Tag: exploration

Final results from Lucy’s 2025 fly-by of asteroid Donaldjohanson: A tumbling peanut!

8:00 am

Lucy's gravitational field
Click for movie.

The science team for the asteroid probe Lucy yesterday published their final results from the spacecraft’s fly-by of the main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson in April 2025, outlining their present hypothesis based on the data as to the asteroid’s origins and evolution that has left it today a tumbling peanut.

The image to the right comes from a short animation showing the asteroid’s computed tumbling. The colors indicate the strength of its gravitational field, depending on slope. “Higher values (warmer colors) indicate steeper terrain relative to the local gravitational pull.” From the conclusion of their published paper:

We propose the following scenario for the formation and evolution of DJ [Donaldjohanson]. The parent body of the Erigone family was ≈80 km in diameter and was destroyed by a ≈20-km impactor at ≈155 [million years ago]. DJ’s bilobed shape probably arose from the accretion of fragments from this break-up event. This left DJ with an initial spin period of ≪10 hours.

The YORP effect [the pressure of sunlight] then slowed DJ’s rotation and shifted its spin axis toward low obliquity. After 20 to 60 [million years], DJ’s spin period reached ≈10 hours, causing slopes in the neck region to fail. The resulting widespread mass movement toward both lobes produced the ridge and smoothed the neck region.

Sometime later (<40 [million years ago), craters smaller than 0.4 km were globally erased, possibly owing to seismic shaking by an impact. Localized mass wasting on the neck continued, degrading the morphology of many craters without altering the small crater SFD. From 80 to 120 [million years] after formation, DJ’s rotation entered its current NPA [non–principal axis] state, with a spin period of 100 to 200 hours.

A more prosaic way of describing “non–principal axis state” is to say the asteroid is tumbling.

Lucy is presently on its way to the Trojan asteroids that orbit with Jupiter 60 degrees fore and aft of the gas giant. It will fly past ten Trojans during its mission, with the first the asteroid Eurybates on Aug. 12, 2027.

3 comments

A “thermal anomaly” in young Martian lava

12:08 pm

A
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on May 1, 2026 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this picture “Thermal Anomaly in Young Lava Flows”. The anomaly, indicated by the arrow, is the distinctly blue floor of the unnamed small 300-foot-wide crater about a third of a mile east of that 30-foot-high mesa. According to MRO guidelines [pdf] for interpreting the colors the camera produces:

Frost and ice are also relatively blue, but bright, and often concentrated at the poles or on pole-facing slopes. Some bedrock is also relatively bright and blue, but not as much as frost or ice, and it has distinctive morphologies.

The guidelines say more, but based on this information it suggests the floor of that crater is unusually cold, able to hold frost and ice. The picture was taken during the Martian winter, so seeing frost inside this crater at this time is possible, though its location, deep inside the dry equatorial regions of Mars where no near surface ice is generally found, tells us that if this is frost, it is truly unusual, deserving the description of “an anomaly.”
» Read more

0 comments

Spotting dozens of Martian dust devils in one observation

10:50 am

Overview map

Dozens of active dust devils in one image
Click for source.

Using Europe’s Mars Express orbiter, scientists have found it is possible to identify multiple active dust devils at a time on the surface of Mars.

The circles on the image to the right shows dozens of such dust devils, at the outlet region of a valley on Mars dubbed Mamers Valles, located at the western end of the 2,000-mile-long mid-latitude strip I dub glacier country (as shown on the overview map above), because practically every image of this region shows glacial features. This location is where Mamer Valles drains into the northern lowland plains.

Mars Express is uniquely equipped to spot these mini whirlwinds. To form a single image using its High Resolution Stereo Camera – the instrument responsible for these new snapshots – the spacecraft combines sequential views from up to nine separate camera channels (which look at Mars in a different colour, from a different direction, or a mix of the two). If nothing changes on the martian surface while these are being taken, the multiple perspectives align – but if something is moving about, it stands out clearly from its surroundings.

In this new set of images, Mars Express captures not one but dozens of active dust devils.

The image to the right covers about a hundred miles from top to bottom. It is part of a long term project using Mars Express to map the dust devil activity on the entire Martian surface. Not surprisingly, dust devils do not occur everywhere in equal amounts. It appears they favor certain locations, with more generally found in the high latitudes of the cratered southern hemisphere.

6 comments

Tianwen-2 appears to be correctly approaching its target asteroid Kamo-oalewa

9:41 am

Though China has made no official update on the status of Tianwen-2, its first asteroid sample return mission, the spacecraft’s maneuvers that amateurs have been tracking suggest it is approaching its target asteroid Kamoʻoalewa as planned, with a rendezvous set for July.

Despite the lack of official updates, the observed maneuvers fit the approach sequence described in Tianwen-2’s mission design. According to a paper by Zhang Rongqiao and colleagues published in SCIENTIA SINICA Physica, Mechanica & Astronomica, the spacecraft’s approach to Kamo’oalewa follows a planned sequence of phases, including the June 7 rendezvous, concluding when the probe has closed to within 20 kilometers of the asteroid’s surface, marking the starting point for close-proximity science operations. This will include global mapping and surveying and sample site selection.

A mission engineer, delivering a presentation on behalf of Zhang He at the 35th Meeting of the NASA Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) June 11, confirmed Tianwen-2 is scheduled to arrive at Kamo’oalewa in July, without providing details on current distance from the asteroid.

The mission is somewhat similar in concept to NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex and Japan’s Hayabusa-2 asteroid missions, both of which rendezvoused with an asteroid and grabbed samples to return to Earth. China however has posted little information about Tianwen-2, including few pictures. One can’t help wondering if this reticence is because the spacecraft’s design its stolen, and China doesn’t want to make this obvious. It is known that China hacked into the computer systems of JPL, NASA, and Japan’s space agency JAXA.

2 comments

Astronomers discover a third galaxy devoid of dark matter

12:22 pm

Galaxy DF9
Click for original image.

The uncertainty of science: Using the Keck telescope in Hawaii, astronomers have discovered a galaxy that apparently has no dark matter, the third such galaxy discovered.

The galaxy, dubbed DF9, is shown to the right. It is part of a region that includes the other two galaxies with no dark matter, suggesting all three were formed in linked circumstances.

The team used Keck Observatory’s Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) to measure the motions of stars inside DF9 by analyzing the light emitted across different wavelengths. Those measurements revealed that DF9 has a mass of only about 100 million Suns, consistent entirely with the galaxy’s visible matter. If the galaxy contained a typical amount of dark matter, astronomers would expect it to be about 100 times more massive.

Dark matter was invented by astronomers in the 1960s to explain the inexplicable fast rotation of stars in the outer fringes of every galaxy they looked at, much faster than accounted for by the visible mass of each galaxy. That fast rotation suggested there was a lot more matter there that could not be seen, as much as one quarter of all mass according to some models. This unseen matter was then labeled “dark matter”, though even three-quarters of a century later it still remains undetected directly.

That these galaxies have no dark matter poses a difficult problem. At present the scientists are trying to come up with scenarios for creating these galaxies without it, but I suspect they will be hard-pressed to come up with any theory that convinces anyone.

I can’t help wondering if the problem isn’t the fast rotation of the stars, but the observations themselves. Maybe there is something we are missing or are unable to detect, because of the vast distances and faint nature of the light. Either way, dark matter, there or not, remains one of the big fundamental mysteries of cosmology.

5 comments

Curiosity sees smooth ground for the first time in years

11:01 am

June 12, 2026 Curiosity panorama
Click for full resolution version. Click here, here, and here for original images.

Overview mapd
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above was created from three pictures taken on June 12, 2026 by the left navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity (see here, here, and here). It shows the immediate ground uphill in front of the rover, which appears to be the smoothest ground that Curiosity has seen in about five years, since it entered the foothills at the base of Mount Sharp in 2021.

Since then the terrain has been routinely boulder strewn. In one case, the ground was so rocky and rough that the science team had to back off from their original plans and find a different route.

The panorama above shows something wholly different, a patch of relatively smooth ground with only a scattering of sharp rocks protruding periodically from below. This ground is likely the rover’s first taste of what the science team calls the “yardang unit”, the light colored hills in the lower right of the overview map to the right. For years that team has looked at those hills, wondering what it would be like to drive Curiosity on them. Their geology suggests a much softer terrain, sand shaped into dunes (yardangs) by the wind. The unknown was always whether the ground was structurally strong enough for the rover to traverse it.

It looks like they are about to get their first clue. Based on the panorama above, the ground appears very promising.

On the overview map, the blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position, with the red-dotted line is planned route and white-dotted line its actual travels. The yellow lines indicate approximately the area covered by the panorama.

1 comment

A galaxy as seen by Hubble and Webb

9:23 am

A galaxy seen by Hubble and Webb
Click for original image.

Cool image time. The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on March 20, 2026 in a coordinated observations by both the Hubble and Webb space telescopes.

This March 20, 2026, image of Messier 64, or the Black Eye Galaxy, is a composite view from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. It shows Messier 64 captured at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths by Webb, while Hubble’s image shows the galaxy in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light.

Messier 64 is characterized by its bizarre internal motion. The gas in the outer regions of this spiral galaxy is rotating in the opposite direction from the gas and stars in its inner regions. This strange behavior may be the result of a merger between M64 and a satellite galaxy over a billion years ago.

The red in this image is dust, as the galaxy gets its nickname from the dark streak that wraps around its nucleus on its left side. In optical that streak is dark. Here Webb’s infrared view sees it in false color red.

READERS: It appears that it is a very slow news day today. Other than SpaceX’s IPO, which is on-going and too soon to post any reports, I can so far find nothing much of great significance on which to report.

12 comments

Parker makes 28th close fly-by of the Sun

12:48 pm

The overall flight plan for Parker
The overall flight plan for Parker. The green indicates
this most recent close approaches.

The Parker Solar Probe this past week successfully completed its 28th close fly-by of the Sun, zipping past its surface at a distance of only 3.8 million miles.

During this solar encounter, which started June 3 and ends Saturday, June 13, Parker’s four scientific instrument packages gathered data from inside the Sun’s atmosphere, or corona. Parker will begin returning detailed spacecraft telemetry on June 14, with science data transmission set to run from Wednesday, June 17 to Tuesday, June 30.

…Parker also equaled its record-setting speed of 430,000 mph — a mark that, like Parker’s distance to the Sun, was set during a close approach on Dec. 24, 2024, and matched during five flybys since, most recently on March 11. Parker will continue matching these speed and distance records during future flybys.

Engineers estimate the spacecraft’s heat shield experiences temperatures exceeding 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit with each close pass.

With each pass the spacecraft dives deep into the Sun’s corona and gathers data about it unobtainable from a distance. It is also gathering that data over time, as it first arrived in 2018, when the Sun was at its solar minimum with little sunspot activity. Since then it has ramped up to maximum and is presently thought to be on its way back down to minimum (though this still remains uncertain). Parker’s ability to gather data cross this timeline is invaluable for gaining a better understanding of the Sun’s behavior.

7 comments

Evidence of supernova remnant near the center of the Milky Way?

10:21 am

Supernova remnant near the Milky Way's center
Click for original image.

Using two X-ray space telescopes, astronomers now think they have detected evidence of a supernova remnant very close to the center of the Milky Way.

You can read their paper here [pdf]. The image to the right is a composite of optical (the stars), radio (the red nebula), and Chanda’s X-ray data (the blue nebula). From the press release:

The evidence for the new supernova remnant, located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, comes from X-ray data from Chandra and XMM-Newton. The X-ray data reveals a “blob” of X-ray emission [indicated by blue] that may come from the remains of a massive star that self-destructed as a supernova, buried within the larger cloud of expanding gas.

The location of this suspected supernova remnant in the image is [that blue region]. It is in bubble of gas [the surrounding larger and smaller red objects] that has had electrons stripped away from hydrogen — called an “H II region” — surrounding a massive, young star. If this is indeed a supernova remnant, then it is expanding at about two million miles per hour and is at least about 1,700 years old.

,..The long filaments seen in the radio image are caused by energetic particles travelling along magnetic fields that are mostly directed perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy.

According to the paper, this supernova remnant is found on the western edge of a vast energized gas cloud called the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ), 1,600 to 1,900 light years across, that spans the Milky Way’s center. The features seen in the image above are part of a feature on the CMZ’s western edge called Sagittarius C, which apparently has not been studied as much as other parts of the CMZ.

3 comments

A look back at a significant moment in human history: the first picture of the Moon’s far side

12:14 pm

The first picture ever taken of the Moon's far side, by Luna-3
Click for original image.

Today’s cool image is being posted not because of its beauty or high resolution, but because it was a significant first that shined a light on a mystery that had baffled all humanity since the first time a human being in Africa looked up and observed the Moon.

The picture to the right, reduced slightly and smoothed to remove some camera artifacts, was the first picture ever taken of the hidden far side of the Moon, captured by the Soviet Union’s Luna-3 probe on October 7, 1959, one day after it had passed less than 3,900 miles above the surface. As it moved away, it looked back, and took this picture from a distance of about 40,000 miles.

The picture ain’t what we are used to nowadays from space, but you need to put yourself back in time to truly appreciate it. For literally the entire history of humanity, this view had been hidden. Dreamers, philosophers, scientists, and ordinary people would look at the near side of the Moon almost nightly, but no one knew what was on the other side. Whole religious myths grew up about this unknown. Some science fiction writers of the 19th century fantasized there was air and water there and thus housed an alien civilization, purposely positioned so we couldn’t see it.

Suddenly, with this picture, that side was no longer hidden. This one Luna-3 picture showed humanity that the Moon’s far side was not much different than the near side, though much more cratered with fewer dark mare regions. It had no air or water. Nor were there alien civilizations.

But that age-old mystery was now solved. For those living in the 1950s, it was something of a revelation to see this picture. For those who came after, it is important to try to imagine the significance of that revelation. Suddenly, the mysteries of the universe were no longer unsolvable. Suddenly, we had the ability to solve them.

This picture, like all new knowledge, also brought with it new mysteries, based not on a hidden view but on real data and real questions. Now the goal was understand that data in order to solve the history of the Moon’s geology and how it fit into the formation of the Earth and the entire solar system. That endeavor is still on-going, with its solution not yet entirely in sight.

One last point: Though this picture is woefully inadequate compared to modern planetary images, it also carries a remarkable amount of good information that has since been confirmed by other spacecraft. To get an idea, compare it with a similar global view produced using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)’s full dataset. The features match quite well, and a close look at the Luna 3 picture reveals many details not immediately evident that match well with the LRO image. The Russian engineers who made this happen should be rememberd and honored for their achievement.

9 comments

New Webb data suggests little red dots are supermassive black holes embedded in gas cloud

11:02 am

Little Red Dot GLIMPSE-17775
Little Red Dot GLIMPSE-17775

Using spectroscopic infrared data obtained by the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers now posit that the mysterious little red dots found by Webb in the very early universe are supermassive black holes embedded in a dense cloud of ionized gas.

The scientists focused Webb on the little red dot dubbed GLIMPSE-17775, shown to the right in a false color image produced by Webb’s near infrared camera. You can read their paper here [pdf].

The spectroscopic data collected by Webb contains multiple lines of evidence that support the interpretation that little red dot GLIMPSE-17775 is a black hole star: a rapidly accreting, or growing, black hole enveloped in a dense gas cocoon, which is reprocessing the light emitted from near the black hole and producing the features seen in the spectrum.

Among the 40-plus lines that the team detected in GLIMPSE-17775’s spectrum were various independent indicators that all align with the BH* scenario [the name the scientists use for this model]. For example, the team found that many of the spectral lines, such as hydrogen, oxygen, and helium, do not fit a simple model of a rotating gas cloud. Instead, the best fit model includes a broadening effect known as electron scattering, a telltale sign that a dense, layered gas cocoon is enshrouding this source.

The strength and ratios of certain lines to each other, most notably the 16 iron lines that compose what the team has dubbed an “iron forest” and certain oxygen lines, require a high-energy source to produce them, like a rapidly accreting black hole. Additionally, astronomers noted the fluorescence and absorption of helium in the spectrum, both of which individually suggest that there is a dense medium enveloping a powerful source.

The researchers claim this theory will work to explain all the other little red dots that Webb has detected in the early universe. They also claim it explains how the dots could be there so soon after the Big Bang, as they don’t have to be as supermassive as first believed. If very large, there wasn’t time for them to coalesce following the Big Bang. This model suggests instead that they can be much smaller black holes, thus allowing time for their formation without contradicting present Big Bang cosmology.

There is of course a lot of uncertainty here. For example, GLIMPSE-17775’s data is microlensed, which distorts it. While scientists think they understand the distortions fully, their inability to see this object and the foreground object doing the microlensing from multiple perspectives requires them to make many assumptions that cannot be proven, and could very well be wrong.

2 comments

Science operations about to resume on Europe’s two-satellite Proba-3 space telescope

8:39 am

The Proba-3 mission
The Proba-3 mission. Click for original.

After months of trouble-shooting after losing contact with the coronagraph probe of Europe’s two-satellite Proba-3 solar space telesscope in February 2026, engineers have successfully resumed precise formation flying of the two spacecraft, and are about to resume full science observations of the Sun’s corona.

The mission is explained in the graph to the right. In February all contact with the coronagraph, which holds the mission’s science instruments, was lost. After a month of struggle, engineers regained contact, but it required another few months of trouble-shooting to pin down the cause of the problem and fix it. The press release provides almost no information about that cause, other than this one quote that hints it was software-based.

“One by one, we have checked the status of each of the spacecraft’s subsystems. We have also been able to successfully perform the operations that proved critical in February,” says Damien. “Back then, it triggered the unfortunate chain reaction that led to loss of connection with the spacecraft, but after patching the root cause in the software, we were confident that this activity will cause no further issues.”

With both spacecraft once again operating in tandem, the occulter can block the Sun’s light so the coronagraph can observe the Sun’s corona, its atmosphere. Essentially, Proba-3 creates an on-going artificial eclipse so as to make the corona visible for study.

4 comments

The rings of Saturn

1:29 pm

Saturn's rings in 2006
Click for original image.

Cool image time! Rather than post another Mars image, I decided today to dig back into the Cassini orbiter archives, which orbited Saturn for almost fourteen years, beginning in 2004.

The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 6, 2006 from about 397,000 miles away. It has a resolution of about 22 miles per pixel, so no object smaller than that is resolved.

This wide and sweeping view of the sunlit rings of Saturn takes in the impressive variety in their structure — from the clumpy and perennially intriguing F ring to the many waves, ringlets and gaps in the A and B rings and the Cassini Division in between.

The F ring is the outermost thin clumpy ring. The B ring is the brighter set of rings inside the wide Cassini Division, with the A ring the darker set beyond. For a labeled map of all the rings and gaps go here. The seemingly incoherent naming sequence is because the rings are named alphabetically in their order of discovery. Thus, the A ring was first identified, followed by the inner B Ring. The F ring was discovered by the Pioneer 11 when it flew past Saturn in 1979.

While the many Cassini wide-view images of Saturn’s rings tend to look somewhat the same, they all remain breath-taking regardless. Imagine a hotel in orbit around Saturn, where you could look out your window and see this evolve over time as your spacecraft orbited the ringed planet.

1 comment

Astronomers find another quasar in the early universe that really shouldn’t be there

9:28 am

The uncertainty of science: Using archival data from the WISE space telescope, astronomers have now identified another unexpected quasar in the early universe, only 850 million years after the Big Bang, that also flickers in several wavelengths.

The quasar’s flicker enabled the researchers to determine that, surprisingly, the ancient quasar’s whirlpool of gas and dust, known as an accretion disk, resembled a flat pancake, similar in shape to that of more modern-day quasars.

Their findings add to a longstanding mystery in cosmology: Why do supermassive black holes exist so early in the universe’s history? Physicists have assumed that a flat accretion disk reflects a relatively mature black hole that is in a calm and stable state. Black holes that are just starting to form, like those in the very early universe, should be more unsettled systems, with accretion disks that appear more puffy and chaotic.

The flat accretion disk around this very early quasar heightens the mystery of how supermassive black holes can grow and mature in a very short amount of cosmic time.

They estimate the quasar energy output is equivalent to about 12 trillion suns. Its flickering, ranging about 20% in power, makes it the first such flickering quasar found this early in time. Such early quasars however are not unique. Astronomers have found about 200, all of which should not exist, based upon present Big Bang cosmology. There simply hasn’t been enough time for them to evolve, based on present theories of galactic formation.

6 comments

Curiosity’s looks up Valle Grande to its future travels

10:19 am

Panorama, June 8, 2026
Click for high resolution. For original images go here, here, and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above was created by me using three pictures taken today by the left navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity (see here, here, and here).

The overview map to the right provides the context. The white dotted line indicates Curiosity’s actual travels, while the red dotted lines its planned route, both in the past and in the future. The blue dot marks its approximate position when these images were taken. The yellow lines indicate approximately the view.

The panorama looks up this spectacular valley, which the science team has named Valle Grande. The red dotted line on the panorama is my guess as to the rover’s future route. It will likely not follow such a straight path, but weave back and forth as the science team directs it to look at interesting geological features along the way.

What remains unknown is the route the rover will take once it reaches those light-colored hills in the distance. The science team so far not indicated any chosen route through those hills. I suspect they want to get closer and do some on-site scouting before making any decision. The nature of that light terrain remains unknown. It could be easily traversed, or it could be a problem. From a distance it looks very soft, and thus it will likely required close inspection to make any definite plans.

4 comments

Astronomers measure weight of supermassive black hole 10 billion light years away

9:13 am

In a new record for the farthest measurement yet achieved (10 billion light years away), astronomers have now used the Webb Space Telescope obtain a reasonably accurate measurement of the mass of supermassive black hole in the early universe, estimated to be six billion times the mass of our Sun.

The stars orbiting Sag A*
The stars orbiting Sag A* at the center of our own
galaxy, the Milky Way. Click for original image.

The black hole’s mass is about 6 billion times that of the sun, and is being observed at a time when the universe was only about 3 billion years old, about a quarter of its current age, offering unprecedented details into black holes in the early universe.

To find this, the team used data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to track the motion of stars orbiting around the otherwise invisible black hole to measure its mass. Though the technique – known as stellar dynamics – has been used to measure dormant black holes in galaxies much closer to Earth, this is the first time it has been used to weigh one located such a great (cosmological) distance away.

For comparison, the Milky Way’s central super-massive black hole, Sagittarius A* (pronounced “A-star”), has been estimated at four million solar masses, using this same technique. The graphic to the right shows the various stars orbiting Sagittarius A* that have been tracked now for several decades in the infrared. As their orbits are refined, astronomers can use those orbits to determine the mass of the central object.

The scientists have now been able to do the same with this galaxy ten billion light years away. These observations however are certainly preliminary, and will be refined in the coming decades as more data is obtained.

0 comments

Martian glacier flowing around a recent small crater impact

12:37 pm

A Martian glacier flowing arond a recent crater impact
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 3, 2026 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this a “crater on debris covered glacier.” The crater, the dark spot in the upper center, is only about 450 feet across. The impact apparently took place onto this glacial slope, and since then the glacier has continued to flow downhill (as indicated by the arrows), flowing around the denser material pounded down by the impact.

The elevation loss within this image is about 300 feet, along a distance of just under two miles. How long it took this glacial material to flow this much however is unknown. Nor is it known when this happened. The orbital data so far of all Martian glaciers suggests they are at this time inactive, neither growing or shrinking.
» Read more

0 comments

Gigantic slumping Martian cliffs

11:14 am

Gigantic slumping Martian cliffs
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 5, 2026 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this an “alluvial fan.” What we are looking at is the top 5,700 feet of a 9,400-foot-high cliff which is slumping downward. As it does so, its outer layers have been falling downward into the canyon below almost like liquid, producing the slope’s streaked look.

According to this definition, alluvial fans…

are mounds of coarse grained sediments formed when a confined stream disgorges into an unconfined area. They typically occur along the margins of mountain ranges where bedrock incised channels draining uplands spill out on to broad open valley floors. Alluvial fans occur in areas with significant topographic relief caused by rapid subsidence or uplift (rift basins, foreland basins, fold-and-thrust belts, etc.).

While the definition implies these fans only form from the flow of liquid water, that does not have to be the case. Many fans form from the long term downward motion of material from mountainsides into lower valleys or canyons, though water — either by rain, a freeze-thaw cycle, or streamflow — is usually a factor in causing this erosion.

At this location something has made that cliff slump, and in doing so produced the flow patterns on that slope
» Read more

0 comments

Venturi Space expands investment in new French factory for building Astrolab’s rover

8:59 am

Venturi Space, the European half of the partnership with the rover startup Astrolab, is increasing its investment in a new French factory from 100 million to 250 million euros.

On 1 June, Venturi Space announced that it had increased its expected investment in the new facility to €250 million. The announcement indicated that it would no longer begin with the initial smaller facility and would instead move directly to the full 16,000-square-metre planned “technology centre.” This likely accounts for the additional €150 million in funding.

According to the company’s 1 June press release, the facility will be used for the “design and manufacture of critical technologies for lunar and Martian mobility, as well as [for] the assembly of the rovers developed by the company.” …Venturi Space is providing wheels, batteries, and battery management systems to US-based Venturi Astrolab for use aboard its rovers. During a 26 May event, NASA announced that Venturi Astrolab was one of two companies selected to build rovers for the agency’s Artemis programme.

The partnership is an unusual one. Venturi Space and Astrolab are separate companies, working together to build Astrolab’s rovers for NASA. Venturi however is also developing its own rover for the European Space Agency.

3 comments

NASA officially ends its MAVEN Mars orbiter mission

8:42 am

High altitude wind patterns on Mars
Mars’ global high altitude wind patterns,
found by MAVEN.

More than six months after engineers lost contact with the Mars orbiter MAVEN, NASA today officially ended the mission, determining the spacecraft is “not recoverable.”

The agency convened an anomaly review board in February to evaluate recovery efforts and assess the spacecraft’s probable current state. The review board has determined that the MAVEN spacecraft is not recoverable, and it is no longer capable of performing its science and data relay mission, which is consistent with the mission team’s findings.

Telemetry from MAVEN prior to the spacecraft’s passage behind Mars in December showed all subsystems working normally. After the spacecraft emerged, NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) did not observe a signal. A brief fragment of telemetry data from analysis of radio signals recorded by the DSN’s open-loop receivers indicated the spacecraft was in safe mode and rotating at an unusually high rate when it emerged from behind Mars, indicating a disruption in MAVEN’s orbit trajectory. The review board concluded that due to this rotation, the batteries on the spacecraft had drained, causing the communications system to lose power and rendering MAVEN in an unrecoverable state.

The actual cause of the rotation remains uncertain.

MAVEN’s mission was to study the atmosphere and surrounding environment of Mar. It gave scientists their first data on how Mars could have lost both its atmosphere as well as a significant amount of its initial supply of water. It also produced the first map of the red planet’s high altitude winds, finding that even at high altitude the winds shift around the Tharsis Bulge where Mars’s biggest volcanoes are located.

0 comments
1 2 3 … 55