Tag: exploration

Fram2 passengers take their first pictures of Earth’s polar regions

The Arctic as seen from Fram2

SpaceX yesterday released a short video of the first pictures of the Earth’s polar regions taken by its Fram2 passengers on the capsule Resilience.

The picture to the right is a screen capture from that film, looking out the capsule’s large cupola window in its nose. The capsule’s nosecone can be seen at the bottom, having hinged sideways out of the way during orbital operations.

The tweet provided little information about the images. For example, it did not say which pole was imaged. Since the ground and ice below is dark, we are likely looking at the north pole, which at this time of year is mostly in shadow. You can see what looks like the edge of the ice pack, partly hidden by clouds.

The flight is scheduled to last from three to five days, and is presently in its second day. Not much information from the crew in orbit has at this point been released. I suspect they are simply enjoying their experience in private, since they are not obligated to share it with the world.

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Another example of the weird taffy terrain in Mars’ death valley

More taffy terrain

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on January 30, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The scientists label it dimply as “layers in Helles Planitia.” Other scientists have given this strange landscape a much more interesting label, “taffy terrain.” It is found only in the Hellas Basin, the basement of Mars, having the lowest elevation found anywhere on the red planet. According to a 2014 paper, the scientists posit that this material must be some sort of “a viscous fluid,” naturally flowing downward into “localized depressions.” Because of its weird nature I have posted many cool images of it in the past (see here, here, here, here, and here).

Is taffy terrain still viscous, or has it become solidified? That question I think remains unanswered, though pictures taken of the same spot over time do not yet appear to show changes.
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NASA experiment on Blue Ghost demonstrates the ability to repel the Moon’s abrasive dust

Before and after
Click for original blink movie.

In a press release yesterday, NASA revealed that one of its technology experiments on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander successfully demonstrated the ability to repel the Moon’s abrasive dust from the surfaces of various materials.

Lunar dust is extremely abrasive and electrostatic, which means it clings to anything that carries a charge. It can damage everything from spacesuits and hardware to human lungs, making lunar dust one of the most challenging features of living and working on the lunar surface. The EDS technology uses electrodynamic forces to lift and remove the lunar dust from its surfaces. The “before” image highlights the glass and thermal radiator surfaces covered in a layer of regolith, while the “after” image reveals the results following EDS activation. Dust was removed from both surfaces, proving the technology’s effectiveness in mitigating dust accumulation.

The images to the right, taken from a blink movie showing the change after the EDS technology was used, suggest that though this technology does work, it is not yet wholly successful in some cases. The thermal radiator was not cleared entirely of dust. More engineering research will be necessary, both on the Moon and here on Earth.

Nonetheless, this success is important and a major step forward for future exploration of the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids. In all these places dust is going to pose a major problem for equipment and spacesuits. New techniques must be developed to clean the dust away, since traditional Earth-based cleaning methods using water will not be available.

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Parker completes 23rd close fly-by of Sun, matching record set by its previous fly-by

The Parker Solar Probe on March 22, 2025 successfully completed its 23rd close fly-by of Sun, matching the distant and speed records set by its previous fly-by in December 2024.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe completed its 23rd close approach to the Sun on March 22, equaling its own distance record by coming within about 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the solar surface. The close approach (known as perihelion) occurred at 22:42 UTC — or 6:42 p.m. EDT — with Parker Solar Probe moving 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 kilometers per hour) around the Sun, again matching its own record.

Actual science data won’t be downloaded from the spacecraft for several weeks, but it has sent back a signal that it is in good shape and operating as expected.

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Survey of protoplanetary disks finds their size varies significantly

Proto-planetary disks of all sizes
Click for original image.

A survey of the protoplanetary disks in a star-forming region about 400 light years from Earth has found that the size of the disks can vary considerably, with many much smaller than our own solar system.

Using ALMA [Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile], the researchers imaged all known protoplanetary discs around young stars in Lupus, a star forming region located about 400 light years from Earth in the southern constellation Lupus. The survey reveals that two-thirds of the 73 discs are small, with an average radius of six astronomical units, this is about the orbit of Jupiter. The smallest disc found was only 0.6 astronomical units in radius, smaller than the orbit of Earth.

…The small discs were primarily found around low-mass stars, with a mass between 10 and 50 percent of the mass of our Sun. This is the most common type of star found in the universe.

You can read the research paper here [pdf]. The image to the right, figure 1 from the paper, shows 71 of those disks, with two-thirds clearly much smaller than our solar system.

Because exoplanet surveys have found many small exoplanets around low-mass stars, this new data suggests that planets can also form from these small accretion disks, and that planet formation is also ubiquitous throughout the universe.

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Martian stucco

Martian stucco
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 24, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research request but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

In this case the camera team got something quite intriguing. The entire terrain is reminiscent of stucco found on the outside walls of southwest homes. What makes even more intriguing is that the stucco appears to be material that has covered the terrain, based on the two craters that appear half-buried by it. Moreover, this picture only captures a small portion of this landscape, which extends like this over an area approximately 40 miles squared.

What caused this strange terrain? As always, the overview map below provides a clue, though no firm answers.
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Scientists believe they have found evidence of largest carbon molecules yet in Curiosity drill sample

The uncertainty of science: Scientists analyzing material drilled out by the Mars rover Curiosity back in 2013 now believe the sample included the largest carbon molecules yet found on Mars.

The detection of these long and large carbon molecules was based not on actual Martian data, taken at a site dubbed Cumberland on the floor of Gale Crater, but on follow-up lab work on Earth.

The recent organic compounds discovery was a side effect of an unrelated experiment to probe Cumberland for signs of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. After heating the sample twice in [the Curiosity] SAM’s oven and then measuring the mass of the molecules released, the team saw no evidence of amino acids. But they noticed that the sample released small amounts of decane, undecane, and dodecane [thought to be fragments of fatty acids].

Because these compounds could have broken off from larger molecules during heating, scientists worked backward to figure out what structures they may have come from. They hypothesized these molecules were remnants of the fatty acids undecanoic acid, dodecanoic acid, and tridecanoic acid, respectively.

The scientists tested their prediction in the lab, mixing undecanoic acid into a Mars-like clay and conducting a SAM-like experiment. After being heated, the undecanoic acid released decane, as predicted. The researchers then referenced experiments already published by other scientists to show that the undecane could have broken off from dodecanoic acid and dodecane from tridecanoic acid.

Based on this Earth lab work, the scientists now suggest that Mars could also have these much longer carbon molecules that are associated with biological processes.

Very intriguing, but we must exercise caution. Curiosity did not detect such molecules, only evidence that they might exist on Mars. And even if they do exist on Mars, this is not evidence that Mars has or once had biological life. While such large molecules on Earth are usually associated with biological processes, they do not have to be, as the scientists readily admit in their abstract. Furthermore, in the alien environment of Mars there could be many non-biological processes we don’t even yet understand that could explain their existence.

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Firefly awards Blue Origin subsidiary contract to build rover for third Blue Ghost mission

Blue Ghost 3 landing site
Blue Ghost 3 landing site

Firefly yesterday announced that it has awarded the Blue Origin subsidiary Honeybee Robotics a contract to build a rover for its third Blue Ghost mission to the Moon.

Firefly Aerospace and Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, today announced Honeybee was contracted by Firefly to provide the lunar rover for the company’s recently awarded NASA task order to explore the Gruithuisen Domes on the Moon’s near side in 2028. Once deployed on the Moon by Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander, Honeybee’s rover will carry NASA instruments to investigate the unique composition of the Gruithuisen Domes.

The funding for this rover actually comes from NASA, awarded first to Firefly which has in turn given a subcontract to Honeybee.

Before this 2028 mission however Firefly will launch its second Blue Ghost mission to the Moon, targeting a 2026 launch date. That second mission will not only land on the far side of the Moon, it will also deploy two lunar orbiters, one for European and the second Firefly’s own orbital tug for these spacecraft that will also service as a communications satellite after deployment.

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New Webb infrared image reveals galaxy hidden behind outflow from baby star

Webb infrared image of baby star outflow
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The false-color infrared image to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Webb Space Telescope of the outflow from a baby star, dubbed Herbig-Haro 49/50, located about 625 light years away.

The picture was taken to get a better understanding of the flow itself. Earlier infrared images at much lower resolution by the Spitzer Space Telescope had left many features in this outflow unclear. For example, at the head of the outflow the Spitzer infrared image was unable to clearly identify the background spiral galaxy located there. In those earlier images it could have instead been a part of the outflow itself.

The galaxy that appears by happenstance at the tip of HH 49/50 is a much more distant, face-on spiral galaxy. It has a prominent central bulge represented in blue that shows the location of older stars. The bulge also shows hints of “side lobes” suggesting that this could be a barred-spiral galaxy. Reddish clumps within the spiral arms show the locations of warm dust and groups of forming stars. The galaxy even displays evacuated bubbles in these dusty regions

The actual source from which this flow comes remains unconfirmed, though astronomers think the source is one particular protostar about 1.5 light years away.

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Perseverance spots a rock made of many tiny spherules

Rock made of spherules found by Perseverance
Click for wide shot. The original of the inset
can be found here.

In their exploration of the outer flanks of the rim of Jezero Crater, the science team operating the Perseverance rover have discovered an unusual rock different than everything around it, appearing to be made of many very tiny spherules.

The picture to the right illustrates this. The wider picture was taken by Perseverance’s left high resolution camera, with the inset a close-up mosaic of three images taken by the rover’s micro-imager, designed to get very very high resolution pictures of small objects. From the press release:

The rock, named “St. Pauls Bay” by the team, appeared to be comprised of hundreds of millimeter-sized, dark gray spheres. Some of these occurred as more elongate, elliptical shapes, while others possessed angular edges, perhaps representing broken spherule fragments. Some spheres even possessed tiny pinholes! What quirk of geology could produce these strange shapes?

This isn’t the first time strange spheres have been spotted on Mars. In 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity spotted so-called, “Martian Blueberries” at Meridiani Planum, and since then, the Curiosity rover has observed spherules in the rocks of Yellowknife Bay at Gale crater. Just a few months ago, Perseverance itself also spied popcorn-like textures in sedimentary rocks exposed in the Jezero crater inlet channel, Neretva Vallis. In each of these cases, the spherules were interpreted as concretions, features that formed by interaction with groundwater circulating through pore spaces in the rock.

Not all spherules form this way, however. They also form on Earth by rapid cooling of molten rock droplets formed in a volcanic eruption, for instance, or by the condensation of rock vaporized by a meteorite impact.

At the moment the science team has no idea which of these theories explains the spherules. That the rock is located on the crater rim, where ejecta from the impact will be found, strongly suggests the impact was the cause, not groundwater flow.

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High ridge down the center of a big Martian crack

High ridge down the middle of a Martian canyon
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 27, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

Whenever the camera team needs to do this, they try to find an interesting object to photograph, and often succeed. In this case they focused on the geology to the right. I suspect that at first glance my readers will have trouble deciphering what they are looking at. Let me elucidate: This this a 2.5-mile-wide canyon, about 1,000 feet deep, that is bisected by a ridge about 500 feet high.

On the sunlight walls of this canyon you can see boulders and debris, with material gathered on the canyon floor. The smoothness of the floor suggests also that a lot of Martian dust, likely volcanic ash, has become trapped there over the eons.
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Firefly releases movie of lunar sunset

Sunset on the Moon
Click for original image.

Using imagery taken by Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander, the company today released a short movie showing sunset on the Moon, from several different angles.

I have embedded that movie below. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is one of the photos from that movie. It shows the Sun on the horizon, with the Earth above it and Venus the small bright dot in between.

One alien aspect of the Moon that that while the Sun (and Venus) slowly crossed the sky during Firefly’s two week mission, going from just after sunrise in the east to sunset in the west, the Earth remained stationary in this location above the horizon. This phenomenon occurs because the length of the Moon’s day and its orbit around the Earth are the same length, so that one hemisphere always faces the Earth. Blue Ghost landed in Mare Crisium on the eastern edge of that hemisphere. At that location the Earth always hangs at this spot in the sky.
» Read more

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The next time someone tells you Mars lacks water, show them this picture

Lots of near surface ice on Mars
Click for original image.

In the past decade orbital images from Mars have shown unequivocally that the Red Planet is not the dry desert imagined by sci-fi writers for many decades prior to the space age. Nor is it the dry desert that planetary scientists had first concluded based on the first few decades of planetary missions there.

No, what the orbiters Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Mars Express have clearly shown is that, except for the planet’s equatorial regions below 30 degrees latitude, the Martian surface is almost entirely covered by water ice, though it is almost always buried by a thin layer of protective dust and debris. Getting to that ice will be somewhat trivial, however, as it is almost always near the surface.

The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is a perfect example. It was taken on January 31, 2025 by the high resolution camera on MRO. At the top it shows part of a small glacial-filled crater surrounded by blobby ground clearly impregnated with ice. That crater in turn sits on the rim of a much larger very-eroded ancient 53-mile-wide crater whose floor, also filled with glacial debris, can be seen at the bottom of this picture. The wavy ridge line at the base of the rim appears to be a moraine formed by the ebb and flow of the glacial ice that fills this larger crater.

None of these glacial features is particularly unique on Mars. I have been documenting their presence now at Behind the Black for more than six years. Yet, I find still that most news organizations — including many in the space community — remain utterly unaware of these revelations. Any new NASA or university press release that mentions the near-surface ice that covers about two-thirds of the planet’s surface results in news stories claiming “Water has been found on Mars!”, as if this is a shocking new fact from a place where little water is found.

It is very shameful that so many reporters and news organizations are so far out of touch with the actual state of the research on Mars.
» Read more

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Europe’s Hera asteroid probe sends back data from Mars fly-by

Deimos and Mars as seen by Hera
Click to see full movie.

The European Space Agency (ESA) Hera probe, on its way to study the Didymos/Dimorphos asteroid binary, has successfully sent back images and data obtained during its close-by of Mars yesterday.

The infrared image to the right, a screen capture from a short movie assembled from Hera’s first images, shows the Martian moon Deimos with Mars in the background. The mission scientists have compiled all of these first images taken by Hera to create a short movie, that I have embedded below. From the movie’s caption:

The car-sized Hera spacecraft was about 1000 km away from Deimos as these images were acquired. Deimos orbits approximately 23 500 km from the surface of Mars and is tidally locked, so that this side of the moon is rarely seen. Hera’s TIRI – supplied to the mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA – sees in mid-infrared spectral bands to chart surface temperature. Because Deimos lacks an atmosphere, the side of the moon being illuminated by the Sun is considerably warmer than the planet beneath it.

Although it appears as if Deimos is passing in front of Mars from south to north, the image was actually taken as Hera passed very close to Deimos from north to south at high speed.

Deimos appears brighter than Mars. This means that the surface of airless Deimos is hotter than the surface of Mars. The material covering the surface of Deimos has low reflectivity and is pitch black. This allows it to absorb sunlight well and become hotter. In contrast, the surface of Mars is highly reflective, and its atmosphere transports heat from the warm daytime side to the cooler nighttime side. This is why there is a large temperature difference between Mars and Deimos.

These infrared images also tell us the excellent quality of the camera. Note how detailed the features are on the Martian surface. When Hera gets to Didymos/Dimorphos in December 2026 it is going to be able to document those two asteroids in remarkable detail, including the results of the Dart impact on Dimorphos in September 2022.
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Pick a perfect March Madness bracket and SpaceX will award you a trip to Mars

College basketball fans now have a second motivation for predicting perfectly the team results during the March NCAA championship finals: SpaceX will award a perfect bracket a trip to Mars.

In a post from X’s business account, the platform officially announced their bracket challenge, partnered with their sponsor Uber Eats, announcing that anyone with a perfect bracket would win a trip to Mars as a part of the SpaceX program.

Those who are at least 18 years old and submit their bracket on X between March 16, after the CBS Selection Show, and the first game of the Round of 64 on March 20 will be eligible for the prize.

For those who don’t wish to travel to Mars, anyone who fills out a perfect bracket in the challenge could alternatively accept a prize of $250,000 and additional perks involved with the SpaceX program. This includes 1 year of free residential Starlink service, the chance to train like a SpaceX astronaut for a day, an opportunity to send a personal item of choice to space on a Falcon 9 launch, VIP viewing of a Starship launch.

If no one picks a perfect bracket (which is normally the case) a $100,000 prize was be awarded to the best non-perfect bracket.

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Blue Ghost watches the Earth eclipse the Sun from the Moon

Eclipse as seen by Blue Ghost
Click for original image.

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander last night successfully recorded images and data as the Earth slowly over hours crossed the face of the Sun, producing an eclipse.

The image to the right, cropped and reduced slightly to post here, is one such image. From the Firefly update page:

Captured at our landing site in the Moon’s Mare Crisium around 3:30 am CDT, the photo shows the sun about to emerge from totality behind Earth. This marks the first time in history a commercial company was actively operating on the Moon and able to observe a total solar eclipse where the Earth blocks the sun and casts a shadow on the lunar surface. This phenomenon occurred simultaneously as the lunar eclipse we witnessed on Earth.

The company has the right to tout its success, since it is the first of five private companies to actually succeed at a landing on the Moon. However, this is not the first such eclipse captured by a lander on the Moon. Surveyor 3 did it in April 1967, while Japan’s Kaguya orbiter did it also in 2009. (Watch this great lecture outlining the entire Surveyor program, presented during the 50th anniversary of its success. Hat tip reader Richard M.)

It is now past noon on the Moon, the temperatures will begin dropping, and Firefly will begin reactivating some instruments for the final week of operations before lunar sunset and shutdown for the long very cold lunar night.

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NASA releases Blue Ghost movie landing while Firefly prepares lander to observe solar eclipse of the Moon by Earth

NASA today released a fantastic movie of Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander as it touched down on the Moon on March 2, 2025, taken by four cameras mounted on the underside of its Blue Ghost lunar lander.

I have embedded the movie below.

The compressed, resolution-limited video features a preliminary sequence that NASA researchers stitched together from SCALPSS 1.1’s four short-focal-length cameras, which were capturing photos at 8 frames per second during the descent and landing.

The sequence, using approximate altitude data, begins roughly 91 feet (28 meters) above the surface. The descent images show evidence that the onset of the interaction between Blue Ghost’s reaction control thruster plumes and the surface begins at roughly 49 feet (15 meters). As the descent continues, the interaction becomes increasingly complex, with the plumes vigorously kicking up the lunar dust, soil and rocks — collectively known as regolith. After touchdown, the thrusters shut off and the dust settles. The lander levels a bit and the lunar terrain beneath and immediately around it becomes visible.

Engineers will use this imagery to better anticipate and possibly reduce the amount of dust kicked up during future landings.

Meanwhile, Firefly engineers are preparing the lander to observe tomorrow night’s lunar eclipse, but from a completely different perspective. On Earth we will see the Earth’s shadow slowly over five hours cross the Moon. On the Moon Blue Ghost will see the Earth cross in front of the Sun. Because of our home world’s thick atmosphere, there should be a ring remaining during totality.

Because the Moon will be in shadow during the eclipse, the challenge will be power management, operating the spacecraft solely on its batteries.
» Read more

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Graceful isolated dunes at the edge of the sea of dunes that surrounds Mars’ north ice cap

Graceful isolated dunes on the edge of the dune sea that surrounds Mars' north pole
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 29, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have also rotated it so north is up. Labeled simply as a “terrain sample,” it was likely taken not as part of any specific research request but to fill a gap in the schedule in order to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

In this case the timing allowed the camera team to capture this breath-taking picture of these graceful arching dunes sitting in what is likely the near-surface ice sheet that covers much of the red planet’s high latitudes. That sheet is not pure ice, but a complex mixture of ice, dirt, dust, and sand, covered during the winter by a thin mantle of dry ice.

The isolated dunes appear to be ridges sticking up from that flat terrain, but this impression is probably incorrect, based on the location.
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Astronomers discover 128 more moons around Saturn

Using a ground-based telescope, astronomers have now identified 128 new moons circling Saturn, bringing its moon count to 274, more than the total moons around all the other planets in the solar system combined.

Edward Ashton at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, and his colleagues found the new moons with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, revealing dozens that have previously evaded astronomers. They took hours of images of Saturn, adjusted them for the planet’s movement through the sky and stacked them on top of each other to reveal objects that would otherwise be too dim to see.

All the new moons are between 2 and 4 kilometres in diameter and are likely to have been formed hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago in collisions between larger moons, says Ashton.

That Saturn has so many moons should surprise no one. Saturn actually has possibly millions, maybe even billions, of moons, if you count every particle in its rings. In fact, the gas giant poses a problem for astronomers in defining what a moon actually is. How small must an object be before you stop calling it a moon?

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SpaceX launches NASA space telescope plus four solar satellites; China launches 18 communication satellites

Two launches to report: First, China yesterday successfully completed its first Long March 8 launch from its new launchpad at its coastal Wenchang spaceport, placing 18 satellites for SpaceSail internet constellation, the fifth group so far launched.

China’s state run press noted that the launchpad is designed to allow the Long March 8 rocket to launch every seven days, a pace needed to place these giant Chinese satellite constellations into orbit.

Next, in the early morning hours today SpaceX successfully launched two different NASA science missions, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The prime payload was SPHEREx, a space telescope designed to make an all-sky survey. The secondary payload was PUNCH, four satellites forming a constellation to study the Sun.

The rocket’s first stage completed its third flight, landing back at Vandenberg.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

27 SpaceX
11 China
3 Russia
2 Rocket Lab

As happened last year, SpaceX handily leads the rest of the world, including American companies, in total launches, 27 to 20. This lead will be extended tonight should the company’s next manned Dragon launch to ISS go off as planned.

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Blue Ghost activates NASA drill, prepares for hot lunar noon

Map of lunar landing sites
Landing sites for both Firefly’s Blue Ghost and
Ispace’s Resilience

More than a week after landing in Mare Crisium, ground controllers have prepared Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander for surviving the very hot lunar noon while also activating NASA’s LISTER drill, which proceeded to successfully drill down into the lunar surface below the lander.

Mounted below Blue Ghost’s lower deck, NASA’s Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) payload is a pneumatic, gas-powered drill developed by Texas Tech University and Honeybee Robotics that measures the temperature and flow of heat from the Moon’s interior.

I have embedded below the video of this drilling operation. At this moment it appears that nine of the lander’s payloads have completed their tasks successfully, with no indication yet that the tenth playload will have problems. All in all, Firefly has succeeded in establishing itself now as the leading private company capable of launching spacecraft to other worlds.
» Read more

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A galactic ball and spiral interact

A galactic ball and spiral interact
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a study of the star populations in these two interacting galaxies. From the caption:

Arp 105 is a dazzling ongoing merger between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy drawn together by gravity, characterized by a long, drawn out tidal tail of stars and gas more than 362,000 light-years long. The immense tail, which extends beyond this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, was pulled from the two galaxies by their gravitational interactions and is embedded with star clusters and dwarf galaxies.

The three blue objects on the outskirts of both galaxies are thought to be active star-forming regions. Whether all three are part of this collision is unclear, as the object on the lower right might simply be a foreground object based on the available data.

What makes this galactic pair so intriguing is that the two galaxies are so different with very different theorized histories. Elliptical galaxies (“the ball”) are thought to be very old, the result of the long term evolution of spirals. You would therefore not think an elliptical would normally interact with a spiral, as their ages are likely so dissimilar.

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India’s Vikram lunar lander: Data suggests there could be more water impregnated in more places on the Moon

According to scientists analyzing the data sent back from India’s Vikram lunar lander, it appears that water could be impregnated in the upper lunar soil in more places than previously predicted.

You can read their paper here [pdf]. One instrument on the lander measured the temperature of the soil down about four inches, and found the temperature to be 25 degrees Celsius warmer than expected. That location was on a sunward-facing slope, so it was expected to be warmer but not by that amount. From the paper’s abstract:

This demonstrates that local topography at metre scales can alter temperature at high latitudes, unlike equatorial regions. Numerical model calculations using ChaSTE measurements, suggest that larger poleward facing slopes(>14°) at high latitudes can harbour water-ice, making them promising and technically less challenging sites for future lunar exploration and habitation.

In other words, slopes that get much less sunlight near the poles but are not permanently shadowed could still be cold enough only a few inches below the surface to harbor water molecules.

Sounds good, but I am beginning to sense a bit of blarney in these stories, over-pushing the possible existence of water to encourage more government space funding. It might be true that there is more water molecules in more places than predicted, but rarely do these reports say how much, which I expect will be very very little, in the parts per billion range. Nor do these stories ever consider the processing necessary to extract that water. Based on other data obtained from the Shadowcam instrument on South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter, it increasingly seems to me that any water found in polar regions of the Moon could be very slight, or even if in large amounts much more difficult to access than anyone ever mentions.

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Webb captures infrared view of a baby binary star system and its bi-polar jets

A baby binary in formation
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The infrared false-color picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was released today by the science team of the Webb Space Telescope. It shows the bi-polar jets spewing out from a newly formed binary of two very young stars as their interact during their formation process.

The two protostars responsible for this scene are at the center of the hourglass shape, in an opaque horizontal disk of cold gas and dust that fits within a single pixel. Much farther out, above and below the flattened disk where dust is thinner, the bright light from the stars shines through the gas and dust, forming large semi-transparent orange cones.

It’s equally important to notice where the stars’ light is blocked — look for the exceptionally dark, wide V-shapes offset by 90 degrees from the orange cones. These areas may look like there is no material, but it’s actually where the surrounding dust is the densest, and little starlight penetrates it. If you look carefully at these areas, Webb’s sensitive NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) has picked up distant stars as muted orange pinpoints behind this dust. Where the view is free of obscuring dust, stars shine brightly in white and blue.

To put it more simply, the accretion disk for the binary system lies at right angles to the much larger jets. The rotation of that disk as well as the stars causes those jets to flow up and down from the poles, with the existence of two stars producing the complex patterns in those jets.

As this image was focused mostly on studying the upper jet, it does not show the entire lower jet, which extends beyond the lower border.

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Athena sits at an unknown angle on the Moon, hampering operations

Athena's landing site 100 miles from the Moon's south pole
Yellow cross indicates Athena’s targeted landing site

According to the CEO of Intuitive Machines, Athena is sitting an an unknown angle on the Moon, impacting the possibility of all surface science operations.

The tilt is hampering their ability to use the high gain antenna which they need use to download most of their data. They do not know the angle, or the cause of this issue. It could simply be that the ground slope is too severe. It is also possible the spacecraft, which has a relatively high center of gravity, fell over on its side because of that slope. Moreover, they do not know at the moment exactly where the spacecraft landed, though they know it landed on Mons Mouton as planned. They need to download pictures from the spacecraft, as well as from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in orbit to determine precisely the location and the situation.

It is also unclear what payloads will be impacted by this situation. It could be that most if all could be utilized, but that question cannot be answered until they learn more. I suspect both the mini-rover and the Grace hopper will be affected the most, as the tilt might make it impossible to deploy either.

For Intuitive Machines this situation is very unfortunate. It has sent two unmanned lunar landers, and both have had issues at landing, though it must be emphasized that the issue on today’s second landing might have nothing to do with the company’s engineering at all.

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Is a supermassive black hole is hidden in the Large Magellanic Cloud?

Based on the motions of a number of runaway stars on the edge of the Milky Way that are moving so fast they will leave the galaxy, astronomers believe that many were accelerated not by the galaxy’s own central supermassive black hole but a previously undetected supermassive black hole at the center of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the Milky Ways nearby dwarf galaxies.

To make this discovery, researchers traced the paths with ultra-fine precision of 21 stars on the outskirts of the Milky Way. These stars are traveling so fast that they will escape the gravitational clutches of the Milky Way or any nearby galaxy. Astronomers refer to these as “hypervelocity” stars.

Similar to how forensic experts recreate the origin of a bullet based on its trajectory, researchers determined where these hypervelocity stars come from. They found that about half are linked to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. However, the other half originated from somewhere else: a previously-unknown giant black hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).

You can read the paper here [pdf]. This result was made possible by the very precise location and velocity data of over a billion stars measured by Europe’s Gaia satellite.

Based on the available data, the scientists estimate (with great uncertainty) the mass of this supermassive black hole, which the scientists have dubbed LMC* (pronounced “LMC star”), to be about 600,000 times the mass of the Sun, quite big but significantly less than the mass of the Milky Way’s central black hole, Sagittarius A* (pronounced “A-star”), which is estimated to be about 4.3 million times the mass of the Sun.

The mystery to solve now is why this super massive black hole is so quiet. It has literally emitted no obvious energy in any wavelength in the past seven decades, since ground- and space-based telescopes went into operation capable of detecting such emissions. Even the relatively inactive supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center, Sagittarius A* (pronounced “A-star”) emits distinct radio energy that the first radio telescopes were able to detect almost immediately.

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Intuitive Machines’ Athena lander touches down softly; engineers are assessing spacecraft condition

Though Intuitive Machines’ Athena lander has apparently softly landed near the south pole of the Moon, there remains uncertainty about the spacecraft’s status. Engineers have contact with Athena, and are apparently shutting down the landing equipment in order to make Athena safe for surface operations.

Unlike the previous landing, the spacecraft is upright and responding fully as expected. It appears the main issue is the position of Athena relative to the horizon. This is important as it determines the best antenna’s to use to upload and download data to and from Earth.

A full update will be provided at a press conference scheduled for 4 pm (Eastern) today. I have embedded the live stream of that conference below.
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Future now very dim for Lunar Trailblazer

Though engineers are continuing attempts to re-establish contact with the orbiter Lunar Trailblazer as it flies outward after launch, the situation is becoming increasingly grim.

Based on telemetry before the loss of signal last week and ground-based radar data collected March 2, the team believes the spacecraft is spinning slowly in a low-power state. They will continue to monitor for signals should the spacecraft orientation change to where the solar panels receive more sunlight, increasing their output to support higher-power operations and communication.

The problem is that, without communications, the spacecraft was not able to do several mid-course corrections that would have sent it on the right path to the Moon. Though it might still be possible to get it to the Moon, communications must be re-established soon to do so.

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Europa Clipper completes Mars fly-by

Data from Europa Clipper has now confirmed that its March 1, 2025 Mars fly-by was successful, putting it on the right trajectory to do a fly-by of Earth in December 2026.

When Europa Clipper launched, navigators deliberately aimed a little away from Mars to avoid any possibility of a launch error turning into a Mars impact. Since then, they’ve performed three deep-space trajectory correction maneuvers to line up for the encounter. Europa Clipper whizzed by Mars at 17:57 UT, only 2 km away from the target height of 884 km. A final maneuver, planned for March 17th, will correct any residual trajectory error.

Only two instruments were activated, mostly as tests to see if they were operating properly. Though the data has not yet been downloaded back to Earth, engineers say that it appears all worked as expected.

If the Earth fly-by in 2026 is successful, Europa Clipper will rendezvous with Jupiter in April 2030, entering an orbit that will fly past Europa numerous times.

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Blue Ghost lunar surface operations proceeding as planned

According to a Firefly update today, all of Blue Ghost’s planned lunar surface operations are working as planned.

Eight out of 10 NASA payloads, including LPV, EDS, NGLR, RAC, RadPC, LuGRE, LISTER, and SCALPSS, have already met their mission objectives with more to come. Lunar PlanetVac for example successfully collected, transferred, and sorted lunar soil from the Moon using pressurized nitrogen gas.

I have embedded below the video posted at the link of Lunar PlanetVac deploying and then blowing that gas to capture surface soil.
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