Tag: science

Chang’e-6 to attempt landing on Moon’s far side on June 1st

9:42 am

Chang'e-6 landing zone

After spending almost a month in lunar orbit, the lander on China’s Chang’e-6 sample return mission will attempt a soft touchdown on Moon’s far side on June 1, 2024 at 8:00 pm (Eastern).

If successful, the lander will go through initial checks and setup. It will then begin drilling and scooping up materials from the surface. These samples, expected to weigh up to 2,000 grams, will be loaded into an ascent vehicle. The ascender will then launch the precious cargo back into lunar orbit for rendezvous and docking with the orbiter. Surface operations will last about 48 hours.

The map to the right indicates the landing zone by the red box, on the southern edge of Apollo Crater, indicated by the wavy white circle. The black circle marks the perimeter of South Aitken Basin, the largest impact basin on the Moon.

Once the ascender docks with the orbiter, the sample will be transferred into the sample return capsule, which will bring that sample back to Earth in late June.

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A Martian lava flow so strong it eats mountains

1:34 pm

A Martian lava flow so strong it eats mountains
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, sharpened, and annotated to post here, was taken on March 19, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a crater that appears to sit on top of a plateau that was created by a flow of material coming from the northeast that — as the flow divided to get around that crater — it wore away the ground to leave the crater sitting high and dry.

What was the material in that flow? The location is at 9 degrees north latitude, in Mars’ dry tropics, so it is highly unlikely that the flows here are glaciers, even though they have some glacier-like features.

Instead, this is frozen lava, but Martian in nature in that its ability to push the ground out of its way suggests it was moving very fast, far faster than lava on Earth.
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Dry ice and carbon monoxide detected on asteroids beyond Neptune

9:31 am

Based on new infrared observations by the Webb Space Telescope, scientists have detected for the first time carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide on asteroids beyond Neptune. From the abstract of their paper:

Out of 59 [trans-Neptunian objects] and centaur [asteriods] observed by the James Webb Space Telescope and the NIRSpec Integral Field Unit as part of the DiSCo-TNOs project, we report the widespread detection of CO2 ice in 95% of the sample and CO ice in 47% of the sample.

It appears dry ice is ubiquitous in the outer solar system. Since it is believed these asteroids are very primitive, this data suggests there was a lot of it in the early solar system when the planets were forming.

The discovery of so much carbon monoxide is however more puzzling, as it is expected to sublimate away even in the very cold environment so far from the Sun and is therefore likely not from the early solar system. The scientists posit that it might have been produced when radiation transformed the other carbon-bearing ices.

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Scientists confirm 2023 data that suggested active volcanism on Venus

9:20 am

Active lava flows on Venus
Click for original video

Scientists have now confirmed a 2023 paper that had found evidence in archival data from the Magellan orbiter that there was active volcanism on Venus. From the abstract of the new paper:

To investigate more widespread alterations that have occurred over time in the planet’s surface morphology, we compared radar images of the same regions observed from 1990 to 1992 with the Magellan spacecraft. We found variations in the radar backscatter from different volcanic-related flow features on the western flank of Sif Mons and in western Niobe Planitia. We suggest that these changes are most reasonably explained as evidence of new lava flows related to volcanic activities that took place during the Magellan spacecraft’s mapping mission with its synthetic-aperture radar.

The image to the right is a screen capture, annotated to post here, from a video computer animation created by the science team based on that Magellan data. The red areas are where the scientists detected lava flow changes on the flanks of the volcano Sif Mons. From the press release:

Using flows on Earth as a comparison, the researchers estimate new rock that was emplaced in both locations to be between 10 and 66 feet (3 and 20 meters) deep, on average. They also estimate that the Sif Mons eruption produced about 12 square miles (30 square kilometers) of rock — enough to fill at least 36,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The Niobe Planitia eruption produced about 17 square miles (45 square kilometers) of rock, which would fill 54,000 Olympic swimming pools. As a comparison, the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, Earth’s largest active volcano, produced a lava flow with enough material to fill 100,000 Olympic pools.

There is uncertainty of course with this result, due to the difficulty of analyzing radar data properly. Nonetheless, this result reinforces last year’s results, which saw evidence of changes between the two Magellan data sets in a different region near the volcanoes Ozza Mons and Maat Mons. It also reinforces previous work going back decades that has repeatedly suggested Venus was volcanically active.

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Visiting a galactic bar

9:27 am

Visiting a galactic bar
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a research project studying the flow of gases inside barred galaxies. It shows a spiral galaxy, NGC 4731, edge on, located about 43 million light years away. From the caption:

Barred spiral galaxies outnumber both regular spirals and elliptical galaxies put together, numbering around 60% of all galaxies. The visible bar structure is a result of orbits of stars and gas in the galaxy lining up, forming a dense region that individual stars move in and out of over time. This is the same process that maintains a galaxy’s spiral arms, but it is somewhat more mysterious for bars: spiral galaxies seem to form bars in their centres as they mature, accounting for the large number of bars we see today, but can also lose them later on as the accumulated mass along the bar grows unstable. The orbital patterns and the gravitational interactions within a galaxy that sustain the bar also transport matter and energy into it, fuelling star formation.

Astronomers don’t really understand why these barred structures develop, since you would expect the overall gravity of the galaxy would promote a spiral or spherical shape. There must are factors not yet understood or completely identified (such as the magnetic fields of such galaxies).

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Rocket Lab launches NASA climate satellite

10:41 pm

Rocket Lab today successfully launched the first of two NASA PREFIRE climate satellites, its Electron rocket lifting off from its launchpad in New Zealand.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

55 SpaceX
23 China
7 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 63 to 36, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 55 to 44.

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Astronomers discover nearby Earth-sized exoplanet only slightly hotter than Earth

10:49 am

Using the TESS space telescope as well as a number of ground-based telescopes astronomers have discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet only 40 light years away that has a surface temperature estimated to be about 107 degrees Fahrenheit, assuming it has no atmosphere.

The host star, called Gliese 12, is a cool red dwarf located almost 40 light-years away in the constellation Pisces. The star is only about 27% of the Sun’s size, with about 60% of the Sun’s surface temperature. The newly discovered world, named Gliese 12 b, orbits every 12.8 days and is Earth’s size or slightly smaller — comparable to Venus. Assuming it has no atmosphere, the planet has a surface temperature estimated at around 107 degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees Celsius).

At the moment however scientists do not yet know if the exoplanet has an atmosphere or not. Follow-up observations using the Webb Space Telescope are planned to find this out. Based on the data presently available, the exoplanet could either be like Venus, too hot to sustain life, or like Earth, cooler with water and an atmosphere and thus very habitable.

Gliese 12 b could therefore become one of the primary targets for the first interstellar missions once humanity begins such exploration.

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Euclid releases new images and first science results

10:37 am

Euclid image
Click for original image.

The Euclid science team today released five early science images in connection of the publication of ten papers.

The picture to the right is one of those images, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here. From the caption:

In this image Euclid showcases NGC 6744, an archetype of the kind of galaxy currently forming most of the stars in the local Universe. Euclid’s large field-of-view covers the entire galaxy, capturing not only spiral structure on larger scales but also exquisite detail on small spatial scales. This includes feather-like lanes of dust emerging as ‘spurs’ from the spiral arms, shown here with incredible clarity.

Scientists are using this dataset to understand how dust and gas are linked to star formation; map how different star populations are distributed throughout galaxies and where stars are currently forming; and unravel the physics behind the structure of spiral galaxies, something that is still not fully understood after decades of study.

Euclid is a wide-field space telescope that has instruments that observe in both visible and near-infrared wavelengths. Its primary mirror at 1.2 meters is half the width of Hubble’s. More details about these early images and links to the new science results can be found here.

Unlike Hubble, it appears Euclid will not be used as a general observatory, at least initially. Its primary goal is to do a survey of one third of the sky, focusing on extragalactic sources outside the Milky Way. Once this is complete however it is possible the space telescope will be made available for other observations.

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Psyche gets clean bill-of-health after completing six-month checkout since launch

10:13 am

Psyche's flight path to the asteroid Psyche
Psyche’s flight path to the asteroid Psyche.
Click for original image.

The probe Psyche has successfully completed its six-month checkout since its launch in October 2023 and is now using its ion engines to steadily increase its speed as it heads to a 2029 rendezvous with the metal asteroid Psyche.

The orbiter is now more than 190 million miles (300 million kilometers) away and moving at a clip of 23 miles per second (37 kilometers per second), relative to Earth. That’s about 84,000 mph (135,000 kph). Over time, with no atmospheric drag to slow it down, Psyche will accelerate to speeds of up to 124,000 mph (200,000 kph).

The spacecraft will arrive at the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in 2029 and will make observations from orbit for about two years. The data it collects will help scientists better understand the formation of rocky planets with metallic cores, including Earth. Scientists have evidence that the asteroid, which is about 173 miles (280 kilometers) across at its widest point, may be the partial core of a planetesimal, the building block of an early planet.

The graphic to the right shows the path Psyche will take to get to the asteroid.

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Two of Voyager-1’s four instruments resume science operations

9:15 am

Engineers have resumed getting science data from two of Voyager-1’s four instruments for the first time since in November 2023, when corrupted computer memory caused the spacecraft to send only incoherent data.

The plasma wave subsystem and magnetometer instrument are now returning usable science data. As part of the effort to restore Voyager 1 to normal operations, the mission is continuing work on the cosmic ray subsystem and low energy charged particle instrument. (Six additional instruments aboard Voyager 1 are either no longer working or were turned off after the probe’s flyby of Saturn.)

Engineers hope to begin getting good data the other two instruments in the next few weeks.

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Glacial tributaries draining south on Mars

2:10 pm

Glacial tributaries draining south on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on March 27, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “valley network”, what appears to be several tributaries flowing downhill from the northeast to come together into a larger single flow to the southwest. The elevation drop from the high to the low points in this picture is about 600 feet.

What formed the valleys? This location is at 35 degrees south latitude, so we are almost certainly looking at what appear to be shallow glaciers within those valleys, protected by a thin veneer of dust and debris. It also appears that the stippled surrounding plains might also contain a lot of near-surface ice, also protected by a thin layer of dust and debris. The stippling indicates some sublimation and erosion.
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Solar storms are simply no longer a threat

3:39 pm

The sunspot cycle as of May 2024
The sunspot cycle as of May 2024. Click
for full details.

Today’s Chicken Little Report: When NOAA predicted on May 9, 2024 that a powerful solar flare had erupted from the Sun and was aiming a major solar storm directly at the Earth, the scientists at the federal government’s Space Weather Prediction Center could not help underlining the disaster potential, and were ably aided by the mainstream press. This CNN report was typical:

“Geomagnetic storms can impact infrastructure in near-Earth orbit and on Earth’s surface, potentially disrupting communications, the electric power grid, navigation, radio and satellite operations,” according to the Space Weather Prediction Center. “(The center) has notified the operators of these systems so they can take protective action.”

The center has notified operators in these areas to take action to mitigate the potential for any impacts, which include the possibility of increased and more frequent voltage control problems. Other aspects operators will monitor include a chance of anomalies or impacts to satellite operations and frequent or longer periods of GPS degradation.

And as always, the news report has to end with this warning of doom:
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