The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
12-09-2024
NASA’s groundbreaking new solar sail finally spread its wings in space
NASA’s groundbreaking new solar sail finally spread its wings in space
If humans are ever going to become a spacefaring species then we need to figure out a few more efficient ways to traverse the cosmos. That’s why NASA’s latest futuristic solar sail tech should be raising eyebrows.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Public Domain
More reality than fiction
Solar sails may seem more science fiction than reality, but just four months after a new NASA solar sail project hitched a ride into space, it spread out its sails and proved that the concept could be a viable option for space travel.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Andrzej Mirecki, Own Work, CC BY-SA 3.0
It won’t be taking us to Mars anytime soon Obviously, solar sails will not be able to take humans to other planets quite yet, but the technology could be used for a wide variety of missions in space. But how exactly does a sail work in the vacuum of space (a place with no wind)?
Not like the sails back on Earth Solar sails aren’t exactly like the sails on a boat here on Earth but the concept is quite similar according to Space.com. Just like how wind can guide a sailboat, solar energy (photons) can be harnessed to help guide vessels through space.
How does a solar sail work? “It only takes a slight amount of sunlight to guide solar sails through space,” Space.com noted, adding that although “photons don't have mass, they can force momentum when they hit an object,” which is how solar sails can move objects in space.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Scott Andrews, Public Domain
Launched into space in April 2024 On April 24th, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) headed up to space with Rocket Lab's Electron vehicle, and on August 29th, the ACS3 spread its solar sails in space for the first time, and it was captured by cameras fixed to its sails.
Photo Credit: NASA
The solar sails are fully deployed NASA published the first image from the ACS3’s sail deployment on September 5th, and it was a sight to see—even if its orientation was a bit confusing, something that NASA noted in its press release alongside the image.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By NASA Ames Research Center / NASA/Aero Animation/Ben Schweighart
The mission’s success is pretty awesome “The success so far of this mission is pretty awesome because solar sail technology is an incredibly impressive concept both in practice and in theory,” reported Live Science’s Monisha Ravisetti. But now the real work has begun for NASA's ACS3 team.
SpaceX-Polaris crew exits capsule for first private spacewalk
SpaceX-Polaris crew exits capsule for first private spacewalk
Story by Joey Roulette
FILE PHOTO: Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, commander Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, crew members of Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission, attend a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. August 19, 2024.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A crew of four aboard a SpaceX capsule embarked on the world's first private spacewalk on Thursday, as an astronaut eased out of the Crew Dragon spacecraft on a tether into the vacuum of space, hundreds of miles from Earth.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman, 41, exited first about 6:52 a.m. ET (1052 GMT). After he returned a few minutes later, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, 30, was scheduled to take her turn in space, all their maneuvers streaming live on the company's website.
"Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world," Isaacman said after emerging from the spacecraft, the planet glittering in half shadow below him.
Before the spacewalk began, the capsule was completely depressurized, with the whole crew relying on their slim, SpaceX-developed spacesuits for oxygen, provided via an umbilical connection to Crew Dragon.
The spacewalk was scheduled to last only about 30 minutes, but the procedures to prepare for it and to finish it safely last about two hours. It was meant to test the new spacesuit designs and procedures for the capsule, among other things.
Related video:
SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew set to begin first private spacewalk (France 24)
A still image from the video of the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission shows crew member Jared Isaacman outside the capsule during the first-ever private spacewalk on September 12, 2024.
Isaacman, Gillis, Scott Poteet, 50, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon, 38, had been orbiting Earth aboard Crew Dragon since Tuesday's pre-dawn launch from Florida of the Polaris Dawn mission. Menon and Poteet remained inside the spacecraft during the spacewalk.
It is the Elon Musk-led company's latest and riskiest bid to push the boundaries of commercial spaceflight.
Isaacman, a pilot and the billionaire founder of electronic payments company Shift4, is bankrolling the Polaris mission, as he did his Inspiration4 flight with SpaceX in 2021.
He has declined to say how much he is paying, but the missions are likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, based on Crew Dragon's price of roughly $55 million a seat for other flights.
FARTHEST SINCE APOLLO
Throughout Wednesday, the craft circled Earth at least six times in an oval orbit as shallow as 190 km (118 miles) and stretching out as far as 1,400 km (870 miles), the farthest in space that humans have traveled since the last U.S. Apollo mission in 1972.
The gumdrop-shaped spacecraft then began to lower its orbit into a peak 700-km (435-mile) position and adjust cabin pressure to ready for the spacewalk, formally called Extravehicular Activity (EVA), the Polaris program said on social media on Wednesday.
"The crew also spent a few hours demonstrating the suit’s pressurized mobility, verifying positions and accessibility in microgravity along with preparing the cabin for the EVA," it said.
Only government astronauts with several years of training have done spacewalks in the past.
There have been roughly 270 on the International Space Station (ISS) since it was set up in 2000, and 16 by Chinese astronauts on Beijing's Tiangong space station.
The Polaris crew has spent 2-1/2 years training with SpaceX mission simulations and "experiential learning" in challenging, uncomfortable environments, said Poteet.
A record 19 astronauts are now in orbit, after Russia's Soyuz MS-26 mission ferried two cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut to the International Space Station on Wednesday, taking its headcount to 12.
Three Chinese astronauts are aboard the Tiangong space station.
The first U.S. spacewalk in 1965, aboard a Gemini capsule, used a similar procedure to the one planned for Polaris Dawn: the capsule was depressurized, the hatch opened, and a spacesuited astronaut ventured outside on a tether.
Since 2001, Crew Dragon, the only U.S. vehicle capable of reliably putting humans in orbit and returning them to Earth, has flown more than a dozen astronaut missions, mainly for NASA.
The agency seeded development of the capsule under a program meant to establish commercial, privately-built U.S. vehicles capable of ferrying astronauts with the ISS.
Also developed under that program was Boeing's Starliner capsule, but it is farther behind.
Starliner launched its first astronauts to the ISS in June in a troubled test mission that ended this month with the capsule returning empty, leaving its crew on the space station for a Crew Dragon capsule to fetch next year.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette and Gerry Doyle; Editing by Jamie Freed and Clarence Fernandez)
"Spacewalk is now complete": Eerste ruimtewandeling ooit door niet-professionele astronauten succesvol afgerond
"Spacewalk is now complete": Eerste ruimtewandeling ooit door niet-professionele astronauten succesvol afgerond
De eerste ruimtewandeling door 2 niet-professionele astronauten is succesvol afgerond. Zowel Jared Isaacman als Sarah Gillis verlieten het ruimteschip langs een luik en waren ongeveer 10 minuten in de ruimte. Ze deden dat in compleet nieuwe ruimtepakken, die nog nooit in de ruimte getest waren. Bij SpaceX kunnen ze nu gerust ademhalen, want dit was het gevaarlijkste en spannendste moment van de Polaris Dawn-missie, die dinsdag werd gelanceerd.
Giel Bosmans, Wim De Maeseneer
Voor de eerste keer ooit hebben 2 "gewone" mensen een ruimtewandeling kunnen maken. Ze deden dat door op zo'n 700 kilometer boven de aarde hun ruimteschip te verlaten, terwijl ze met 26.000 kilometer per uur door de ruimte vlogen. Het risicovolle onderdeel van de ruimtemissie verliep zoals gepland.
De Amerikaanse zakenman en miljardair Jared Isaacman was als gezagvoerder (en geldschieter) de eerste die het ruimteschip verliet. Daarna maakte ook de 30-jarige Amerikaanse ingenieur Sarah Gillis een ruimtewandeling.
Bekijk: "Het was een groot risico, maar het is belangrijk dat de pakken getest werden", ruimtevaartjournalist Wim De Maeseneer
Isaacman en Gillis gingen elk om de beurt ongeveer 10 minuten naar buiten. Met het openen en opnieuw sluiten van het luik en het regelen van de luchtdruk in de capsule nam alles in totaal zo'n 2 uur in beslag.
Gillis staat bij SpaceX aan het hoofd van het trainingsprogramma voor de astronauten. Zelf ging ze nog nooit de ruimte in, net als de 2 andere astronauten Scott Poteet en Anna Menon. Enkel Isaacman maakte in 2021 al eens een ruimtevlucht.
Anders dan bij de ruimtewandelingen door professionele astronauten, zweefden de astronauten niet echt door de ruimte. Ze bleven de hele tijd fysiek contact houden met het ruimteschip en gingen niet verder dan net buiten het luik. Ze bleven ook de hele tijd verbonden via een kabel die hen onder meer voorzag van zuurstof. Toch zijn ruimtewandelingen, ook onder die omstandigheden, uiterst gevaarlijk.
Veel risico
Wat deze ruimtewandeling extra risicovol maakte, is dat de gloednieuwe ruimtepakken die de astronauten droegen nog nooit getest waren in de ruimte. Het ruimteschip heeft ook geen luchtsluis, waardoor het hele ruimteschip werd blootgesteld aan het vacuüm van de ruimte. Ook de 2 astronauten die binnen bleven zitten en de wandeling begeleidden, liepen dus risico.
"Ik ga met een bang hartje kijken, ik ben er niet gerust op", vertelde ruimtevaartexpert Nancy Vermeulen op voorhand. "Het is de eerste keer dat niet-professionele, onervaren astronauten een ruimtewandeling doen. Er kan echt van alles misgaan."
"Het zijn eigenlijk 4 beginners", zei de Nederlandse astronaut André Kuipers in de podcast 'Space Cowboys'. "Ze gaan allemaal nieuwe dingen tegelijk doen. Dat is absoluut niet zonder gevaar. Normaal wordt een ruimtewandeling ook nooit zo vroeg in een ruimtevlucht gedaan, omdat je de eerste dagen ruimteziek kan worden."
Grensverleggende ruimtevlucht
De ruimtewandeling maakt deel uit van de Polaris Dawn-missie: een commerciële ruimtevlucht van SpaceX, het ruimtebedrijf van Elon Musk. De 4 zitjes aan boord zijn gekocht door de Amerikaanse zakenman en miljardair Jared Isaacman. Samen met 3 andere ruimtevaarders vliegt hij sinds dinsdag rond de aarde in een Dragon-capsule van SpaceX.
Polaris Dawn vloog op de 2e dag van de missie tot op 1.400 kilometer hoog. Het was al van de laatste maanvlucht in 1972 geleden dat een bemande ruimtemissie zo ver weg van de aarde reisde. Het was ook de eerste keer dat vrouwelijke astronauten zo ver in de ruimte zijn geweest.
Polaris Dawn and Dragon at 1,400 km above Earth – the farthest humans have traveled since the Apollo program over 50 years agopic.twitter.com/rRDeD1dY1e
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Nieuwe ruimtepakken
De pakken zijn ontworpen door SpaceX, het ruimtebedrijf van de Amerikaanse zakenman Elon Musk. Zijn uiteindelijke doel is om de mensheid ooit op Mars te laten wonen. Om daar ooit te geraken, zijn er eerst nog vele ruimtereizen nodig, ter voorbereiding. En dus ook veel ruimtepakken.
De ruimtewandeling van Polaris Dawn dient vooral als eerste test voor de nieuwe pakken: zijn de pakken soepel genoeg en werkt alle apparatuur binnenin zoals het hoort? Daarnaast is het ook belangrijk om te bekijken of de pakken genoeg beschermen tegen de kosmische straling en extreme temperaturen.
"Het idee is om zoveel mogelijk over het pak te leren als we kunnen en dit terug te geven aan de ingenieurs zodat ze het pak in de toekomst verder kunnen ontwerpen", zei Isaacman eerder in een interview.
Wie zijn de astronauten aan boord van Polaris Dawn-missie?
Gezagvoerder van de missie is Jared Isaacman(41), een Amerikaanse miljardair en CEO van Shift4-payments, een betalingsdienst. Hij is ook de grote geldschieter van het hele project. Isaacman nam in 2021 al deel aan de 'Inspiration4', de eerste volledig commerciële bemande ruimtevlucht.
Scott "Kidd" Poteet (50), een gepensioneerde luitenant-kolonel van de Amerikaanse luchtmacht, is de piloot van de missie. Poteet en Isaacman zijn goede vrienden en kennen elkaar al jaren.
Sarah Gillis (30) is een Amerikaanse ingenieur en werkt voor SpaceX. Bij het bedrijf leidt ze het trainingsprogramma voor de astronauten. Zo trainde ze ook Isaacman en de andere ruimtetoeristen van de 'Inspiration4'. Gillis zal samen met Isaacman een ruimtewandeling maken tijdens deze missie.
Ook Anna Menon (38) is een Amerikaanse ingenieur die voor SpaceX werkt. Daarvoor werkte Menon al bij de NASA voor het ISS, het internationaal ruimtestation. Tijdens de Polaris Dawn-missie zal Menon dienen als de medisch officier van het team.
De eerste ruimtewandeling ooit was door de Russische kosmonaut Aleksej Leonov op 18 maart 1965. En bijna ging het mis. Leonov raakte met moeite terug in zijn ruimteschip. Zijn pak was in het vacuüm van de ruimte helemaal opgeblazen waardoor hij bijna niet meer kon bewegen. Door wat lucht uit zijn pak te laten lopen, kon hij uiteindelijk terug naar binnen. Hij nam daardoor wel een groot risico.
Minder dan 3 maanden later volgde de Amerikaanse astronaut Edward White. Sindsdien maakten al zo'n 260 astronauten uit 12 landen een ruimtewandeling. De eerste ruimtewandeling door een vrouw gebeurde pas in 1984. In totaal hebben nog maar 16 vrouwen een ruimtewandeling gemaakt.
Van links naar rechts: Scott Poteet, Anna Menon, Sarah Gillis en Jared Isaacman
What Did We Learn From Manufacturing the ACS3 Solar Sail Mission?
We recently reported on the successful deployment of the solar sail of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) technology demonstration mission. That huge achievement advances one of the most important technologies available to CubeSats – a different form of propulsion. But getting there wasn’t easy, and back in May, a team of engineers from NASA’s Langley Research Center who worked on ACS3 published a paper detailing the trials and tribulations they went through to prepare the mission for prime time. Let’s take a look at what they learned.
ACS3 was only a technology demonstration mission—it had no science payload to deal with. And that’s a good thing, too, because fitting the solar sail into the housing of a CubeSat was a challenge even without any scientific equipment.
The technology demonstrated was the deployable boom system that created an 81 square meter surface of solar sail to catch the photon particles used to propel the mission forward. That sounds much easier than it was, as is evident from the descriptions of the problems the team had to overcome.
Fraser describes how useful solar sails are.
Eventually, the mission launched in a 12U CubeSat configuration, weighing about 16 kg (36 lbs) in total mass. However, the mission was initially prototyped to fit into a 6U configuration—about half the size and weight of the 12U. With the amount of deployable material and the necessary motors to drive their deployment, the engineers couldn’t fit other essential components, like reaction wheels, to steady the CubeSat’s orientation.
However, the 12U design “came with several technical challenges,” according to the paper. One was whether to use four independent spools of material, each tied to an independent boom or one central hub spool with all four booms coiled around a central axis. As was the case with almost all engineering projects, the team’s decision wasn’t based on what was technically best. They decided to use the four independent spools since that required the least modification from the original 6U design.
Another lesson described in the paper was the timing of the launch coordination. Both the “dispenser” (i.e., the system that sends the CubeSats out into space after a successful launch) and the launch contract weren’t submitted until ACS3 was already in testing. By then, modifications had been made to the design, which made it difficult to integrate into an existing dispenser, as the team had modified the edges of the satellite to fit the sails better. But doing so messed up one of the critical touchpoints for standard CubeSat dispensers.
Here’s Fraser’s overview of what a solar sail is.
To make matters worse, without a known launch date and inclination, the team had to overengineer many of the CubeSat systems. They had to meet a much wider range of temperatures and shock/vibration environments. But when they finally got their launch date of April 23rd on an Electron rocket from New Zealand, the system had been engineered for an environment much harsher than what it was subjected to, causing increased cost and delays in the delivery.
To meet these challenges, the team took the approach of rapidly prototyping, including developing several different 3D-printed prototypes before finally making the full system out of metal. At one point, a management decision was made not to replace any insert fasteners that were never intended to be used on the final flight but ended up being included anyway because of the cost of replacing them.
Again, these kinds of management decisions are commonplace to anyone involved in an engineering project. However, it’s nice to see that, in this case, it didn’t affect the project’s overall success. Despite some indications that it might be either tumbling or wobbling, ACS3 undoubtedly achieved its primary objective of deploying its solar sail. So, after all the effort and compromises that the team at Langley and elsewhere at NASA put into it, now you just need to look up into the night sky, and you might see the fruits of their labor streaking across it.
Astronauten voeren eerste commerciële ruimtewandeling ooit uit
Astronauten voeren eerste commerciële ruimtewandeling ooit uit
Astronaut Jared Isaacman heeft de eerste commerciële ruimtewandeling uitgevoerd. De ruimtevaarder maakte die ruimtewandeling samen met Sarah Gillis vanuit een Crew Dragon-ruimteschip van SpaceX op de Polaris Dawn-missie.
Isaacman opende het luik van de Crew Dragon rond 12.50 uur Nederlandse tijd op een apogeehoogte van zo'n 700 kilometer. Isaacman verliet het ruimteschip kort daarna voor een ruimtewandeling. "Het ziet eruit als een perfecte wereld", zei Isaacman daar. De Crew Dragon heeft een enkel luik, waardoor alle vier de passagiers een ruimtepak moesten dragen. In tegenstelling tot de meeste ruimtevaartuigen en -stations van waaruit ruimtewandeling worden uitgevoerd, heeft de Crew Dragon geen luchtsluis. Dat betekent dat het zuurstofgehalte in de capsule al direct na de lancering werd opgevoerd en de luchtdruk naar beneden ging.
Isaacman, de enige astronaut met enige ervaring op de vlucht, verbleef een kleine tien minuten buiten de capsule. Hij oefende daar met verschillende lichaamsbewegingen. Nadat Isaacman weer naar binnen ging, vertrok astronaut Sarah Gillis ook naar buiten. Zij deed dezelfde oefeningen. Gillis bleef ook zo'n tien minuten buiten het ruimteschip. Beide astronauten bleven wel met hun benen in het schip en lieten dat niet los, wat ook niet de bedoeling was. Naast Isaacman en Gillis waren er ook twee andere astronauten aan boord: Scott Poteet en Anna Menon. Zij verlieten het ruimteschip niet.
De astronauten sloten het luik rond 13.18 uur Nederlandse tijd weer. De komende tijd worden daarbij het zuurstofgehalte en de luchtdruk weer teruggebracht naar hun beginwaarden.
De missie werd uitgevoerd in samenwerking met SpaceX, dat de Crew Dragon op 10 september lanceerde naar een baan om de aarde en ook de ruimtepakken maakte. Maar het was miljardair Isaacman die de missie bekostigde en uitvoerde. De Polaris-missies, waarvan deze Dawn-missie er een is, hebben als voornaamste doel om de ruimtepakken van SpaceX in de praktijk te testen. De ruimtepakken zijn aangepaste versies van de drukpakken die astronauten al dragen bij het opstijgen en landen met de Crew Dragon. De belangrijkste toevoegingen daarbij zijn nieuwe temperatuurregulatoren en een HUD waarop astronauten informatie over hun druk en temperatuur zien. Ook zijn de pakken gemaakt om wendbaarder te zijn, wat belangrijk is als astronauten in de toekomst bijvoorbeeld reparaties moeten uitvoeren aan hun ruimteschip.
Ook de Crew Dragon werd aangepast voor de missie. Er werden hand- en voetrailingen toegevoegd aan de buitenkant, waarmee de astronauten zich over de capsule kunnen verplaatsen. Ook het life support system werd aangepast zodat de astronauten zuurstof kunnen krijgen via de toevoerslangen die naar de ruimtepakken leiden.
Four private Axiom Space astronauts await liftoff in their SpaceX IVA suits.
(SpaceX)
Polaris-missies
Het Polaris-programma bestaat uiteindelijk uit drie missies. Die moeten verschillende aspecten testen waarop astronauten in de toekomst verdere ruimtereizen moeten maken met SpaceX-vaartuigen. De missie werd van tevoren als risicovol gezien; er worden veel verschillende nieuwe technieken ingezet die nooit eerder zijn getest. Bovendien zijn alle crewleden onervaren. Voor Gillis, Poteet en Menon is het hun eerste ruimtevlucht. Isaacman is de enige met ervaring, maar ook dat is niet erg veel. In 2021 was hij al een van de astronauten op de Inspiration4-missie, de eerste commerciële ruimtevaartmissie. Ook dat was aan boord van de Crew Dragon. Daarmee heeft Isaacman weliswaar ervaring met dat ruimtevaartuig, maar de missie duurde slechts drie dagen. De huidige capsule, Resilience, is dezelfde capsule als die op Inspiration4 werd gebruikt.
De ruimtewandeling is ook de verste die sinds de jaren 70 is gemaakt. Toen voerden astronauten ruimtewandelingen uit op weg naar de maan, waarbij ze op duizenden kilometers hoogte de Apollo-capsules verlieten. Polaris Dawn werd aanvankelijk in een aardbaan van 190 tot 1408 kilometer geplaatst, al werd dat voor de ruimtewandeling teruggebracht naar een lagere baan. De ruimtewandeling vond uiteindelijk plaats op een hoogte van zo'n 700 kilometer, een kleine 300 kilometer hoger dan waarop huidige ruimtestations als het International Space Station of het Chinese Tiangong nu vliegen.
A fragment of the meteorite, one of the most precious of recent years, fell onto someone's driveway in 2021
A chunk of the Winchcombe meteorite.
(Image credit: The Trustees of the Natural History Museum)
The Winchcombe meteorite, which fell to the ground in Gloucestershire in the U.K. after blazing a trail through the night sky on Feb. 28, 2021, came from an asteroid that had been heavily altered by water as well as smashed apart and reformed multiple times.
That's the conclusion of a detailed analysis of the meteorite, fragments of which were found scattered in fields near the village of Winchcombe, and even on one family's driveway. It was the first meteorite fall in the U.K. to be retrieved since 1991. Thanks to the U.K. Fireball Alliance's network of video cameras watching the sky, as well as eyewitness reports, scientists were able to triangulate the approximate area in which the meteorite had fallen.
The next day, search teams were on-site. They were able to quickly retrieve fragments of the meteorite, in some cases within hours of landfall and before Earth's atmosphere had been able to chemically alter the space rock in any serious way (although some of the fragments did exhibit terrestrial contamination, including from table salt). A total of 602 grams (21.2 ounces) worth of material was collected in total.
Winchcombe meteorite: Is this the UK's most important fireball?
Despite its fire-forward journey, the Winchcombe meteorite fragments are as pristine as one could hope for. Contained within the meteorite's composition is its secret history that scientists can tease out with sophisticated transmission electron microscopy and techniques such as electron backscatter diffraction, time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry and atom probe tomography.
These are all methods normally brought to bear on precious material ferried to Earth by asteroid sample-return missions; the fact that scientists could employ these sensitive tools to Winchcombe piece is all thanks to how well-kept the samples are.
"This level of analysis of the Winchcombe meteorite is virtually unprecedented for materials that weren't directly returned to Earth from space missions, like moon rocks from the Apollo program or samples from the Ryugu asteroid collected by the Hayabusa 2 probe," said Leon Hicks of the University of Leicester in a statement.
The investigation showed that the fragments were made of a breccia, which is where individual chunks of rock are cemented together (not literally with cement used to build houses, but by a mixture known as a cataclastic mix). The Winchcombe meteorite is classified as a CM carbonaceous chondrite, which is a carbon-rich and stony rock. The analysis, which probed the fragments at the nanometer scale, found that the Winchcombe breccia was formed from eight different types of CM chondrite, which are the most common variation of carbonaceous chondrite.
"We were fascinated to uncover just how fragmented the breccia was within the Winchcombe sample we analyzed," said Luke Daly of the University of Glasgow, who led the research. "If you imagine the Winchcombe meteorite as a jigsaw, what we saw in the analysis was as if each of the jigsaw pieces themselves had also been cut into smaller pieces and then jumbled in a bag filled with fragments of seven other jigsaws."
Winchcombe Meteorite captured on cctv from Hull
This suggests that the Winchcombe meteorite’s parent asteroid had been smashed apart and reformed multiple times, presumably following collisions with other asteroids early in the solar system's history.
Moreover, the meteorite fragments also indicate clear evidence of having been chemically altered by liquid water before getting smashed apart. In some cases, grains altered by water were found right next to unaltered grains, so quite jumbled had the breccia become. There were also unexpectedly high abundances of carbonate materials such as aragonite, calcite and dolomite. These are carbon-based minerals, and the implication is that Winchcombe's parent asteroid once possessed a large amount of carbon-dioxide ice. Some event, perhaps a collision, melted this ice and allowed it to chemically alter the rock to form the carbonates. This could also explain puzzling carbonate-rich veins found on the surface of the asteroid Bennu by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission.
"It gives us a clearer idea of how it must have been battered by impacts and reformed again and again over the course of its lifetime since it swirled together out of the solar nebula, billions of years ago," concluded Daly.
These findings are not the first discoveries to be made about the Winchcombe meteorite, however. Earlier this year it was revealed by several groups of scientists that advanced electron microscopy had found amino acids and nucleobases within the meteorite. Although these molecules are not directly involved in life as we know it, they are precursors to more complex amino acids that are known as biologically useful.
The presence of water on the Winchcombe meteorite's parent asteroid could also aid in the understanding of where Earth’s water came from. The leading theory is that it was brought to Earth by impacts, but were they impacts of comets or asteroids? Carbonaceous chondrites seem the most likely source, potentially making the water-altered Winchcombe samples a key piece of evidence if future research can reveal more about whether the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio in the asteroid's water matches that of Earth's water.
Uncovering the secrets of the Winchcombe meteorite
The research was published on April 16 in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.
Lee waves on Mars are created by the wind encountering obstacles and build up on the ‘leeward’ or downwind side.
Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.
Due to the elliptical orbit of Mars Express, its HRSC camera can not only take surface observations from low altitude to map the planet at the highest possible resolution, but also capture observations from higher altitudes at lower resolution, covering much larger parts of the surface with a typical field of view from limb to limb.
These high-altitude observations are ideal for observing atmospheric phenomena on Mars.
After more than 20 years of the Mars Express mission, an extensive amount of image data on atmospheric phenomena on Mars has been accumulated, which has a great potential for scientific exploitation.
“Clouds on Mars are just as diverse and fascinating as those we see in our skies on Earth, with some features unique to the Red Planet,” said Dr. Daniela Tirsch, a researcher at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR).
Elongated dust clouds aren’t found on Earth
ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/A. Cowart
“One of my favorite phenomena are the beautiful ‘cloud streets’ — linear rows of fleecy clouds that develop around the huge volcanic Tharsis rise and the northern lowlands in northern spring and summer.”
“While they resemble cumulus clouds on Earth, they are formed under different atmospheric conditions.”
“We also see impressive dust clouds that can spread hundreds of km — a phenomenon we luckily don’t experience on Earth.”
This image displays two atmospheric phenomena: the white curved lines are gravity wave clouds, while the brown areas are dust lifted from the ground by wind. The color shift visible in the dust lifting event might be indicative of very fast winds, a phenomenon currently under investigation by other members of the team.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.
This elongated cloud has formed as a result of wind encountering the Arsia Mons mountains. It forms almost every day during a specific season, from early morning until noon.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/A. Cowart.
An example of cloud streets over Vastitas Borealis, a large area near the North Pole mostly devoid of craters. .
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/A. Cowart
Lee waves are a special type of cloud created by the wind encountering obstacles and build up on the 'leeward' or downwind side. The geometries of the lee waves depend on the shape of the obstacles.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.
Lee waves are a special type of cloud created by the wind encountering obstacles and build up on the 'leeward' or downwind side. The geometries of the lee waves depend on the shape of the obstacles.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.
Dust plays a major role in the atmosphere and climate of Mars.
Rare upwelling events can leave beige, dust-laden blobs hanging in the planet’s atmosphere.
Large differences in temperature and air pressure at certain seasons can result in stronger-than-usual winds that lift large amounts of dust from the Martian surface
Dust clouds spreading from the tops of giant volcanoes take on the appearance of eruption clouds, although they are no longer active.
Large spiral dust storms and cyclone systems can also be observed each year near the Martian north pole.
Studying these phenomena is crucial to scientists in understanding the atmosphere and air mass circulation on Mars.
Rippling ‘gravity clouds’ are one of the most common formations on both Mars and the Earth.
They are seen at mid-latitudes in winter for both hemispheres, as well as over the Tharsis volcanic plateau in southern winter.
Lee waves, a special type of gravity clouds, can build up on the downwind side of ridges, mountains and other obstacles to create repeating ridge formations.
Some types of clouds studied are specific to locations and seasons; others like ‘twilight clouds’ can appear in the early morning at any place or time of year.
The new atlas will provide valuable insights into the physical nature and appearance of clouds and storms, the time of their occurrence and their location.
This knowledge will help better understand the atmospheric dynamics and the climate cycles on Mars, as well as providing input for studies of the climate on other planets such as Earth and Venus.
“As Mars Express has been extended by ESA until at least 2026, this will enable us keep filling this database and refine even further our understanding of Mars atmosphere,” Dr. Tirsch said.
Daniela Tirsch et al. 2024. Clouds and Storms as seen by HRSC – A catalogue of atmospheric phenomena on Mars. EPSC Abstracts 17, EPSC2024-44; doi: 10.5194/epsc2024-44
Niet iedereen gelooft dat het universum met de oerknal is ontstaan. Voor sommigen waren er zelfs twee oerknallen, terwijl voor anderen het universum heen en weer beweegt tussen fases van uitdijing en inkrimping zonder te worden gereduceerd tot singulariteiten. Dit is ongetwijfeld een fascinerend perspectief, hoewel moeilijk te bewijzen, dat een ander beeld oplevert vergeleken met de meest wijdverspreide theorie van vandaag. Toch hebben sommige onderzoekers recentelijk bewijs gevonden van geheim leven in het universum vóór de oerknal, dat verband houdt met zwarte gaten en donkere materie. Laten we eens kijken waar het over gaat.
Zijn zwarte gaten en donkere materie hetzelfde?
Donkere materie is lange tijd het onderwerp geweest van diepgaande studies: we weten dat het bestaat, maar we kunnen het op geen enkele manier “zien”, behalve via enkele van de effecten ervan op de omringende materie. In feite zendt, absorbeert of reflecteert donkere materie geen elektromagnetische straling, maar heeft toch wel effecten op de zwaartekracht en de rotatiesnelheid van sterrenstelsels. Het is daarom een soort materie die we alleen kunnen bestuderen via de effecten ervan, op een manier die sterk lijkt op wat er gebeurt met zwarte gaten.
En juist deze principiële overeenkomst is niet onopgemerkt gebleven: een recente studie gepubliceerd in de Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics heeft de hypothese naar voren gebracht dat donkere materie zou kunnen worden gevormd door primordiale zwarte gaten. Maar wanneer zouden deze zwarte gaten zich hebben gevormd? Voor onderzoekers bestaat er geen twijfel: vóór de oerknal.
Van de Big Bounce tot (primordiale) zwarte gaten
EHT Collaboration/Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 4.0
Vanaf hier keren we terug naar de kosmologische theorie die we in de inleiding noemden, omdat de associatie tussen oorspronkelijke zwarte gaten en donkere materie het bewijs zou kunnen vormen van de Big Bounce. Volgens deze theorie was het ontstaan van het heelal daarom niet een singulariteit gevolgd door een fase van snelle uitdijing, in een proces dat we kennen als de oerknal, maar een oscillerend patroon van uitdijingen en inkrimpingen.
Volgens onderzoekers kromp het heelal ruim 13 miljard jaar geleden tot een oneindig kleine omvang voordat het weer uitdijde, wat leidde tot een toename van de dichtheid van de materie, wat op zijn beurt bijdroeg aan de vorming van oorspronkelijke zwarte gaten. We hebben het over hemellichamen die de massa van een asteroïde hebben en een oneindig kleine diameter, maar toch groot genoeg zodat Hawkingstraling ze niet volledig wegvaagt. Zeker niet in 13 miljard jaar. Maar wat betekent dit allemaal voor het universum, voor de natuurkunde en voor donkere materie?
Aan de oorsprong van het universum?
Het aantonen dat donkere materie uit vele kleine oorspronkelijke zwarte gaten bestaat, zou een impuls kunnen geven aan de studie van dit overheersende component van het universum. Aan de andere kant zouden we kunnen stoppen met het zoeken naar deeltjes die alleen via de zwaartekracht met materie interactie hebben, en op zoek kunnen gaan naar kleine zwarte gaten verspreid over het universum: sommige doen al iets soortgelijks. En dit is niet het enige gevolg: volgens de onderzoekers komen de eigenschappen van een oscillerend universum zoals geschetst overeen met de kromming van de ruimte en de kosmische achtergrondstraling in zijn vroege stadia. Maar zo eenvoudig is het niet.
Om hun theorie te testen zal het internationale team dat aan het onderzoek heeft gewerkt zwaartekrachtgolven moeten detecteren die zijn gevormd in de vorige fase van samentrekking van het universum. Tot op heden is het onmogelijk om dit te doen, tenminste met de instrumenten die momenteel beschikbaar zijn, maar wie weet in de toekomst. Misschien kunnen de Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, of LISA, en de Einstein Telescope ons al een antwoord op deze vraag geven. En een revolutie teweegbrengen in alles wat we wisten over de oorsprong van het universum.
Europese ruimtesonde "ontdekt" dat er leven mogelijk is op aarde
Europese ruimtesonde "ontdekt" dat er leven mogelijk is op aarde
Europese ruimtesonde "ontdekt" dat er leven mogelijk is op aarde
Geruststellend nieuws: de aarde is bewoonbaar. Dat heeft de Europese ruimtesonde Juice bevestigd toen hij op 20 augustus langs de planeet scheerde op weg naar Jupiter, zo deelde de Europese ruimtevaartorganisatie ESA dinsdag mee.
Instrumenten van de ruimtesonde gingen tijdens de vlucht langs de aarde na of de noodzakelijke voorwaarden voor leven aanwezig zijn. Ze vonden niet alleen water, maar ook koolstof, waterstof, stikstof, zuurstof, fosfor en zwavel, de meest voorkomende elementen in levende organismes.
Belangrijker dan de "ontdekking" op zich, is de bevestiging dat de instrumenten van Juice werken. "We zijn uiteraard niet verrast door de resultaten, het zou heel zorgwekkend zijn geweest indien we hadden ontdekt dat er geen leven mogelijk is op aarde", zegt projectwetenschapper Olivier Witasse. "Maar de resultaten bewijzen dat de instrumenten goed zullen werken bij Jupiter, waar ze zullen onderzoeken of er op de ijsmanen leven mogelijk is of is geweest."
Europese ruimtesonde "ontdekt" dat er leven mogelijk is op aarde
Juice (kort voor Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) werd in april 2023 gelanceerd. De aankomst bij Jupiter is in 2031 gepland. Daar zal de sonde drie van de zowat honderd manen van de planeet - Ganymedes, Callisto en Europa - bestuderen, omdat zij onder hun ijskorst mogelijk oceanen met vloeibaar water bevatten.
De flyby langs de aarde en de maan in augustus diende om met behulp van de zwaartekracht de snelheid en richting van het ruimteschip aan te passen. In 2026 en 2029 zal de sonde normaal opnieuw langs de aarde komen.
The capsule landed in the New Mexico desert after spending just over three months in space. But thanks to technical issues worrying NASA officials, it left behind the agency's two stranded astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, bookending a disastrous first crewed flight attempt.
The pair will have to wait for their ride back, on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, until February.
Signals on the capsule's return were mixed. On the one hand, according to NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich, it pulled off a "bullseye landing." On the other, the agency admitted that a new thruster had failed during its descent. The capsule also experienced a temporary blackout of Starliner's guidance system during reentry.
It's an awkward situation for the space agency: would Starliner have been able to ferry NASA's missing crew members in the end?
"I think we made the right decision not to have Butch and Suni on board," Stich told reporters on Saturday. "All of us feel happy about the successful landing. But then there’s a piece of us, all of us, that we wish it would have been the way we had planned it."
Double Down
While approaching the International Space Station in early June, five of Starliner's 28 control thrusters gave up, forcing Wilmore and Williams to take over manual control.
Related video: Starliner capsule set to return to earth without crew (FOX 10 Phoenix)
Several helium leaks added to Boeing's growing headache at the time, worrying NASA officials.
The capsule didn't fare much better following undocking procedures on Friday. One of its 12 control jets on the crew module — a different set unrelated to the other malfunctioning service module thrusters — failed to ignite. And a glitch caused the spacecraft's navigation system to go down briefly during reentry as well.
It's still unclear whether Boeing will try to launch its plagued Starliner again. Analysts suggest the aerospace giant may dump the entire project, which has already lost the company well over a billion dollars, instead.
"It’s unclear if or when the company will have another opportunity to bring astronauts to space," Bank of America aerospace and defense analyst Ron Epstein told the New York Times. "We would not be surprised if Boeing were to divest the manned spaceflight business."
So, Would Starliner Have Safely Brought Its Astronauts Home?
So, Would Starliner Have Safely Brought Its Astronauts Home?
Story by Doris Elín Urrutia
NASA/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Starliner is finally home. But its crew — astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — are not. Could Starliner have safely carried them?
The Boeing spacecraft’s initial 8-day flight ballooned into a months-long saga shortly after launch. The aerospace company and NASA, who are collaborating for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program to bring low-cost astronaut rides to and from space, had tense discussions. Boeing argued their spacecraft was sound enough to return the crew. NASA was uncomfortable signing off. Starliner therefore landed shortly past midnight Eastern time early Saturday without Wilmore and Williams.
But in hindsight, would it have been fine?
Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, doesn’t beat about the bush on this point: “It would have been a safe successful landing with the crew onboard, had we have had Butch and Suni onboard.”
These comments came during a media conference NASA held after landing — noticeably without Boeing officials, who did not participate in the event. Stich explained that “if there was a crew onboard, it would have flown the same back-away sequence, and the same orbit return, and executed the same entry.”
This of course was not a given since not long after Starliner entered orbit around Earth on June 5, it leaked helium and five thrusters malfunctioned. Out of an abundance of caution — or according to many even a modicum of it — NASA did not want to send the astronauts home once they looked over the data with Boeing. It was not an easy decision and as Stich noted in an earlier meeting that “the teams were very split.” Boeing thought it would be fine — NASA “saw limitations” in the data.
So, Would Starliner Have Safely Brought Its Astronauts Home?
Moving forward, this uneventful landing doesn’t mean Starliner is now certified to get back in the game. Starliner’s launch in June was its critical Crew Flight Test, which would have certified Starliner as an astronaut ferry provider for NASA — had nothing gone awry. Of course, plenty went wrong and it was a huge hitch for Wilmore and Williams who will now return to Earth in February 2025 at the earliest, onboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule set to launch to the International Space Station later this month.
Related video:
NASA Says Something Weird Is Happening With Boeing's Starliner, Stay in Space Forever!
“I’d say it’s probably too early to think about what the next flight looks like. We want to look at the data,” Stich said.
Amidst Boeing’s absence at the conference, Stich said the company is still a major partner. The major goal of the Commercial Crew Program is to get Starliner to the point where it’s greenlit for crew rotation. But the next steps aren’t yet clear.
“We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program,” Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement Boeing published after Starliner landed.
“It will take time to determine the path forward,” Stich said. “Today we saw the vehicle perform well.”
Mysterious objects spotted in the outer solar system beyond Pluto
Mysterious objects spotted in the outer solar system beyond Pluto
Story by Eric Ralls
Mysterious objects spotted in the outer solar system beyond Pluto
Recent observations using the ultra-widefield prime focus camera of the Subaru Telescope have shown that there may be a population of small astronomical objects further out in the Kuiper Belt still waiting to be discovered.
According to the experts, the findings are essential for a better understanding of the formation of the solar system.
The research was made possible through an international collaboration between the Subaru Telescope and the New Horizons spacecraft traveling through the outer solar system.
New Horizons flew through the Kuiper Belt
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was launched in 2006 in order to observe the surfaces of outer solar system bodies up close for the first time in our history. The spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of the Pluto system (2015), and later on (2019) it made a flyby of one of the Kuiper Belt objects, (486958) Arrokoth.
Although there were four other spacecraft which have flown to the outer solar system, New Horizons is the only one that has flown through the Kuiper Belt.
Viewing objects in the Kuiper Belt
When examining Kuiper Belt objects from the ground, we can only observe them at small solar phase angles (the angle between the sun, the object, and the observer).
However, when looking at an object in the outer solar system from a spacecraft in the Kuiper Belt, these objects can be observed at different phase angles and their reflection characteristics can be utilized to estimate their surface properties.
Related video:
One of NASA’s Furthest Probes Just Gave Us a Look at Just How Dark the Universe is Beyond Our Solar System
Yet, the camera on the New Horizon spacecraft has a narrow field-of-view and cannot find Kuiper Belt objects on its own.
Fortunately, the Subaru Telescope can use its wide-field camera to discover a variety of Kuiper Belt objects and then narrow down the collection of objects which the spacecraft can fly by and examine.
New Horizons and the Subaru telescope
The collaboration between the New Horizons spacecraft and the Subaru Telescope was initiated in 2004.
During the 2004–2005 observations with the Subaru Telescope's prime focus camera (Suprime-Cam), the orbital alignment between Pluto and the spacecraft caused a portion of the Milky Way's center to appear in the background of the search area for Kuiper Belt objects.
While it was highly difficult to search for solar system objects with multiple background stars, the scientists were able to localize 24 Kuiper Belt objects.
Unfortunately, the Kuiper belt objects discovered until now require too much fuel for New Horizons to flyby, but new ones at greater distances might fall within the available fuel reach of the spacecraft.
In 2020, deeper observations with the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the Subaru Telescope began, and, by 2023, 239 Kuiper Belt objects were discovered.
A large number of objects discovered with HSC are located at distances ranging from 30 to 55 astronomical units (au) from the Sun (with one au corresponding to the distance between the Sun and Earth) and are thought to belong to the known Kuiper Belt.
However, the experts were not expecting to discover what looks to be a cluster of objects in the 70–90 au region and a valley between 55 and 70 au, where only a small number of objects are distributed.
Is there a new population of Kuiper Belt objects located at 70–90 au? "If this is confirmed, it would be a major discovery. The primordial solar nebula was much larger than previously thought, and this may have implications for studying the planet formation process in our solar system," Yoshida explained.
"This is a groundbreaking discovery revealing something unexpected, new, and exciting in the distant reaches of the solar system; this discovery probably would not have been possible without the world-class capabilities of the Subaru observatory," added New Horizons mission principal investigator Alan Stern.
Understanding solar system formation
In order to determine the precise orbits of these objects, the scientists are continuing observations with HSC.
"I think the discovery of distant objects and the determination of their orbital distribution are important as a stepping stone to understanding the formation history of the solar system, comparing it with exoplanetary systems, and understanding universal planet formation," Yoshida said.
New Horizons is currently traveling further out, at approximately 60 au from the Sun, hoping to discover many more distant objects.
The findings will be published in two articles in the Planetary Science Journal and are currently available on the arXiv preprint server.
Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.
VIDEOS
Incredible Discoveries Of The James Webb Telescope | Universe Explorers | BBC Earth Science
The Year of Pluto - New Horizons Documentary Brings Humanity Closer to the Edge of the Solar System
Mysteries of the Universe. A Journey to Amazing Objects
Largest Dark Matter Detector is Narrowing Down Dark Matter Candidate
In 2012, two previous dark matter detection experiments—the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) and ZonEd Proportional scintillation in Liquid Noble gases (ZEPLIN)—came together to form the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment. Since it commenced operations, this collaboration has conducted the most sensitive search ever mounted for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles(WIMPs) – one of the leading Dark Matter candidates. This collaboration includes around 250 scientists from 39 institutions in the U.S., U.K., Portugal, Switzerland, South Korea, and Australia.
On Monday, August 26th, the latest results from the LUX-ZEPLIN project were shared at two scientific conferences. These results were celebrated by scientists at the University of Albany‘s Department of Physics, including Associate Professors Cecilia Levy and Matthew Szydagis (two members of the experiment). This latest result is nearly five times more sensitive than the previous result and found no evidence of WIMPs above a mass of 9 GeV/c2. These are the best-ever limits on WIMPS and a crucial step toward finding the mysterious invisible mass that makes up 85% of the Universe.
Led by the Department of Energy’s (DoE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the LZ experiment is located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, about 1,500 meters (nearly a mile) beneath the surface. The experiment relies on an ultra-sensitive detector made of 10 tonnes (11 U.S. tons) of liquid xenon to hunt for the elusive signals caused by WIMP-nucleus interactions. While direct detections are yet to be made, these latest results have helped scientists narrow the search.
“Dark matter interacts very, very rarely with normal matter, but we don’t know exactly how rarely. The way we measure it is through this cross-section or how probable an interaction is within our detector. Depending on the mass of a dark matter particle, which we don’t know yet, an interaction within the detector is more or less probable. What the new LZ results tell us is that dark matter interacts with normal matter even more rarely than we thought, and the only instrument in the world that is sensitive enough to measure that is LZ.”
The existence and nature of Dark Matter are among the greatest mysteries in modern astrophysics. Originally proposed to explain the rotational curves of galaxies, the existence of Dark Matter is vital to the most widely accepted cosmological model – the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model. Unfortunately, according to the prevailing theories, DM only interacts with normal (aka. “luminous”) matter via gravity, the weakest of the four fundamental forces. Detecting these interactions requires incredibly sensitive instruments and an environment free of electromagnetic energy (including heat and light).
While no direct detections have been made, the latest results from LZ have narrowed the range of possibilities for one of the leading DM candidates. As Szydagis said:
“It’s often misunderstood what is meant by the phrase ‘world’s best dark matter experiment’ since no one has made a conclusive, unambiguous discovery yet. However, new, stricter null results like LZ’s are still extremely valuable for science. UAlbany, as one part of the multinational collaboration that is LZ, has been making important contributions ensuring the robustness of LZ’s results, going back to the very beginning of the experiment.”
Although DM remains “invisible” to us, the presence of its gravitational pull is fundamental to our understanding of the Universe. For example, the formation and movement of galaxies are attributed to DM, and its existence is vital for explaining the large-scale structure and evolution of the Universe. If DM does not exist, then our understanding of gravity – as described by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity – is essentially wrong and needs revision. However, General Relativity has been experimentally validated again and again over the past century.
Therefore, narrowing the search for its constituent particle is vital to proving that our foundational theories about the Universe are correct. As Levy noted, UAlbany scientists have been making integral contributions to LZ for over a decade, and their work is far from done! “Working on LZ is always so exciting, even if we still have not made a discovery yet,” she said. “We all know that if it were easy, someone else would have done it already! I think right now what we need to take out of this result is that LZ is a great team of scientists, our detector is working superbly, our analysis is extremely robust, and we are nowhere near done taking data.”
Using A Space Elevator To Get Resources Off the Queen of the Asteroid Belt
Here at UT, we’ve had several stories that describe the concept of a space elevator. They are designed to make it easier to get objects off Earth and into space. That, so far, has proven technically or economically infeasible, as no material is strong enough to support the structure passively, and it’s too energy-intensive to support it actively. However, it could be more viable on other worlds, such as the Moon. But what about worlds farther afield? A student team from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs looked at the use case of a space elevator on Ceres and found that it could be done with existing technology.
Before we discuss why anyone would want to put a space elevator on Ceres, let’s first examine the technologies that would make it possible. Every space elevator design has three different components: an anchor, a tether, and a counterweight. Each would require its own technologies.
The anchor is simple enough; it’s how the system interfaces with Ceres. The surface of Ceres is primarily made of clay, which is relatively good for anchoring technologies. Luckily, the force the anchor needs to withstand is only around 300N, which is much lower than the force on Earth, given Ceres’ small mass. There have already been asteroid anchoring technologies for other missions that can provide up to 500N of force resistance, so an anchor on Ceres should prove no real challenge.
Fraser describes the general idea of a space elevator.
The tether is where the technology falls short on Earth – no material known to science can withstand the forces exerted on the tether of a passively controlled space elevator when it is tied to Earth. However, the closest we can come, something space elevator enthusiasts mention as almost a holy grail, is carbon nanotubes. In the analysis for the space elevator on Ceres, they once again came out ahead. However, the limitation of actually physically creating a long tether will still plague any space elevator design on Ceres.
The counterweight is much simpler, as it can be just a big, dumb mass. However, its mass is proportional to the necessary length of cable—the heavier the mass, the shorter the cable. So, the tradeoff between having a heavier counterweight and a shorter cable is another design consideration when considering these systems.
Calculations from the team show that, with only a little more technological development, all three main systems could be ready for installation on Ceres itself. But what advantages does it have? It could be helpful as a launching point for accessing other asteroids in the asteroid belt. Ceres also has water relatively near the surface, which is helpful for all kinds of human exploration, either as rocket fuel or biological systems. It’s also well placed to quickly get things back to Earth using Jupiter as a gravity assist.
Isaac Arthur goes into a deeper description of space elevators and their advantages.
But before it can provide any of those advantages, someone is going to have to pay for it. Estimates of the overall cost of the system total about $5.2 billion — not too far out of the range of larger-scale space exploration projects. But more than most countries are likely willing to pony up for a grand infrastructure project that hasn’t yet proven its benefit.
So, for now, any space elevator will remain in the realm of science fiction. But research like this and other ongoing technological improvements is how we will eventually push forward to that future. Whether it’s a space elevator on Ceres, on the Moon, or some other novel launch technology, someday humans will need a better way to get off Earth rather than burning dead living organisms. Hopefully, that day will come sooner rather than later.
Enigmatic depressions on the surface have puzzled scientists since the 1970s
For decades, scientists have been puzzling over strange hollows on Mercury’s surface, thousands of peculiar depressions at a variety of longitudes and latitudes, ranging in size from 60 feet to more than a mile across (18-1,600 meters), and depths of 80 feet or more (24 meters). No one knows how they got there.
And while none are as spooky as the Sleepy Hollow of Washington Irving’s legend, Mercury’s hollows are just as mysterious and, so far, seen nowhere else in the universe.
NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft discovered strange hollows on the surface of Mercury. Images taken from orbit revealed thousands of mysterious depressions, pitted and uneven, in areas all across the planet, up to a mile (1,600 meters) across and 120 feet (37 meters) deep. This mosaic view of the Raditladi impact basin includes individual frames capturing areas about 12 miles (20 km) wide, which merged high-resolution monochrome images from MESSENGER's Narrow Angle Camera with a lower-resolution enhanced-color image from its Wide Angle Camera.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution for Science
“There’s essentially no atmosphere on Mercury,” said planetary geologist David Blewett, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. “With no atmosphere, wind doesn’t blow and rain doesn’t fall, so the hollows weren’t carved by wind or water. Other forces must be at work.”
Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system and closest to the Sun, is battered by heat, radiation, and solar wind; its extreme temperatures range from 800°F (430°C) on the sunny side, to as low as -290°F (-180°C) on the night side. It’s slightly larger, and similar to our Moon – airless, rocky, and peppered with impact craters large and small – but Mercury has rarely been visited by spacecraft, and retains many of its secrets.
Scientists got their first tantalizing glimpses of the hollows when the Mariner 10 probe flew past Mercury in the 1970s, and captured low-resolution shots of curious bright areas in some craters.
NASA returned to the small planet with the MESSENGER mission, which first flew past Mercury in 2008, then settled into orbit in 2011.
That spacecraft circled the planet more than 4,000 times in four years, collecting hundreds of thousands of images and other data, and giving researchers new insights into this little-explored world. Mariner had cataloged less than half the planet’s surface during its brief visits 40 years earlier.
“This sinfully scintillant planet...” A view of hollows on Mercury, on the crater named for author Edgar Allan Poe. In this image, Poe's raven-colored rim stands out from the tan volcanic plains that surround it. Tiny hollows speckle the dark rim like blue-white stars in the blackness of night. The image was one of hundreds of high-resolution targeted color observations by MESSENGER’s Wide Angle Camera, using filters of red, green, and blue.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution for Science
“A Little Valley…Among High Hills”
MESSENGER (the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging mission) finally provided a sharper view of the enigmatic tracts. To differentiate them from other surface features, researchers dubbed them “hollows” (akin to Washington Irving’s description of the terrain in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” – “a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills.”)
The probe sent back finely detailed, beautiful images of the hollows, looking in some color-enhanced mosaics like sheets of copper corroded with blue-green patina. In others – such as shots of Sander crater in Mercury’s vast Caloris basin – the strange landforms, etched and ragged, glow bright blue amid the surrounding crater walls and mounds. And yet the images and other data, from MESSENGER’s X-Ray Spectrometer, Laser Altimeter, and other instruments, gave only hints and no definitive answers about the hollows.
This enhanced-color image from the MESSENGER mission shows (from left to right) the craters Munch (38 miles, or 61 km, wide), Sander (32 miles, or 52 km), and Poe (50 miles, 81 km), which lie in the northwest portion of Mercury’s Caloris basin. The hollows are the bright blue areas covering the floor of Sander and dotting the rims of Munch and Poe. The hollows are highly reflective and naturally appear bluish; in images like this, the spacecraft’s Wide Angle Camera used its 11 color filters to exaggerate the color spectrum, to highlight the variation among surface materials.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution for Science
”When we got high-resolution views back of Sander, the floor of the crater just looked amazing,” said Carolyn Ernst of Johns Hopkins APL, a deputy instrument scientist on the MESSENGER mission. “It had all these crazy-shaped, irregular depressions, and it had this bright material outside of it. And to this day, we don’t fully know what causes them.”
Researchers observed that the hollows are among the youngest and brightest features on the planet, especially compared to the impact craters where most reside, which date back as far as 4 billion years. The hollows, on the other hand, are relatively shiny and new – about 100,000 years old, on average – and may still be evolving today.
MESSENGER mission scientists Ralph McNutt and Carolyn M. Ernst, both with Johns Hopkins APL, discuss what they’ve learned about Mercury’s hollows, and how much more needs to be figured out.
Clues and Theories
“We’ve been thinking of Mercury as a relic – a place that’s really not changing much anymore, except by impact cratering,” Blewett said. “But the hollows appear to be younger than the craters in which they are found, and that means Mercury’s surface is still evolving in a surprising way.”
One possible clue to their formation is that many of the hollows are associated with central mounds or mountains inside Mercury’s impact craters. These so-called “peak rings” are thought to be made of material forced up from the depths by an impact that formed the crater. Ernst suggested a large object slamming into the planet, with the meteorite forming a new crater and tossing material from deep underground onto Mercury’s surface.
The newly-excavated material could be unstable, finding itself suddenly exposed at the surface. Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, it’s battered by fierce heat and extreme space weather – factors that might play a role in forming hollows, added Blewett, a member of the science team for MESSENGER.
”Certain minerals, for example those that contain sulfur and other volatiles, would be easily vaporized by the onslaught of heat, solar wind, and micrometeoroids that Mercury experiences on a daily basis,” he said. “Perhaps sulfur is vaporizing, leaving just the other minerals, and therefore weakening the rock and making it spongier. Then the rock would crumble and erode more readily, forming these depressions.”
Looking Ahead
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spotted similar depressions in the carbon dioxide ice at Mars’ south pole, giving that surface a “swiss cheese” appearance. But on Mercury the depressions are found in rock and often have bright interiors and halos.
“We’ve never seen anything quite like this on a rocky surface,” Blewett said.
Other theories include the idea that darker areas on Mercury’s surface are graphite deposits that, when pummeled and destroyed by solar wind, collapse and leave behind pitted, hollowed areas of only the much brighter, blue-tinged materials.
We’ve never seen anything quite like this on a rocky surface.
David Blewett
MESSENGER mission participating scientist, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
MESSENGER finally ran out of fuel and crashed into Mercury in April 2015, but researchers are still sifting through the data it collected. Scientists are also eagerly anticipating the arrival of BepiColombo to Mercury in 2025 and what secrets the mission will reveal. A joint European-Japanese venture, with two orbiters riding together, the craft made their first flyby of Mercury in October 2021 – only the third mission ever to visit the planet.
In his 1820 novel, Washington Irving wrote of Sleepy Hollow being a place of “strange sights, …haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country.”
Likewise, Mercury has its own “ghosts” – craters in a previous life, later shrouded by lava – and the planet has seen shooting stars and meteors peppering every part of its surface for billions of years.
The craters they leave are named for artists and authors, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe, whose namesake crater contains hollows. Maybe one day Irving, their mentor and contemporary, will join their company with his own crater. By then the true nature of Mercury’s strange hollows may be unmasked.
Images from the MESSENGER mission are helping tell the story of Mercury's geologic history; in this case, a ghost story. Once there was another crater resembling the one in the upper right of this scene. Then volcanic lava flooded the surface, burying the crater and leaving just a spectral outline of the crater's rim, the "ghost crater" located in the lower left of this image. After extensive flooding in Mercury's north, additional cosmic bodies impacted Mercury's surface, creating the various sized craters seen here, in an image taken Aug. 14, 2011 by MESSENGER’s Wide Angle Camera.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution for Science
BepiColombo captured this image of Mercury with its Monitoring Camera 3 when it was about 555 km above the surface. It shows the newly-named Stoddart Crater. Image Credit: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft made another flyby of its eventual target, Mercury. This is one of a series of Mercury flybys, as the spacecraft completes a complex set of maneuvers designed to deliver it to the innermost planet’s orbit. Its cameras captured some fantastic images of Mercury.
BepiColombo will eventually enter orbit around Mercury in November 2026. However, Mercury is a challenge to visit because of its proximity to the Sun and the Sun’s overwhelming gravity. To eventually orbit Mercury, the spacecraft is performing six gravity-assist flybys of the Solar System’s innermost planet. This is the 4,100 kg spacecraft’s fourth flyby.
The images are a bonus. The spacecraft’s monitoring cameras captured them, and those cameras are there to keep an eye on the spacecraft itself. But in this situation, they were able to image Mercury and some prominent craters. As BepiColombo approached and passed by Mercury, different monitoring cameras were able to capture images.
All three of BepiColombo’s monitoring cameras captured images of Mercury during the recent flyby. Many of the dual-spacecraft’s scientific instruments were also active, giving the mission personnel a chance to check their function. Image Credit: ESA/Work performed by ATG under contract to ESA/CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The closest approach during the recent flyby was on September 4th. BepiColombo—named after Italian scientist Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo—came within about 165 km of Mercury’s surface. This was the first time that the spacecraft had a view of the planet’s south pole.
This image highlights Mercury’s rugged surface, featureless except for craters. BepiColombo’s MC2 captured this image from about 177 km altitude. The camera was aimed at the horizon, so the actual surface is a slightly greater distance away. North is to the lower left in this image. Image Credit: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Even though Mercury is so close, it’s seldom visited. BepiColombo is only the third spacecraft to visit the small planet after NASA’s Mariner 10 mission in 1974/75 and Messenger mission from 2011 to 2015. Its proximity to the Sun is a complex challenge.
“BepiColombo is only the third space mission to visit Mercury, making it the least-explored planet in the inner Solar System, partly because it is so difficult to get to,” said Jack Wright, ESA Research Fellow, Planetary Scientist, and M-CAM imaging team coordinator.
“It is a world of extremes and contradictions, so I dubbed it the ‘Problem Child of the Solar System’ in the past. The images and science data collected during the flybys offer a tantalizing prelude to BepiColombo’s orbital phase, where it will help to solve Mercury’s outstanding mysteries,” said Wright.
The next flyby is only a few months away, on December 1st, 2024. The final one is on January 8th, 2025.
BepiColombo is actually two orbiters in one. Once it enters Mercury’s orbit, it’ll separate into the ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the JAXA-built Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) or Mio. The Mercury Transfer Module is the spacecraft that delivers the pair of orbiters.
This simple schematic shows the three separate spacecraft that combine to make the BepiColombo mission. Image Credit: ESA
There’s a lot we don’t know about Mercury, where it originated, and how it evolved so close to its star. The spacecraft will study Mercury physically, its form, interior, structure, geology, composition, and abundant craters. It’ll also study the planet’s exosphere.
Instead of an atmosphere, Mercury has an exosphere, a region consisting of atoms blasted off the planet’s surface by the Sun and by impacts. The exosphere is dynamic and changes according to how the solar wind interacts with the surface. Studying it is an opportunity to study planetary evolution and space weather. Understanding the exosphere is also critical to future missions, especially any potential landers, because it can affect spacecraft operations.
This image shows Mercury’s 213 km Vivaldi Crater. The two booms are the Mercury Planetary Orbiter’s medium gain antenna (top centre) and magnetometer boom (right). Image Credit: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
BepiColombo will also study Mercury’s magnetosphere and magnetic fields. Mercury’s global magnetic field is extremely weak, only about 1% as strong as Earth’s. This is mysterious since the planet seems to have a large iron core.
Mercury’s magnetosphere is also an object of interest. The powerful solar wind shapes it and prevents it from rising much above the surface. The magnetosphere is also very dynamic and quickly responds to changes in the solar wind, making it a natural laboratory to study the physics of magnetospheres. Its weakness also challenges our understanding of how planetary dynamos function.
BepiColombo was initially scheduled to reach Mercury’s orbit in December 2025. However, a problem firing its thrusters during a maneuver in April 2024 added 11 months to the mission. The revised orbital insertion will be in November 2026.
Once it reaches the rapidly moving Mercury, we’ll start to learn more than ever about this sometimes overlooked planet.
VIDEOS PETER2011
The Hardest to Reach Planet in the Solar System Finally in BepiColombo's Sights
European probe captures stunning up-close views of planet Mercury during brief flyby (video, photos)
Enigmatic depressions on the surface have puzzled scientists since the 1970s
Fossielen worden vaak gevonden als gevolg van opgravingscampagnes die een zorgvuldige planning en langdurig onderzoek vereisen. Maar soms is de ontdekking dichterbij dan het lijkt en is het voldoende om even goed te kijken: fossielen zouden wel eens onder onze voeten kunnen liggen... letterlijk. Dat is wat er gebeurde met James Ryan, een medewerker van de National Trust for Scotland, die een ongelooflijke ontdekking deed in Inverness, in Schotland. Op de stoep ontdekte hij fossielen die veel ouder waren dan dinosaurussen.
Fossielen op de stoep van Inverness: de ontdekking van James Ryan
We zijn in Inverness, een Schotse stad op een steenworp afstand van het beroemde Loch Ness, en James Ryan maakt een wandeling rond het Inverness Town House. Op een gegeven moment stopt de man om de details van het trottoir te observeren: ze hebben een vreemde vorm en lijken in de stenen plaat te zijn ingebed. Zouden het fossielen zijn?
Voor ons lijkt het verband misschien niet zo direct, maar voor James is het overduidelijk. Het is tenslotte zijn taak bij de National Trust for Scotland om bezoekers te vertellen over de ontdekkingen van de Victoriaanse geoloog Hugh Miller, dus hij heeft een getraind oog. Toch is het verbazingwekkend om fossielen te vinden in het gesteente dat het plaveisel van de stad vormt, vooral als je bedenkt hoe oud ze zijn. Volgens vroege reconstructies dateren ze van minstens 385 miljoen jaar geleden, toen er nog geen dinosaurussen op aarde rondliepen.
Fossielen die 385 miljoen jaar oud zijn
The Inverness Courier/Facebook
In feite zijn de platen waaruit de trottoirs van het stadscentrum van Inverness bestaan, erg oud, ongeveer 385 miljoen jaar oud. Het gaat om een steen die is ontstaan uit sedimenten die zijn afgezet op de bodem van een enorm zoetwatermeer. Kortom, de stad staat er vol mee, maar niemand had ooit zulke duidelijk afgebakende fossielen geïdentificeerd. Tenminste voor een deskundig oog als dat van James.
Om precies te zijn behoren de gevonden fossielen tot het Devoon, dat meer dan 100 miljoen jaar voor de komst van de dinosauriërs voorafgaat. Als we naar de straatstenen kijken, zien we dat de donkere vlekken wijzen op schubben van verschillende soorten oude beenvissen. Daarnaast kunnen er ook sporen zijn van andere botfragmenten en een vin: we hebben het hier over zeer oude vissen, maar met een fysionomie die niet onmogelijk te herkennen is.
Een unieke ontdekking?
Volgens Ryan, die de ontdekking aan de Inverness Courier meldde, is de vondst van fossiele vissen op de stoep uniek voor Inverness. Toch is het in het algemeen niet ongewoon in Schotland om sporen van fossielen te vinden op stenen platen die voor antropische doeleinden worden gebruikt. Het hangt allemaal af van het gebruikte gesteente, dat afkomstig is uit steengroeven die rijk zijn aan meer of minder oude fossielen: in Edinburgh bijvoorbeeld begeleidt de universiteit toeristen die ernaar willen zoeken. In een ander, al even buitengewoon geval vond een Britse boswachter tijdens het joggen een voetafdruk van een dinosaurus op een stenen plaat die werd gebruikt voor de bestrating van een pad.
Kortom, in de Schotse stad zijn fossielen te ontdekken en te vinden, misschien door toeval, misschien door geluk. Het verleden is immers dichter bij ons dan we ons kunnen voorstellen: soms vanuit metaforisch oogpunt, soms letterlijk. Het enige wat je hoeft te doen is naar beneden kijken.
NASA is Getting Serious About a Radio Telescope on the Moon
It’s widely known by now that the “dark side” of the moon, made famous by Pink Floyd, isn’t actually dark. It gets as much sunlight as the side that is tidally locked facing Earth. However, it is dark in one very important way – it isn’t affected by radio signals emanating from Earth itself. What’s more, it’s even able to see radio waves that don’t make it down to Earth’s surface, such as those associated with the cosmic “Dark Ages” when the universe was only a few hundred million years old. Those two facts are the main reasons the far side of the moon has continually been touted as a potential location for a very large radio telescope. Now, a project sponsored by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has received more funding to further explore this intriguing concept.
The project, known as the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT), is part of NIAC’s Phase II program, and recently received $500k in additional funding to push the project further towards becoming a fully fledged NASA mission. This isn’t the first time a radio telescope on the moon has been proposed. But the LCRT team, led by Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay at JPL, have suggested two new and interesting features that make their approach much more attractive than previous alternatives.
UT video discussing the usefulness of a radio telescope on the far side of the moon.
The first feature has to do with limiting the sheer amount of material that is needed to construct a radio telescope. LCRT’s proposed instrument would be a one kilometer wide circle in a three kilometer wide crater. Traditional radio telescopes, such as the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) and the recently destroyedArecibo Observatory use hundreds of radio-reflective panels to any signals to an observing platform suspended by cable above the receiving
In order to complete a 1km wide telescope, thousands of reflecting panels would have to be created on Earth, launched into space, and then placed precisely where they need to go. That’s a lot of launches and a lot of weight, and it made the entire concept of a lunar radio telescope untenable.
Artist’s concept of what a completed LCRT would look like. Credit: Vladimir Vustyansky
Dr. Bandyopadhyay’s solution to this problem is to use a wire mesh instead of solid panels to reflect the radio waves to the antenna. This mesh would be much lighter, and less bulky, but will still need to be set precisely in order to work properly. For that, the team turned to their other novel solution – dual robots.
Roboticists at JPL, of which Dr. Bandyopadhyay is one, have been working on a concept called DuAxel. These robots have two separate configurations. In one, they look like a standard four wheeled rover. In the other, the two halves separate. One anchors itself to a specific point while the other uses a tether to ease itself into otherwise unreachable terrain.
Image of the two halves of a DuAxel rover working together. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / J.D. Gammell
Crater walls would likely be such unreachable terrain, so having a robot that is able to access both the bottom of the crater and up above the rim where any landed supplies would be located is invaluable to any such telescope mission. It would also allow the robots to mount the antenna, the critical sensing piece of the telescope, above the crater’s center by applying tension in the mounting wires and lifting it into position.
Some major hurdles still remain, two of which will be the focus of this Phase II NIAC grant. The first is the design of the wire mesh network. It’s physical structure has to be exactly right in order for the telescope to work properly. In addition, it must be able to withstand the extreme temperature differences on the moon, which swing between -173 C and +127 C. If the mesh warps even slightly, the whole project could fail.
DuAxels in an operational test in the Mojave. Credit: JPL YouTube Channel
DuAxels themselves pose another quandary – should they be automated or have some sort of human intervention. Are they the only tools needed for the massive undertaking of constructing the largest ever radio telescope?
While Dr. Bandyopadhyay and his team work out these questions other factors put a time limit on the possibility of constructing a telescope in this most unique of locations. Part of the appeal of the far side of the moon is its lack of interference from artificial radio sources. However, that silence is not guaranteed. Already there is a satellite orbiting there, and other missions could be planned in the near future that would add confounding signals to the data mix.
Presentation by Dr. Banyopadhyay on the LCRT concept for a NIAC meeting. Credit: Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay YouTube Channel
That being said, the LCRT is still a long way from reality, and in its press release NASA is quick to point out that it hasn’t been accepted as a full NASA mission. But the intent of the NIAC program is to develop concepts to the point where they could become one. With that in mind, the extra half a million dollars will keep pushing the concept forward and hopefully result in a Phase III grant, which would then transition into a fully fledged NASA program after an additional two years of study. Though it might take awhile, the benefits of having such a massive telescope in one of the most radio quiet place in the solar system cannot be understated.
The Moon race (part deux) is officially in full swing now with Japan, India, China, and even a private corporation making their marks on the surface. The calendar is packed with a whole slew of planned missions in the coming months and years to set the stage for a more sustained presence on the lunar surface. But some astronomers want to use the Moon for something perhaps less expendable than water ice — sorry, fans of For All Mankind — or a cosmic home base: a vantage point to peer into Cosmic Dark Ages.
NASA | New Craters on the Moon
Getting a look at the Cosmic Dark Ages — the period when the early universe was covered in pure darkness — has long been a holy grail for astronomers. It could tell us about the most fundamental aspects of our Universe and potentially help solve mysteries that puzzle us today.
“This is a wonderful place to look for any new physics,” says Jack Burn, a University of Colorado physicist, including understanding “the nature of dark matter, and maybe early dark energy, and really probe and test our fundamental models of cosmology and physics.”
But to see back into the Cosmic Dark Ages you need a very dark place indeed, free from a radiation-blocking ionosphere and away from the constant chatter we create here on Earth. This is why astronomers like Burns and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Joseph Lazio have plans to build radio telescopes on the far side of the Moon.
If engineers and astronomers at private companies, universities, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Brookhaven National Laboratory have their way, the far side of the moon could soon be the spot from which astronomers stare 13 billion years back in time, to an era before the first stars were born. Teams of scientists worldwide are developing concepts to build huge radio telescopes on the far side of the Moon, and the first prototype could launch as early as 2025, with more rudimentary telescopes set to go even sooner. Here’s a look at the race so far.
“If We Didn’t Have a Moon, We’d Have to Build It”
In the beginning, as hydrogen gas drifted through the darkness of the early Universe, atoms occasionally bumped into each other, releasing energy in the form of radio waves. The radio waves from those dark clouds of gas were 21 centimeters long (that’s just the natural wavelength that hydrogen atoms emit, and they’re very consistent about it). But those radio waves have spent billions of years crossing a rapidly expanding universe, and that journey has stretched them out until they’re several meters long.
Charged particles in an upper layer of Earth’s atmosphere, called the ionosphere, block radio waves longer than about 10 meters, so it’s impossible to study the Cosmic Dark Ages with a telescope here on Earth. And radio telescopes, especially ones meant to map the sources of such long radio waves, have to be much too large to build in space. You need something like a planet, but without an ionosphere – or all the radio noise that surrounds our busy, high-tech world.
Burns has argued for decades that the far side of the Moon is the best of both worlds. There’s solid ground to build on, but there’s no ionosphere to block incoming radiation, and the whole bulk of the Moon (2,000 miles of solid rock) would shield the telescope from Earth’s constant radio noise and – for two weeks out of every month, during the lunar night – the Sun’s radio emissions, too.
“It's the ideal place,” says Burns. “If we didn't have a moon, we'd have to build it.”
This illustration shows what FarView’s zigzagging array of antennas might eventually look like
Ronald Polidan/NASA
Fortunately, we don’t have to build the Moon — just the observatory. Burns is working with Texas-based Lunar Resources, Inc. on a project called the Farview Observatory, which will — if everything goes according to plan — be a 5-square-mile array of radio antennas sprawling across a lunar plain. Picture an antenna something like an old-fashioned television antenna; now picture roughly 100,000 of them, lined up end-to-end in a series of zig-zags. Combined, those antennas will act as one giant radio receiver, listening for faint signals from the Cosmic Dark Ages.
Meanwhile, at JPL, a team led by JPL robotics technologist Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay is working on the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope, which has the same scientific goal as Farview but will look very different. LCRT would be a semicircle of wire mesh about a third of a mile wide, lining the bottom of a 1.9-mile-wide crater on the Moon. The result will be a radio dish similar to Arecibo (the large, now-shuttered observatory in Puerto Rico), but with bare wires instead of the aluminum panels that lined Arecibo’s crater.
This artist’s illustration shows what the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope might eventually look like, with a receiver suspended over a radio dish set in a lunar crater.
Vladimir Vustyansky, JPL
Comparing these two possible Moon telescopes is similar to comparing Earth-based telescopes like the Very Large Array (VLA) and China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST). The VLA is an array of dish-shaped radio antennas lined up across a swath of New Mexico desert. It turns out that if you line up several radio receivers (or mirrors, if you’re studying shorter wavelengths like infrared or visible light), and connect them with the right software, those individual antennas can add up one giant telescope. Astronomers call this an interferometer.
FAST and the LCRT, like the now-defunct Arecibo, are something called single-aperture, or filled-aperture, telescopes. FAST is one enormous radio dish, set into a crater that provides structural support for the dish (and the delightful irony of using a crater formed by a meteor impact to study other objects in space).
Each design has its advantages. An interferometer like the VLA or Farview can see the universe in much higher resolution than a filled-aperture telescope like FAST or LCRT, because the interferometer is wider. But the tradeoff is that a filled-aperture telescope like FAST or LCRT can "see" fainter signals than an interferometer, because it's got an entire surface to catch them with. Neither is a “better” option than the other; radio astronomers here on Earth rely on both types of telescope to scan the skies.
A Truly High-Tech Construction Crew
During a field test in the Mojave Desert, the DuAxel robot separates into two single-axled robots, connected by a tether, so that one can rappel down a steep slope.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/J.D. Gammell
There’s one thing both telescope designs require: robotic construction teams. The LCRT team plans to use pairs of rappelling construction robots, developed at JPL, to lay the mesh grid in the base and along the sides of their chosen crater. Each pair of robots — together called a DuAxel — will be linked by a tether. One robot will anchor itself on the rim of the crater, while its partner rappels down the crater’s side to actually lay out the mesh for the telescope.
Farview, meanwhile, has even more ambitious plans for its robotic builders, starting with making the array’s 100,000 antennas from scratch, using aluminum extracted from lunar regolith (the dusty, ground-up rock that covers the lunar surface). The goal, says Burns, is to reduce the amount of material that has to be launched to the Moon from Earth.
And both telescopes will depend on a satellite in lunar orbit to send data home to Earth, since the far side of the Moon is constantly pointed out into the vastness of space, which is the whole point.
At the moment, both are in their second phase of development under a program called NASA Advanced Innovative Concepts, which funds projects that work out the engineering and science details of possible future missions like Farview and LCRT. Farview’s team will spend the next two years devising the best antenna layouts, narrowing down mission requirements, and tackling other engineering issues. They’ll also ask more specific science questions and plan how to use Farview to answer them. At JPL, the LCRT team is busy working on similar problems.
One Small Step For A Lunar Lookout
One or the other of the more ambitious observatory concepts could be ready to launch to the Moon by the late 2030s, but there are no guarantees.
Meanwhile, the first telescope to land on the Moon was a much smaller, much simpler version of a radio telescope: a crossed pair of antennas, spanning about 20 feet, called Radio wave Observation at the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath (ROLSES). ROLSES landed near the south pole of the Moon aboard Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus Lander earlier this year. Its goal was to study the background radiation that already exists on the Moon. (Most of that radiation comes from our Sun, but that’s likely to change soon, since nearly everyone with a space program seems to be aiming to set up shop near the lunar south pole.) Its other goal is to simply prove that a radio telescope could work on the Moon
“These are all kinds of multi-billion dollar projects that I think are, in some sense, ahead of their time,” Brookhaven National Laboratory physicist An¸e Slosar tells Inverse. “You're not going to get a $2 billion project unless you can at least prove the principle at some point.”
This illustration shows what LuSEE-Night might look like perched atop its lander.
Firefly Aerospace
Near the end of 2025, a similar telescope called the Lunar Surface Electromagnetic Experiment – Night (LuSEE-Night) is scheduled for launch aboard a Firefly Aerospace rocket. If all goes well, it will touch down on the far side of the Moon in January 2026.
Like ROLSS, LuSEE-Night will be a fairly simple telescope: a pair of 20-foot-wide radio antennae, spring-loaded and mounted on a turntable. But LuSEE-Night will try to last through a two-week-long lunar night. To do that, it will carry a 110-pound battery, heavily insulated against the deep cold of lunar darkness.
“The main role of LuSEE-Night is really to test this theoretical promise – whether the Moon really is such a great place to do observation,” says Slosar. “Maybe the Moon has more ionosphere than we thought; maybe there are plasma tracks; maybe there are micrometeorites; maybe there's something we haven't thought about. Really, there is this kind of notion that the Moon is the best place, but nobody has tested it.”
LUSEE-Night will do some real science, too. It’s too small to capture the long, slow radio waves rippling in from the Cosmic Dark Ages, but it will also be astronomers’ first chance to test their models of what the galaxy should look like at low radio frequencies they can’t see from Earth.
Once we have eyes on the moon, there’s no telling what we’ll be able to see.
Stars, like the Sun, are remarkably constant. They vary in brightness by only 0.1 percent over years and decades, thanks to the fusion of hydrogen into helium that powers them. This process will keep the Sun shining steadily for about 5 billion more years, but when stars exhaust their nuclear fuel, their deaths can lead to pyrotechnics.
Supernovae happen across the Milky Way only a few times a century, and these violent explosions are usually remote enough that people here on Earth don’t notice. For a dying star to have any effect on life on our planet, it would have to go supernova within 100 light years from Earth.
In my writing about cosmic endings, I’ve described the threat posed by stellar cataclysms such as supernovae and related phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts. Most of these cataclysms are remote, but when they occur closer to home, they can pose a threat to life on Earth.
The death of a massive star
An image of Cassiopeia A, the remains of a massive star that exploded roughly three centuries ago.
The dying star emits high energy radiation as gamma rays. Gamma rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths much shorter than light waves, meaning they’re invisible to the human eye. The dying star also releases a torrent of high-energy particles in the form of cosmic rays: subatomic particles moving at close to the speed of light.
Supernovae in the Milky Way are rare, but a few have been close enough to Earth that historical records discuss them. In 185 A.D., a star appeared in a place where no star had previously been seen. It was probably a supernova.
Observers around the world saw a bright star suddenly appear in 1006 A.D. Astronomers later matched it to a supernova 7,200 light years away. Then, in 1054 A.D., Chinese astronomers recorded a star visible in the daytime sky that astronomers subsequently identified as a supernova 6,500 light years away.
At 600 light years away, the red supergiant Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion is the nearest massive star getting close to the end of its life. When it goes supernova, it will shine as bright as the full Moon for those watching from Earth, without causing any damage to life on our planet.
Radiation damage
An image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of a star that exploded roughly 8,000 years ago
NASA
If a star goes supernova close enough to Earth, the gamma-ray radiation could damage some of the planetary protection that allows life to thrive on Earth. There’s a time delay due to the finite speed of light. If a supernova goes off 100 light years away, it takes 100 years for us to see it.
Astronomers have found evidence of a supernova 300 light-years away that exploded 2.5 million years ago. Radioactive atoms trapped in seafloor sediments are the telltale signs of this event. Radiation from gamma rays eroded the ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from the Sun’s harmful radiation. This event would have cooled the climate, leading to the extinction of some ancient species.
Safety from a supernova comes with greater distance. Gamma rays and cosmic rays spread out in all directions once emitted from a supernova, so the fraction that reach the Earth decreases with greater distance. For example, imagine two identical supernovae, with one ten times closer to Earth than the other. Earth would receive radiation that’s about a hundred times stronger from the closer event.
A supernova within 30 light-years would be catastrophic, severely depleting the ozone layer, disrupting the marine food chain, and likely causing mass extinction. Some astronomers guess that nearby supernovae triggered a series of mass extinctions 360 to 375 million years ago. Luckily, these events happen within 30 light years, only every few hundred million years.
Left behind after a supernova explosion, neutron stars are city-size balls of matter with the density of an atomic nucleus, so 300 trillion times denser than the Sun. These collisions created many of the gold and precious metals on Earth. The intense pressure caused by two ultradense objects colliding forces neutrons into atomic nuclei, which creates heavier elements such as gold and platinum.
A neutron star collision generates an intense burst of gamma rays. These gamma rays are concentrated into a narrow jet of radiation that packs a big punch.
If the Earth were in the line of fire of a gamma-ray burst within 10,000 light years, or 10% of the diameter of the galaxy, the burst would severely damage the ozone layer. It would also damage the DNA inside organisms’ cells at a level that would kill many simple life forms like bacteria.
Gamma-ray bursts may not hold an imminent threat to life on Earth, but over very long time scales, bursts will inevitably hit the Earth. The odds of a gamma-ray burst triggering a mass extinction are 50% in the past 500 million years and 90% in the 4 billion years since there has been life on Earth.
The most extreme astrophysical events have a long reach. Astronomers were reminded of this in October 2022 when a pulse of radiation swept through the solar system and overloaded all of the gamma-ray telescopes in space.
It was the brightest gamma-ray burst to occur since human civilization began. The radiation caused a sudden disturbance to the Earth’s ionosphere, even though the source was an explosion nearly 2 billion light years away. Life on Earth was unaffected, but the fact that it altered the ionosphere is sobering – a similar burst in the Milky Way would be a million times brighter.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
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