail System uses a CubeSat built by NanoAvionics to test a new composite boom support structure. It is made from flexible polymer and carbon fibre materials to create a stiffer, lighter alternative to existing support structure designs. 

On Wednesday 24 April, NASA confirmed that the CubeSat has reached low-Earth orbit and deployed a 9 metre sail. They are now powering up the probe and establishing ground contract. It took about 25 minutes to deploy the sail which spans 80 square metres. If the conditions are right, it may even be visible from Earth, possibly even rivalling Sirius in brightness. 

Source : 

• Solar Sail CubeSat Has Deployed from Rocket

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

28-04-2024 om 00:31 geschreven door peter  

David Bowie was right - there are spiders on Mars! European Space Agency's spacecrafts snap mysterious arachnid shapes on the Red Planet 

• Although not actual spiders, 'araneiforms' are dark cracks in the Martian soil
• READ MORE: Mars has two miles of water buried at its equator, experts say

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE 

David Bowie famously christened his backing band 'The Spiders from Mars' in the early 1970s.

But the rock legend surely had no idea that this describes a real phenomenon on our neighbouring red planet. 

Although not actual spiders, 'araneiforms' are dark cracks in the Martian soil, completely different to anything on Earth. 

Clustered around Mars' south pole, they're known as 'spiders from Mars' because they have a distinctive arachnid-like shape.  

New images from two European Space Agency probes – the Mars Express and the Trace Gas Orbiter – show the curious formations in incredible detail. 

In this new Mars Express image, small, dark features known as 'spiders' can be seen on the surface. These form as carbon dioxide gas warms up in sunlight and breaks through slabs of overlying ice

A slice of the Martian surface is shown here, captured by ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. A rounded segment of an eroded crater basin is visible to the right. Note the numerous dark spots with tendrils that are eerily reminiscent of spiders. These are visible in large numbers to the left, and scattered irregularly across the rest of the image

The scientific name for these features – 'araneiforms' – literally means 'shaped like a spider' in Latin. 

They form when spring sunshine falls on layers of frozen carbon dioxide (CO2) on the planet's surface. 

The sunlight causes CO2 ice at the bottom of the solid layer to turn into gas, which subsequently builds up and bursts upwards through slabs of overlying ice. 

The emerging jets of gas, laden with dark dust, shatters through layers of ice up to three feet (one metre) thick before falling back down and settling on the surface. 

This creates characteristic 'spider-shaped' dark spots of between 150 feet and 3,000 feet across that can be seen in space probe images. 

'The carbon dioxide jet process that forms 'spiders' is a completely un-Earthly phenomenon,' said Dr Meg Schwamb, astronomer at Queen's University Belfast.

'The jet process is linked to the Martian seasons and is returning carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.' 

'By studying these spiders and jets we're learning more about how Mars differs from Earth.' 

According to Dr Schwamb, the only other body suspected of having these jets is Neptune's moon Triton, which is known to be geologically active. 

David Bowie played with his backing band the Spiders from Mars during the Ziggy Stardust era (1972). The singer recruited the band but named them after a line in his song 'Ziggy Stardust'

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, with a 'near-dead' dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. This image of the planet was acquired using the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, November 10, 2023

READ MORE: 

• Mars has 'two miles of WATER at its equator'

Fresh data from Mars Express reveals identity of mysterious subsurface deposits 

Araneiforms were first observed more than 20 years ago, but it was only in 2021 that astronomers proved how exactly they form.

The researchers at Trinity College Dublin recreated the Martian process in the lab by lowering and lifting blocks of frozen CO2 onto beds of gravel. 

Experiments showed that the spider patterns are carved by the direct conversion of dry ice from solid to gas, known as 'sublimation'.  

Such a process occurs on Mars because the planet has an atmosphere comprised mostly of CO2 – around 95 per cent. 

On Earth, meanwhile, only about 0.04 per cent of the atmosphere is CO2; instead the majority is made up of nitrogen (78 per cent) and oxygen (20 per cent). 

According to the ESA, araneiforms are especially clustered at the outskirts of a part of Mars nicknamed Inca City. 

More formally known as Angustus Labyrinthus, Inca City was discovered in 1972 by NASA's Mariner 9 probe – the same year Bowie and the Spiders from Mars released their landmark album. 

Mars is shown here in tones of brown and tan. To the left, two key features can be seen - a raised network of linear, grid-like ridges and walls known as Inca City, and a scattering of dark spots that indicate the presence of features known as 'spiders'

David Bowie performs with The Spiders From Mars on the first night of the Ziggy Stardust Tour at Borough Assembly Hall in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire on January 29, 1972. From left, Trevor Bolder, David Bowie, Mick 'Woody' Woodmansey and Mick Ronson

Bowie recruited the band but gave them a new name, taken from a line in his song 'Ziggy Stardust' which features on the album. 

As araneiforms were not known about 50 years ago, Bowie actually took inspiration from another source – a UFO sighting in October 1954. 

An Italian stadium crowd thought they had witnessed Martian spacecraft that cast off a thin filament material – hypothesised to be webs from migrating spiders. 

Meanwhile, title of one of Bowie's most famous hits – 'Life on Mars' from 1971 – was allegedly inspired by intense media coverage of the race to reach the planet between the US and the Soviet Union. 

As for whether there's life on Mars, scientists generally think the answer is likely no largely because of its lack of atmosphere and freezing temperatures. 

The possibility that there was life on Mars is more promising, as it's thought the planet was once covered with a lush liquid ocean. 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

25-04-2024 om 23:48 geschreven door peter  

Mars Express Spots ‘Spiders’ at Outskirts of Martian ‘Inca City’

ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft have spotted the telltale traces of ‘spiders’ scattered across the southern polar region of Mars.

This image of the Martian Inca City was captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera onboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiter on February 27, 2024.

Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

“Rather than being actual spiders, the Martian ‘spiders’ form when spring sunshine falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited over the dark winter months,” members of the Mars Express team said.

“The sunlight causes carbon dioxide ice at the bottom of the layer to turn into gas, which subsequently builds up and breaks through slabs of overlying ice.”

“The gas bursts free in Martian springtime, dragging dark material up to the surface as it goes and shattering layers of ice up to a meter thick.”

“The emerging gas, laden with dark dust, shoots up through cracks in the ice in the form of tall fountains or geysers, before falling back down and settling on the surface.”

This creates dark spots of between 45 m and 1 km (148-3,280 feet) across.

This same process creates characteristic ‘spider-shaped’ patterns etched beneath the ice — and so these dark spots are a telltale sign that spiders may be lurking below.

“The dark spots can be seen all over the Mars Express image. However, most can be seen as small spots in the dark region to the left, which sits just at the outskirts of a part of Mars nicknamed Inca City,” the researchers said.

“The reason for this name is no mystery, with the linear, almost geometric network of ridges being reminiscent of Inca ruins.”

More formally known as Angustus Labyrinthus, Inca City was discovered in 1972 by NASA’s Mariner 9 probe.

“We’re still not sure exactly how Inca City formed. It could be that sand dunes have turned to stone over time,” the scientists said.

“Perhaps material such as magma or sand is seeping through fractured sheets of Martian rock. Or, the ridges could be ‘eskers,’ winding structures related to glaciers.”

“The ‘walls’ of Inca City appear to trace part of a large circle, 86 km (53.5 miles) in diameter.”

The researchers suspect that Inca City sits within a large crater that itself formed as a rock from space crashed into the planet’s surface.

“This impact likely caused faults to ripple through the surrounding plain, which were then filled with rising lava and have since worn away over time,” they said.

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

25-04-2024 om 22:54 geschreven door peter