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NASA, ESA Reveal Tale Of Death, Dust In Orion Constellation

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NASA, ESA Reveal Tale Of Death, Dust In Orion Constellation

This infrared image of the Orion Nebula features plenty of dust but no stars. In these infrared wavelengths, it’s possible to see hot spots where new stars are forming, while unseen bright, massive stars have carved out caverns of empty space. Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech

In a tale of cosmic proportions, the region is being transformed by the massive stars that live and die within it.

A new image combining previously released data from three telescopes shows a region that includes the Orion Nebula, named after the mighty hunter from Greek mythology who was felled by a scorpion’s sting. But the story of how this dusty region came to be is just as dramatic.

The Orion Nebula is located in the constellation Orion, which takes the appearance of a hunter raising a club and shield at an unseen target. Three stars in a line are together known as Orion’s belt; the region shown in the image aligns with another series of stars perpendicular to the belt, known as Orion’s sword. If you could see it in the sky, the region would appear about the size of the full moon.

There’s a lot to see in this fly-through of a new infrared image of the Orion Nebula, like cavities carved out by unseen massive stars and bright spots where new stars are forming. The colors represent infrared wavelengths not visible to the human eye, captured by three infrared space telescopes. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Two enormous caverns that dominate the cloud were carved out by giant stars (unseen in this image) that can release up to a million times more light than our Sun. All that radiation breaks apart dust grains there, helping to create the pair of cavities. Much of the remaining dust is swept away by winds from stars or when the stars die explosive deaths as supernovae.

The blue light in these areas indicates warm dust. Observed in infrared light – a range of wavelengths outside what human eyes can detect – the views were provided by NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which now operates under the moniker NEOWISE. Spitzer and WISE were both managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

NASA Telescope Takes 12-Year Time-Lapse Movie of Entire Sky

Around the edge of the two cavernous regions, the dust that appears green is slightly cooler. Red indicates cold dust that reaches temperatures of about minus 440 Fahrenheit (minus 260 Celsius). The red and green light shows data from the now-retired Herschel Space Telescope, an ESA (European Space Agency) observatory that captured wavelengths of light in the far-infrared and microwave ranges, where cold dust radiates. Herschel’s large mirror provided high-resolution views of these clouds, which are full of contours, nooks, and crannies. The cold dust appears mostly on the outskirts of the dust cloud, away from the regions where stars form.

In between the two hollow regions are orange filaments where dust condenses and forms new stars. Over time, these filaments may produce new giant stars that will once again reshape the region.

More About the Missions

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, managed Spitzer mission operations for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington until the spacecraft was retired in 2020. Science operations were conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at IPAC at Caltech. Spacecraft operations were based at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. The Spitzer data archive is housed at the Infrared Science Archive at IPAC at Caltech.

For more information about NASA’s Spitzer mission, go to:

https://www.ipac.caltech.edu/project/spitzer

Launched in 2009, the WISE spacecraft was placed into hibernation in 2011 after completing its primary mission. In September 2013, NASA reactivated the spacecraft with the primary goal of scanning for near-Earth objects, or NEOs, and the mission and spacecraft were renamed NEOWISE. The mission was selected competitively under NASA’s Explorers Program managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NEOWISE is a project of JPL and the University of Arizona and is supported by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

For more information about WISE, go to:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/main/index.html

NASA’s Herschel Project Office was based at JPL. The NASA Herschel Science Center was based at IPAC.

NASA’s Webb Reveals An Exoplanet Atmosphere As Never Seen Before

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NASA’s Webb Reveals An Exoplanet Atmosphere As Never Seen Before

Observations of WASP-39b show fingerprints of atoms and molecules, as well as signs of active chemistry and clouds

WASP-39 b is a planet unlike any in our solar system – a Saturn-sized behemoth that orbits its star closer than Mercury is to our Sun. This exoplanet was one of the first examined by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope when it began regular science operations. The results have excited the exoplanet science community. Webb’s exquisitely sensitive instruments have provided a profile of WASP-39 b’s atmospheric constituents and identified a plethora of contents, including water, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, sodium and potassium. The findings bode well for the capability of Webb’s instruments to conduct the broad range of investigations of all types of exoplanets, including small, rocky worlds like those in the TRAPPIST-1 system.

Exoplanet WASP-39 b and its Star (Illustration)

Full Article

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical profile of a distant world’s skies.

While Webb and other space telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer, previously have revealed isolated ingredients of this broiling planet’s atmosphere, the new readings from Webb provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clouds.

The latest data also give a hint of how these clouds might look up close: broken up rather than a single, uniform blanket over the planet.

The telescope’s array of highly sensitive instruments was trained on the atmosphere of WASP-39 b, a “hot Saturn” (a planet about as massive as Saturn but in an orbit tighter than Mercury) orbiting a star some 700 light-years away. 

The findings bode well for the capability of Webb’s instruments to conduct the broad range of investigations of all types of exoplanets – planets around other stars – hoped for by the science community. That includes probing the atmospheres of smaller, rocky planets like those in the TRAPPIST-1 system.

“We observed the exoplanet with multiple instruments that, together, provide a broad swath of the infrared spectrum and a panoply of chemical fingerprints inaccessible until [this mission],” said Natalie Batalha, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who contributed to and helped coordinate the new research. “Data like these are a game changer.”

The suite of discoveries is detailed in a set of five new scientific papers, three of which are in press and two of which are under review. Among the unprecedented revelations is the first detection in an exoplanet atmosphere of sulfur dioxide (SO2), a molecule produced from chemical reactions triggered by high-energy light from the planet’s parent star. On Earth, the protective ozone layer in the upper atmosphere is created in a similar way.

“This is the first time we see concrete evidence of photochemistry – chemical reactions initiated by energetic stellar light – on exoplanets,” said Shang-Min Tsai, a researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and lead author of the paper explaining the origin of sulfur dioxide in WASP-39 b’s atmosphere. “I see this as a really promising outlook for advancing our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres with [this mission].” 

This led to another first: scientists applying computer models of photochemistry to data that requires such physics to be fully explained. The resulting improvements in modeling will help build the technological know-how to interpret potential signs of habitability in the future.

“Planets are sculpted and transformed by orbiting within the radiation bath of the host star,” Batalha said. “On Earth, those transformations allow life to thrive.”

The planet’s proximity to its host star – eight times closer than Mercury is to our Sun – also makes it a laboratory for studying the effects of radiation from host stars on exoplanets. Better knowledge of the star-planet connection should bring a deeper understanding of how these processes affect the diversity of planets observed in the galaxy.

To see light from WASP-39 b, Webb tracked the planet as it passed in front of its star, allowing some of the star’s light to filter through the planet’s atmosphere. Different types of chemicals in the atmosphere absorb different colors of the starlight spectrum, so the colors that are missing tell astronomers which molecules are present. By viewing the universe in infrared light, Webb can pick up chemical fingerprints that can’t be detected in visible light.

Other atmospheric constituents detected by the Webb telescope include sodium (Na), potassium (K), and water vapor (H2O), confirming previous space- and ground-based telescope observations as well as finding additional fingerprints of water, at these longer wavelengths, that haven’t been seen before.

Webb also saw carbon dioxide (CO2) at higher resolution, providing twice as much data as reported from its previous observations. Meanwhile, carbon monoxide (CO) was detected, but obvious signatures of both methane (CH4) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) were absent from the Webb data. If present, these molecules occur at very low levels.

To capture this broad spectrum of WASP-39 b’s atmosphere, an international team numbering in the hundreds independently analyzed data from four of the Webb telescope’s finely calibrated instrument modes.

“We had predicted what [the telescope] would show us, but it was more precise, more diverse, and more beautiful than I actually believed it would be,” said Hannah Wakeford, an astrophysicist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom who investigates exoplanet atmospheres.

Having such a complete roster of chemical ingredients in an exoplanet atmosphere also gives scientists a glimpse of the abundance of different elements in relation to each other, such as carbon-to-oxygen or potassium-to-oxygen ratios. That, in turn, provides insight into how this planet – and perhaps others – formed out of the disk of gas and dust surrounding the parent star in its younger years. 

WASP-39 b’s chemical inventory suggests a history of smashups and mergers of smaller bodies called planetesimals to create an eventual goliath of a planet.

“The abundance of sulfur [relative to] hydrogen indicated that the planet presumably experienced significant accretion of planetesimals that can deliver [these ingredients] to the atmosphere,” said Kazumasa Ohno, a UC Santa Cruz exoplanet researcher who worked on Webb data. “The data also indicates that the oxygen is a lot more abundant than the carbon in the atmosphere. This potentially indicates that WASP-39 b originally formed far away from the central star.” 

In so precisely parsing an exoplanet atmosphere, the Webb telescope’s instruments performed well beyond scientists’ expectations – and promise a new phase of exploration among the broad variety of exoplanets in the galaxy.

“We are going to be able to see the big picture of exoplanet atmospheres,” said Laura Flagg, a researcher at Cornell University and a member of the international team. “It is incredibly exciting to know that everything is going to be rewritten. That is one of the best parts of being a scientist.”

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

By Christine Pulliam Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
Source James Webb Space Telescope

Orion’s Optical Navigation Camera Captures Earth

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Orion’s Optical Navigation Camera Captures Earth

NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft snapped this black and white photo of Earth on Nov. 17, 2022, the second day of the 25.5-day Artemis I mission. The optical navigation camera is used to capture imagery of the Earth and the Moon at different phases and distances, which help establish its effectiveness as a way of determining its position in space for future missions under differing lighting conditions.

Follow Orion’s journey by visiting the Artemis I blog.

Image Credit: NASA
By Monika Luabeya

NASA Invites Public Comment On Plans For Mars Sample Return Campaign

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NASA Invites Public Comment On Plans For Mars Sample Return Campaign

This illustration shows the concept of NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission to ferry to Earth samples collected from the Martian surface by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover.

Credits: NASA

NASA is seeking public comments on a draft environmental impact statement for the agency’s Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign. Comments are due by Monday, Dec. 19.

Comments can be submitted online, through the mail, or through participation in a series of virtual and in-person meetings. Advanced registration for meeting options, including in-person meetings in Utah, is not required.

Two virtual meetings to discuss the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the campaign will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 30. The first begins at 1 p.m. MST, followed by a second opportunity at 6 p.m. MST. Participate online at either time by joining the following link:

Mars Sample Return WebEx

The WebEx will be accessible to participants about 15 minutes before the event begins, and will include real-time automated closed captioning. To access audio-only dial 510-210-8882, and use meeting number 901-525-785.

The in-person meetings will be held at 6 p.m. MST on Tuesday, Dec. 6, at the Wendover Community Center, 112 E Moriah Avenue, Wendover, Utah, and on Wednesday, Dec. 7, at the Clark Planetarium, 110 S 400 W, Salt Lake City, Utah.

All public meetings will include a 15-minute presentation on the purpose of the meetings, the MSR campaign project schedule, opportunities for public involvement, a summary of the proposed action and alternatives, discussion of potential environmental impacts from the proposed action, and an overview of the programmatic approach to National Environmental Policy Act compliance in general, and NASA’s proposed action specifically. The in-person meetings also will include a 45-minute open house before the official public comment portion of the meeting.

Subject matter experts will be available on-site during the open house to answer questions from the public, and to discuss informational posters and distribute related materials about the draft statement and the proposed Mars Sample Return campaign. These materials are also available online.

NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are planning to use robotic Mars orbiter and lander missions launched in 2027 and 2028 to retrieve samples of rocks and atmosphere being gathered by NASA’s Perseverance rover and return them to Earth. The samples of Mars material, securely isolated inside a robust Earth Entry System using a layered “container within a container” approach, could be brought to Earth in the early 2030s, landing notionally at the Utah Test and Training Range operated by the U.S. Air Force. The Earth Entry System would then be transported to a specialized MSR sample receiving facility.

NASA will consider all comments received during the PEIS public comment period in the subsequent development of the MSR Final Environmental Impact Statement.

In addition to receiving comments during the public meetings, comments may be sent to NASA in the following ways:

  • Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: Follow the online instructions for submitting comments and include Docket No. NASA-2022-0002. Please note that NASA will post all comments online without changes, including any personal information provided.
  • By mail to Steve Slaten, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, M/S: 180-801, Pasadena, CA 91109–8099

Additional information on the agency’s National Environmental Policy Act process and the proposed campaign is available online.

NASA Updates Coverage For Next SpaceX Resupply Launch To Space Station

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NASA Updates Coverage For Next SpaceX Resupply Launch To Space Station

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the company’s Dragon cargo spacecraft atop, is raised to a vertical position at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on Nov. 21, 2022, in preparation for the 26th commercial resupply services launch to the International Space Station. Credits: NASA

NASA and SpaceX now are targeting 2:20 p.m. EST Saturday, Nov. 26, to launch the company’s 26th commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station.

Live launch coverage will begin at 2 p.m., on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Follow all events at:

https://www.nasa.gov/live

The mission’s launch attempt on Nov. 22 was scrubbed due to poor weather conditions along Florida’s Space Coast.

Liftoff will be from Launch Complex 39A at the NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft will deliver new science investigations, supplies, and equipment for the international crew.

The Dragon spacecraft will deliver a variety of NASA investigations, including the next pair of International Space Station Roll Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs), which will augment power to the orbiting laboratory. The spacecraft also will carry a study to grow dwarf tomatoes to help create a continuous fresh-food production system in space, as well as an experiment that tests an on-demand method to create specific quantities of key nutrients.

For a Nov. 26 launch, arrival to the station is scheduled for 7:30 a.m. EST on Sunday, Nov. 27. The Dragon spacecraft will dock autonomously to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module.

The spacecraft is expected to spend about a month attached to the orbiting outpost before it returns to Earth with research and return cargo, splashing down off the coast of Florida.

The deadline has passed for media accreditation for in-person coverage of this launch. The agency’s media accreditation policy is available online. More information about media accreditation is available by emailing: [email protected].

Full coverage of this mission is as follows (all times Eastern):

Saturday, Nov. 26

2 p.m. – NASA TV launch coverage begins

2:20 p.m. – Launch

Sunday, Nov. 27

6 a.m. – NASA TV coverage begins for Dragon docking to space station

Approximately 7:30 a.m. – Docking

Coverage is subject to change based on real-time operational activities. Follow the International Space Station blog for updates.

NASA TV launch coverage

For downlink information, schedules, and links to streaming video, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Audio only of the launch coverage will be carried on the NASA “V” circuits, which may be accessed by dialing 321-867-1220, -1240, or -7135. On launch day, the full mission broadcast can be heard on -1220 and -1240, while the countdown net only can be heard on -7135 beginning approximately one hour before the mission broadcast begins.

On launch day, a “tech feed” of the launch without NASA TV commentary will be carried on the NASA TV media channel.

NASA website launch coverage

Launch day coverage of the mission will be available on the NASA website. Coverage will include live streaming and blog updates beginning no earlier than 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 26, as the countdown milestones occur. On-demand streaming video and photos of the launch will be available shortly after liftoff. For questions about countdown coverage, contact the Kennedy newsroom at 321-867-2468. Follow countdown coverage on our launch blog for updates.

Attend launch virtually

Members of the public can register to attend this launch virtually. Registrants will receive mission updates and activities by email. NASA’s virtual guest program for this mission also includes curated launch resources, notifications about related opportunities, and a virtual guest passport stamp following a successful launch.

Watch, Engage on social media

Let people know you’re following the mission on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram by using the hashtags #Dragon, #CRS26, and #NASASocial. You can also stay connected by following and tagging these accounts:

Twitter: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASASocial, @Space_Station, @ISS_Research, @ISS National Lab

Facebook: NASA, NASAKennedy, ISS, ISS National Lab

Instagram: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @ISS, @ISSNationalLab

Learn more about NASA’s SpaceX commercial resupply missions at:

https://www.nasa.gov/spacex

Para obtener información sobre cobertura en español en el Centro Espacial Kennedy o si desea solicitar entrevistas en español, comuníquese con Antonia Jaramillo at: [email protected] or 321-501-8425.

Space Exploration Goes Underground

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Space Exploration Goes Underground

Is there life in Martian caves?

It’s a good question, but it’s not the right question—yet. An international collaboration of scientists led by NAU researcher Jut Wynne has dozens of questions we need asked and answered. Once we figure out how to study caves on the Moon, Mars and other planetary bodies, then we can return to that question.

Wynne, an assistant research professor of cave ecology, is the lead author of two related studies, both published in a special collection of papers on planetary caves by the Journal of Geophysical Research Planets. The first, “Fundamental Science and Engineering Questions in Planetary Cave Research,” was done by an interdisciplinary team of 31 scientists, engineers and astronauts who produced a list of 198 questions that they, working with another 82 space and cave scientists and engineers, narrowed down to the 53 most important. Harnessing the knowledge of a considerable swath of the space science community, this work is the first study designed to identify the research and engineering priorities to advance the study of planetary caves. The team hopes their work will inform what will ultimately be needed to support robotic and human missions to a planetary cave—namely on the Moon and/or Mars.

The second, “Planetary Caves: A Solar System View of Products and Processes,” was born from the first study. Wynne realized there had been no effort to catalog planetary caves across the solar system, which is another important piece of the big-picture puzzle. He assembled another team of planetary scientists to tackle that question.

“With the necessary financial investment and institutional support, the research and technological development required to achieve these necessary advancements over the next decade are attainable,” Wynne said. “We now have what I hope will become two foundational papers that will help propel planetary cave research from an armchair contemplative exercise to robots probing planetary subsurfaces.”

Summary by subject area groups, workflow, statistics of panelists (Surveys 1 and 3) and the broader community (Survey 2), and breakdown of the 53 fundamental questions in planetary cave science and engineering by subject area group. Credit: Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (2022)

What we know about extraterrestrial caves

There are a lot of them. Scientists have identified at least 3,545 potential caves on 11 different moons and planets throughout the solar system, including the Moon, Mars and moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Cave formation processes have even been identified on comets and asteroids. If the surrounding environment allows for access into the subsurface, that presents an opportunity for scientific discovery that’s never been available before.

The discoveries in these caves could be massive. Caves may one day allow scientists to “peer into the depths” of these rocky and icy bodies, which will provide insights into how they were formed (but also can provide further insights into how Earth was formed). They could also, of course, hold secrets of life.

“Caves on many planetary surfaces represent one of the best environments to search for evidence of extinct or perhaps extant lifeforms,” Wynne said. “For example, as Martian caves are sheltered from deadly surface radiation and violent windstorms, they are more likely to exhibit a more constant temperature regime compared to the surface, and some may even contain water ice. This makes caves on Mars one of the most important exploration targets in the search for life.”

And it’s not just finding life—these same factors make caves good locations for astronaut shelters on Mars and the Moon when crewed missions are able to explore.

“Radiation shielding will be essential for human exploration of the Moon and Mars,” said Leroy Chiao, a retired astronaut, former commander of the International Space Station and co-author of the first paper. “One possible solution is to utilize caves for this purpose. The requirements for astronaut habitats, EVA suits and equipment should take cave exploration and development into consideration, for protection from both solar and galactic cosmic radiation.”

Planetary bodies for which possible cave entrances have been identified with number of features per body provided in parentheses (at top). Global locations for possible cave entrances for the Moon (center) and Mars (bottom). From Wynne et al. 2022b. Photo credit: AGU and Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets. Top photo: Real-time DNA sequencing in a lab installed in the Corona Lava Tube (Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain) in the framework of the ESA PANGAEA-X 2017 Astronaut training program. ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer is inside the lab module with co-author Ana Miller. Photo credit: ESA.

What Earth can tell us about other planets

Wynne, whose primary research is in terrestrial caves, said planetary cave research has long been a parallel research question to the earthly variety for nearly two decades. Caves support unique ecosystems that are sometimes quite divorced from the surface ecosystem in the same area. Who’s to say a cave on the Moon or Mars would not be similar? So, many questions he’s investigated about caves on Earth, he’s wondered how it could apply on other planets.

He’s not the only one making the connection. Wynne has done multiple research projects with NASA to help advance detection technologies, and his modeling of cave habitats does not much care if a cave is terrestrial or extraterrestrial. There are enough similarities in the cave environment to make reasonable predictions that will factor prominently into the selection of cave targets for exploration.

“Tellurian caves at depth are often characterized by complete darkness, a stable temperature approximating the average annual surface temperature, low to no air flow and a near-water-saturated atmosphere,” he said. “The caves of other planetary bodies likely exhibit similar environmental conditions, but these will also be influenced by the surface conditions of the planetary body and the internal structure of the cave.”

Keith Cowing, editor of SpaceRef.com  and  NASAWatch.com, said using the existing infrastructure of a planet’s surface and subsurface may help humans get to other planets sooner than if we had to bring everything needed to survive with us.

“Humans have been living in caves for hundreds of thousands of years. Then they built their own when none were available,” he said. “As such, it is only natural to assume that caves will offer similar utility as humanity expands to other worlds. While planet-wide terraforming may be an end goal, the use of large, pre-existing structures such as caves and lava tubes may be a more practical way to bootstrap the technology to the maturity needed to tackle the surface of an entire planet.”

Space suit designer and co-author Pablo de Leon testing the NDX-3 Planetary Space Suit in Antarctica. Development of drilling and excavation tools will be of critical importance for research, habitation, and rescue operations in planetary caves. Photo credit: Human Spaceflight Laboratory, University of North Dakota

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Where are we now?

While much of this research is forward-looking, there’s also a need to consider what resources, research and support currently exist. Numerous robotic platforms and instrumentation suites are being tested, but the roadblock comes where it so often does—the lack of funding. With sufficient support, a robotic exploration mission to a lunar or Martian cave could be possible in the next five to 10 years.

This research builds on past work to form a road map of sorts to move forward; Wynne sees it as a to-do list for that same process. The questions the scientists and engineers answered identify the tasks needed to prepare for that robotic exploration; it also looks even further ahead to the advancements needed in spacesuit technology, habitation modules and hardware that will enable humans to live and work safely underground on the Moon and Mars.

“This is an untapped area of inquiry in planetary science, and its importance in the search for life should not be overlooked,” he said. “In our lifetime, it is quite possible that we will peer into underground Mars to address the age-old question, ‘Does life exist beyond Earth?’”

Jut Wynne (at right) with JPL roboticist Brett Kennedy field testing an early prototype of the rock climbing robot, LEMUR in a lava tube cave, Mojave Desert, California. Of note, Wynne is the first human to belay a robot. Courtesy NASA JPL/Caltech.

By Keith Cowing
Source SpaceRef

The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 Mission Reenters Atmosphere, Completes Mission

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The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 Mission Reenters Atmosphere, Completes Mission

LightSail 2, The Planetary Society’s crowdfunded, solar sailing spacecraft, has reentered Earth’s atmosphere, successfully completing its mission to demonstrate flight by light for small spacecraft. Orbital predictions showed that LightSail 2 reentered sometime on Nov. 17.

The reentry completes a mission of nearly three-and-a-half years, during which LightSail 2 showed that it could change its orbit using the gentle push of sunlight, a technique known as solar sailing. LightSail 2 demonstrated that small spacecraft can carry, deploy, and utilize relatively large solar sails for propulsion.

“LightSail 2 is gone after more than three glorious years in the sky, blazing a trail of lift with light, and proving that we could defy gravity by tacking a sail in space,” said Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society. “The mission was funded by tens of thousands of Planetary Society members, who want to advance space technology.”

LightSail 2 hitched a ride to space in June 2019 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. It began operations at an altitude of about 720 kilometers (450 miles), where Earth’s atmosphere is still thick enough to create drag and slow down a spacecraft. For reference, the International Space Station orbits at an altitude of roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles).

As atmospheric drag slowly pulled LightSail 2 back towards Earth, the spacecraft successfully used solar sailing to lower its decay rate and on occasion overcome drag completely. After 18,000 orbits and 8 million kilometers (5 million miles) traveled, drag finally won out, bringing the mission to a close.

“During its extended mission LightSail 2 continued to teach us more about solar sailing and achieved its most effective solar sailing, but that was followed by an increase in atmospheric drag in part from increasing solar activity,” said Bruce Betts, LightSail program manager and chief scientist for The Planetary Society. “The spacecraft is gone, but data analyses and sharing of results will continue.”

LightSail 2 launched as a shoebox-sized spacecraft with its sails tucked together like origami. Using four tape measure-like booms, the spacecraft unfurled a four-section Mylar sail with an area of 32 square meters (244 square feet) — about the size of a boxing ring.

Light has no mass, but it has momentum that can be transferred to a reflective solar sail. The resulting push is small but continuous, allowing a spacecraft like LightSail 2 to change its orbit.

The LightSail mission team will continue to analyze data collected during the mission, publishing peer-reviewed journal articles, making conference presentations, and conducting public outreach. Images from the mission can be viewed online.

Results will continue to be shared with other upcoming solar sail missions such as NEA Scout and ACS3. In a fitting bookend to the LightSail 2 mission, NEA Scout launched on Nov. 16 aboard NASA’s Artemis I mission to the Moon. The Planetary Society shares data with the NEA Scout team through a Space Act Agreement.

NEA Scout will use an 86-square-meter (926 square-feet) solar sail to leave lunar orbit and perform a slow flyby of asteroid 2020 GE, which measures just 18 meters (60 feet) across. The images NEA Scout captures will be the first up-close pictures of such a small world.

LightSail 2 was an entirely crowdfunded mission that aimed to help democratize space exploration. More 50,000 Planetary Society members, Kickstarter backers, private citizens, foundations, and corporate partners funded the mission. A miniature DVD attached to the spacecraft contained selfies from space fans and the names of Planetary Society members and supporters.

The Smithsonian Institution displayed two models of LightSail 2 in 2021 and 2022. The mission was named one of TIME’s 100 Best Inventions of 2019, and won a Popular Science Best of What’s New award for 2019.

The LightSail program’s roots date back to the mid-1970s, when Planetary Society co-founder Louis Friedman developed a NASA concept for a solar sail that would have visited Halley’s Comet. Society co-founder Carl Sagan showed off a model of the spacecraft on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

While LightSail 2 operations have come to an end, the mission will live on as a new era of solar sailing begins.

“We have braved the harbor of Earth and found that a small craft can sail and steer,” said Betts. “Best wishes to those who sail similar craft into the vast ocean of space – we look forward to an exciting future of exploration, proud that we have played a role. Sail on!”

LightSail 2's altitude with time
LIGHTSAIL 2’S ALTITUDE WITH TIME LightSail 2’s average altitude with time is shown in black. Its apogee, the highest point in its orbit around the Earth, as shown in blue. Its perigee, the lowest point in its orbit around the Earth, as shown in orange. The right side of the graph shows the rapid descent occurring as it gets lower in the atmosphere. This plot shows data as of Nov. 16, 2022.Image: The Planetary Society
LightSail 2’s average daily change in altitude with time
LIGHTSAIL 2’S AVERAGE DAILY CHANGE IN ALTITUDE WITH TIME LightSail 2’s average daily change in altitude with time is shown in green. The last several weeks show the spacecraft dropping faster and faster due to increasing atmospheric density as it gets lower. This plot shows data as of Nov. 16, 2022.Image: The Planetary Society
LightSail 2's Final Image
LIGHTSAIL 2’S FINAL IMAGE This image taken by The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 spacecraft on October 24, 2022 was the final image returned from the spacecraft before atmospheric reentry. It shows the central portion of South America centered approximately on Bolivia including the large, white Uyuni Salt Flats. North is approximately at top. This image has been color-adjusted and some distortion from the camera’s 180-degree fisheye lens has been removed.Image: The Planetary Society

CONTACT
Danielle Gunn
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +1-626-793-5100

Lockheed Martin, NVIDIA To Build Digital Twin Of Current Global Weather Conditions For The National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration

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Lockheed Martin, NVIDIA To Build Digital Twin Of Current Global Weather Conditions For The National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration

Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and NVIDIA announced a collaboration to build an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven Earth Observations Digital Twin that will provide the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with an efficient and centralized approach to monitor current global environmental conditions, including extreme weather events.

The two companies expect to fully integrate and demonstrate one of the variable data pipelines – sea surface temperature — by September 2023, one year after initial contract award.

Presently, NOAA receives terabytes of data about its five earth systems domains – the cryosphere, land, atmosphere, space weather and ocean – from numerous space and Earth-based sensor sources. NOAA administrators and researchers have to collect, combine and analyze that information to observe and understand environmental conditions and changes.

The new Earth Observations Digital Twin – developed under contract with Lockheed Martin Space – working with NVIDIA – will provide NOAA with a high-resolution, accurate and timely depiction of global conditions, using current satellite and ground-based observations.

For the project, Lockheed Martin’s OpenRosetta3D™ platform will utilize AI and Machine Learning (ML) to ingest, format and fuse observations from multiple sources into a gridded data product and detect anomalies. NVIDIA Omniverse Nucleus, the collaboration and database engine of its Omniverse world simulation platform, will convert data into the Universal Scene Description framework, enabling data-sharing across multiple tools and between researchers. Agatha, a Lockheed Martin-developed visualization platform, will ingest this incoming data from Omniverse Nucleus and allow users to interact with it in an Earth-centric 3D environment.

“At Lockheed Martin we regularly use digital twins and AI to provide our government customers with the clearest, current situational picture and actionable intelligence for their important missions,” said Matt Ross, senior program manager at Lockheed Martin Space. “We’re pleased that we can use our technology experience to collaborate with NVIDIA on this project to provide NOAA a timely, global visualization for their own important missions.”

“Digital twins will help us solve the world’s hardest scientific and environmental challenges,” said Dion Harris, lead product manager of accelerated computing at NVIDIA. “The combination of Lockheed Martin’s AI technology with NVIDIA Omniverse will give NOAA researchers a powerful system to improve weather predictions at a global scale.”

Global Weather (notional image courtesy of NVIDIA)

Lockheed Martin and NVIDIA are already collaborating on an effort to help fight wildfires, which have burned more than 7.2 million U.S. acres this year. By pairing Lockheed Martin’s AI/ML platforms and joint all domain command and control capabilities with NVIDIA’s Omniverse, the two companies are demonstrating how firefighters can use advanced technology to help better detect, predict and suppress wildfires.

About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin Corporation is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 114,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

Please follow @LMNews and @LMSpace on Twitter for the latest announcements and news across the corporation.

About NVIDIA
Since its founding in 1993, NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) has been a pioneer in accelerated computing. The company’s invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined computer graphics, ignited the era of modern AI and is fueling the creation of the metaverse. NVIDIA is now a full-stack computing company with data-center-scale offerings that are reshaping industry. More information at https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/.

N° 61–2022: Forward To The Moon: Lunar Mission Artemis I Begins

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N° 61–2022: Forward To The Moon: Lunar Mission Artemis I Begins

16 November 2022. At 07:47 CET (06:47 BST, 01:47 local time), the Artemis I mission started its voyage to the Moon as NASA’s new Moon rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, and put the Orion spacecraft and its European Service Module into Earth orbit.

The spacecraft spent two hours circling Earth before being boosted towards the Moon. The spacecraft is performing as expected as it now begins its ten-day cruise to our natural satellite.

NASA’s Space Launch System is the most powerful rocket ever built and is designed for the Orion spacecraft to ferry astronauts and Gateway modules to the Moon. The Artemis I test-flight is uncrewed, but the next three spacecraft are already in production with hardware delivered by more than 20 companies in ten European countries.

“The European Service Module and Orion spacecraft comes from decades of excellent collaboration between ESA and NASA,” says ESA’s Director General Josef Aschbacher.

“From the Hubble and Webb telescopes and the Earth-observing Sentinel-6 satellite, through to the International Space Station and now Artemis, ESA is proud to be NASA’s preferred partner and, with this launch, to be taking humankind to the Moon together.”

ESA designed and oversaw the development of Orion’s service module, the part of the spacecraft that supplies air, electricity and propulsion. Much like a train engine pulls passenger carriages and supplies power, the European Service Module is now taking Orion to the Moon and back.

“We announced the Orion and European Service Module collaboration in 2013 and although today’s launch is a highlight of the mission, it marks only the start of the Artemis I mission and our larger lunar ambitions,” says ESA’s Director for Human and Robotic Exploration David Parker.

“In the coming years we will see European modules being launched to build up the international lunar Gateway and ESA astronauts venturing farther from Earth than ever before, with a European on the Moon by the end of the decade.”

Flying to the Moon and back

The Artemis I mission will see Orion and the European Service Module on a 26-day mission to the Moon and back. It will spend around a week orbiting the Moon, with the European Service Module firing its 33 engines to keep the spacecraft on course and in the best position to receive sunlight on the four 7 m long solar arrays.

The European Service Module also keeps the spacecraft operating at correct temperatures and holds all the fuel tanks for the engines. In future Artemis missions, the European Service Module will deliver air and water to the astronauts working in the Orion’s crew module.

Throughout the mission, personnel based at ESA’s technical heart ESTEC in The Netherlands are on-hand to provide expertise and in-depth knowledge of the European Service Module to the main mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in Houston, USA.

Artemis I will end with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California, USA. The European Service Module separates and burns up harmlessly in the atmosphere shortly before the Orion crew module splashes down.

About the European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) provides Europe’s gateway to space.

ESA is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.

ESA has 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania are Associate Members.

ESA has established formal cooperation with five Member States of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement.

By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, ESA can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country. It is working in particular with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes as well as with Eumetsat for the development of meteorological missions.

Learn more about ESA at www.esa.int

ESA Newsroom and Media Relations Office – Ninja Menning
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +31 71 565 6409

Model Explains Two Mysteries About Planet Size

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Model Explains Two Mysteries About Planet Size

A new model can explain two puzzling observations that have cropped up repeatedly among the more than 3,800 planetary systems cataloged to date.

One puzzle known as the “radius valley” refers to the rarity of exoplanets with a radius about 1.8 times that of Earth. NASA’s Kepler spacecraft observed planets of this size about 2-3 times less frequently than it observed super-Earths with radii about 1.4 times that of Earth and mini-Neptunes with radii about 2.5 times Earth’s.

The second mystery, known as “peas in a pod,” refers to neighboring planets of similar size that have been found in hundreds of planetary systems. Those include TRAPPIST-1 and Kepler-223, which also feature planetary orbits of near-musical harmony.

“I believe we are the first to explain the radius valley using a model of planet formation and dynamical evolution that self-consistently accounts for multiple constraints of observations,” says Rice University’s André Izidoro, corresponding author of a study in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“We’re also able to show that a planet-formation model incorporating giant impacts is consistent with the peas-in-a-pod feature of exoplanets.”

Izidoro, a postdoctoral fellow at Rice University’s NASA-funded CLEVER Planets project, and colleagues used a supercomputer to simulate the first 50 million years of the development of planetary systems using a planetary migration model.

In the model, protoplanetary disks of gas and dust that give rise to young planets also interact with them, pulling them closer to their parent stars and locking them in resonant orbital chains. The chains are broken within a few million years, when the disappearance of the protoplanetary disk causes orbital instabilities that lead two or more planets to slam into one another.

Planetary migration models have been used to study planetary systems that have retained their resonant orbital chains. For example, Izidoro and CLEVER Planets colleagues used a migration model in 2021 to calculate the maximum amount of disruption TRAPPIST-1’s seven-planet system could have withstood during bombardment and still retained its harmonious orbital structure.

“The migration of young planets towards their host stars creates overcrowding and frequently results in cataclysmic collisions that strip planets of their hydrogen-rich atmospheres,” Izidoro says. “That means giant impacts, like the one that formed our moon, are probably a generic outcome of planet formation.”

The research suggests planets come in two “flavors,” super-Earths that are dry, rocky, and 50% larger than Earth, and mini-Neptunes that are rich in water ice and about 2.5 times larger than Earth. Izidoro says new observations seem to support the results, which conflict with the traditional view that both super-Earths and mini-Neptunes are exclusively dry and rocky worlds.

Based on their findings, the researchers made predictions that can be tested by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. They suggest, for instance, that a fraction of planets about twice Earth’s size will both retain their primordial hydrogen-rich atmosphere and be rich in water.

In the new study, Izidoro partnered with CLEVER Planets’ investigators Rajdeep Dasgupta and Andrea Isella, both of Rice, Hilke Schlichting of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Christian Zimmermann and Bertram Bitsch of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.

Funding for the research came from NASA, the Welch Foundation, and the European Research Council.

Source: Rice University

Original Study DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac990d

By Jade Boyd-Rice
Source Futurity

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