It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, November 25, 2024
SPACE/COSMOS
A 4.45 billion-year-old crystal from Mars reveals an important finding
Water is ubiquitous on Earth – about 70% of Earth’s surface is covered by the stuff. Water is in the air, on the surface and inside rocks. Geologic evidence suggests water has been stable on Earth since about 4.3 billion years ago.
The history of water on early Mars is less certain. Determining when water first appeared, where and for how long, are all burning questions that drive Mars exploration. If Mars was once habitable, some amount of water was required.
We studied the mineral zircon in a meteorite from Mars and found evidence that water was present when the zircon crystal formed 4.45 billion years ago. Our results, published in the journal Science Advances today, may represent the oldest evidence for water on Mars.
A wet red planet
Water has long been recognised to have played an important role in early Martian history. To place our results in a broader context, let’s first consider what “early Mars” means in terms of the Martian geological timescale, and then consider the different ways to look for water on Mars.
Like Earth, Mars formed about 4.5 billion years ago. The history of Mars has four geological periods. These are the Amazonian (from today back to 3 billion years), the Hesperian (3 billion to 3.7 billion years ago), the Noachian (3.7 billion to 4.1 billion years ago) and the Pre-Noachian (4.1 billion to about 4.5 billion years ago).
Evidence for water on Mars was first reported in the 1970s when NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft captured images of river valleys on the Martian surface. Later orbital missions, including Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express, detected the widespread presence of hydrated clay minerals on the surface. These would have needed water.
The Martian river valleys and clay minerals are mainly found in Noachian terrains, which cover about 45% of Mars. In addition, orbiters also found large flood channels – called outflow channels – in Hesperian terrains. These suggest the short-lived presence of water on the surface, perhaps from groundwater release.
Most reports of water on Mars are in materials or terrains older than 3 billion years. More recent than that, there isn’t much evidence for stable liquid water on Mars.
But what about during the Pre-Noachian? When did water first show up on Mars?
There are three ways to hunt for water on Mars. The first is using observations of the surface made by orbiting spacecraft. The second is using ground-based observations such as those taken by Mars rovers.
The third way is to study Martian meteorites that have landed on Earth, which is what we did.
In fact, the only Pre-Noachian material we have available to study directly is found in meteorites from Mars. A small number of all meteorites that have landed on Earth have come from our neighbouring planet.
An even smaller subset of those meteorites, believed to have been ejected from Mars during a single asteroid impact, contain Pre-Noachian material.
The “poster child” of this group is an extraordinary rock called NWA7034, or Black Beauty.
Black Beauty is a famous Martian meteorite made up of broken-up surface material, or regolith. In addition to rock fragments, it contains zircons that formed from 4.48 billion to 4.43 billion years ago. These are the oldest pieces of Mars known.
While studying trace elements in one of these ancient zircons we found evidence of hydrothermal processes – meaning they were exposed to hot water when they formed in the distant past. Trace elements, water and a connection to ore deposits
The zircon we studied is 4.45 billion years old. Within it, iron, aluminium and sodium are preserved in abundance patterns like concentric layers, similar to an onion.
This pattern, called oscillatory zoning, indicates that incorporation of these elements into the zircon occurred during its igneous history, in magma. Iron elemental zoning in the 4.45 billion-year-old martian zircon. Darker blue areas indicate the highest iron abundances. Aaron Cavosie & Jack Gillespie
The problem is that iron, aluminium and sodium aren’t normally found in crystalline igneous zircon – so how did these elements end up in the Martian zircon?
The answer is hot water.
In Earth rocks, finding zircon with growth zoning patterns for elements like iron, aluminium and sodium is rare. One of the only places where it has been described is from Olympic Dam in South Australia, a giant copper, uranium and gold deposit.
The metals in places like Olympic Dam were concentrated by hydrothermal (hot water) systems moving through rocks during magmatism.
Hydrothermal systems form anywhere that hot water, heated by volcanic plumbing systems, moves through rocks. Spectacular geysers at places like Yellowstone National Park in the United States form when hydrothermal water erupts at Earth’s surface.
Old Faithful geyser erupting at Yellowstone National Park.
Finding a hydrothermal Martian zircon raises the intriguing possibility of ore deposits forming on early Mars.
Previous studies have proposed a wet Pre-Noachian Mars. Unusual oxygen isotope ratios in a 4.43 billion-year-old Martian zircon were previously interpreted as evidence for an early hydrosphere. It has even been suggested that Mars may have had an early global ocean 4.45 billion years ago.
The big picture from our study is that magmatic hydrothermal systems were active during the early formation of Mars’ crust 4.45 billion years ago.
It’s not clear whether this means surface water was stable at this time, but we think it’s possible. What is clear is that the crust of Mars, like Earth, had water shortly after it formed – a necessary ingredient for habitability.
Scientists construct first complete energy spectrum of solar high-energy protons in Martian space
Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
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The SEP particle event on February 15, 2022 was simultaneously detected by the Chinese Tianwen-1 orbiter, TGO, MAVEN, and the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.
Scientists have constructed the first complete proton energy spectrum observed during an eruptive solar event in Martian space, deepening our understanding of the radiation environment around Mars.
This study was jointly conducted by researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China, the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Lanzhou Institute of Physics, and the University of Kiel in Germany. It was published in Geophysical Research Letters as a cover article.
Solar energetic particle (SEP) events, caused by solar eruptions, are among the most destructive space weather phenomena. During these events, high-energy charged particle flux in space may increase suddenly, posing significant threats to the safety of spacecraft and astronauts.
Unlike Earth, Mars lacks a protective magnetic field and has a very thin atmosphere, making its surface particularly vulnerable to high-energy particles and secondary particles. Therefore, studying the impact of SEP events on Mars is crucial for radiation protection in future Mars exploration missions.
In November 2021, China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter entered its science mission orbit around Mars. Its Mars Energy Particle Analyzer (MEPA) began measuring particle flux. With the capacity to measure the wide energy range from 2–100 MeV, MEPA significantly enhances the capability to monitor high-energy protons in Martian space, providing critical data for this study.
On Feb. 15, 2022, MEPA recorded a SEP event with exceptionally high intensity and energy. The event was simultaneously detected by the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Orbiter (MAVEN), and the Curiosity rover on the Martian surface. This is the first SEP event observed by so many different radiation and particle detectors involving Mars.
In this joint study, the researchers utilized data from multiple detectors to construct the complete proton energy spectrum. The low- and medium-energy proton spectra were provided by Tianwen-1 and MAVEN, while the high-energy proton flux was derived by combining observations from the Curiosity rover on Mars with simulations of particle transport in the Martian atmosphere.
By fitting the observed and derived fluxes at different energies, researchers successfully constructed the complete proton energy spectrum of the SEP event, spanning from 1 to 1000 MeV.
The researchers then used this spectrum to calculate the radiation dose caused by the event in Martian orbit and on the Martian surface, which is consistent with actual dose measurements. This result validates the reliability of the Tianwen-1 MEPA data and the accuracy of the Martian radiation transport model.
This study provides a reference for future research on similar space weather phenomena and also highlights the necessity of continuous and coordinated radiation monitoring on Mars.
The research was supported by the Key Research Program and Strategic Priority Program of CAS as well as the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Observed energy spectra and reconstructed 1-1000MeV proton spectra from SPE on February 15, 2022
The 2022 February 15 Solar Energetic Particle Event at Mars: A Synergistic Study Combining Multiple Radiation Detectors on the Surface and in Orbit of Mars With Models
Novel supernova observations grant astronomers a peek into the cosmic past
New study details stellar evolution during the early universe
Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, Ohio – An international team of researchers has made new observations of an unusual supernova, finding the most metal-poor stellar explosion ever observed.
This rare supernova, called 2023ufx, originated from the core collapse of a red supergiant star, exploded on the outskirts of a nearby dwarf galaxy. Results of the study showed that observations of both this supernova and the galaxy it was discovered in are of low metallicity, meaning they lack an abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen or helium.
Since the metals produced within supernovae inform their properties, including how stars evolve and die, learning more about their formation can tell astronomers much about the state of the universe when it began, especially since there were essentially no metals around during the time of its birth, said Michael Tucker, lead author of the study and a fellow at the Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physicsat The Ohio State University.
“If you’re someone who wants to predict how the Milky Way came to be, you want to have a good idea of how the first exploding stars seeded the next generation,” said Tucker. “Understanding that gives scientists a great example of how those first objects affected their surroundings.”
Dwarf galaxies in particular are useful local analogs to conditions scientists might expect to see in the early universe. Because of them, astronomers know that while the first galaxies were metal-poor, all the big, bright galaxies near the Milky Way had plenty of time for stars to explode and increase the amount of metal content, said Tucker.
The amount of metals a supernova has also influences aspects like the number of nuclear reactions it may have or how long its explosion remains bright. It’s also one of the reasons that many low-mass stars also occasionally run the risk of collapsing into black holes.
While the event observed by Tucker’s team is only the second supernova to be found with low metallicity, what’s most unusual about it is its location relative to the Milky Way, said Tucker.
Typically, any metal-poor supernova that astronomers would expect to find would likely be too faint to see from our galaxy because of how far away they are. Now, due to the advent of more powerful instruments like NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, detecting distant metal-poor galaxies has been made exponentially easier.
“There are not that many metal-poor locations in the nearby universe and before JWST, it was difficult to find them,” said Tucker.
But the sighting of 2023ufx turned out to be a happy accident for researchers. New-found observations of this particular supernova revealed that many of its properties and behaviors are distinctly different from other supernovae in nearby galaxies.
For example, this supernova had a period of brightness that stayed steady for about 20 days before declining, whereas the brightness of its metal-rich counterparts usually lasted for about 100 days. The study also showed that a large amount of fast-moving material was ejected during the explosion, suggesting that it must have been spinning very quickly when it exploded.
This result implies that rapidly spinning metal-poor stars must have been relatively common during the early days of the universe, said Tucker. His team’s theory is that the supernova likely had weak stellar winds – streams of particles emitted from the atmosphere of the star – which led it to cultivate and release so much energy.
Overall, their observations lay the groundwork for astronomers to better investigate how metal-poor stars survive in different cosmic environments, and may even help some theorists more accurately model how supernovae behaved in the early universe.
“If you’re someone who wants to predict how galaxies form and evolve, the first thing you want is a good idea of how the first exploding stars influenced their local area,” said Tucker.
Future research may aim to determine if the supernova was larger at one point, whether just by being a super-massive star or if its materials were stripped away by a still undiscovered binary companion.
Until then, researchers will have to wait for more data to become available.
“We’re so early in the JWST era that we’re still finding so many things we don’t understand about galaxies,” said Tucker. “The long-term hope is that this study acts as a benchmark for similar discoveries.”
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the European Research Council (ERC), the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA), and NASA. Christopher S. Kochanek from Ohio State was also a co-author.
The Extremely Metal-poor SN 2023ufx: A Local Analog to High-redshift Type II Supernovae
Article Publication Date
21-Nov-2024
Uranus’s swaying moons will help spacecraft seek out hidden oceans
University of Texas at Austin
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The planet Uranus, photographed by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986. The planet and its moons are expected to be the target of NASA’s next major mission to the outer solar system.
When NASA’s Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, it captured grainy photographs of large ice-covered moons. Now nearly 40 years later, NASA plans to send another spacecraft to Uranus, this time equipped to see if those icy moons are hiding liquid water oceans.
The mission is still in an early planning stage. But researchers at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) are preparing for it by building a new computer model that could be used to detect oceans beneath the ice using just the spacecraft’s cameras.
The research is important because scientists don’t know which ocean detection method will work best at Uranus. Scientists want to know if there’s liquid water there because it’s a key ingredient for life.
The new computer model works by analyzing small oscillations — or wobbles — in the way a moon spins as it orbits its parent planet. From there it can calculate how much water, ice and rock there is inside. Less wobble means a moon is mostly solid, while a large wobble means the icy surface is floating on a liquid water ocean. When combined with gravity data, the model computes the ocean’s depth as well as the thickness of the overlying ice.
Uranus, along with Neptune, is in a class of planets called ice giants. Astronomers have detected more ice giant-sized bodies outside of our solar system than any other kind of exoplanet. If Uranus’s moons are found to have interior oceans, that could mean there are vast numbers of potentially life-harboring worlds throughout the galaxy, said UTIG planetary scientist Doug Hemingway, who developed the model.
“Discovering liquid water oceans inside the moons of Uranus would transform our thinking about the range of possibilities for where life could exist,” he said.
The UTIG research, which was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, will help mission scientists and engineers improve their chances of detecting oceans. UTIG is a research unit of the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin.
All large moons in the solar system, including Uranus’s, are tidally locked. This means that gravity has matched their spin so that the same side always faces their parent planet while they orbit. This doesn’t mean their spin is completely fixed, however, and all tidally locked moons oscillate back and forth as they orbit. Determining the extent of the wobbles will be key to knowing if Uranus’s moons contain oceans, and if so, how large they might be.
Moons with a liquid water ocean sloshing about on the inside will wobble more than those that are solid all the way through. However, even the largest oceans will generate only a slight wobble: A moon’s rotation might deviate only a few hundred feet as it travels through its orbit.
That’s still enough for passing spacecraft to detect. In fact, the technique was previously used to confirm that Saturn’s moon Enceladus has an interior global ocean.
To find out if the same technique would work at Uranus, Hemingway made theoretical calculations for five of its moons and came up with a range of plausible scenarios. For example, if Uranus’s moon Ariel wobbles 300 feet, then it’s likely to have an ocean 100 miles deep surrounded by a 20-mile-thick ice shell.
Detecting smaller oceans will mean a spacecraft will have to get closer or pack extra powerful cameras. But the model gives mission designers a slide rule to know what will work, said UTIG Research Associate Professor Krista Soderlund.
“It could be the difference between discovering an ocean or finding we don’t have that capability when we arrive,” said Soderlund, who was not involved in the current research.
Soderlund has worked with NASA on Uranus mission concepts. She is also part of the science team for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, which recently launched and carries an ice penetrating radar imager developed by UTIG.
The next step, Hemingway said, is to extend the model to include measurements by other instruments to see how they improve the picture of the moons’ interiors.
The journal article was coauthored by Francis Nimmo at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The research was funded by UTIG.
Ariel, Uranus’s fourth largest moon, is thought to be made of equal parts rock and ice. A new computer model developed at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics could be used to detect liquid water oceans beneath Ariel’s icy surface.
An animation demonstrating how Uranus’s moon Ariel might wobble with an interior ocean (right) versus being solid through to the core (left). The depicted wobbles are exaggerated. A UTIG-developed computer model can calculate the thickness of the ocean and overlying ice (lighter colored layer) by analyzing the wobble and combining it with other measurements.
Models for the interior structures of the ice-giant planets Uranus and Neptune have two distinct, intermediate layers: an upper, water-rich convecting layer where disorganized magnetic fields are generated, and a lower, non-convecting hydrocarbon-rich layer. New computer simulations show that icy materials naturally separate at high pressure and temperature into these two layers.
These are just two proposals that planetary scientists have come up with for what lies beneath the thick, bluish, hydrogen-and-helium atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune, our solar system's unique, but superficially bland, ice giants.
A planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, now proposes an alternative theory — that the interiors of both these planets are layered, and that the two layers, like oil and water, don't mix. That configuration neatly explains the planets' unusual magnetic fields and implies that earlier theories of the interiors are unlikely to be true.
In a paper appearing this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Burkhard Militzer argues that a deep ocean of water lies just below the cloud layers and, below that, a highly compressed fluid of carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen. Computer simulations show that under the temperatures and pressures of the planets' interiors, a combination of water (H2O), methane (CH3) and ammonia (NH3) would naturally separate into two layers, primarily because hydrogen would be squeezed out of the methane and ammonia that comprise much of the deep interior.
These immiscible layers would explain why neither Uranus nor Neptune has a magnetic field like Earth's. That was one of the surprising discoveries about our solar system’s ice giants made by the Voyager 2 mission in the late 1980s.
"We now have, I would say, a good theory why Uranus and Neptune have really different fields, and it's very different from Earth, Jupiter and Saturn," said Militzer, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science. "We didn't know this before. It's like oil and water, except the oil goes below because hydrogen is lost."
If other star systems have similar compositions to ours, Militzer said, ice giants around those stars could well have similar internal structures. Planets about the size of Uranus and Neptune — so-called sub-Neptune planets — are among the most common exoplanets discovered to date.
Convection leads to magnetic fields
As a planet cools from its surface downward, cold and denser material sinks, while blobs of hotter fluid rise like boiling water — a process called convection. If the interior is electrically conducting, a thick layer of convecting material will generate a dipole magnetic field similar to that of a bar magnet. Earth's dipole field, created by its liquid outer iron core, produces a magnetic field that loops from the North Pole to the South Pole and is the reason compasses point toward the poles.
But Voyager 2 discovered that neither of the two ice giants has such a dipole field, only disorganized magnetic fields. This implies that there's no convective movement of material in a thick layer in the planets' deep interiors.
To explain these observations, two separate research groups proposed more than 20 years ago that the planets must have layers that can't mix, thus preventing large-scale convection and a global dipolar magnetic field. Convection in one of the layers could produce a disorganized magnetic field, however. But neither group could explain what these non-mixing layers were made of.
Ten years ago, Militzer tried repeatedly to solve the problem, using computer simulations of about 100 atoms with the proportions of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen reflecting the known composition of elements in the early solar system. At the pressures and temperatures predicted for the planets' interiors — 3.4 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure and 4,750 Kelvin (8,000°F), respectively — he could not find a way for layers to form.
Last year, however, with the help of machine learning, he was able to run a computer model simulating the behavior of 540 atoms and, to his surprise, found that layers naturally form as the atoms are heated and compressed.
"One day, I looked at the model, and the water had separated from the carbon and nitrogen. What I couldn't do 10 years ago was now happening," he said. "I thought, 'Wow! Now I know why the layers form: One is water-rich and the other is carbon-rich, and in Uranus and Neptune, it's the carbon-rich system that is below. The heavy part stays in the bottom, and the lighter part stays on top and it cannot do any convecting.’"
"I couldn't discover this without having a large system of atoms, and the large system I couldn't simulate 10 years ago," he added.
The amount of hydrogen squeezed out increases with pressure and depth, forming a stably stratified carbon-nitrogen-hydrogen layer, almost like a plastic polymer, he said. While the upper, water-rich layer likely convects to produce the observed disorganized magnetic field, the deeper, stratified hydrocarbon-rich layer cannot.
When he modeled the gravity produced by a layered Uranus and Neptune, the gravity fields matched those measured by Voyager 2 nearly 40 years ago.
"If you ask my colleagues, 'What do you think explains the fields of Uranus and Neptune?' they may say, ‘Well, maybe it's this diamond rain, but maybe it's this water property which we call superionic,’" he said. "From my perspective, this is not plausible. But if we have this separation into two separate layers, that should explain it."
Militzer predicts that below Uranus' 3,000-mile-thick atmosphere lies a water-rich layer about 5,000 miles thick and below that a hydrocarbon-rich layer also about 5,000 miles thick. Its rocky core is about the size of the planet Mercury. Though Neptune is more massive than Uranus, it is smaller in diameter, with a thinner atmosphere, but similarly thick water-rich and hydrocarbon rich layers. Its rocky core is slightly larger than that of Uranus, approximately the size of Mars.
He hopes to work with colleagues who can test with laboratory experiments under extremely high temperatures and pressures whether layers form in fluids with the proportions of elements found in the protosolar system. A proposed NASA mission to Uranus could also provide confirmation, if the spacecraft has on board a Doppler imager to measure the planet's vibrations. A layered planet would vibrate at different frequencies than a convecting planet, Militzere said. His next project is to use his computational model to calculate how the planetary vibrations would differ.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (PHY-2020249) as part of the Center for Matter at Atomic Pressures.
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Article Publication Date
25-Nov-2024
Astronomers take the first close-up picture of a star outside our galaxy
ESO
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This is an image of the star WOH G64, taken by the GRAVITY instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI). This is the first close-up picture of a star outside our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The star is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, over 160 000 light-years away. The bright oval at the centre of this image is a dusty cocoon that enshrouds the star. A fainter elliptical ring around it could be the inner rim of a dusty torus, but more observations are needed to confirm this feature.
“We discovered an egg-shaped cocoon closely surrounding the star,” says Ohnaka, the lead author of a study reporting the observations published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics. “We are excited because this may be related to the drastic ejection of material from the dying star before a supernova explosion.”
While astronomers have taken about two dozen zoomed-in images of stars in our galaxy, unveiling their properties, countless other stars dwell within other galaxies, so far away that observing even one of them in detail has been extremely challenging. Up until now.
The newly imaged star, WOH G64, lies within the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the small galaxies that orbits the Milky Way. Astronomers have known about this star for decades and have appropriately dubbed it the ‘behemoth star’. With a size roughly 2000 times that of our Sun, WOH G64 is classified as a red supergiant.
Ohnaka’s team had long been interested in this behemoth star. Back in 2005 and 2007, they used ESO’s VLTI in Chile’s Atacama Desert to learn more about the star’s features, and carried on studying it in the years since. But an actual image of the star had remained elusive.
For the desired picture, the team had to wait for the development of one of the VLTI’s second-generation instruments, GRAVITY. After comparing their new results with other previous observations of WOH G64, they were surprised to find that the star had become dimmer over the past decade.
“We have found that the star has been experiencing a significant change in the last 10 years, providing us with a rare opportunity to witness a star’s life in real time,” says Gerd Weigelt, an astronomy professor at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany and a co-author of the study. In their final life stages, red supergiants like WOH G64 shed their outer layers of gas and dust in a process that can last thousands of years. "This star is one of the most extreme of its kind, and any drastic change may bring it closer to an explosive end," adds co-author Jacco van Loon, Keele Observatory Director at Keele University, UK, who has been observing WOH G64 since the 1990s.
The team thinks that these shed materials may also be responsible for the dimming and for the unexpected shape of the dust cocoon around the star. The new image shows that the cocoon is stretched-out, which surprised scientists, who expected a different shape based on previous observations and computer models. The team believes that the cocoon’s egg-like shape could be explained by either the star’s shedding or by the influence of a yet-undiscovered companion star.
As the star becomes fainter, taking other close-up pictures of it is becoming increasingly difficult, even for the VLTI. Nonetheless, planned updates to the telescope’s instrumentation, such as the future GRAVITY+, promise to change this soon. “Similar follow-up observations with ESO instruments will be important for understanding what is going on in the star,” concludes Ohnaka.
More information
ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer is able to combine light collected by the telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), either the four 8-metre Unit Telescopes or the four smaller Auxiliary Telescopes, creating highly detailed pictures of the cosmos. Effectively, this makes the VLTI a “virtual” telescope with a resolution equivalent to the maximum distance between the individual telescopes. This process is highly complex and needs instruments especially dedicated to this task. Back in 2005 and 2007 Ohnaka’s team had access to the first generation of these instruments: MIDI. While impressive for its time, those observations with MIDI only combined the light from two telescopes. Now, researchers have access to GRAVITY, a second-generation instrument able to capture the light of four telescopes. Its improved sensitivity and resolution made the image of WOH G64 possible. But there is more to come. GRAVITY+ is a planned upgrade of GRAVITY which will be able to take advantage of different technological updates performed at the VLTI and VLT. With these, the VLTI will be able to see objects fainter and farther than ever before.
This research was presented in a paper to appear in Astronomy and Astrophysics (https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451820).
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration for astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as survey telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates ALMA on Chajnantor, a facility that observes the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.
Workshop highlights ‘pivotal moment’ for future of AI in space exploration
Rice University
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The workshop helped underline the role that commercial companies play in the current space exploration ecosystem. One of the panels dedicated to startups in this arena featured several Rice alumni who are now leading companies at the forefront of space-AI integration.
Credit: Photos by Jeff Fitlow and Brandon Martin/Rice University
HOUSTON – (Nov. 18, 2024) – The In-Space Physical AI Workshop, held recently at the Ion District in Houston, convened top scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and government leaders to explore the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in space exploration — a domain poised to drive scientific discovery, economic growth and technological advancements.
Organized by Rice University’s Office of Innovation in partnership with NASA, Purdue University and the Ion, the two-day event attracted over 200 guests as they engaged on a wide range of topics relating to applications of AI in the space industry.
Rice President Reginald DesRoches welcomed attendees, highlighting the importance of the event “for Texas and certainly for Houston.” Citing the city’s legacy in space exploration, DesRcohes said “today’s event represents a pivotal moment” and noted how the workshop fosters vital collaboration across sectors to drive innovation in space.
NASA’s Nicholas Skytland provided an overarching view of the event, including the significance of its location in Houston ⎯ home to the Johnson Space Center, which has served as the epicenter of human spaceflight for over six decades. Skytland discussed the growing space economy, emphasizing Texas’ unique position as a hub for space technology and innovation, and encouraged attendees to explore how AI can streamline everything from spacecraft navigation to crew health management.
“This is just the start of this new era of exploration for space,” Skytland said.
Sanjoy Paul, executive director of Rice Nexus, director of AI Houston and lecturer in computer science at Rice, served as one of the main event organizers. Paul highlighted Rice’s potential to play a key role in implementing AI in space exploration, pointing to key areas of expertise where Rice researchers are making an impact.
Among several examples, Paul cited Kaiyu Hang’s work on robotic manipulation ⎯ an essential aspect of autonomous spacecraft maintenance and derisking spaceflight missions ⎯ and Vaibhav Unhelkar’s work on human-robot collaboration.
“Our researchers are pushing the envelope on what’s possible,” he said.
Paul also pointed out that the workshop ⎯ now in its second year ⎯ was greatly enhanced by the collaboration with Purdue, whose Institute for Physical Artificial Intelligence boasts an impressive roster of experts working at the intersection of AI and a broad range of application domains.
Shirley Dyke, director of the Resilient Extra-Terrestrial Habitats Institute and the Don and Patricia Coates Professor of Innovation in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue, highlighted the enabling role these technologies will play toward autonomous operation of lunar and cislunar infrastructure.
“This workshop is a wonderful opportunity to share ideas on how the scientific community can work together to use AI for realizing the next generation of human spaceflight,” Dyke said.
Dyke was one of several Purdue researchers and staff members who helped organize the event. They included Lawrence Buja, Marshall Porterfield, Shaoshuai Mou, Shreyas Sundaram and Ran Dai.
Norman Garza, executive director of the Texas Space Commission, took part in a fireside chat on the second day of the event and emphasized the critical role that the Texas government plays in ensuring that the state solidifies its reputation as a leading destination for companies working in the space industry.
“AI has been a regular theme shared with the Texas Space Commission board of directors over these past several months,” Garza said. “Forums such as this one organized by Rice University certainly helps to provide a platform for conversation about how this innovation is related to space exploration. Big ideas from subject matter experts are useful to the commission as we endeavor to deliver a strategic plan to the Texas Legislature. We welcome input through our website, Space.Texas.Gov.”
The workshop helped underline the role that commercial companies play in the current space exploration ecosystem. One of the panels dedicated to startups in this arena featured several Rice alumni who are now leading companies at the forefront of space-AI integration.
Anton Galvas, an alumnus of Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business and CEO of AiKYNETIX, discussed his company’s AI-driven technology for real-time human motion analysis in space.
“Astronauts face unique physical challenges in microgravity,” Galvas explained, “and our technology provides immediate feedback to enhance their movement and efficiency, which can be crucial for mission success.”
This tool, initially developed for fitness diagnostics, has evolved to aid astronauts in injury prevention and performance optimization, showcasing how innovations in AI are contributing to human health in space.
Martin Heyne, also a Jones School MBA alumnus and head of strategy at Intuitive Machines, shared insights into his company’s mission to build infrastructure in cislunar space. Intuitive Machines, which is responsible for creating lunar landers and lunar rovers, has integrated AI to ensure safer and more accurate landings on the moon. Heyne described how AI can address challenges from previous missions, where slight deviations in landing impacted operations.
“With AI, we can analyze landing trajectories in real time, providing alerts if adjustments are needed,” Heyne said. The company is also working to establish a lunar communication network to support future exploration with plans to deploy five satellites in lunar orbit over the next five years.”
James Holley, a Rice mechanical engineering alumnus and co-founder of Novium, presented his work on space robotics. His company focuses on the intricate mechanics required to move equipment in extreme space environments, where radiation and temperature fluctuations pose constant challenges.
“Our robotics technology is designed to operate in harsh conditions without direct human intervention,” Holley said. He emphasized that Houston’s rich history in space and Rice’s academic strengths in engineering create an ideal environment for aerospace innovation.
The workshop also delved into the ethical dimensions of AI, particularly regarding the accuracy and accountability of autonomous systems. As space exploration becomes increasingly reliant on AI, ensuring these systems operate as intended becomes paramount.
Reflecting on the legacy of Houston’s space industry and the collaborative spirit of the Ion District, Paul expressed the hope that AI-powered solutions could unlock new possibilities for missions to the moon and Mars and for human spaceflight in general.
“The potential applications of AI in space are boundless,” he said, “and with partnerships like these, Houston and Rice University are positioned to lead this exciting frontier.”
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This news release can be found online at news.rice.edu.
Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.
Videos are available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML9o1rIhdh8 Description: Artificial intelligence in space exploration at Rice University (Video by Brandon Martin/Rice University; additional footage by Walley films)
The In-Space Physical AI Workshop, held recently at the Ion District in Houston, convened top scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and government leaders to explore the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in space exploration — a domain poised to drive scientific discovery, economic growth and technological advancements.
Organized by Rice University’s Office of Innovation in partnership with NASA, Purdue University and the Ion, the two-day event attracted over 200 guests as they engaged on a wide range of topics relating to applications of AI in the space industry.
Credit
Photos by Jeff Fitlow and Brandon Martin/Rice University
Iron elemental zoning in the 4.45 billion-year-old martian zircon. Darker blue areas indicate the highest iron abundances. Aaron Cavosie & Jack Gillespie
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