Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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November 27th, 2019
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image taken on Sol 2597, November 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2598 tasks.
“We arrived at our parking spot for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, and Mars gave us plenty to be grateful for in and around the workspace,” reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Springs, Maryland.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 2597, November 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Each bedrock slab in the workspace, Minitti adds, seems to have something different to offer, “Western Butte” looms just 82 feet (25 meters) off to rover left, and dark sand ripples lap up against the small rise the robot is perched on.
“It is an ideal spot at which to spend some quality time. We start off the plan by acquiring the first of part of a 360° panorama that we will accumulate in four parts over the Thanksgiving holiday,” Minitti explains.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 2597, November 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Left eye, right eye
Normally, Mars scientists collect 360° mosaics with Curiosity’s wider field of view Mastcam left eye. This time, the plan calls for capturing the 360° mosaic using the left eye and the narrower field of view Mastcam right eye.
Minitti adds that this will result in a ripe-for-zooming-in stereo mosaic that includes our recent focus of exploration, “Central Butte,” and the clay-bearing unit, “Vera Rubin Ridge,” the “Greenheugh pediment,” the distant Gale crater rim, and (looming above all) Mount Sharp.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 2597, November 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Bedrock targets
Through the rest of a three sol plan (Sols 2597-2599), “our focus falls slightly closer to the rover than the surrounding vista” Minitti reports.
That plan includes brushing the target “Everbay — which has a polygonal fracture pattern — with the Dust Removal Tool (DRT) and follow up with Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) imaging and an Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) analysis.
“Fidra” is visible in the upper left corner of this image taken by Curiosity’s Left B Navigation Camera on Sol 2595, November 24, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
MAHLI will also image the targets “Carlops” and “Inverurie,” bedrock targets with different textures than Everbay, to help plan more detailed investigation of these targets with MAHLI and APXS in the next plan.
Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) will shoot Everbay, Inverurie, “Latheron” (yet another variety of bedrock texture!), and “Fidra,” whose vertical gives rover scientists a perfect cross section to look at.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 2597, November 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Tunable laser test
Rounding out the plan on Sol 2599, Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite will run a test of its tunable laser spectrometer, Minitti says.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 2597, November 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“The environment around and above the rocks gets attention in this plan, as well,” Minitti concludes. The plan involves acquiring regular Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) measurements, and images and movies of clouds and dust devils.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 2597, November 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Gemini Observatory operated by a partnership of six countries including the United States, Canada, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Korea.
Credit: Joy Pollard
In the past three decades over 4,000 exoplanets have been revealed. This “discovery rate” will surely grow unabated year after year. Some researchers now estimate that the average number of planets per star is greater than one.
Given a convergence of ground and space-based capability, AI/machine learning research and other tools, are we on the verge of identifying what is universally possible for life, perhaps confirming the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence?
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is on the search for planets outside of our solar system, including those that could support life. The mission will find exoplanets that periodically block part of the light from their host stars, events called transits.
Credit: NASA/GSFC
Is 2020 the celestial payoff year in which objects of interest are found to offer “technosignatures” – indicators of technology that may have been developed by advanced civilizations?
What do leading experts think? Go to my new Space.com story:
Will 2020 Be the Year We Find Intelligent Alien Life?
The unfolding of one of the three antennas. This series of three photographs was taken during the unfolding of an antenna on the Queqiao satellite, which is located behind the Moon at around 450 thousand kilometers from Earth. The antenna is the black-and-white rod pointed away from the camera. The gilded cube is the casing in which the antenna has waited to be unfolded for 18 months.
Credit: Marc Klein Wolt/Radboud University
The antennas of a radio astronomy experiment have been deployed from China’s Queqiao lunar relay satellite.
The detector is a joint development by Dutch and Chinese scientists, designed to measure radio waves originating from the period directly after the Big Bang, when the first stars and galaxies were formed.
Queqiao, meaning Magpie Bridge, was launched on May 21, 2018. It was then maneuvered into a halo orbit around the second Lagrangian point of the Earth-Moon system.
An earlier image from Queqiao relay satellite shows Netherlands Chinese Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE) stowed antenna, the Earth, and farside of the Moon. Queqiao is in a halo orbit at L2 Lagrange point.
Courtesy: Radboud Radio Lab
Communication link
From its Earth-Moon position, the satellite provides a communication link between the Earth and the Moon’s farside, and has been instrumental in the continuing operation of China’s Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover.
Chang’e-4 soft landed within Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the farside of the Moon on January 3, 2019.
Radio antennas of the Netherlands Chinese Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE), developed by ASTRON, Radboud Radio Lab, ISIS and the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC).
Credit: Radboud Radio Lab/ASTRON/Albert-Jan Boonstra
Start of science observations
The radio antenna — Netherlands Chinese Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE) — was developed by Radboud Radio Lab of Radboud University, ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy in Dwingeloo, and the Delft-based company ISIS, along with the Chinese National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC).
Tweets Marc Klein Wolt, managing director of the Radboud Radio Lab: “We are so proud, not only of this success which marks the start of our science observations, but also because as of now we are an official radio astronomical observatory in space!”
“Our contribution to the Chinese Chang’e 4 mission has now increased tremendously,” Wolt said in a press statement. “We have the opportunity to perform our observations during the fourteen-day-long night behind the Moon, which is much longer than was originally the idea. The Moon night is ours, now.”
The Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE) is onboard China’s Queqiao relay satellite.
Credit: Radboud Radio Lab of the Radboud University, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) and Innovative Solutions in Space (ISIS).
Deployment issues
In a Radboud University statement, the longer stay behind the Moon most probably did have an effect on antenna deployment.
“At first, the antennas unfolded smoothly, but as the process progressed, it became increasingly difficult,” the statement explains.
“The team therefore decided to collect data first and perhaps unfold the antennas further at a later point in time. With these shorter antennas, the instrument is sensitive to signals from around 800 million years after the Big Bang. Once unfolded to their full length, they will be able to capture signals from just after the Big Bang.”
According to China’s Xinhua news service, citing scientists involved with the detector, it will be able to observe the radio bursts of Earth, Jupiter and other planets, conduct collaborative observation with the low-frequency radio spectrometer on the Chang’e-4 lander and similar instruments on Earth, and help explore exoplanets.
Go to this video showing one of the NCLE antenna elements deploying during a pre-launch test.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=16&v=hca3MeX-8rw
Selfie of Curiosity Mars rover on the prowl.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Earlier this month, NASA announced that scientists have a head scratching finding on Mars. There has been a baffling result from measuring the seasonal changes in the gases that fill the air directly above the surface of Gale Crater on Mars. That’s home base for the Curiosity Mars rover.
Over the course of three Mars years (or nearly six Earth years) the robot’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) inhaled the air of Gale Crater and analyzed its composition.
Credits: Melissa Trainer/Dan Gallagher/NASA Goddard
Oxygen has been observed to show significant seasonal and year‐to‐year variability, suggesting an unknown atmospheric or surface process at work.
Though Mars has the potential to generate significant oxygen release due to abundances of oxidants in/at its surface, the mechanisms by which O2 could be quickly generated and then quickly destroyed are completely unknown. Continued on-the-spot, experimental, and theoretical results may shed light on this intriguing observation.
Rutgers University Astrobiologist Nathan Yee.
Credit: Nick Romanenko
Implications for humans on Mars
Meanwhile, that data gathered by NASA’s Curiosity rover impacts the possibility of human exploration on the Red Planet.
“New data from NASA’s Curiosity rover indicates there might be some oxygen-forming chemicals absorbed in Martian soil that are behind fluctuations in oxygen levels throughout the seasons on Mars,” notes Rutgers astrobiologist, Nathan Yee.
Breathe and survive
“If scientists can extract oxygen-forming chemicals in the Martian soil, then perhaps humans could use that as a source of oxygen to breathe and survive there – and, more importantly, use it to burn rocket fuel for the return trip to Earth,” said Yee. “More research on the sources of oxygen will be vital for the potential of future human exploration on the Red Planet.”
Credit: Bryan Versteeg via Explore Mars
Yee is a professor of geomicrobiology and geochemistry at Rutgers–New Brunswick’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and is a co-investigator at Rutgers ENIGMA, a NASA-funded research team focused on discovering how proteins evolved to become the catalysts of life on Earth.
For detailed information on the curious Curiosity finding, go to this paper — Seasonal Variations in Atmospheric Composition as Measured in Gale Crater, Mars –published on November 12 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. It can be found here at:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2019JE006175
Geologist Harrison Schmitt performs Moon tasks during Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.
Credit: NASA
The fifth installment of “Apollo 17: Diary of the Twelfth Man” is now available, commemorating the 45th Anniversary of the December 7, 1972 launch of the Apollo 17 Mission.
Apollo 17 moonwalker, Jack Schmitt, has authored this impressive work with the new addition, Chapter 11, titled “It’s Orange!”
The contrast- and color-balanced version of NASA photo AS17-137-20990 taken by Gene Cernan of the trench dug by Harrison H. Schmitt through the orange surface area that he spotted from the Lunar Roving Vehicle parked nearby on the rim of Shorty Crater. Color-balanced derivative of NASA photo AS17-137-20990; Copyright © 2018 by Tranquillity Enterprises, s.p. Courtesy of Tranquillity Enterprises, s.p.)
Shorty crater
One of the Apollo 17 discoveries took place within the 34-minute stop at Station 4, Shorty Crater, and the discovery there of orange soil.
That finding “may be the single, most important legacy of the Apollo missions to the Moon,” Schmitt writes. “Color photographs of the trench dug by the author through the orange soil on the rim of the crater have never been adequately displayed in the [roughly] half century since the mission. They are presented here for the first time as the author saw and described the colors.”
The original digital scan of the prime film made at Johnson Space Center ca. 2005. It is clear from the gnomon and the over-all pale appearance of the view that both the brightness, contrast and the color need balancing across the image.
Credit: NASA
Record-setting driving
This chapter chronicles the events of Day 2 on the lunar surface and the 7 hr 36 min 56 sec duration of EVA-2, the longest of the mission. During that period, Gene Cernan and Schmitt traveled a record-setting total of 12.66 miles (20.37 kilometers) via their Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV).
In December of 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt explored the Moon’s Taurus-Littrow valley.
Credit: NASA
For the Thanksgiving Holidays (in the USA) and later, “I hope all visitors to Jack’s website will enjoy riding along with him on the continuing saga of America’s last deep space manned mission of the 20th century recounted in “Apollo 17: Diary of the 12th Man,” explains Ronald Wells of Tranquillity Enterprises, s.p. and editor-in-chief of America’s Uncommon Sense – The Website of Apollo 17 Astronaut, Senator Harrison H. Schmitt.
Wells adds: “This very important chapter, of course, is a must read for astronauts in training to return to the Moon!”
To view this impressive and inspiring website, go to:
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission released its 2019 Annual Report to Congress on November 14, 2019.
This extensive report includes an informative chapter on China’s global ambitions. Flagged in the chapter’s section 3 is “China’s Ambitions in Space: Contesting the Final Frontier.”
Within that section, China’s “Space Dream” is highlighted, including a look at the country’s geopolitical and economic goals in space, as well as China’s view of space as the “Commanding Heights” of future military conflict and what are the implications for the United States.
Earth’s Moon and cislunar space looms large in our future.
Credit: ESA/NASA
Cislunar space
“Central to China’s economic and strategic goals in space is establishing a commanding position in cislunar space—the space within the Moon’s orbit of Earth,” the report notes. “Cislunar space will also play an important role in China’s plans for space-based solar power, a futuristic power source that China aims to fully deploy by 2050, which may have the potential to provide virtually unlimited power to the whole world.”
China’s goal to establish a leading position in the economic and military use of outer space, or what Beijing calls its “space dream,” the report states, “is a core component of its aim to realize the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
Report: “The China Space Station positions Beijing to leverage its presence in space into diplomatic and scientific gains.”
Photo credit: CMSA
Key recommendations
Among the report’s key recommendations:
Congress direct the National Space Council to develop a strategy to ensure the United States remains the preeminent space power in the face of growing competition from China and Russia, including the production of an unclassified report with a classified annex including the following:
“A long-term economic space resource policy strategy, including an assessment of the viability of extraction of space-based precious minerals, onsite exploitation of space-based natural resources, and space-based solar power.” It would also include a comparative assessment of China’s programs related to these issues:
— An assessment of U.S. strategic interests in or relating to cislunar space.
— An assessment of the U.S. Department of Defense’s current ability to guarantee the protection of commercial communications and navigation in space from China’s growing counterspace capabilities, and any actions required to improve this capability.
— A plan to create a space commodities exchange to ensure the United States drives the creation of international standards for interoperable commercial space capabilities.
— A plan to streamline and strengthen U.S. cooperation with allies and partners in space.
— An interagency strategy to defend U.S. supply chains and manufacturing capacity critical to competitiveness in space.
Chinese Control room.
Credit: CCTV/Screengrab/Inside Outer Space
Single-minded focus
The report explains that “China’s single-minded focus and national-level commitment to establishing itself as a global space leader harms other U.S. interests and threatens to undermine many of the advantages the United States has worked so long to establish.”
To review the entire report, go to:
https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2019-11/2019%20Annual%20Report%20to%20Congress.pdf
An executive summary is available at:
https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2019-11/2019%20Executive%20Summary.pdf
Mid-drive image showing the sand patch “Stemster” behind the rubbly workspace the robot now explores.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 2593, November 22, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just started performing 2594 Sol tasks.
Reports Catherine O’Connell, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada: “We are putting Central Butte behind us now, as we journey onwards to Western Butte, a nearby hill that appears to be similar to Central Butte. At Central Butte, we were spoiled for choice, with lots of rocky outcrops to investigate.”
Curiosity Front Right B Hazard Avoidance Camera image acquired on Sol 2593, November 22, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A recent drive by the robot brought it to the type of workspace Mars scientists have seen previously in Glen Torridon – lots and lots of small pebbles and sand.
Pebbly material
“We did still manage to find things to analyze,” O’Connell adds.
Curiosity’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) is to integrate on an area called “Flow Country” over the weekend, split into three distinct sections – sand, very small pebbles and a single larger pebble.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 2593, November 22, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“This will allow us to compare the compositions, and to see how they relate to pebbly material encountered further back in Glen Torridon,” O’Connell points out.
Potential meteorite targets
The rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is to complete the contact science on Flow Country, imaging all three parts of the target. Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) is to investigate some larger fragments of rock “Nutberry Moss” and “Otterswick,” as well as two potential meteorite targets “Pladda Isle” and “Swona.”
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image acquired on Sol 2592, November 21, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Drive ahead
“As always, our plan is full of Mastcam imagery. In addition to documenting the ChemCam targets, Mastcam is imaging two sand patches “Stemster” and “Stonywynd,” and looking back towards Central Butte before we drive on sol 2595,” O’Connell notes.
The Environmental theme group (ENV) planned a series of Mastcam and Engineering Camera (ECAM) movies to look at environmental conditions, such as dust devils, clouds and dust overhead in the sky above the rover and towards the walls of Gale crater.
The plan also calls for Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) to continue their ongoing environmental monitoring.
“Once the drive completes, we will stay in place until after the Thanksgiving holiday. Mastcam will image our new workspace and surrounding area so that we can do lots of contact science and a very special imaging project over the holiday period,” O’Connell concludes.
Credit: Boeing/Watch U.S. Fly
Where were you two years ago?
“We know where the Boeing-made X-37B was — making its way into space,” explains a posting on Watch U.S. Fly – “a community of Americans dedicated to keeping America the world’s best manufacturer of aircraft, spacecraft and defense products” and posts info on space-based national defense.
“Why does that matter today? Because after 780 days in space, the spacecraft set the record for the longest flight mission in Earth’s orbit. The U.S. Military has launched the X-37B five different times, with each mission longer than the last.
These missions are tagged Orbital Test Vehicles, or OTV’s, the last flight was OTV-5.
Post-landing of OTV-5 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility.
Courtesy Photo 45th Space Wing Public Affairs
Latest innovative technologies
The X-37B is unique. In fact, it’s spent more than 7.5 years total in orbit across all of its missions, explains the posting. “This amazing spaceplane launches into space on a rocket, then separates from it to carry out its mission, then re-enters the atmosphere and lands on a runway just like an airplane.”
The X-37B is a spacecraft built with the latest innovative technologies to ensure our national security, explains the posting, and is designed to carry out important experiments that can be examined once they get back to Earth.
“As we continue to utilize the American-made X-37B in our solar system, we are relieved to know the Air Force is breaking records to protect the United States,” the Watch U.S. Fly communiqué concludes.
Credit: Boeing
Next flight
Reportedly, the next X-37B to fly is slated for the 2nd Quarter 2020. OTV-6 will be hurled into Earth orbit for the U.S. Air Force by a ULA Atlas V booster designated as AFSPC 7/OTV-6.
The mission was delayed from December and will fly on a single-engine Centaur upper stage from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – SLC-41. The launch window is yet to be announced.
For more information on the X-37B’s last flight, go to:
https://www.leonarddavid.com/air-force-space-plane-milestone-setting-flight/
The swirls of Reiner Gamma in Oceanus Procellarum, shown in enhanced color from the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Wide Angle Camera.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
On the Moon “lunar swirls” are bright features that can be tens of miles across and appear as isolated individuals or in extensive groups or belts.
Lunar swirls are found where the lunar crust is magnetized, although not all magnetic areas have swirls. Furthermore, the bright areas in the swirls look to be less weathered than their surroundings.
NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Wide Angle Camera (WAC) view of Mare Ingenii.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Those observations have led to several hypotheses about how lunar swirls are formed and several ideas about the separate question of the origin of the magnetized crust.
Is it possible that these tattoo-like oddities might help sustain a human presence on the Moon?
Go to my new Space.com story:
Could Weird Lunar Swirls Help People Settle the Moon?
https://www.space.com/mysterious-moon-swirls-resource-potential.html
A specimen whose head appears to have turned in the direction of the camera. Based on the scale provided in the photo from which this was extracted, this individual is estimated to be approximately 20 inches long.
Credit: Analysis by Dr. William Romoser
From Ohio University: “Aw, Nuts! We’re having trouble locating the page you requested. There may be a typo in the URL, or the page may have been moved or deleted.”
From AAAS and EurekAlert!: “This release has been removed at the request of the submitter.”
These actions were stirred up by researcher William Romoser, Emeritus Professor of Medical Entomology at Ohio University.
The uproar stems from Romoser’s poster paper “Does Insect/Arthropod Biodiversity Extend Beyond Earth?,” presented during this month’s conference of the Entomological Society of America, held in St. Louis, Missouri.
Ohio University also issued a press release on the professor’s work, “Ohio University entomologist: Photos show evidence of life on Mars” – now pulled from the university’s website.
Putative fossil insect on its dorsum with head to the top, and with selected structures labelled. Credit: Analysis by Dr. William Romoser
Ample evidence
Romoser’s abstract for his poster explains:
“There is ample evidence to answer the question posed by the title in the affirmative. For several years, I have been engaged in study of the NASA-JPL photographs transmitted to Earth from the surface vehicles sent to explore Mars, Curiosity Rover in particular. These photos are available to the public via the internet. In this poster, I present and discuss numerous examples of insect/arthropod-like forms (fossil & living) found in Mars rover photos. Examples include insect-like forms displaying apparent diversity, clearly recognizable insect/arthropod anatomical features, and flight. Evidence of a fossil reptile-like (serpentine) form and reptile-like forms preying on insect-like forms is also presented. Each example is documented. These findings provide a compelling basis for further study and raise many important questions.”
Identifiable life forms
“This is the first professional report of direct evidence of identifiable life forms beyond the confines of Earth,” Romoser explained, offering images that appear to capture fossilized and living, insect-like organisms.
“The presence of higher metazoan organisms on Mars implies the presence of nutrient/energy sources and processes, food chains and webs, and water as elements functioning in a viable, if extreme, ecological setting sufficient to sustain life,” Romoser explained.
William Romoser, Emeritus Professor of Medical Entomology at Ohio University.
Credit: Ohio University
Astroentomology
“Given evidence for the presence of insect/arthropod-and reptile-like organisms beyond the confines of Earth,” Romoser said, “perhaps ‘astroentomology’ and ‘astroherpetology’ will emerge as important topics within the field of astrobiology.”
Romoser has said that while any given image does not in itself prove anything, “I believe the mosaic of what I have described is compelling.” Furthermore, “I view the research reported here to be replicative and corroborative. It is very clear that much more study of the photos is needed. The information presented here barely scratches the surface.”
Responding to an Inside Outer Space query: “Dr. Romoser no longer wishes to engage with media regarding this research, so we have opted to remove the story from our website and EurekAlert,” explained Jim Sabin, Media Relations Manager at Ohio University.
Credit: Analysis by Dr. William Romoser
