Tag: spaceflight

After 30 years the Geotail solar probe appears dead

8:01 pm

Launched in 1992 as a joint U.S./Japan project to study the tail of the Earth’s magnetosphere, the Geotail solar mission appears to be over, though engineers continue to work the problem.

Originally, Geotail was equipped with two data recorders to collect the mission’s scientific data. One data recorder failed in 2012 after 20 years of gathering information about the plasma environment around Earth. The remaining data recorder continued collecting data for 10 more years until it experienced an anomaly on June 28, 2022.

The team at JAXA discovered the error with the recorder and have been performing tests to investigate the cause and extent of the damage. Ongoing attempts to recover the recorder have been unsuccessful. Without a functioning recorder, the science data from the U.S. instruments can no longer be collected or downlinked. NASA, ISAS, and JAXA are deciding the best path forward for the mission given the failure.

When the solar wind hits the Earth’s magnetosphere, it pushes it away so that on the side away from the Sun a tail forms, almost like the wake of a ship.

Without any way to download the spacecraft’s data, however, Geotail’s value as a scientific probe is extremely limited. If engineers can still control it and adjust its orbit, however, then it might still be useful for a variety of engineering and orbital flight tests.

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October 17, 2022 Quick space links

3:55 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who trolls twitter so we don’t have to.

 

 

 

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Jets from baby stars

12:12 pm

Jets from baby stars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated and reduced to post here, was taken across multiple wavelengths by the Hubble Space Telescope and shows two different Herbig–Haro objects (HH 1 at the top and HH 2 on the bottom). Herbig-Haro objects are the bright cloud clumps found near newly formed baby stars. These particular clouds are about 1,250 light years away. The jets flowing away from HH 1 are speeding away at about 250 miles per second.

Note that the baby stars themselves are not visible, buried in the dust that surrounds them. The bright star in the upper right is an unrelated foreground star.

In the case of HH 1/2, two groups of astronomers requested Hubble observations for two different studies. The first delved into the structure and motion of the Herbig–Haro objects visible in this image, giving astronomers a better understanding of the physical processes occurring when outflows from young stars collide with surrounding gas and dust. The second study instead investigated the outflows themselves to lay the groundwork for future observations with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Webb, with its ability to peer past the clouds of dust enveloping young stars, will revolutionise the study of outflows from young stars.

There is a lot of complexity here that this image only hints at. Note for example the smaller cloud objects near HH1, the shape of which suggest a shaping by some interstellar wind.

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Government to Musk: “Nice business you got here, shame if something happened to it.”

11:46 am

The government to Elon Musk: Nice business you got here.
The press and the feds negotiate with Elon Musk

Over the past week a series of events relating to the Ukraine War, Elon Musk, and Starlink illustrated starkly the growing corrupt, aggressive, and unrestrained power of our federal government and the administration state and press that supports it.

Our story begins in early October when Elon Musk put forth his own proposed solution to the Ukraine War, suggesting that to end the war the Ukraine should cede the Crimea to Russia and forgo its attempts to join NATO, making itself a neutral power instead.

Not surprisingly, Ukrainian officials responded to this somewhat naive though sincere proposal with great hostility. So did the press, the Biden administration, and many in social media.

Then, on October 14, 2022 Elon Musk said that his company Starlink cannot continue indefinitely providing service to the Ukraine, without some reimbursement. At the beginning of the war Musk had made Starlink available for no charge, and it has been an important factor to the Ukrainians in their recent military successes.
» Read more

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Russia launches military satellite using Angara rocket; new global record for launches

9:00 am

Russia today successfully launched a classified military satellite using its new Angara rocket in its Angara-1.2 configuration.

Like ArianeGroup’s Ariane-6, Angara is modular, so depending on the payload’s launch needs, it can have additional strap-on boosters, from none to four. This launch had no side boosters at all.

The launch was the 135th of 2022, passing the record set last year of 134 successful launches for the entire world in one year. In 2022 the record was broken in the last week. This year the record has been broken two and a half months before the end of the year. Based on the number of planned launches for the rest of the year, 2022 is likely to easily exceed 150 launches.

And the reason this number going through the roof is because of the advent of private enterprise, private ownership of rockets, and intense competition. New rocket companies are sprouting up everywhere worldwide, each with their own rocket competing aggressively for business by lowering costs. The lower costs make it possible for more satellite companies to find financing because making money will be easier. This in turn results in more customers for the rocket companies, which encourages more competition which pushes the price down further.

The cycle feeds on itself, and will only end when the full potential of space exploration is reached. And since that potential is literally endless, this growth for the human race is also endless. The only thing that could stop it is if human civilization decides to stop it, intentionally, either from willful ignorance or fear.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

47 SpaceX
45 China
15 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 67 to 45 in the national rankings, but now trails the rest of the world combined 68 to 67.

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OSIRIS-REx does mid-course correction

8:36 am

To better refine its path back to Earth in order to properly aim its sample return capsule, engineers had OSIRIS-REx do a short successful 30 second engine burn on September 21, 2022.

Nor will this be the only course correction prior to sample return on September 24, 2023 in Utah.

To ensure a safe delivery, “Over the next year, we will gradually adjust the OSIRIS-REx trajectory to target the spacecraft closer to Earth,” said Daniel Wibben, trajectory-and-maneuver design lead with KinetX Inc. “We have to cross Earth’s orbit at the time that Earth will be at that same location.” Wibben works closely with the Lockheed Martin team in Littleton, Colorado, that flies the spacecraft.

Last month’s maneuver was the first time the OSIRIS-REx team changed the spacecraft’s trajectory since it left Bennu on May 10, 2021. Following this course adjustment, OSIRIS-REx would pass about 1,367 miles (2,200 kilometers) from Earth. A series of maneuvers beginning in July 2023 will bring OSIRIS-REx even closer, to 155 miles (250 kilometers) off the surface, close enough to release its sample capsule for a precision landing – via parachute at the Air Force’s Utah Test and Training Range in the Great Salt Lake Desert.

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China launches military satellite

8:31 am

Using its Long March 2D rocket, China today successfully launched a satellite in its classified Yaogan series, suspected to be for military reconnaissance.

In fact, so little is known about the Yaogan satellites that we aren’t even sure how many were placed in orbit today. Normally a Yaogan launch puts three satellites into orbit (which is what this Space.com article assumes). The story from China’s state-run press above however does not say this at all. Instead, it implies that only one Yaogan satellite was launched.

Regardless, the leaders in the 2022 launch race:

47 SpaceX
45 China
14 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 67 to 45 in the national rankings. It is now tied with the entire world combined 67 to 67. This launch today also brings the launch total this year to 134, which ties the record for the most successful launches in a single year, set last year. With two and a half months still to go, 2022 should end up breaking that record significantly.

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SpaceX successfully launches communications satellite

10:32 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully launched a Eutelsat communications satellite using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage completed its third mission, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings completed their fourth flight.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

47 SpaceX
44 China
14 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 67 to 44 in the national rankings. It now leds with the entire world combined 67 to 66.

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Perseverance spots Phobos

10:57 am

Phobos, as seen by Perseverance on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on January 12, 2022 by one of the high resolution cameras on the Mars rover Perseverance, and shows the Martian moon Phobos.

As noted in an update today by Claire Newman, one of the members of the science team,

This provides a measurement, using visible light, of the amount of dust in the nighttime atmosphere, which can be compared to similar measurements made by looking at the sun during the daytime, and to nighttime measurements of dust abundance made in the infrared by MEDA [another Perseverance instrument].

There have been three attempts to land on Phobos, all by the Russians, all of which failed. At present a Japanese mission to Phobos, dubbed Mars Moons eXploration or MMX, is scheduled to launch in 2024. This is a planned sample return mission, and will also include a rover.

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Lucy to fly past Earth on October 16th

10:13 am

Lucy solar panel graphic
Artist’s impression of solar panel

As part of its planned route to get to the Trojan asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit, the planetary probe Lucy is scheduled to fly only 220 miles above the Earth’s surface on October 16th.

Lucy will be passing the Earth at such a low altitude that the team had to include the effect of atmospheric drag when designing this flyby. Lucy’s large solar arrays increase this effect.

“In the original plan, Lucy was actually going to pass about 30 miles closer to the Earth,” says Rich Burns, Lucy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “However, when it became clear that we might have to execute this flyby with one of the solar arrays unlatched, we chose to use a bit of our fuel reserves so that the spacecraft passes the Earth at a slightly higher altitude, reducing the disturbance from the atmospheric drag on the spacecraft’s solar arrays.”

That solar array remains unlatched (as shown in the graphic above), but because it is almost completely deployed and is producing about 90% of its intended electricity, engineers have ceased efforts to complete deployment and latching.

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Skyrora’s first suborbital rocket launch fails shortly after liftoff

9:57 am

Capitalism in space: The first launch attempt of a suborbital rocket for Skyrora, a rocket startup from the United Kingdom, failed on October 8, 2022 shortly after liftoff.

The launch was from Iceland, with the rocket crashing in the ocean about 1,600 feet from the pad. No one was injured. The rocket, Skylark-L, was designed for a suborbital flight to test equipment that will be used in the orbital rocket, Skyrora-XL.

Skylark-L is Skyrora’s 11m suborbital rocket, capable of reaching 4x the speed of sound and an altitude of over 125 km. 70% of the technology tested in the Skylark-L launch attempt will be applied to the systems of the Skyrora-XL vehicle, providing a key incremental learning opportunity to increase technological readiness ahead of vertical orbital launch next year.

As this was an engineering flight, the failure is actually a good thing, as it will provide Skyrora’s engineers information about changes needed to make their rocket function properly. Don’t expect that first orbital launch however next year, as the company promises. These things always take longer than expected.

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Watching return of ISS crew on Freedom

9:40 am

The SpaceX manned capsule Freedom has undocked from ISS, carrying three astronauts completing a six month mission, with a scheduled splashdown planned for 4:50 pm (Eastern) off the western coast of Florida.

I have embedded NASA’s live stream below, for those that wish to watch. Note that though NASA inserts itself into this event, once the spacecraft has left ISS everything — including all workers involved in splashdown operations — is solely under the supervision of SpaceX, with NASA’s participation only that of a customer, albeit a very powerful one. This is a capsule and splashdown designed, built, run, and most important, owned by a private American company, not the government.
» Read more

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Changing slope streaks on Mars

3:08 pm

Overview map

Changing slope streaks on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on July 20, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists have labeled a “Splitting Slope Streak” on a mound/hill near the equator and located almost midpoint between the giant volcano Olympus Mons about 2,000 miles to the east and the almost as big volcano Elysium Mons about 2,500 miles to the west. The white cross on the overview map above marks this location, north of the Medusae Fossae volcanic ash deposit.

The slope streak in question is the biggest and darkest at about 7 o’clock. Slope streaks are a feature unique to Mars that remain as yet unexplained. They are not ordinary avalanches, despite their appearance. They seem to have no effect on the topography, and thus are more a stain on the surface. Moreover, some are bright, some dark, and all happen randomly and fade with time. Some think they may be brine-related, while others link them to dust. No theory explains them completely.

What makes this slope streak interesting is that it is relatively new. Compare it with the picture taken in 2016 below.
» Read more

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The known near Earth asteroid catalog now tops 30,000

9:35 am

Chart of NEA's discovered over time

The catalog of known near Earth asteroids that have been identified using a number of survey telescopes in space and on the Earth now totals 30,039. As defined at the link:

An asteroid is called a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) when its trajectory brings it within 1.3 Astronomical Units (au) of the Sun. 1 au is the distance between the Sun and Earth, and so NEAs can come within at least 0.3 au, 45 million km, of our planet’s orbit.

Currently, near-Earth asteroids make up about a third of the roughly one million asteroids discovered so far in the Solar System. Most of them reside in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.

NEAs are also called NEOs (Near Earth Objects). The chart above, produced by the Center for NEO Studies which tracks these objects, shows the number of NEAs discovered over time.

Of the 30,039 now known, about 1,400 have orbits with “a non-zero” chance of hitting the Earth. None however will do so in the next hundred years at least.

Though the pace of discovery is vastly improving — as indicated by the steep rise in the curve in the graph — only when that curve begins to flatten out will we know that we are getting close to having a more-or-less complete survey of these objects.

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TESS enters safe mode

9:18 am

The science team for TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) revealed yesterday that the spacecraft had entered safe mode on October 10th.

The spacecraft is in a stable configuration that suspends science observations. Preliminary investigation revealed that the TESS flight computer experienced a reset. The TESS operations team reported that science data not yet sent to the ground appears to be safely stored on the satellite. Recovery procedures and investigations are underway to resume normal operations, which could take several days.

TESS has been in orbit since 2018, where it has been repeatedly taking survey images of the entire sky. Astronomers then compare these images to see if they can spot exoplanet transits (as well as any other new phenomenon). So far 250 exoplanets have been identified.

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China launches Earth observation radar satellite

9:13 am

Using its Long March 2C rocket, China today successfully launched a new Earth observation radar satellite.

As is usual for Chinese launches from interior spaceports, the rocket dumped its lower stages somewhere within China.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

46 SpaceX
44 China
14 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 66 to 44 in the national rankings. It is now tied with the entire world combined 66 each.

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Ispace targets November 9-15 launch window for first commercial lunar lander

9:07 am

The private Japanese company Ispace has now scheduled the launch of its commercial lunar lander Hakuto-R on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for a November 9-15, 2022 launch window.

Though the lander’s primary goal is to see if this lander will work, it also includes several customer payloads, the most significant of which is the Rashid rover from the United Arab Emirates. Rashid, which is about the size of a Radio Flyer red wagon, will operate for one lunar day, about two weeks. While its main mission is to test the engineering and to train the engineers who built it, it will have two cameras for taking pictures. In addition, on its wheels are test adhesive patches of different materials, designed to see how each material interacts with the Moon’s abrasive dust.

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An icy hollow on Mars

2:07 pm

A icy hollow on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on August 20, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a somewhat typical example of the many ice scarps that scientists have identified in MRO pictures.

Though this is not a hard fast rule, most of the ice scarps so far found tend to have the steep cliff on the pole-facing side, with the scarp very slowly retreating towards the equator. In today’s example, the scarp where an ice layer in the cliff wall has been identified is indicated by the white arrow, though three sides of the hollow, on the east, north, and west sides, could all also have exposed ice.

Nor is that the only likely ice at this location at 56 degrees south latitude. The stippled plain surrounding the hollow clearly looks like an eroded ice layer, likely covered with a thin protective coat of dust to protect if from quickly sublimating away. The dark streaks across this surface are likely dust devil tracks.

As documented by the global map below, Mars is like Antarctica, a desert with water ice everywhere.
» Read more

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Dennis Tito signs deal to fly on 2nd manned Starship mission around Moon

10:26 am

Capitalism in space: Dennis Tito, the first tourist to fly in space and now 82-years-old, has signed a deal with SpaceX for both him and his wife Akiko to fly on 2nd manned Starship mission around Moon.

His weeklong moonshot — its date to be determined and years in the future — will bring him within 125 miles (200 kilometers) of the lunar far side. He’ll have company: his wife, Akiko, and 10 others willing to shell out big bucks for the ride.

Tito won’t say how much he’s paying; his Russian station flight cost $20 million.

The couple recognize there’s a lot of testing and development still ahead for Starship, a shiny, bullet-shaped behemoth that’s yet to even attempt to reach space. “We have to keep healthy for as many years as it’s going to take for SpaceX to complete this vehicle,” Tito said in an interview this week with The Associated Press. “I might be sitting in a rocking chair, not doing any good exercise, if it wasn’t for this mission.”

The bottom line is that this deal, combined with the two other passenger Starship deals SpaceX has already signed, demonstrates that there is a solid market for Starship, even before its first launch. Expect that market to boom once the rocket begins operations.

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Will Tom Cruise ever actually shoot a movie in space?

10:17 am

Capitalism in space: According an interview last week from Donna Langley, chairman of Universal Film Entertainment Group, the company is arranging for Tom Cruise to film scenes of a movie on ISS, where Cruise will also be the first non-professional to do a spacewalk.

“That’s the plan. We have a great project in development with Tom that does contemplate him doing just that,” she said, “taking a rocket up to the space station and shooting and hopefully being the first civilian to do a spacewalk outside of the space station.”

She said the film request came from Cruise directly and that he is in close collaboration with director Doug Liman, who previously worked with Cruise in 2014’s “Edge of Tomorrow” and is also known for “The Bourne Identity” franchise, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “Jumper.”

This claim might be true, but producers associated with Cruise have been making such claims now for three years, none of which have come even close to happening. I am sure the project is being discussed, and even pushed hard, but based on what has actually happened, this announcement could simply be a way to generate buzz for Cruise’s next film, whether or not he flies.

Nonetheless, I fully believe that Cruise is the source of this idea, and wants to do it, given his habit of doing his own stunts in his movies.

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Shells of dust surrounding massive binary star

10:07 am

Webb infrared image of dust shells surrounding binary star system
Click for full image.

Cool image time! Using the Webb telescope, astronomers have detected a series of concentric shells surrounding the massive binary star dubbed Wolf-Rayet 140.

The infrared image to the right shows these shells quite clearly. As noted by astronomer Ryan Lau:

“On the night that my team’s Early Release Science observations of the dust-forming massive binary star Wolf-Rayet (WR) 140 were taken, I was puzzled by what I saw in the preview images from the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). There seemed to be a strange-looking diffraction pattern, and I worried that it was a visual effect created by the stars’ extreme brightness. However, as soon as I downloaded the final data I realized that I was not looking at a diffraction pattern, but instead rings of dust surrounding WR 140 – at least 17 of them.

“I was amazed. Although they resemble rings in the image, the true 3D geometry of those semi-circular features is better described as a shell. The shells of dust are formed each time the stars reach a point in their orbit where they are closest to each other and their stellar winds interact. The even spacing between the shells indicates that dust formation events are occurring like clockwork, once in each eight-year orbit. In this case, the 17 shells can be counted like tree rings, showing more than 130 years of dust formation. Our confidence in this interpretation of the image was strengthened by comparing our findings to the geometric dust models by Yinuo Han, a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge, which showed a near-perfect match to our observations.

Furthermore, the spectroscopy from Webb says these dust shells are carbon-enriched, showing that the dust released by these aged massive stars is a significant source of the carbon in the universe, the fundamental atom needed for life.

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SpaceX fully stacks Starship/Superheavy in preparation for launch

9:53 am

Starship about to be stacked on Superheavy
Starship about to be stacked on Superheavy, using
the launch tower’s chopstick arms. Click for full image.

For the first time in six months SpaceX engineers have stacked Starship prototype #24 on top of Superheavy prototype #7, with the intention of running a dress rehearsal countdown and a full static fire test of Superheavy’s 33 engines, all in preparation for the first orbital test flight before the end of this year.

According to CEO Elon Musk, Booster 7 and Ship 24 will attempt Starship’s first full-stack wet dress rehearsal (WDR) once all is in order. The prototypes will be simultaneously loaded with around 5000 tons (~11M lb) of liquid oxygen and methane propellant and then run through a launch countdown. Diverging just before ignition and liftoff, a WDR is meant to be more or less identical to a launch attempt.

…If the wet dress rehearsal goes to plan, SpaceX will then attempt to simultaneously ignite all 33 of the Raptor engines installed on Super Heavy B7, almost certainly making it the most powerful liquid rocket ever tested. Even if all 33 engines never reach more than 60% of their maximum thrust of 230 tons (~510,000 lbf), they will likely break the Soviet N-1 rocket’s record of 4500 tons of thrust (~10M lbf) at sea level. It would also be the most rocket engines ever simultaneously ignited on one vehicle. SpaceX will be pushing the envelope by several measures, and success is far from guaranteed.

Depending on the results of these tests, the stacked rocket will either require further modifications, or could even proceed directly to launch.

We are thus seeing a true race between SpaceX’s privately developed and funded rocket and NASA’s government developed and funded SLS rocket. Which will launch first? Right now the race is neck-and-neck, though that is deceiving since SpaceX began development twelve years after NASA started work on SLS. Even if SLS launches first, SpaceX will have clearly shown that private enterprise does things faster (7 years vs 18 years) and for far less money (about $9 billion vs $46 billion).

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NASA sets November 14th as next SLS launch date

9:38 am

NASA today announced that it will make its next attempt to launch its SLS rocket just past midnight on November 14, 2022.

NASA is targeting the next launch attempt of the Artemis I mission for Monday, Nov. 14 with liftoff of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft planned during a 69-minute launch window that opens at 12:07 a.m. EST. Artemis I is an uncrewed flight test to launch SLS and send Orion around the Moon and back to Earth to thoroughly test its system before flights with astronauts.

This is the second launch opportunity in the November launch window, as shown in this graph [pdf]. It will result in a 26-day mission for the Orion capsule to and from lunar orbit, returning on December 9th.

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Russia’s Proton rocket successfully launches communications satellite

9:32 am

Russia today used its Proton rocket to successfully place an Angolan communications satellite into orbit.

The satellite’s launch had been delayed for several years, first because of the Wuhan panic and second because the sanctions against Russia over its invasion of the Ukraine prevented delivery of American components (eventually “resolved”, whatever that means).

Proton, developed in the 1960s, is winding down operations, and will soon be replaced by Russia’s Angara rocket.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

46 SpaceX
43 China
14 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 66 to 43 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 66 to 65.

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Japan’s Epsilon rocket fails during launch

9:24 am

Early this morning Japan’s Epsilon rocket failed during a launch intended to put eight satellites into orbit.

Live coverage by JAXA of the launch showed what appeared to be a stage 3 ignition failure, followed by a callout that the flight termination system (FTS) was activated. It’s the first Epsilon launch not to reach orbit.

This rocket was developed by Japan to offer a lower cost option to his H2 and new H3 rockets. The first launch of the H3 is set for March 2023 after several long delays due to problems with the rocket’s engine.

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DART’s impact shortened Dimorphus’s orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes

5:51 pm

LICIACube Explorer image of DART impact
LICIACube Explorer image just after the DART
impact. Dimorphus is the blob near the top.

After two weeks of analyzing the orbit of Dimorphus around its parent asteroid Didymos, astronomers have determined that the impact of DART on Dimorphus shortened its orbit by 32 minutes.

Prior to DART’s impact, it took Dimorphos 11 hours and 55 minutes to orbit its larger parent asteroid, Didymos. Since DART’s intentional collision with Dimorphos on Sept. 26, astronomers have been using telescopes on Earth to measure how much that time has changed. Now, the investigation team has confirmed the spacecraft’s impact altered Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes, shortening the 11 hour and 55-minute orbit to 11 hours and 23 minutes. This measurement has a margin of uncertainty of approximately plus or minus 2 minutes.

Before its encounter, NASA had defined a minimum successful orbit period change of Dimorphos as change of 73 seconds or more. This early data show DART surpassed this minimum benchmark by more than 25 times.

It also appears the ejecta from the impact — much greater than expected — helped propel Dimorphus, a result that I think was also not expected.

Researchers are now shifting to studying the debris and asteroid itself, to better understand what happened as well as the nature of Dimorphus itself. This will also include a European probe dubbed Hera that will launch in 2024 an dvisit both asteroids in 2026.

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Webb gets first direct infrared image of exoplanet

10:21 am

Exoplanet as seen in the infrared by Webb

Using the Webb Space Telescope, scientists have obtained that telescope’s first direct infrared image of an exoplanet, covering four different wavelengths.

The image to the right is from the wavelength image with the least distortion (formed by Webb’s own optics and the shape of its mirror and indicated by the faint ring surrounding the planet). The star indicates the masked location of the star itself.

The planet is about seven times the mass of Jupiter and lies more than 100 times farther from its star than Earth sits from the sun, direct observations of exoplanet HIP 65426 b show. It’s also young, about 10 million or 20 million years old, compared with the more than 4-billion-year-old Earth.

You can download the full research paper here.

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Volcano on the Moon

10:08 am

Wide shot of lunar volcano

Close-up of lunar volcano
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) science team today released the oblique image above and in close-up to the right, showing what they call a “silicic volcano.” From the release:

The Mairan T dome is a large silicic volcanic structure with a pronounced summit depression. Remote sensing indicates that the composition of the volcanic material (lava) making up the dome is enriched in silica (SiO2). This rock type would be classified as either rhyolite or dacite on Earth, and the composition starkly contrasts with the dark, iron-rich mare basalts that embay the Mairan T dome. Most of the volcanism on the Moon is basaltic or iron-rich. Still, silicic volcanism also occurred on the Moon. Indeed, bits and pieces of similar materials were found in the Apollo samples; however, all are small fragments delivered to the Apollo sites as material ejected from distant impact events.

One of the great questions for lunar science is how the silicic materials formed. On Earth, specific tectonic settings and higher water contents in the rocks favor the formation of such lavas; however, the Moon lacks plate tectonics and water-rich sediments. NASA is planning a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) lander mission to another, larger silicic volcano, one of the Gruithuisen domes, to address this question.

The scientists also note that this volcano formed first, and then was partly covered by the dark flood lava that surrounds it.

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