Our Shaky, Shrinking Moon

Moonquakes generally happen within a hundred miles or so of the lunar surface. On Earth, that might result in a fairly mild quake. But, since the Moon’s surface is so brittle, the effects of those “shakes” are much more noticeable. According to Nicholas Schmerr, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor of geology at the University of Maryland, this means that shallow moonquakes can devastate hypothetical human settlements on the Moon.

“You can think of the Moon’s surface as being dry, grounded gravel and dust,” he said. “Over billions of years, the surface has been hit by asteroids and comets, with the resulting angular fragments constantly getting ejected from the impacts,” Schmerr explained. “As a result, the reworked surface material can be micron-sized to boulder-sized, but all very loosely consolidated. Loose sediments make it very possible for shaking and landslides to occur.”

Quakes affect every part of the lunar surface. Global compressional stresses deform the surface, forcing splits and cracks to occur. These scarps—steep slopes and cliffs—exist everywhere there. In their paper, the team suggests that many are close to the epicenters of geologically recent quakes. And the regions where they occurred could still be active today. That includes the lunar South Pole.

Risks to Artemis

The team led by Watters examined data and images of the lunar South Pole and linked faults there to a major moonquake in the 1970s. The region is filled with scarps, which are prime evidence for moonquakes. Although they conclude that some regions in the area are probably safe enough for the Artemis missions, others are not. The team’s computer models show that the most dangerous areas are vulnerable to landslides triggered by seismic shaking. They continue to map the Moon and track its quakes to identify the riskiest areas for Artemis astronauts to land.

That mission could take place by the end of the decade, when NASA hopes to establish long-term habitations for research and exploration. Schmerr points out that the risks to safety from even the slightest quakes can’t be overestimated. “As we get closer to the crewed Artemis mission’s launch date, it’s important to keep our astronauts, our equipment, and infrastructure as safe as possible,” Schmerr said. “This work is helping us prepare for what awaits us on the moon—whether that’s engineering structures that can better withstand lunar seismic activity or protecting people from really dangerous zones.”

The Artemis missions essentially mark NASA’s return to human exploration of the Moon. The idea is to collaborate with both commercial partners and international agencies to make this happen. Teams of lunar astronauts will establish an Artemis Base camp, and depend on a lunar gateway to connect the mission to Earth. Eventually, what they learn there will inform the first human missions to Mars.

For More Information

• The Moon is Shrinking, Causing Landslides and Instability in Lunar South Pole
• Tectonics and Seismicity of the Lunar South Polar Region
  
• Artemis

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

27-01-2024 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

27-01-2024 om 23:34 geschreven door peter  

And on top of it all, our neighborhood in the galaxy, on a small branch of a great spiral arm situated about 25,000 light-years from the center, seems tuned for life: a Galactic Habitable Zone.

Too close to the center and any emerging life must contend with an onslaught of deadly radiation from countless stellar deaths and explosions, a byproduct of the cramped conditions of the core. Yes, stars come and go, quickly building up a lot of the heavy elements needed for life, but stars can be hundreds of times closer together in the core. The Earth has already suffered some extinction events likely triggered by nearby supernovae, and in that environment we simply wouldn’t stand a chance. Explosions would rip away our protective ozone layer, exposing surface life to deadly solar UV radiation, or just rip away our atmosphere altogether.

And beyond our position, at greater galactic radii, we find a deserted wasteland. Yes, stars appear and live their lives in those outskirts, but they are too far and too lonely to effectively spread their elemental ash to create a life-supporting mixture. There simply isn’t enough density of stars to support sufficient levels of mixing and recycling of elements, meaning that it’s difficult to even build a planet out there in the first place.

And so it seems that life would almost inevitably arise here, on this world, around this Sun, in this region of the Milky Way galaxy. There’s little else that we could conceivably call home.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

27-01-2024 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

BY MARK THOMPSON

Another Asteroid Discovered Hours Before it Impacts the Earth

Sárneczky only had three observations when he submitted the data but continued to observe and over the course of the following minutes secured four more observations which he passed over realising it was heading straight for Earth. The actions that follow any such discovery like this are that the MPC alert others for follow up observations. Astronomers and automated impact monitoring systems including the European Space Agency’s wonderfully named ‘MeerKAT’ system sprang into action and more observations came in. 

With more data, came more accuracy and thankfully the knowledge the the impactor was only about a metre across and due to impact just west of Berlin in Germany. It is not unusual for asteroids of this size to hit Earth indeed, we get them every couple of weeks but they generally burn up in the atmosphere and pose no threat. Larger asteroids that do pose a threat are thankfully much rarer. Larger objects are also easier to spot so the majority have already been spotted and are already being tracked but there are automated searches and individuals like Sárneczky who are always on the look out.

The asteroid, which is now known as 2024-BX1 hit the Earth’s atmosphere just a few hours after discovery at 01:32 CET (00:32 UT) on Sunday morning the 21st January, 50km to the west of Berlin. It burned up, leaving a fabulous streak across the sky which people witnessed as a fireball even being spotted over here in the UK.

Worryingly it is actually quite an unusual thing for asteroids to have been discovered before they impact our atmosphere. Only eight have been spotted with the first back in 2008. The difficulty of course is to find them early enough to give us time to understand their trajectory and size to understand what level of threat they pose to us. I should add there are no known asteroids on a collision course with Earth  and fortunately there are people like Sárneczky and a number of automated search systems out there on the lookout for the next one. 

Source : 

• Asteroid 2024 BX1 spotted three hours before impact

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

27-01-2024 om 22:56 geschreven door peter  

Although initially planned as a technology demonstration that would only conduct five test flights, Ingenuity went on to perform a remarkable 72 flights, many of which provided useful aerial reconnaissance for the Perseverance rover in advance of its movement to areas of interest for potential study.

“It is bittersweet that I must announce Ingenuity… has taken its last flight on Mars,” Nelson said in a statement.

Characterizing the small aircraft as “the little helicopter that could,” Nelson said the helicopter sustained damage to one of its rotor blades while attempting a landing.

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter takes off above Jezero crater

(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS).

“At least one of its carbon fiber rotor blades was damaged,” Nelson said. “We’re investigating the possibility that the blade struck the ground.”

The damage occurred during a vertical flight the helicopter performed to determine its location several days ago, following an emergency landing during its previous flight.

Although the aircraft achieved a maximum altitude of 40 feet, hovering for a total of 4.5 seconds before beginning its descent, Ingenuity lost contact with Perseverance before reaching the ground. Several days later the rotor blade damage was revealed.

“What Ingenuity accomplished far exceeds what we thought possible,” Nelson said.

“Ingenuity demonstrated how flight can enhance operational missions, and it’s helping us in the search for life on Mars.”

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

26-01-2024 om 23:22 geschreven door peter  

Laura Kreidberg with the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, called the discovery of water on such a small exoplanet “a landmark discovery.”

Kreidberg, co-principal investigator in the new study that revealed the discovery, said that finding water on GJ 9827D “pushes [astronomers] closer than ever to characterizing truly Earth-like worlds.”

The new discovery represents the first time that an exoplanet of this kind has been found to exist around other stars, an observation made entirely possible through atmospheric detection of water made possible by the Hubble telescope.

“This is an important step toward determining the prevalence and diversity of atmospheres on rocky planets,” said Björn Benneke, an astronomer with the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at Université de Montréal, in a statement.

Hubble was used to observe the planet during eleven transits before its host star over three years. As the planet moves in front of its star, the light the stellar body produces is filtered through GJ 9827D’s atmosphere, which allows astronomers the ability to observe key spectra that indicated the presence of water molecules.

Right now, astronomers cannot tell whether the planet is a “water world” with an abundance of liquid, or if the atmospheric detections made possible by Hubble only point to the presence of water vapor in its hydrogen-rich atmosphere.

Pierre-Alexis Roy, also with the University of Montreal’s Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets and lead author of a new paper describing the discovery, said either of these scenarios would be exciting, “whether water vapor is dominant or just a tiny species in a hydrogen-dominant atmosphere.”

Although possessing water like Earth, GJ 9827D’s proximity to its star causes it to resemble Venus due more closely to its extreme heat. With temperatures nearing 800 degrees Fahrenheit, it seems unlikely that GJ 9827D would be a place where life could thrive, particularly if an abundance of water vapor exists in its atmosphere.

If, however, the planet still possesses an atmosphere rich in hydrogen but possesses a degree of water vapor, it could also be a mini-Neptune, or even similar to Juputer’s moon Europa, which astronomers have determined to possess roughly twice as much water as Earth has.

If there are equal parts water and rock on GJ 9827D, it could be that the water vapor exists above the planet’s smaller rock body, Benneke explains.

However, Benneke, Roy, and the team also say that if the planet initially formed farther away from its nearest star, then it could be that the water-richness of its atmosphere is residual and that the heating of the planet as it has moved closer to its stellar host has heated the water as the planet receives more radiation over time.

Thomas Greene, astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, likened the observation of water as a “gateway” toward additional discoveries, some of which may be made with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

“JWST can see much more with additional infrared observations, including carbon-bearing molecules like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane,” Greene said.

“Once we get a total inventory of a planet’s elements, we can compare those to the star it orbits and understand how it was formed,” Greene added.

The team’s new paper, by Benneke, Roy, et al, titled “Water Absorption in the Transmission Spectrum of the Water World Candidate GJ 9827 d,” appeared in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

• 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/ }

26-01-2024 om 23:13 geschreven door peter  

The UK Ministry of Defense (MOD) has announced the successful test firing and downing of an aerial target using its high-powered DragonFire laser weapon. The exact power and range of the combat laser remain classified, but an official statement says DragonFire can hit a £1 coin-sized object from a kilometer away.

While there are no immediate plans to deliver the laser system to troops, the MoD says they are currently evaluating DragonFire and that this successful test was a critical next step toward actual deployment.

DRAGONFIRE JOINS GROWING LIST OF DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS

In the 1980s and 1990s, using lasers to down aerial targets remained firmly in the realm of science fiction. The U.S. Defense Department first tested a combat laser prototype in 1995, but that system required numerous buildings to operate and had limited target-destroying power.

In subsequent years more systems have been developed, with many sporting power ranges in the tens of kilowatts. Ranging from truck-mounted lasers and aircraft-mounted lasers to larger systems mounted directly on U.S. Navy ships, these lasers are not powerful enough to blast targets out of the sky. Instead, they have to stay locked on an incoming drone long enough to fry their electronics or burn off a wing.

More recently, advances in optical technology have allowed contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin to steadily increase the power of these systems, with the most powerful coming in at 300kW. Dubbed the most powerful combat laser ever built, that system is currently undergoing an upgrade that will bring it up to as much as 500kW. It is possible that such a weapon could be strong enough to take down cruise missiles, something that smaller laser systems cannot do.

Perhaps the most well-known combat laser is employed by the Israeli armed forces. Dubbed Iron Beam, that system is mounted on the Israeli border to complement their Iron Dome system that uses conventional missiles to take down incoming drones and mortars. At 100kW, Iron Beam is the most potent combat laser in deployment anywhere in the world.

Now, it appears that the UK is joining the march toward adding lasers and other directed energy weapons that include powerful microwave emitters that can fry the electronics of a drone or missile to their arsenal. Along with the accuracy of these systems, the MoD is also hoping that laser systems can dramatically reduce costs.

SUCCESSFUL TEST SHOWS DRAGONFIRE IS MOVING CLOSER TO DEPLOYMENT

According to an official statement from the MoD, DragonFire is being led by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) as well as industry partners. MBDA, Leonardo and QinetiQ.

DragonFire Combat Laser.

Image Credit: UK Ministry of Defense

In that same statement, the MoD says, “This milestone demonstrated the ability to engage aerial targets at relevant ranges and is a major step in bringing this technology into service.” The latest test also builds on previous work that showed how DragonFire can effectively track both air and sea targets “effectively and at range.”

“These trials have seen us take a huge step forward in realising the potential opportunities and understanding the threats posed by directed energy weapons,” said Dstl’s Chief Executive, Dr. Paul Hollinshead.

The MoD also notes the potential financial advantages of using lasers instead of missiles, which can cost as much as 100,000 pounds, to counter the increasing use of low-cost drones.

“Firing it for 10 seconds is the cost equivalent of using a regular heater for just an hour,” they explain. “Therefore, it has the potential to be a long-term, low-cost alternative to certain tasks missiles currently carry out. The cost of operating the laser is typically less than £10 per shot.”

MOD FUNDING MULTI-MILLION POUND PROGRAM TO MAKE DRAGONFIRE READY FOR THE BATTLEFIELD

Following the successful downing of an aerial threat, the MoD says they are moving ahead with funding a multi-million-pound program “to transition the technology from the research environment to the battlefield.” They also say that both the Army and navy are evaluating using DragonFire and similar technologies as part of their future Air Defense capabilities.

“With our decades of knowledge, skills, and operational experience, Dstl’s expertise is critical to helping the armed forces prepare for the future,” said Hollinshead.

“The DragonFire trials at the Hebrides demonstrated that our world-leading technology can track and engage high-end effects at range,” added Shimon Fhima, Director of Strategic Programmes for the MOD. “In a world of evolving threats, we know that our focus must be on getting capability to the warfighter, and we will look to accelerate this next phase of activity.”

• Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

LINKS VIDEOS

• https://youtu.be/azpFwRgnz0w
• https://youtu.be/sJ7zRAogXFk

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

26-01-2024 om 18:29 geschreven door peter  

(NASA)

The LRO registered light from its laser bouncing back off a tiny NASA retroreflector positioned on Vikram, confirming that the technique was a success.

Xiaoli Sun with NASA Goddard, who led the team that developed the retroreflector placed on Vikram, was enthusiastic about the achievement resulting from the cooperation between the two space agencies.

“We’ve [shown] that we can locate our retroreflector on the surface from the Moon’s orbit,” Sun said.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) successfully targeted a retroreflector on the exterior of the ISRO’s Vikram lander on December 12, 2023

(Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University).

In principle, firing lasers at an object and measuring the time required for the light to bounce back to its point of origin is nothing new, and is commonly utilized for tracking Earth-orbiting satellites using ground-based laser systems.

However, the technique NASA recently demonstrated reverses this process, firing a laser from a moving satellite at a stationary object—in this case, on the surface of the Moon—and determining its precise location.

FIRING A LASER AT A COOKIE-SIZED RETROREFLECTOR

The special retroreflector NASA designed is tiny, at just two inches across. Roughly the size of an Oreo cookie, the device is formally known as a Laser Retroreflector Array and features a pattern of eight prisms fitted within an aluminum frame shaped like a tiny dome, which allows for a simple, but effective means of reflecting light coming from almost any direction.

The device also requires no power either, meaning that its durable design allows it to function for up to several decades.

This is not the first time NASA has used retroreflectors in novel ways. Since 1969, a technique known as Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) has been used to measure the Moon’s distance from Earth-based observatories using retroreflectors that were placed on the Moon’s surface during the Apollo missions, as well as the Soviet Luna program.

However, more advanced retroreflector designs currently in use allow for a greater range of potential applications than their Apollo-era predecessors. Today, the devices are also fitted to the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS), which allows cargo-delivery spacecraft to measure their distance while approaching and autonomously dock with it.

In the years ahead, they may also provide several useful applications for Artemis astronauts working in locations where low light conditions would otherwise make landing next to existing spacecraft on the lunar surface difficult.

Right now there are plans for NASA retroreflectors to be carried to space on board several public and private Moon landers, including the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) SLIM lander, which powered down within just three hours of making its historic landing on the Moon over the weekend.

A LOOK AT THE LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER’S LOLA

One problem that arises from the more widespread use of this technology in space exploration is that the LRO’s altimeter—currently the only laser instrument orbiting the Moon that could be used for such applications—has been operating for thirteen years longer than its original mission intended and was never designed for such applications. Because of this, the LRO’s instrument required eight attempts before it could successfully contact the retroreflector on the Vikram lander.

The laser in question is the LRO’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA). This instrument is primarily designed for precision measurements of topographic features on the lunar surface, which has helped NASA produce models of the Moon that are crucial for planning safe landings and lunar exploration, as well as increasing our understanding of the lunar environment overall.

LOLA functions with a small array of five laser beams, which are fired toward the Moon. The time required for each beam to bounce back to the LRO is measured, allowing the instrument to gauge the elevation of features on the lunar surface below.

Although LOLA’s capabilities are ideal for mapping the Moon’s surface features, there are large gaps between the beams it produces, meaning that the chances of hitting a cookie-sized target are fairly slim, especially when the beam is required to strike within one-hundredth of a degree of the retroreflector.

In the future, NASA plans to produce a laser that produces no gaps in coverage, and which can continuously beam against the lunar surface as it passes to ensure that it strikes any retroreflectors with maximum precision.

Until such lasers come into use, NASA’s best—and only—bet remains the simpler laser altimeter currently on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which the December experiment has already shown to be successful when used in this manner, although it may also require a bit of trial and error.

“The next step is to improve the technique,” Xiaoli Sun said in a statement, “so that it can become routine for missions that want to use these retroreflectors in the future.”

• 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/science/ }

26-01-2024 om 18:06 geschreven door peter  

A Potential Source of the Milky Way’s Highest-Energy Rays Is Mystifying Physicists

Some high-energy cosmic rays may come from twin jets of matter being ejected from a smallish black hole.

BY KIONA SMITH

 

Some of the most energetic cosmic rays in the galaxy may come from a surprisingly small source.

If Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics researcher Laura Olivera-Nieto and her colleagues are right, they may have just pinpointed one of the sources of the high-energy cosmic rays that occasionally zip past Earth from the far reaches of the universe. Astrophysicists have spent years puzzling over the origin of these particles: protons carrying thousands of trillions of electron volts of energy (yes, cosmic rays are actually particles; early physicists thought they were radiation, and the name stuck). Some cosmic rays seem to come from supernova remnants, but it turns out that at least some high-energy cosmic rays may come from the twin jets of matter being ejected from a smallish black hole.

Olivera-Nieto and her colleagues published their work in the journal Science.

A COSMIC RAY CULPRIT

The astronomers used a telescope called the High Energy Stereoscopic System, or HESS, to observe gamma ray jets from SS 433, a black hole orbiting a mid-sized star at the heart of the Manatee Nebula.

Like most actively feeding black holes (whether the small ones left behind after the collapse of dying stars or the cosmic leviathans at the heart of galaxies like our Milky Way), SS 433 is ejecting twin jets of matter at nearly a quarter the speed of light. These jets glow brightly with x-rays, which is how astronomers first spotted them several years ago. But about a light year away from the black hole, in both directions, the x-ray jets seem to fade away only to reappear with a vengeance about 75 light-years away.

When Olivera-Nieto and her colleagues examined the black hole in the even shorter wavelengths of gamma rays, they saw that twin gamma ray jets flared to life at exactly the points where the x-ray jets reappeared. In other words, it looked like the jets were fizzling out somewhere between 1 and 75 light years from the black hole, and then something revved them up again.

That something, the researchers surmise, seems to be a shock wave in the gassy interstellar medium of the nebula. Shock waves act like giant cosmic versions of the Large Hadron Collider, accelerating electrons in the jets to ludicrous speeds.

The jets glow with x-rays and gamma rays because electrons crash into lower-energy photons. When that happens, the electron gives the photon part of its energy, which ramps low-energy infrared light up to the high-energy x-rays and gamma rays that light up the black hole’s jets. The faster the electrons are moving, the more energy they transfer to the photons — so fast electrons make x-rays, and even faster electrons make gamma rays.

More importantly, at least for the mystery of cosmic rays, the jets may also be accelerating protons, and even whole atomic nuclei, to the absurdly high energy that turns them into cosmic rays.

Researchers have known for a long time that “the jets of SS 433 do, in fact, contain nuclei [of elements] such as iron or nickel. And the shock that accelerates electrons would accelerate them in the same way,” Olivera-Nieto tells Inverse. However, the protons could potentially be accelerated to even higher energies than the electrons because they’re too big to shed energy in collision with photons.

Astronomers just can’t actually see these high-energy protons and nuclei because, unlike electrons, protons release radiation when they bump into dense matter, not stray photons, and there’s not a big pile of dense matter in the black hole’s jets.

A QUEST FOR MICROQUASARS

Despite having shed light on this cosmic ray mystery, black hole SS 433 isn’t actually the source of any of the cosmic rays physicists here on Earth have detected. It hasn’t been blasting its relativistic jets out into space long enough for any particles from those jets to have reached Earth. But someday, in the distant future, there’s a chance some of the protons and atomic nuclei being accelerated in those jets could reach our planet.

Meanwhile, Olivera-Nieto and her colleagues say other similar objects, called microquasars, could still be among the sources of cosmic rays that do reach Earth.

“Microquasars are intermittent sources, meaning that it is very likely that other systems were active in the past and made a contribution to what we now see,” says Olivera-Nieto.

Looking for those sources is the next step.

“Detecting gamma-ray emission from other microquasar systems and understanding how acceleration takes place in them will be critical because it will allow us to understand how common such systems are,” says Olivera-Nieto. “Answering this question will constrain how much can microquasars as a whole contribute as sources of very-high-energy cosmic rays.”

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

26-01-2024 om 17:43 geschreven door peter  

LOOK: JAPAN’S SLIM LANDER SENT BACK THESE CHARMING IMAGES BEFORE POWERING OFF

JAXA released new images that show how SLIM is situated in its new home.

BY DORIS ELÍN URRUTIA

 

JAXA/Takara Tomy/Sony Group Corporation/Doshisha University

Last week, Japan became the fifth nation to successfully land on the Moon without crashing. Unfortunately, the historic touchdown left the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) positioned like a toy after a toddler is done playing with it: planted face down on the ground.

This less-than-ideal situation forced the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to power down the lander and save precious battery life. But before it did, SLIM was able to send some data back to Earth. Today, JAXA released new images that show how SLIM is situated in its new home.

The new data also confirmed Japan’s biggest hope for its SLIM project: a precise landing on the Moon within 100 meters of its target, confirming proof of concept.

SLIM was designed to last just a few Earth days, JAXA officials wrote in a statement. But the mission will be drawn out for a month at least, to see if the angle of sunlight changes over time and perhaps strike SLIM’s landing site to sufficiently power its solar cells from its unintended westward orientation. The sunlight does a sort of angular reset on the Moon each Earth month (a day on the Moon lasts about one month on Earth).

While JAXA awaits those solar-cell results, SLIM’s Multi-Band Camera took a slanted image of Moon rocks nearby. In an annotated image, their names appear and seem to follow a canine theme. They have names like “St. Bernard,” “Bulldog,” “Toy Poodle,” plus Japanese breed-inspired names like “KAIKEN,” “AKITAINU,” “SHIBAINU.”

There’ll be more, hopefully, if SLIM’s solar cells absorb enough energy, JAXA officials wrote. “Based on this landscape image, the team is sorting out rocks of interest, assigning a nickname to each of them, with the intent of communicating their relative sizes smoothly by the names,” the space agency shared. JAXA added that preparations are underway to “promptly conduct” high-resolution spectroscopy, a technique that extracts information from light, of Moon rocks once “SLIM recovers by the power generated by the solar array.”

SLIM’s peculiar position on the Moon’s surface appeared in imagery from one of its two tiny robotic passengers. Photo evidence came from JAXA’s collaboration with toy company Takara Tomy. Along with two other partners, Sony and Doshisha University in Kyoto, they created Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2).

Also known as SORA-Q, LEV-2 looks like a rolling ball. It comes from the minds behind the popular toy Transformers and would easily sit in the palm of your hand. This small robot and SLIM’s other rover, LEV-1, are Japan’s first rovers on the Moon. LEV-1 also has other laurels, too. It achieved successful direct communication with Earth from the Moon, according to JAXA. “This is considered as the world's smallest and lightest case of direct data transmission from approximately 380,000 kilometers away,” space agency officials wrote in a recent statement.

JAXA will likely publish more updates in the near future to report the ongoing saga of SLIM’s solar cells.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

26-01-2024 om 17:35 geschreven door peter  

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

26-01-2024 om 13:00 geschreven door peter  

Hubble Detects Water Vapor in Atmosphere of Gliese 9827d

Using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have detected water vapor in the transmission spectrum of the sub-Neptune exoplanet Gliese 9827d.

The water detection in the transit spectrum of Gliese 9827d makes it the first water world candidate with an atmospheric water detection consistent with a water-rich envelope.

Image credit: NASA / ESA / Leah Hustak, STScI / Ralf Crawford, STScI.

Gliese 9827 is a bright K-type dwarf star some 97 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Pisces.

Also known as GJ 9827, K2-135 or EPIC 246389858, the star hosts a trio of transiting massive exoplanet, discovered recently by NASA’s Kepler/K2 mission.

The outermost planet, Gliese 9827d (GJ 9827d), completes an orbit around its parent star every 6.2 days and has a radius of 1.96 Earth radii.

Hubble observed this planet during 11 transits — events in which the planet crossed in front of its star — that were spaced out over three years.

During transits, starlight is filtered through the planet’s atmosphere and has the spectral fingerprint of water molecules.

“This would be the first time that we can directly show through an atmospheric detection, that these planets with water-rich atmospheres can actually exist around other stars,” said Dr. Björn Benneke, an astronomer with the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the Université de Montréal.

“This is an important step toward determining the prevalence and diversity of atmospheres on rocky planets.”

“Water on a planet this small is a landmark discovery. It pushes closer than ever to characterizing truly Earth-like worlds,” said Dr. Laura Kreidberg, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

However, it remains too early to tell whether Hubble spectroscopically measured a small amount of water vapor in a puffy hydrogen-rich atmosphere, or if the planet’s atmosphere is mostly made of water, left behind after a primeval hydrogen/helium atmosphere evaporated under stellar radiation.

“Our observing program was designed specifically with the goal to not only detect the molecules in the planet’s atmosphere, but to actually look specifically for water vapor,” said Dr. Pierre-Alexis Roy, also from the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the Université de Montréal.

“Either result would be exciting, whether water vapor is dominant or just a tiny species in a hydrogen-dominant atmosphere.”

“Until now, we had not been able to directly detect the atmosphere of such a small planet. And we’re slowly getting in this regime now,” Dr. Benneke said.

“At some point, as we study smaller planets, there must be a transition where there’s no more hydrogen on these small worlds, and they have atmospheres more like Venus (which is dominated by carbon dioxide).”

Because Gliese 9827d is as hot as Venus, at 427 degrees Celsius (800 degrees Fahrenheit), it definitely would be an inhospitable, steamy world if the atmosphere were predominantly water vapor.

At present the team is left with two possibilities.

One scenario is that the planet is still clinging to a hydrogen-rich atmosphere laced with water, making it a mini-Neptune.

Alternatively, it could be a warmer version of Jupiter’s moon Europa, which has twice as much water as Earth beneath its crust.

“Gliese 9827d could be half water, half rock. And there would be a lot of water vapor on top of some smaller rocky body,” Dr. Benneke said.

If the planet has a residual water-rich atmosphere, then it must have formed farther away from its host star, where the temperature is cold and water is available in the form of ice, than its present location.

In this scenario, the planet would have then migrated closer to the star and received more radiation.

The hydrogen was heated and escaped, or is still in the process of escaping the planet’s weak gravity.

The alternative theory is that the planet formed close to the hot star, with a trace of water in its atmosphere.

“Observing water is a gateway to finding other things,” said Dr. Thomas Greene, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

“This Hubble discovery opens the door to future study of these types of planets by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.”

“Webb can see much more with additional infrared observations, including carbon-bearing molecules like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane.”

“Once we get a total inventory of a planet’s elements, we can compare those to the star it orbits and understand how it was formed.”

• The results were published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
• Pierre-Alexis Roy et al. 2024. Water Absorption in the Transmission Spectrum of the Water World Candidate GJ 9827d. ApJL 954, L52; doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/acebf0

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

25-01-2024 om 20:39 geschreven door peter  

Hubble Captures Stunning Galaxy Collision: LEDA 60847

 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a spectacular image of a group of interacting galaxies known as LEDA 60847.

This Hubble image shows LEDA 60847, a group of interacting galaxies located in the constellation of Draco.

Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Barth, University of California – Irvine / M. Koss, Eureka Scientific Inc. / A. Robinson, Rochester Institute of Technology / Gladys Kober, NASA & Catholic University of America.

“Galaxy mergers are relatively common occurrences,” the Hubble astronomers said.

“Most larger galaxies are the result of smaller galaxies merging.”

“The Milky Way Galaxy itself contains traces of other galaxies, indicating it is the product of past mergers.”

“Astronomers believe somewhere between 5% and 25% of all galaxies are currently merging.”

The researchers used Hubble to observe an interacting galaxy system called LEDA 60847.

Otherwise known as RBS 1661, Ka 163 or 2MASX J17465994+6836392, the system is located in the constellation of Draco.

“LEDA 60847 is classified as an active galactic nucleus (AGN),” the scientists noted.

“An AGN has a supermassive black hole in the galaxy’s central region that is accreting material.”

“The AGN emits radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum and shines extremely brightly.”

“By studying powerful AGNs that are relatively nearby, astronomers can better understand how supermassive black holes grow and affect galaxies.”

The color image of LEDA 60847 combines ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared data from Hubble.

Several filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.

“The ability to see across all those wavelengths is one of the things that makes Hubble unique,” the astronomers explained.

“Different types of light across the electroagnetic spectrum tell astronomers different things about our Universe.”

“Ultraviolet light traces the glow of stellar nurseries and is used to identify the hottest stars.”

“Visible light shows us moderate-temperature stars and material, and also how the view would appear to our own eyes.”

“Last but not least, near-infrared light can penetrate cold dust, allowing us to study warm gas and dust, and relatively cool stars.”

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0brmIWWrkro

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

25-01-2024 om 20:32 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.universetoday.com/  }

24-01-2024 om 23:03 geschreven door peter  

POSTED BY MARK THOMPSON

It’s Time to Go Back to Uranus. What Questions do Scientists Have About the Ice Giants?

It seems crazy that Uranus was discovered in 1781 yet here we are, in 2024 and we have only sent one spacecraft to explore Uranus. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have given us close-up images of Uranus (and Neptune) but since their visit in 1986, we have not returned. There have of course been great images from the Hubble Space Telescope and from the James Webb Space Telescope but we still have lots to learn about them. 

The discovery of Uranus was accidental! British astronomer William Herschel was surveying stars that were too faint to see with the naked eye. One star caught his attention as it seemed to move agasinst the fixed background of stars. He assumed therefore that it was closer than the more distant, background stars. Initially he thought it was a comet but it was soon realised that it was a new planet. It was Uranus

Our knowledge of Uranus was quite limited until the advent of space exploration, in particular the Voyager spacecraft. Voyager 2 was launched on 20 August 1977 via the Titan Centaur rocket. Following flybys of Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1981 respectively, it visited Uranus in 1986.  Voyager 2 revealed a world with a lack of internal heat, a warmer than expected thermosphere and a magnetic field offset from the planets rotational axis. Other than that, Uranus has been sitting quitely minding its own business, being observed from afar through our best space telescopes. 

There are however, many questions and uncertainties around the seventh planet from the Sun; from the nature of its interior and the interactions with the magnetic field to the mechanisms that shape the planet we see today. Without a doubt, a dedicated Uranian mission would help to unravel some of these mysteries. 

It’s not just the paper that has been recently published by Emma K Dahl and team that recommends a Uranus Orbiter and Probe but a survey compiled by the National Academies of Sciences, Egineering and Medicine (NASEM) also found the same conclusion. A mission that could monitor Uranus over the long term would be invaluable in unlocking more details about the atmosphere; how the planet formed and how it has migrated around the Solar System? how the atmosphere has contributed to the evolution of the planet?; what processes are underway in the Uranian atmosphere and much more. 

Unlocking some of these mysteries will not only help us to understand the nature or Uranus but also help us to understand how the Solar System and other planetary systems form. The paper goes further though, not just discussing the key outstanding questions but also looking at the measurements needed to derive conclusions and hypotheses from temperature and pressure profiles, chemical concentrations, wind speeds, vertical convection levels and magnetic field strengths to name a few. 

There is a huge level of support across the science community for a mission to Uranus and not just an orbiter, a probe that can offer long term readings and observations. The recommendations from the NASEM review highlight the areas of focus and, if addressed, will help to finally unravel some of the mysteries of Uranus. 

Source :

•  Atmospheric Science Questions for a Uranian Probe

{ https://www.universetoday.com/  }

24-01-2024 om 22:57 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.universetoday.com/  }

24-01-2024 om 22:48 geschreven door peter  

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24-01-2024 om 22:43 geschreven door peter  

For some reason, the communications link was severed between Ingenuity and the Perseverance rover, which relays data between the helicopter and Earth during the flights. Data received showed that Ingenuity had climbed to its assigned maximum altitude of 12 meters (40 feet), but then the data link terminated early, prior to touchdown.

But thankfully, after engineers had worked around the clock, on late on January 20 communications were able to be reestablished between the helicopter and rover, with engineers able to determine the helicopter was “power-positive” and sitting upright on Mars.

The team is now running further diagnostic checks, and commanding Ingenuity to take photos of its location on the surface to help  pinpoint its location, and performing a spin test.

“Ginny is back in contact!,” JPL Director Laurie Leshin posted on X. “Thanks to our team for working the issue so quickly and effectively. Still need to understand more about what happened. After far more flights than anticipated, no matter what, the #MarsHelicopter has been an extraordinary success!”

JPL did say that during the flight, Perseverance was out of line-of-sight with Ingenuity, and after communications were lost, the team considered driving the rover closer for a visual inspection. They did use the rover “to perform long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity’s signal.”

This was Ingenuity’s 72nd flight at the Red Planet – which is incredible given that only four flights were planned for the plucky little helicopter, the first aircraft to perform a powered, controlled extraterrestrial flight. But since becoming operational on April 19, 2021, it has blown away expectations, now completing 72 flights.

Ingenuity operates in a harsh environment that no aircraft has ever flown in before. Mars is extremely cold and dry, and Mars’ very thin atmosphere has only about 1% the density of Earth’s. The thin atmosphere makes lift more difficult to generate, although the gravity is weaker, which helps. There’s also the time delay in communications between Mars and Earth which adds a layer of complexity to every endeavor.

If we are practical, we realize that one day, Ingenuity will fly its last flight, never to be heard from again.

But that day is not today.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/  }

24-01-2024 om 22:33 geschreven door peter  

An international research team has discovered what they describe as ‘anomalous’ rocks on the Moon’s surface that exhibit unique magnetic properties. Located near an area named Reiner Gamma, the small group of meter-sized rocks stood out because they are covered in a layer of dust with special reflective properties, meaning they reflect light differently than all previously known lunar rocks.

The discoveries are part of an effort to better understand the movement of dust and other processes that form and change the surface of the Moon, but they may also end up offering unexpected insights into the history of its magnetic core.

“Current knowledge of the Moon’s magnetic properties is very limited, so these new rocks will shed light on the history of the Moon and its magnetic core,” said Ottaviano Rüsch from the Institut für Planetologie. “For the first time, we have investigated the interactions of dust with rocks in the Reiner Gamma region – more precisely, the variations in the reflective properties of these rocks.”

SCANNING OVER ONE MILLION IMAGES YIELDED THE ANOMALOUS ROCKS

To make the unexpected discovery, Rüsch and his team employed artificial intelligence to scour through over one million images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which continuously orbits the Moon. The use of artificial intelligence allowed the team, which was originally looking for cracks on the Moon, to investigate such a large number of photos while scanning for expected and unexpected variances in material on the lunar surface.

“Modern data processing methods allow us to gain completely new insights into global contexts,” explained Valentin Bickel from the Center for Space and Habitability at the University of Bern. “At the same time, we keep finding unknown objects in this way, such as the anomalous rocks that we are investigating in this new study.”

This effort led to the discovery of about 130,000 “flagged’ images, half of which were then examined by human scientists. In that group, the researchers spotted some unusual reflectivity coming off of certain rocks around Reiner Gamma, prompting them to investigate further.

“We recognized a boulder with distinctive dark areas on just one image,” said Rüsch. “This rock was very different from all the others, as it scatters less light back towards the sun than other rocks. We suspect that this is due to the particular dust structure, such as the density and grain size of the dust.”

“Normally, lunar dust is very porous and reflects a lot of light back in the direction of illumination,” adds Marcel Hess from TU Dortmund University. “However, when the dust is compacted, the overall brightness usually increases. This is not the case with the observed dust-covered rocks.”

The meter-high rocks discovered in the work are located near the Reiner K crater in the “Reiner Gamma” region, which has a magnetic anomaly.

CREDIT: NASA LRO/NAC

FUTURE ROBOTIC ROVER MISSION WILL EXAMINE THE ROCKS UP CLOSE

After publishing their findings in the Journal of Geophysical Research Planets, the research team says they want to spend the coming weeks and months performing additional investigations. This includes trying to better understand the underlying processes that govern interactions between dust and rocks as well as doing more study on what caused the formation of the special dust structure.

According to the press release announcing the findings, these efforts will also include investigating the process behind “the lifting of the dust due to electrostatic charging or the interaction of the solar wind with local magnetic fields.”

Fortunately, the research team notes, NASA is planning to send a robotic rover to the Reiner Gamma region “in the coming years” that will be tasked with finding similar anomalous rocks covered with the uniquely reflective dust. Having a better understanding of how dust behaves in the lunar environment will be critical for planning future manned missions, they argue, especially given how many problems moon dust caused for the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and 1970s and the bold goals of putting a permanent base on the Moon.

“Even if it is still a dream of the future, a better understanding of dust movement can help with the planning of human settlements on the Moon,” the release concludes.

• Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

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

24-01-2024 om 21:42 geschreven door peter  

Pentagon moves to declassify some secret space programs and technologies

The policy does not mean that these programs and technologies will now be fully unclassified and revealed to the public; instead, it will lower their classification levels in order to share some technologies and programs with private industry and international allies to help the U.S. build an "asymmetric advantage and force multiplier that neither China nor Russia could ever hope to match," Plumb said in a DoD statement. 

Related: 

• Space is now 'most essential' domain for US military, Pentagon says

 { https://www.space.com/ }

24-01-2024 om 20:58 geschreven door peter