‘Mind-blowing’ new images reveal 19 Spiral Galaxies ‘down to the smallest scales ever observed’

Ashley Strickland, CNN
Thu, February 1, 2024 

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured scintillating images of 19 spiral galaxies — and the millions of stars that call them home — in unprecedented detail never seen before by astronomers.

Webb’s singular ability to observe the universe in different wavelengths of infrared light, such as near-infrared and mid-infrared, showcases the stars, gas and dust within the intricate structure of each galaxy.

Astronomers believe that about 60% of all galaxies are spiral galaxies — and our solar system resides in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy. Webb’s observations can help astronomers better understand star formation and the evolution of spiral galaxies like our own.

Seen face-on, each galaxy in the new images has spiral arms laden with stars. The center of each galaxy features clusters of old stars or supermassive black holes.

The James Webb Space Telescope captured images of 19 spiral galaxies in near- and mid-infrared light. - NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team

The observations were made as part of the PHANGS, or the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS, project. More than 100 astronomers around the world participate in the program, which also looks at data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the European Space Observatory’s Very Large Telescope’s MUSE instrument and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile.

Data from the different telescopes enables astronomers to make observations across different wavelengths of visible, ultraviolet and radio light. Adding Webb’s infrared insights can help address some of the observational gaps.

“Webb’s new images are extraordinary,” said Janice Lee, PHANGS core member and a project scientist for new missions and strategic initiatives at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, in a statement. “They’re mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”
Peering inside the spirals

Astronomers used Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera to observe millions of stars, seen in sparkling blue, grouped together in clusters and spread throughout the arms of the 19 galaxies as well. Meanwhile, Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument puts the spotlight on glowing dust surrounding the stars, as well as red still-forming stars cocooned in the very gas and dust that aids stellar growth.

“These are where we can find the newest, most massive stars in the galaxies,” said Erik Rosolowsky, PHANGS core member and a professor of physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, in a statement.

This image shows both Webb (top left) and Hubble (bottom right) telescope observations of the galaxy NGC 4254. - NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team

The spiral arms are practically incandescent with orange and red gas in Webb’s imagery. The images will be used to help astronomers determine the distribution of gas and dust in spiral galaxies, as well as how galaxies both nurture and cease the formation of stars.

“These structures tend to follow the same pattern in certain parts of the galaxies,” Rosolowsky said. “We think of these like waves, and their spacing tells us a lot about how a galaxy distributes its gas and dust.”

Webb also captured large, spherical shell-shaped voids among the galactic gas and dust that were likely sculpted by the explosions of stars.

“These holes may have been created by one or more stars that exploded, carving out giant holes in the interstellar material,” said Adam Leroy, PHANGS core member and a professor of astronomy at the Ohio State University in Columbus, in a statement.
The anatomy of a galaxy

Astronomers think that galaxies form from the inside out. Star formation begins at the galactic center before rippling across the arms in a spiral. That means a star’s distance from the heart of the galaxy is relative to its age, so younger stars are likely farther from the galactic core. Groupings of blue stars near the centers of each galaxy indicate older stars.

Meanwhile, some galaxies have pinkish-red spikes near their centers.

“That’s a clear sign that there may be an active supermassive black hole,” said Eva Schinnerer, PHANGS core member and a staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, in a statement. “Or, the star clusters toward the center are so bright that they have saturated that area of the image.”

Scientists are most excited about studying the massive number of stars revealed by Webb’s new images, according to Leroy.

“Stars can live for billions or trillions of years,” Leroy said. “By precisely cataloging all types of stars, we can build a more reliable, holistic view of their life cycles.”

Scientists in awe of detail in telescope photos

Galya Dimitrova - BBC News
Thu, February 1, 2024 

The gas and dust stand out in stark shades of orange and red, thanks to JWST's infrared instruments

Highly detailed images of 19 spiral galaxies have been released by Nasa.

They were captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and are being analysed by scientists from the University of Oxford.

The telescope was launched into orbit two years ago and is fitted with highly sensitive instruments that allow it to view older and more distant objects than Hubble.


The university said the "extraordinary images will provide several new puzzle pieces for astronomers and astrophysicists around the world".

The telescope captured millions of stars in the images, with older stars appearing blue and clustered at the galaxies’ cores

Thomas Williams, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford's physics department, has been leading work on processing data from the latest pictures.

"The amount of detail in these images is overwhelming - in a good way," he said

"It means that we may be able to fill in more of the gaps in our knowledge about the structure and evolution of galaxies, star formation, the life-cycle of stars and so much more."

The image of NGC 4254 shows a densely populated face-on spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which has a light blue haze

He added that working with the data so early in the JWST's lifecycle had been a "privilege and a challenge".

"The images, I think, speak for themselves: this is the sharpest view we have ever had of galaxies at these wavelengths."

They were made public on Monday by scientists involved in a project called Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) that operates across several major astronomical observatories.

Shades of white, yellow, orange, and red are all vivid in the "messy" NGC 5068 spiral galaxy


Spiral galaxies, evidence of black holes: See 'mind-blowing' images snapped by NASA telescope

Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY
Wed, January 31, 2024 


Galaxies brimming with stars and even evidence of supermassive black holes can be seen in stunning new photos unveiled by NASA captured by its James Webb Space Telescope.

The Monday release of 19 images depicting spiraling galaxies comes nearly two years after the arrival of the first images captured by Webb, and a little more than two months after NASA's counterpart in Europe released images from its own groundbreaking telescope.

The collection depicts millions of stars clustered at galaxies' cores in near- and mid-infrared light, serving as the latest example of Webb's astonishing capabilities to reveal distant, mysterious corners of our universe.

In a statement, Janice Lee, a project scientist for strategic initiatives at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, called the images "mind-blowing, even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades."

“Webb’s new images are extraordinary,” Lee said. "Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”

Commercial spaceflight: Calif. man says Virgin Galactic spaceflight was 'dream of a lifetime'

James Webb photos show spiral galaxies, millions of stars


This collection of 19 face-on spiral galaxies from the James Webb Space Telescope in near- and mid-infrared light shows millions of stars clustered at the galaxies’ cores.

Astronomers have for decades been able to observe these nearby spiral galaxies, but this is the first time images of them have been presented to the public, NASA said.

Webb’s high-resolution images – captured with a NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) – show millions of stars, which sparkle in blue tones. Some stars are spread throughout the spiral arms, but others are clumped tightly together in star clusters.

Shades of orange and red indicate where the telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) observed glowing dust existing around and between stars. The MIRI also spotlights stars appearing bright red that haven’t fully formed, but are rather encased in gas and dust that help them grow, according to NASA.

The recent photos depict millions of stars clustered at galaxies' cores in near- and mid-infrared light, serving as the latest example of the James Webb Space Telescope's astonishing capabilities.

“These are where we can find the newest, most massive stars in the galaxies,” Erik Rosolowsky, a professor of physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, said in a statement.

Scientists also believe that several galaxy cores displaying pink-and-red diffraction spikes serve as signs that these galaxies may have central active supermassive black holes.

Scientists hope to learn more about star formations

Astronomers have for decades been able to observe these nearby spiral galaxies, but this is the first time images of them have been presented to the public, according to NASA.

The spiral galaxies are Webb’s first contributions to the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program, which is supported by more than 150 astronomers worldwide.

By studying these structures, astronomers hope to gain new insights into how stars form within galaxies.

Teams of researchers are now studying the images to uncover the origins of these intricate structures. Forthcoming research should ultimately help humanity better understand not only star formation, but the evolution of spiral galaxies, NASA said.

“Stars can live for billions or trillions of years,” Adam Leroy, a professor of astronomy at the Ohio State University in Columbus, said in a statement. “By precisely cataloging all types of stars, we can build a more reliable, holistic view of their life cycles.”
Many discoveries made possible by Webb

A woman takes a video of the gians screens displaying images captured by The James Webb Space Telescope in Times Square on July 12, 2022 in New York. -Released one by one starting from 10:30 am Eastern at the Goddard Space Flight Center, the new images demonstrated the full power of the $10 billion observatory, which uses infrared cameras to gaze into the distant universe with unprecedented clarity.More

Ever since the James Webb Space Telescope launched in 2021 into space, astronomers have increasingly turned to the powerful observatory to make new cosmic discoveries.

In Webb's three years, the telescope has offered stunning views of our solar system's planets, galaxies, stars and other parts of the universe never glimpsed before.

From ancient ghost galaxies to strangely synchronized orbiting planets, last year was one teaming with cosmic discoveries made possible by the publicly-available data from Webb's observations. Thanks to Webb, researchers last year learned more about mysterious star-orbiting exoplanets outside our solar system including one that rains down sand.

Scientists have also been able to turn to Webb to aid the discovery of exoplanets similar to our own and even to uncover evidence of a possible ocean world larger than Earth with conditions that could support life.

The powerful Webb telescope has also helped scientists yield valuable insights into enigmatic black holes.

Last year, researchers were able to pinpoint the oldest black hole ever discovered, confirming the theory that supermassive black holes were part of the early universe. Formed 470 million years after the Big Bang, the supermassive black holes are 10 times bigger than the black hole in our own Milky Way.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA unveils Webb images of galaxies, stars, black holes: See photos

Dark energy is forcing the universe to expand. This new observatory may show us how

Monisha Ravisetti
Thu, February 1, 2024

The silhouette of an observatory sits atop a dark hill beneath the milky way stretched across a starry sky.


As our universe poofs out in every direction like an indestructible balloon — thanks to dark energy, a force fully hidden to the human eye — Dillon Brout is an astrophysicist trying to make sense of it all.

Brout wishes to unveil the strange correlation that exists between the invisible and visible universe, understand how the fabric of spacetime flows and perhaps finally reveal the truth about whatever's causing the cosmos to bubble outward faster and faster by the day.

To do this, he collects supernovas.


When picking out which supernovas to add to the shelf, however, Brout isn't interested in them all. These star explosions are typically divided into two main categories: Type 2 and Type 1a. Brout wants the Type 1a's, and his reasoning is actually pretty simple:

"They're not all exactly the same, but they're very similar," he told Space.com.

Related: How fast is the universe expanding? New supernova data could help nail it down

In essence, to solve all those aforementioned space mysteries, you need to measure some distances on cosmological scales. Only then can you know, for instance, how far and how quickly dark energy seems to have forced space to expand. Reverse calculate from there, and maybe you learn something about the nature of dark energy itself, too. Yet, to measure even such grand distances and elusive concepts, to probe how far back we can see and how much farther back that point is traveling, you still need something as basic as a ruler.

Fortunately, because they're so standardized in brightness and general behavior, Type 1a supernovas are like the ticks on light-years-long rulers plunging through space. In fact, astronomers like to call them "standard candles" for this reason. They're perfect lighthouses that guide us as we calibrate our equations and search for some answers. The more we have, the better.

a yellow gaseous star is being stretched and eaten by a bigger, blue star, which quickly engulfs the yellow and enlarges by several scales.

Looking for efficiency and accuracy, Brout fills up his supernova collection by employing machine learning algorithms that vigorously scout out as many Type 1a's as possible. (Yet another reason why Type 1a standardization is helpful. Consistent algorithms love consistency.)

He's part of the Dark Energy Survey collaboration, and earlier this month, the team announced their algorithms managed to detect 1,500 of these luminous natural markers — in only five years. That's a pretty big deal. For context, Brout says it took scientists 30 years of regular Type 1a searching (aka, through using a trusty spectrograph) to find the previous 1,500 total subjects. DES got the same result within about a sixth of that timeframe.

"One of the main things that made DES so special is that it covered so much area on the sky," Brout said, adding that he trusts his algorithms enough to say cross-checking the same parameters is more or less not needed.

But things are about to heavily ramp up.

Though DES yielded an impressive amount of Type 1a's, its associated instrument, the Dark Energy Camera, only covered 30 square degrees of sky. That's a relatively small fraction, Brout says. Enter: The Rubin Observatory.

Or, more specifically, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time that'll be created in part by using the state-of-the-art LSST Camera starting next year.

two dimly lit observatories sit as stunted domes beneath a vibrant night sky and a stretch of blue hued milky way.

"LSST is going to observe the entire observable southern night sky," Brout said. "You're going to go from DES discovering 1,500 to LSST discovering a million alerts, and we're going to filter that down, hopefully, using machine learning and other algorithms to get a few 100,000 Type 1a supernovas."

One specific question waiting to be answered

Fortunately once more, the Rubin Observatory is officially on track to be totally built later this year and the LSST will begin its journey early-to-mid next from the top of a Chilean summit, Victor Krabbendam, the observatory's construction project manager said during the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in January 2024. "We're about 10 years into the actual construction phase," he said. "The sun is setting and we're getting close."

And actually, Brout already has a specific puzzle waiting to be solved with the LSST.

With their major 1,500 Type 1a supernova haul announced this month, Brout and fellow researchers sort of confirmed what we presently know about what's called "the cosmological constant," which you can think of as the value that represents dark energy in the universe's expansion equations. It accounts for the acceleration bit that normal physics can't totally explain. This "confirmation" might sound disappointing at first, but in a way, it's quite good progress. It means that one of the most precise calculations of the universe's expansion is telling us that we're probably right about everything we know concerning dark energy so far.

Maybe more interesting, however, is that the team's work sort of hinted at a weird pattern, too. "We do have a section in the paper that combines all of the available probes of dark energy, not just supernova, and what we see is a lot of them are pointing towards a slightly larger value of the 'equation of state' of dark energy, which would imply that it's not a cosmological constant."

In other words, that'd mean there isn't a value to blanket represent dark energy. Maybe it's flexible.

"One of the major benefits we get from this new LSST analysis is that we get a lot more supernovas in the nearby universe, and that's because we're covering so much area of the sky," Brout said. "If you think about it, the nearby universe is the universe that, because of the speed of light, we're seeing the galaxies much closer to as they are today. If you're looking at the faraway universe you're seeing the universe when it was much younger."

That's important, he explains, because the effect of dark energy is believed to be strongest in the recent universe. Why? Here's where it gets really weird.

"Dark energy, we think, is a property of space itself," Brout said. "That's kind of what the cosmological constant embodies, which is like the energy of empty space."

Thus, if dark energy is a property of empty space, that'd mean there's more dark energy in the universe today than there was in the past. This is because the universe is expanding, thereby creating more "space."

"We think it does not dilute as the universe expands," Brout said, "so that means, relative to the amount of matter in the universe and dark matter in the universe, you're getting more and more dark energy."

At this point, like I was, you might be wondering: I'm sorry, what? I thought the universe is contained? Where is the new dark energy coming from? It can't just pop into existence, right?

"That's the million dollar question," Brout said. "Is it just a property of space? Is this a fundamental property of the universe? That as space itself expands, you would just naturally get more dark energy along with it?"

And to get to the bottom of this, we'll soon have a multi-million dollar camera waiting.
2025's golden observatory

There are four major steps left before Brout can start counting the days leading up to LSST's first light. First, the Rubin team must get some key mirrors ready to go. Then, the crew must get the glass necessary for the Simonyi Telescope — which reportedly has flown through tests without even the proper glass component — and mount the commissioning camera thereafter. Finally, the approximately $200 million LSST camera, currently being put together on the West Coast, will earn its spot.

a tiny person in a full white jumpsuit peers into a giant lens attached to metal supports in a white, dimly lit room.

"You still have to get that from California to the summit. It's a very delicate instrument. It's special in the sense that it's a $200 million camera — irreplaceable," Krabbendam told Space.com.

"It is a massive camera," he said. "It's 3.2 gigapixels for a focal plane."

Related Stories:

— The mysteries of the dark universe could be solved by the Rubin Observatory

— We still don't know what dark matter is, but here's what it's not

— Hypothetical 'dark photons' could shed light on mysterious dark matter

One gigapixel, for context, is equal to one billion pixels; a standard DSLR camera works on scales of megapixels, or millions of pixels. To really drive this home, consider how a million seconds is 12 days; a billion seconds is 31 years. So… picture that resolution of camera power scanning the entire observable southern sky.

This is why the observatory, built with about $500 million of National Science Foundation funding and a few $100 million of Department of Energy funding — the latter of which is particularly interested in dark energy studies like Brout's — is so highly anticipated.

So highly anticipated.

Update 2/1: 1 million seconds is equal to 12 days, this article has been updated to reflect that.

'It's getting closer and closer for sure.' How SETI is expanding its search for alien intelligence (exclusive)

Leonard David

SPACE.COM
Wed, January 31, 2024 

Large satellite dishes point upward at the night sky.


To spot potential intelligent life out there in the great beyond, first you must cast a net wide by using an array of techniques and technologies.

Any "fishing expedition" for E.T. includes close-in studies of life in extreme environments right here on Earth, to help us recognize any signatures we might find on Mars or deep diving through the icy shell of Jupiter's moon, Europa. The search can also blend in the use of space-based telescopes to inspect Earth-like planets circling their home stars. Then there's cupping a proverbial ear to the cosmos using radio telescopes to pick up any bustling interstellar civilization or perhaps look for far-off laser-pulsed communiqués from extraterrestrial homebodies.

These and other efforts are actively pursued by the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, right there in the high-tech heartbeat of Silicon Valley. More than a hundred institute scientists are busily carrying out research in astronomy and astrophysics, astrobiology, as well as exoplanets, climate and bio-geoscience and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).


Related: SETI scientists begin huge new hunt for intelligent aliens

Space.com caught up with Bill Diamond, President and CEO of the SETI Institute for an exclusive, mind-stretching close-encounter discussion regarding the mounting evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Spoiler alert! It's not that old tried, true and tired query "are we alone?" Rather, it's more like "just how crowded is it?"

Early stages

There's a lot going on today in terms of searching for and trying to understand potential extraterrestrial life in the universe, Diamond said.

"Much of the first several decades of SETI, the effort has been quite minimal, looking with fairly 'insensitive' instruments in fairly narrow parts of the radio spectrum in random parts of the sky. So hardly anything that could be considered a comprehensive endeavor," said Diamond.

But even today, in many ways, SETI work is still in the early stages. However, more and more is taking place with an increasing number of instruments and technologies around the world. "There's an extensive and expanded effort ongoing now," Diamond said.
COSMIC collaboration

For example, there's the Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence — mercifully shortened to COSMIC SETI.

All 27 antennas that constitute the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico have been outfitted with new gear to perform 24/7 SETI observations under a collaboration between the SETI Institute and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the group that operates the VLA.

Yes, that's the same VLA showcased in the 1997 sci-fi film "Contact," replete with actress Jodie Foster adorned with a tight-fitting stereo headset. In reality, the VLA was never used for SETI, Diamond noted, but now it is.

a large white satellite dish sits in a grassy field before a large snowing mountain in the background of a blue sky.

Detectable signatures

"COSMIC is really the most comprehensive SETI search on a single instrument in history. That's very exciting," Diamond said, and gives the COSMIC effort access to a complete and independent copy of the data streams from the entire VLA.

COSMIC will analyze data for the possible presence of "technosignatures" - detectable signatures and signals that shout out the presence of distant advanced civilizations.

In scientific circles, technosignatures are viewed as a subset of the far more established search for "biosignatures" — evidence of microbial or other primitive life loitering on some of the billions of exoplanets we now know exist.
Newly augmented

"For classical radio SETI, there's more going on now around the world than there has ever been," Diamond said. That uptick also includes the SETI Institute's newly augmented Allen Telescope Array situated northeast of San Francisco. It was named after Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, given his generous financial backing of the facility in its early phases.

The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) has undergone antenna redesign and now is outfitted with high-end computers, signal processors, and other electronics making it far faster than ever before, Diamond adds. "The instrument is performing at a level that it has never performed at since it was built. All of that is fairly new in the two to three years."

One output from ATA has been its use by SETI Institute scientists to delve into powerful Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), a head-scratching phenomenon wanting of explanation.
Philanthropic gift

A passionate booster in ATA's overhaul was Franklin Antonio, a co-founder of Qualcomm, a communications chip company. Antonio's support as an institute technical advisor continues with his philanthropic gift to the SETI Institute of $200 million after his passing last May.

That bequest is sparking an action plan that will enhance the institute's multi-disciplinary, multi-center research, education and outreach make-up, Diamond said.

Also on the institute's agenda is taking in and evaluating ideas from SETI researchers anywhere in the world to tap into a pool of money for such things as technology, software, or to run an experiment.

"If we like what you're doing, we'll fund it," Diamond said. "We will kind of take the place of NASA for the time being as the only place in the world where you can submit a proposal to do SETI work."

Those three words

Roll back time to Columbus Day in 1992 when NASA initiated a formal, more intensive, SETI program. But less than a year later, Congress short-circuited the program.

Is it time for the government to re-embrace the search for extraterrestrial intelligence?

"Yes, absolutely," Diamond responded. NASA, he said, has a trio of science questions it's spearheading: How does the Universe work? How did we get here? Are we alone?

Almost every time NASA leadership publicly speaks, said Diamond, they invoke those three words — Are we alone?

"We all want to know. NASA clearly wants to know as it's one of their science priorities," Diamond said. "So isn't it time they get back in the business of trying to answer that question?"

a gold-bowled space probe with four camera mounts and two solar panels gazes downward at a star and smaller orbiting planets in space.

Planets are everywhere

NASA's own Kepler space telescope served as the space agency's first planet-hunting mission. During nine years of deep space scoping, Diamond emphasized, it showed our galaxy contains billions of exoplanets. "It told us that planets are everywhere and a lot of them are potentially habitable."

NASA is starting to chip away at SETI work, Diamond noted. A NASA-funded grant to a SETI Institute scientist is using observations from the space agency's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The intent is to purge out of the TESS data possible technosignatures aided by artificial intelligence/machine learning tools.

"So yes, I think the winds of change are blowing a little bit in favor of the government getting back into this business. And, in my opinion, I think they should step up and do it," Diamond said.

a space telescope of coper with a grey base leans upward amidst a starry black backdrop.

Neighborhood watch

RELATED STORIES:

— The search for extraterrestrial intelligence gets a new home at Oxford

— SETI scientists begin huge new hunt for intelligent aliens

— SETI's 1st 'conversation' with a humpback whale offers insight on how to talk to E.T.

With all the in-motion SETI research underway, just how prepared are we for a confirmed, door-ringing neighborhood watch revelation?

"The straight answer to that question is no, we are not necessarily ready, although it depends on what the answer is," Diamond responded. It's only a matter of time before this question is answered, he added, at one level or another.

We should begin to think about how we convey this information, possible impacts to society, to religion, to politics, to technology, to governments, said Diamond.

"I do think that with all these technologies, modalities, instruments looking in different ways," Diamond concluded, "it's getting closer and closer for sure."

Japan's SLIM moon lander snaps final photos before going dormant during lunar night

Andrew Jones
Thu, February 1, 2024 

Black and white photos of the rocky grey surface of the moon.


Japan's historic SLIM moon lander has powered down ahead of a likely mission-ending cold lunar nighttime — but not before grabbing some final images and loads of science data.

SLIM, short for "Smart Lander for Investigating Moon," nailed its precision touchdown on the rim of Shioli crater on Jan. 19, despite engine troubles that saw it land nose-down. As a result, the spacecraft's solar cells face westward and are unable to receive the expected levels of sunlight, initially cutting operations on the lunar surface very short. But SLIM triumphantly reawakened nearly 10 days after landing, as the sun finally shone on its panels.

Related: Japan's SLIM moon lander photographed on the lunar surface — on its nose (image)

Image of the lunar surface captured by a japanese lander, showing gray dirt, small rocks and a hill in the distance. Some of the rocks are circled in yellow.


The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which operates SLIM, has spent recent days scanning the nearby lunar surface with the spacecraft's Multi-Band Camera (MBC) to learn about its composition.

MBC is designed to scope out olivine and other minerals through analyzing the light signatures, or spectra, of reflected sunlight, according to the nonprofit Planetary Society.

JAXA's SLIM account on X, formerly Twitter, posted a final image taken by SLIM's navigation camera on Jan. 31 Japan time, while stating that the agency confirmed the spacecraft had entered a dormant state as expected.

JAXA will need to wait out the roughly 14.5-Earth-day-long lunar nighttime and then wait for favorable lighting and temperature conditions later in the next lunar daytime (which starts around Feb. 15) before SLIM can potentially be revived once more. For the probe to awake again, however, its electronics must hold up in the face of equatorial lunar nighttime temperatures of around minus 208 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 130 degrees Celsius).

But whether or not SLIM wakes up, the spacecraft has hit its full and extended mission goals by achieving a precision landing, deploying a pair of small rovers and demonstrating their interoperability, and obtaining a wealth of science data.

SLIM's X account also posted labeled images of targets of MBC's spectroscopic imaging, showing the various rocks and regolith that are being studied.

closeup view of a large rock on the lunar surface, with smaller rocks surrounding it.

RELATED STORIES:

— 'We proved that you can land wherever you want.' Japan's SLIM moon probe nailed precise lunar landing, JAXA says

— Why Chandrayaan-3 landed near the moon's south pole — and why everyone else wants to get there too

— Not dead yet: Japan prepares for possible recovery of SLIM moon lander

"Based on the large amount of data we have obtained, we are proceeding with analyses to identify rocks and estimate the chemical composition of minerals, which will help solve the mystery of the origin of the moon," a Google machine translation of a Feb. 1 JAXA statement read.

"We will announce scientific results as soon as they are obtained," the statement added.

Lunar night puts Japan's lander back to sleep

AFP
Thu, February 1, 2024 

Japan's SLIM lunar lander seen in an image credited to JAXA, Takara Tomy, Sony Group Corporation and Doshisha University (Handout)


After a brief awakening, Japan's Moon lander is out of action again but will resume its mission if it survives the two-week lunar night, the space agency said Thursday.

The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) touched down last month at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.

As the sun's angle shifted, it came back to life for two days this week and carried out scientific observations of a crater with its high-spec camera.

"After completing operation from 1/30 (to) 1/31, #SLIM entered a two week dormancy period during the long lunar night," space agency JAXA said on X, formerly Twitter.

"Although SLIM was not designed for the harsh lunar nights, we plan to try to operate again from mid-February, when the Sun will shine again on SLIM's solar cells."

JAXA said SLIM was able to "successfully complete observations... as originally planned" with its multiband spectroscopic camera and could study more target areas than initially expected.

The space agency also on Thursday posted a black-and-white photo of the rocky surface taken by the spacecraft.

It followed other grainy images sent back from the mission to investigate an exposed area of the Moon's mantle, the inner layer usually deep beneath its crust.

SLIM, dubbed the "Moon Sniper" for its precision landing technology, touched down within its target landing zone on January 20.

The feat was a boon for Japan's space programme after a string of recent failures, making the nation only the fifth to achieve a "soft landing" on the Moon, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.

But during its descent, the craft suffered engine problems and ended up on its side, meaning the solar panels were facing west instead of up.

Russia, China and other countries from South Korea to the United Arab Emirates are also trying their luck to reach the Moon.

US firm Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander began leaking fuel after takeoff in January, dooming its mission. It likely burned up in the Earth's atmosphere on its return.

NASA has also postponed plans for crewed lunar missions under its Artemis programme.


Japan’s SLIM Lunar Lander Is Still Alive, Despite Landing Upside-Down

Cassidy Ward
Wed, January 31, 2024 

The events of SYFY’s The Ark (streaming now on Peacock) take a few liberties with their portrayal of space exploration, but the show gets one thing absolutely correct: things go wrong in space. All of the planning, testing, and dress rehearsals can’t compare to actually launching something into the abyss, and it’s almost guaranteed that mission controllers will run into problems they didn’t account for.

The 4.2 light-year trip to Proxima centauri provides plenty of opportunities for our fictional crew to encounter mishaps, but real-world scientists run into similar problems much closer to home. Recently the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched a lunar lander to the surface of the Moon, and things didn’t go according to plan. For a minute there, it seemed that the agency’s SLIM lander, short for Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, was basically dead on arrival.

In actuality, it just needed a little nap while waiting for more favorable conditions. After more than a week in stasis, SLIM woke up and is busily snapping pictures from the surface of the Moon.
SLIM’s Trip to the Moon was a Mixture of Failure and Success

SLIM launched September 6, 2023, and took a leisurely, several-month trip to the Moon. It entered into lunar orbit toward the end of the year and made its final approach, landing on January 19, 2024. After a tense descent, SLIM touched down at Shioli Crater, near the Moon’s equator. The achievement made Japan only the fifth nation to successfully soft-land a craft on the lunar surface, but it wasn’t without speed bumps.

For More on the Moon:
The Moon Is Shrinking, Triggering Fault Lines and Moonquakes
Watch Russia's Crashed Luna-25 Punch a New Crater into the Moon's Surface
India's Chandrayaan-3 Successfully Lands on the Moon's South Pole

An image of the SLIM lander on the Moon, captured by Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2) Photo: JAXA

Something went wrong in the last moments of descent, and it wasn’t immediately clear what had happened. Mission controllers knew that the solar cells weren’t collecting energy from the Sun as planned, but it took days to figure out why. Over the course of the first few hours, the lander’s onboard battery fell to 12% charge and JAXA made the decision to power the lander down. It was a strategic move, leaving enough energy in the batteries to power the lander back up if and when the solar cells caught light.

In the meantime, JAXA confirmed that SLIM achieved its primary mission, landing approximately 55 meters from its intended target, making it the most precise landing ever achieved on the Moon. For contrast, Apollo 11 touched down roughly 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) away from its target.

JAXA's SLIM Lander Wakes Up After 9 Days in Stasis

An ongoing investigation into the cause of the Moon mishap suggests that one of the lander’s main engines lost thrust about 50 meters from the surface. It seems that the engine loss caused the lander to start flying sideways, tip over, and land on the Moon upside-down. Fortunately, two autonomous probes that detached from SLIM before things went sideways provided an outside perspective into what went wrong.

One of the probes, dubbed LEV-2, was able to snap a photo of the lander on the surface (above), confirming its upside-down orientation. Moreover, the solar cells were pointed away from the Sun, explaining why they didn’t start juicing the batteries after landing. That’s obviously not what JAXA was hoping for, but it also provided some hope that the lander might wake up at some future date. To understand why, let’s consider the sundial.

Sundials work by casting a shadow to mark the time. It’s an effective, if archaic, way of telling time because the sunlight’s angle of approach changes as a planet (or moon) rotates around its axis. On Earth, that happens once every 24 hours (give or take), but a day on the Moon is much longer. Because the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, it only completes a circuit once every orbit, roughly every 29.5 Earth days. If SLIM had any chance of waking up, it would be when the Sun’s angle of attack shifted to hit the solar cells.

Surface of the moon.

A lunar surface scan mosaic image captured by the SLIM-mounted MBC. Rocks of interest have been given nicknames taken from various dog breeds. Photo: JAXA, RITSUMEIKAN UNIVERSITY, THE UNIVERSITY OF AIZU

On January 28, JAXA announced on X (the website formerly known as Twitter) that the lander had woken up. After 9 days in limbo, the solar cells picked up sunlight and the topsy-turvy lander made contact. Despite being head over heels, SLIM fired up its multi-band camera and started taking pictures of the nearby lunar surface. It will keep snapping photos, investigating the mineral composition of the nearby landscape, until the Sun sets on that part of the Moon and SLIM goes to sleep, probably forever.

Already, the precision landing made SLIM an incredible success and a feather in JAXA’s cap, but its ability to land on its head and just keep going is a monument to engineering. Not bad, SLIM. Not bad.

SPACE

Newborn planets look more like Smarties than spheres, study suggests


Nilima Marshall, PA Science Reporter
Fri, 2 February 2024 

When new planets form around stars they have flattened shapes, like Smarties, and are not spherical as previously thought, scientists have said.

Researchers at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) used computer simulations to model the formation of planets.

To develop their models, the team used a concept in astrophysics known as the theory of disk instability – where planets form in short timescales from the breaking up of large rotating discs of dense gas and dust orbiting young stars.


The researchers said it is the first time scientists have looked at the shape of newborn planets in simulations as they form.

Dr Dimitris Stamatellos, reader in astrophysics at UCLan, said these young planets are oblate spheroids – spheres squashed from the top and the bottom but bulging in the middle.

A simulated young planet as viewed from the top and from the side (Adam Fenton/Dimitris Stamatellos/University of Central Lancashire/PA)

He said: “We have been studying planet formation for a long time but never before had we thought to check the shape of the planets as they form in the simulations.

“We had always assumed that they were spherical.

“We were very surprised that they turned out to be oblate spheroids, pretty similar to Smarties!”

Technically, no planet is fully spherical.

Dr Stamatellos said Jupiter’s flattening, for example, is around 6%, while Saturn is 10%, and Earth is almost spherical at just 0.3%.

He said that young planets on the other hand are much flatter, somewhere around 90%.

For their study, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters, the team investigated the shapes of young planets and how they grow to become gas giants like Jupiter.

The scientists also discovered that new planets grow as material falls on to them, mainly from their poles rather than their equators.

They said the findings have important implications, particularly when viewing planets through a telescope as their shapes will vary depending on the viewing angle.

The researchers said observational confirmation of the Smarties-like shape of young planets could also help answer a key question about how they form.

There are two theories on planet formation. The first and most widely accepted one is the core accretion model, where dust particles gradually grow and stick together to form large planets in long timescales.

But while this works well to explain the formation of planets such as Earth it does not fully account for gas giants – ones much larger than Jupiter – as the process would take too long.

The second theory – which is disk instability – is less favoured but may account for the creation of larger planets at rapid timescales.

The researchers said their work points towards the disc instability model rather than the core accretion one.

Dr Adam Fenton, a recently graduated PhD student at UCLan’s Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, who led the research, said: “Many exoplanets, which are planets that orbit stars in other solar systems outside of our own, have been discovered in the last three decades.

“Despite observing many thousands of them, how they form remains unexplained.

“It is believed that they either form through core accretion, which is a gradual growth of dust particles that stick together to form progressively larger and larger objects on long timescales, or directly by the breaking up of large rotating protostellar discs around young stars in short timescales, which is what we call the theory of disk instability.

“This theory is appealing due to the fact that large planets can form very quickly at large distances from their host star, explaining some exoplanet observations.”

X-ray image of universe reveals almost 1 million high-energy objects: 'These are mind-blowing numbers'

Robert Lea
Thu, February 1, 2024 

Two versions of the eROSITA All-Sky Survey Catalogue (eRASS1) data (Right) the X-ray sky over earth (right) X-ray sources.

The first data released to the public from the eROSITA sky survey comprises an X-ray view of half the sky over Earth, encompassing almost a million high-energy cosmic sources, including over 700,000 supermassive black holes.

This catalog, dubbed the "eROSITA All-Sky Survey Catalogue (eRASS1)" was published on Thursday (Feb. 1). It constitutes the largest-ever catalog of the universe's most powerful sources of energy, like exploding massive stars and black hole-powered active galactic nuclei that shine brightly in X-rays. The release also details the largest known structures in the universe — cosmic web filaments of hot gas that connect galaxies in clusters.

The results show that, in just half a year of operations beginning after launch on July 13, 2019, eROSITA has managed to discover more high-energy X-ray sources than has been found in six decades of examining the sky.

Considered a major milestone in the 60 or so years of X-ray astronomy, eRASS1 could help answer some of cosmology's biggest questions: How did the universe evolve, and why is the very fabric of space expanding at an accelerating rate?

Related: Mysterious dark energy is spread evenly across the cosmos

Accompanying the eRASS1 data are almost 50 scientific papers published across a range of topics, adding to an existing 200 papers already written using data from the eROSITA telescope.

The main aim of eROSITA is to use clusters of galaxies to observe how dark energy accelerates the expansion of the universe; these 250 or so papers, however, demonstrate the extent to which the instrument and its data have gone beyond this goal.

These papers include the discovery of over 1,000 superclusters of galaxies, the revelation of two quasi-periodic erupting black holes, and the determination of the impact that stars' X-ray radiation has on water and atmosphere retention of planets that orbit them.

"The scientific breadth and impact of the survey is quite overwhelming; it's hard to put into a few words," spokesperson for the German eROSITA consortium, Mara Salvato, said in a statement. "But the papers published by the team will speak for themselves."
eROSITA lets the numbers do the talking

The eRASS1 data consists of eROSITA telescope observations conducted from Dec. 12, 2019, to June 11, 2020. from across half the sky over Earth. During this period, the space telescope detected around 170 million individual particles of X-ray light or "photons."

Processing these photons revealed 900,000 X-ray sources, of which 700,000 are feeding supermassive black holes that power quasars at the hearts of active galactic nuclei, regions in the centers of galaxies so bright they can outshine the combined light of every star in those galaxies themselves.

Also seen in the eRASS1 are 180,000 X-ray-emitting stars in the Milky Way, 12,000 clusters of galaxies and even exotic classes of X-ray sources like binary stars, supernova remnants, pulsars and other such objects.

"These are mind-blowing numbers for X-ray astronomy," Andrea Merloni, eROSITA principal investigator and first author of the eROSITA catalog paper, said in a statement. "We've detected more sources in 6 months than the big flagship missions XMM-Newton and Chandra have done in nearly 25 years of operation."

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The data release is also impressive in terms of the spread of its observations, with the sky over Earth imaged at multiple X-ray energies. In addition to this, eROSITA is incredibly precise, with its first data release also pinpointing positions in the sky from which individual photons are received, as well as these photons' arrival times and energies.

Along with the release, the eROSITA Consortium has also made available the software needed to analyze data from the X-ray telescope as well as catalogs that go beyond just X-ray data.

"We've made a huge effort to release high-quality data and software," eROSITA Operations team leader, Iriam Ramos-Ceja, said. "We hope this will broaden the base of scientists worldwide working with high-energy data and help push the frontiers of X-ray astronomy."

China puts models of its future crewed moon landing spacecraft on display (video)

Andrew Jones
Thu, February 1, 2024 

An illustration of a Chinese moon base.


China is displaying models of the rockets and spacecraft it is developing to send its astronauts to the moon.

The event, the "Exhibition of Achievements in China Manned Space Program," opened in Shanghai at the New International Expo Center on Dec. 29.

The exhibition features the Long March 10 rocket, a lunar lander spacecraft and a next-generation crew spacecraft.

Related: Not just Artemis: China and Russia plan to put boots on the moon, too

astronauts walk on the surface of the moon among

The Long March 10 builds on China's current rocket, the Long March 5. The next-gen spacecraft inherits technology from the current Shenzhou spacecraft that sends astronauts to China's Tiangong space station. China has already conducted three successful robotic lunar landings with the Chang'e 3, 4 and 5 missions.

China's moon landing plan is to launch two Long March 10 rockets, with one for the lander and another for the crew spacecraft. The lander and the crewed spacecraft will rendezvous and dock in lunar orbit. A pair of astronauts will then move over to the lander and then head down to the lunar surface, where they will do a variety of scientific work and collect some moon samples during a stay lasting around six hours.

"The development of the lunar lander and the new spacecraft is still taking advantage of the previous technologies. We are also accelerating the assessment and development of the manned lunar rover," Fan Ping, chief designer of space stations at Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), told China Central Television.

RELATED STORIES:

— Here's what China's 1st moon landing with astronauts might look like (video)

— China's next moon missions get the green light

— China working on new moon rover for 2026 mission to lunar south pole

"China has announced the goal of landing people on the moon by 2030," Fan Ping said. "And after the goal is accomplished, the next could be the building of a lunar research station, so that we can establish our own home on the moon for more scientific experiments."

China is currently working on attracting partners for a project called the International Lunar Research Station. The country, together with Russia and other partners, aims to begin building the lunar outpost after launching precursor Chang'e 7 and 8 missions around 2026 and 2028.

A Mars Rover Discovered Bizarre Underground Polygons. What Could They Mean?

Darren Orf
Wed, January 31, 2024 

Rover Reveals Bizarre Shapes on Martian Surface

China National Space Agency

For one Earth year, the Chinese rover Zhurong explored beneath the surface of Mars using its ground-penetrating radar.


A new study has shown that the rover uncovered polygonal wedges 35 kilometers underground—the first ever found below the planet’s surface.


Evidence suggests that the wedges formed 3.7 to 2.9 billion years ago due to serious climatic changes in Mars’ past.

On May 14, 2021, China became the second country to ever deploy a rover on the Martian surface. Named Zhurong after the ancient Chinese god of fire, the rover landed on Mars’ Utopia Planitia—the largest impact basin on Mars (and the entire Solar System for that matter).

Equipped with a ground-penetrating radar system, Zhurong quickly got to work and far outlasted its originally planned three-month mission—it eventually shut down in May 2022 after a little more than an Earth year on Mars. In that time, the rover gathered invaluable data about what’s going on beneath the Martian surface, including surprising polygonal shapes located 35 meters below.

This previously unknown geologic structure—along with what it says about Mars’ past—was detailed in a recent study, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, written by scientists at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“The … formation mechanism for the buried palaeo-polygonal terrain requires a cold environment and might be related to water/ice freeze–thaw processes in southern Utopia Planitia on early Mars,” the paper reads. “The detected buried polygons, which indicate that freezing occurred at low-to-mid latitudes, require strong palaeoclimatic variability.”

A detailed process of how these Martian polygonal wedges formed over billions of years. Zhang et al.

While never before discovered underneath the surface, these polygonal structures on Mars aren’t exactly a new discovery, as Universe Today explains. For example, NASA spotted them on the surface of the red planets’ northern lowlands back in 2012, saying at the time that “scientists study polygonally-patterned ground on Mars because the occurrence and physical characteristics of the polygons helps us understand the recent and past distribution of ice in the shallow subsurface [and] also provide clues about climate conditions.”

Similarly interested in what “clues” these shapes could uncover, scientists used Zhurong’s data to detect 16 polygonal wedges within 1.2 kilometers. They estimate that these shapes formed during the Late Hesperian—Early Amazonian epochs (yes, Mars has epochs, too), which occurred roughly 3.7 to 2.9 billion years ago. These wedges formed “possibly with the cessation of an ancient wet environment,” according to the paper.

One thing the researchers are certain about is that such a formation would require cold temperatures. “The possible presence of water and ice required for the freeze–thaw process in the wedges may have come from cryogenic suction-induced moisture migration from an underground aquifer on Mars, snowfall from the air or vapor diffusion for pore ice deposition,” the paper says.

While today’s Mars seems like a uniform, desert-like planet, evidence of dynamic history can still be found etched on its surface—and many meters beneath.


Photos Show Catastrophic Damage to Mars Helicopter

Victor Tangermann
Wed, January 31, 2024 


Rotor Damage

Last week, NASA announced that its historic Ingenuity helicopter, which had taken flight on Mars an incredible 72 times since its maiden voyage in April 2021, had died.

The agency's Jet Propulsion Lab shared pictures following the rotorcraft's final flight, showing some gnarly damage — via the shadow its shattered rotor casts on the unearthly landscape.


One picture even appears to show a small piece of the rotor lying on the dusty ground nearby.


You can also see the damage in a series of image strung together into a video:

https://twitter.com/landru79/status/1751976365237117224

"While the helicopter remains upright and in communication with ground controllers, imagery of its January 18 flight sent to Earth this week indicates one or more of its rotor blades sustained damage during landing and it is no longer capable of flight," NASA wrote in its statement.

It's an unfortunate end to a groundbreaking mission, which proved once and for all that we're capable of taking flight on a distant planet.
Coaxial Copter

It's a technological marvel that the four-pound helicopter lasted as long as it did. Its rotor blades were made of carbon fiber and arranged into two four-foot-long, counter-rotating rotors, which could spin up to around 2,400 revolutions per minute.

Thanks to the thin Martian atmosphere, the rotors had to spin roughly ten times as fast as they would have needed to back on Earth.

Scientists carefully fine-tuned the blades over years of testing, adjusting their weight and size while accommodating the extreme temperature swings and wind gusts on the Martian surface.

And given Ingenuity's incredible track record, their hard work clearly paid off. Originally intended as a technology demonstration, the rotorcraft was designed to fly up to five times over 30 days. In April 2021, it became the first manmade object to achieve powered, controlled flight on the surface of another planet, following up its maiden voyage with a dazzling total of 72 flights.

"The historic journey of Ingenuity, the first aircraft on another planet, has come to end," said NASA administrator Bill Nelson in a statement, commemorating the spacecraft's achievement. "That remarkable helicopter flew higher and farther than we ever imagined and helped NASA do what we do best – make the impossible, possible."

More on Ingenuity: NASA's Mars Helicopter Has Died

NASA to 'wiggle' broken Ingenuity Mars helicopter's blades to analyze damage

Brett Tingley
Thu, February 1, 2024 at 6:00 AM MST·3 min read

A small helicopter sits in red rocky dirt.


Ingenuity's mission is officially coming to an end, but not before mission scientists try to determine how much damage the helicopter suffered.

NASA held a livestream Wednesday (Jan. 31) to pay tribute to Mars helicopter Ingenuity, which suffered rotor damage on its most recent flight. During the livestream, mission managers revealed that all four of Ingenuity's blades were damaged during a rough landing on the Red Planet surface.

Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity Project Manager, said that NASA and JPL still aren't sure what caused the damage to Ingenuity's blades; it remains unclear whether the helicopter's power dipped during landing, causing unwanted ground contact, or if it accidentally struck the ground to cause a "brownout."

Tzanetos added that NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will slowly rotate the helicopter's blades and "wiggle" them, or adjust their angle, while collecting video in order to allow the team to determine the extent of Ingenuity's damage. However, Tzanetos said that no matter what such imaging will show, the dual-rotor drone has flown its last flight and will soon end its mission.

"Helicopters like this are not designed to fly even with the smallest fraction of a grant of imbalance and we're gonna have the end of our mission in the weeks ahead," Tzanetos said during the livestream.

Related: 'It's sort of been invincible until this moment:' Mars helicopter Ingenuity pilot says 'bland' terrain may have doomed NASA chopper

During the NASA Science Live webcast, Tzanetos and Tiffany Morgan, NASA's Mars Exploration Program Deputy Director, sang the praises of the plucky 'copter. Morgan described how Ingenuity proved to be a valuable companion for the Perseverance rover, with whom it has been exploring Mars since the pair landed on Feb. 18, 2021.

The helicopter was initially designed to make just five flights — its mission ended after number 72.

"Not only did it help us with designing for future missions, but it also helped with Perseverance's current mission. It scouted ahead and took a sneak peek at the operations Perseverance is going to experience, and that allowed the planners to navigate the terrain as well as to identify potentially compelling science targets," Morgan said.

The fact that Ingenuity was able to fly in the thin Martian atmosphere and carry out as many sorties as it did is a true testament to JPL's expertise and could foreshadow future missions, she added.

"The NASA JPL team didn't just demonstrate the technology, they demonstrated an approach that if we use in the future will really help us to explore other planets and be as awe-inspiring, as amazing, as Ingenuity has been," Morgan said.

RELATED STORIES:

— The Mars helicopter Ingenuity is an amazing success. NASA's already testing tech for the next generation (video)

— NASA donates Ingenuity Mars Helicopter prototype to Smithsonian

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The helicopter far exceeded the agency's expectations, especially given the fact that it was built with off-the-shelf commercial cell phone components and represented a largely unknown premise: Flying an aircraft on another planet.

"We couldn't be prouder or happier with how our little baby has done," Tzanetos said. "It's been the mission of a lifetime for all of us. And I wanted to say thank you to all of the people here that gave their weekends, their late nights. All the engineers, the aerodynamic scientists, the technicians who hand-crafted this aircraft."

Morgan added that NASA is already envisioning using future helicopters on other planets or celestial bodies that will be built on the foundation that Ingenuity has laid and the knowledge the agency has gained from this completed mission.

"I really look forward to the future and what we can do with with the offspring of Ingenuity," she said.


RIP Ingenuity: NASA's space helicopter may be dead, but the agency's next gen are nearing lift-off

Rae Hodge
Wed, January 31, 2024 

Concept for NASA Mars helicopters NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech


Last week, one of the most innovative missions in space exploration came to a bitter end. NASA’s famously successful Ingenuity rotorcraft — the 3.5-pound helicopter-like robot collecting samples on Mars — finally came to a crashing end. But already NASA and the European Space Agency are looking ahead to the next generation of space helicopters.

More robust than its predecessor, with at least 66 test flights under its belt and a new dual-rotor system, and carbon-fiber blades that can nearly reach Mach 1 speeds — the heir to Ingenuity has been preparing to take over its predecessor’s mission inside the agency’s 25-foot space simulator at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California.

Ingenuity was the first aircraft to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. And though it was originally planned for only five flights, the helicopter made it 14 times farther in distance than NASA thought it would, logging more than two hours of airtime in its 72 successful flights on Mars.

“It is bittersweet that I must announce that Ingenuity, the little helicopter that could — and it kept saying ‘I think I can, I think I can!’ — well, it has now taken its last flight on Mars,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a Friday appearance, who compared the craft’s historical flight achievements to those of the Wright brothers in 1903.

“What Ingenuity accomplished far exceeds what we thought was possible,” Nelson said. “And helped NASA do what we do best – make the impossible, possible. Through missions like Ingenuity, NASA is paving the way for future flight in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond.”

Nelson said the fatal blow to Ingenuity came when the craft’s carbon fiber wings — fighting for lift through the planet’s exceedingly thin atmosphere, which is just 1% as dense as Earth’s — sustained damage during a landing. Nelson said the agency is investigating the possibility that the rotor blade struck the ground.

Now, hopes are high for the next generation of helicopters on the red planet. Called Sample Recovery Helicopters (SRH), NASA’s new craft are about the size of Ingenuity but have new dual, carbon-fiber rotors with a wingspan about four inches longer than Ingenuity’s. They’re stronger too, and designed with higher speeds in mind, having already undergone at least 66 test flights with the benefit of Ingenuity’s off-world data.

“Over three weeks, the carbon-fiber blades were spun up at ever-higher speeds and greater pitch angles to see if they would remain intact as their tips approached supersonic speeds. Longer and stronger than those used on NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the blades reached Mach 0.95 during the test,” NASA said in November.

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes.

Tyler Del Sesto is NASA’s deputy test conductor for the SRH at the Jet Propulsion Lab. After seeing the SRH perform in the lab’s 25-foot wide, 85-foot-tall space simulator, he’s confident about the new fleet.

“We spun our blades up to 3,500 rpm, which is 750 revolutions per minute faster than the Ingenuity blades have gone,” he said in a November statement. “These more efficient blades are now more than a hypothetical exercise. They are ready to fly.”

Powered by solar panels that charge its internal batteries, and equipped with grabber arms and ground-ready wheels, the SRH are being aimed at a landing site near the Perserverance’s rover’s own, in the Jerezo Crater. The rotorcraft would launch from Earth in 2028, arrive on Mars in 2030, and then — fortune prevailing — make it home with its Martial samples in tow by 2033.

“The Sample Recovery Helicopters would expand on Ingenuity's design, adding wheels and gripping capabilities to pick up cached sample tubes left on the surface by Perseverance and transport them to the Sample Retrieval Lander,” according to the the agency’s latest spec sheets.

To get the SRH on the surface safely, NASA is also aiming to premiere its beefy new lander. The Sample Retrieval Lander would be about “the size of an average two-car garage," weighing 7,440 pounds and currently slated to carry two of the SRH. The new lander would also be the first ever to bring along a rocket along for the ride, NASA’s Mars Ascent Vehicle. Once the lander arrives, NASA’s Perseverance rover would carry its collection of Martian sample tubes to the Sample Retrieval Lander. The SRH would take off and collect any Martian sample tubes that Perseverance left behind.

“Each helicopter would follow a four-day procedure to recover sample tubes. Day one: fly to an area near the sample tube. Day two: drive close to the tube and pick it up. Day three: fly back to an area near the Sample Retrieval Lander. Day four: drive close to the lander and drop the tube in the workspace of the lander's Sample Transfer Arm,” the agency said.

But the SRH aren’t the only craft in the works. And the greater leap of innovation among Ingenuity’s descendents may arrive much sooner, with the ambitious Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. The mission is approved for a readiness date in July 2028, and aims to send a “car-sized nuclear-powered drone” toward the icy surface of Titan, then land on its sands, which will be built and operated by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Dragonfly’s principal investigator, Elizabeth Turtle, recently said the mission is ready to move ahead after an impressive set of test results in the facility’s 3,000-cubic-foot Titan testing chamber.

“Dragonfly is such a daring endeavor, like nothing that has ever been done before,” she said in a statement. “We’ve demonstrated that we’re ready for the next steps on the path to Titan, and we’ll keep moving forward with the same curiosity and creativity that have brought Dragonfly to this point.”

Of course, 2028 is still some time away. If you want to make your own Mars helicopter, NASA’s JPL has a YouTube video that will walk you through building your own functional tribute to Ingenuity out of paper. Until then, you can watch the JPL crew give its final farewell to the small-but-mighty Martian-copter in their tribute video below.

An asteroid the size of a football stadium will blaze past Earth on Friday. Here's how to watch the 'City Killer' pass by live.

Ellyn Lapointe
Thu, February 1, 2024 




A giant "city killer" asteroid will safely shoot past Earth this Friday traveling at 41,000 mph.


Its closest approach to Earth will be 1.77 million miles, over seven times farther than the moon.


You can't see it with the naked eye but you can watch the event live on YouTube.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has spotted a giant, "city killer" asteroid in space that's currently flying toward Earth. And this Friday, February 2, it will reach its closest approach to our planet, about 1.77 million miles away.

For reference, the moon is about 239,000 miles from Earth, so this asteroid will be 7.4 times farther than the moon. The speedy space rock is expected to be zipping along at about 41,000 mph and measures roughly 890 feet across or roughly the size of an entire US football stadium, according to NASA.

Experts sometimes call asteroids this size "city killers" because they are capable of destroying an entire city if they collide with an inhabited part of Earth.

Still, this asteroid will be too small and far away to see without a telescope on Friday. In fact, it will be about 10,000 times fainter than the faintest stars visible to the naked eye, Gianluca Masi, an astrophysicist and the scientific director of The Virtual Telescope Project, told Business Insider over e-mail.

But if you want to catch a glimpse of the asteroid as it whizzes by, you're in luck!

Masi and his colleagues at VTP will be recording the event live starting at 1 p.m. ET on Friday. You can watch their livestream on YouTube or in the video below:



The livestream will track Asteroid 2008 OS7 as it flies by Earth. Viewers will be able to distinguish it as a tiny dot moving past other, fixed tiny dots, aka stars, in the background. The livestream will last about 45 minutes, Masi said.

VTP has recorded other flybys like this and it's "something always very fascinating to see," Masi told BI.

About asteroid 2008 OS7

Asteroid 2008 OS7 orbits the sun every 962 days. After passing by Earth, it will continue along its oval-shaped path through our solar system.

Its oblong-shaped orbit means that each time the asteroid approaches Earth, its distance from our planet varies significantly.

For example, according to spacereference.com, upon its next closest approach in July 2037, it will be about 9.7 million miles away from Earth — nearly 5.5 times farther than during Friday's encounter.
Potentially hazardous asteroids

Asteroid 2008 OS7 is what NASA calls a "potentially hazardous" asteroid because of its size and how close it flies past Earth.

An asteroid is considered "potentially hazardous" if it is at least 460 feet in diameter and orbits Earth within a distance of about 4.65 million miles.

Scientists have identified more than 34,000 near-Earth objects. As of August 2023, just over 2,300 have been designated potentially hazardous, Space.com reported.

But NASA suspects there are many more out there that have yet to be discovered. If a giant asteroid was on course to hit Earth, we'd need 5-10 years warning to destroy or deflect it.

NASA JPL is currently working on the Near-Earth Object Surveyor mission, set to launch in September 2027 and send an infrared space telescope into Earth's orbit to expand NASA's search for near-Earth objects that could potentially threaten our planet.


'City killer' asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth for centuries this Friday (Feb. 2)

Harry Baker
Thu, February 1, 2024 

An asteroid floating in space with Earth and the sun in the background.

A "potentially hazardous" football stadium-size asteroid will zip safely past Earth on Friday (Feb. 2), and, in doing so, will reach its closest point to our planet for more than 100 years. It will also be at least several centuries before the space rock ever gets this close to us again.

The massive asteroid, named 2008 OS7, is around 890 feet (271 meters) across and will pass by Earth at a distance of around 1.77 million miles (2.85 million kilometers), according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). For context, that is more than seven times further away than the moon orbits Earth.

You can watch the asteroid flyby for yourself thanks to a live stream from The Virtual Telescope Project, which will begin at 1:00 p.m. ET on Feb. 2.

As it passes by Earth, the asteroid will be traveling at a speed of around 41,000 mph (66,000 km/h), according to JPL.

To compare this space rock's girth to that of other asteroids, it is around half the size of asteroid Bennu, which NASA visited and took samples of, and at least 70 times smaller than the Vredefort meteor — the largest known space rock to ever hit Earth.

Related: 'Planet killer' asteroids are hiding in the sun's glare. Can we stop them in time?

A balck and white image of an asteroid streaking through the stars

Due to its size and proximity to Earth, the asteroid is classified as potentially hazardous despite the fact it will never come close enough to impact our planet, JPL predictions show. If the space rock did ever crash to Earth, it is big enough to wipe out a large city, such as New York.

However, the object isn't hefty enough to be considered a "planet killer" asteroid, such as the Vredefort meteor or the space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

NASA has identified around 25,000 potentially hazardous asteroids, although a significant percentage of these are not as large as the impending space rock. One of these deadly asteroids is expected to hit Earth every 20,000 years, Live Science previously reported.

An orbital diagram showing the asteroids trajectory through the solar system.

2008 OS7 has a highly elliptical orbit, meaning that it does not orbit evenly around the sun. Because of this, the distance between it and Earth varies wildly whenever the space rock makes a close approach to our planet. For example, when the asteroid approached us shortly after its discovery in 2008, it was around 55.9 million miles (90 million km) away from us, which is more than 30 times further away than it will be this week, according to JPL.

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Scientists have only directly observed the asteroid fly by Earth twice before. But based on the space rock's orbital data, JPL has simulated every close approach the asteroid has made since 1900 and predicted every close approach it will make until 2198. At no other point in this nearly 300-year dataset is the asteroid expected to be closer to our planet than on Feb. 2 this year.

Several other asteroids have made close approaches to or directly hit Earth in the last few weeks.

On Jan. 27, an airplane-size asteroid passed by Earth at a distance of just 220,000 miles (354,000 km), which is slightly closer than the moon is to our planet. And on Jan. 21, a child-size asteroid was discovered by astronomers around 3 hours before it exploded in the atmosphere above Germany.