Elizabeth Howell, Author at Universe Today

July 17, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Cargo Ship’s Fiery Demise Could Help Predict What Happens When The Space Station Burns Up

Artist's conception of the final Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), Georges Lemaître, breaking up during re-entry following a cargo run to the International Space Station. Credit: ESA–D. Ducros

It’s sad to think about, but there will be a day sometime when the International Space Station makes its final journey — a destructive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Historically, it’s been hard to break up large pieces of space hardware safely. Pieces of the Skylab space station famously rained down in Australia, while Mir’s demise triggered warnings across its re-entry path.

The European Space Agency sees an opportunity to gather more information for this future use: closely watching what happens when the final Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), Georges Lemaître, goes to the International Space Station and has its planned breakup in the atmosphere following the shipment.

They plan to record its last moments using a heat-seeking camera on the inside of the spacecraft. This sort of thing has been done before with NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, but this will be a first for ESA.

“The data should also hold broader value,” stated Neil Murray, who is leading the project at the European Space Agency (ESA).

“The project is proceeding under our ‘Design for Demise’ effort to design space hardware in such a way that it is less likely to survive reentry and potentially endanger the public. Design for Demise in turn is part of the agency’s clean space initiative, seeking to render the space industry more environmentally friendly in space as well as on Earth.”

The Automated Transfer Vehicle Albert Einstein burning up on Nov. 2, 2013 at 12:04 GMT over an uninhabitated part of the Pacific Ocean. This picture was snapped from the International Space Station. Credit: ESA/NASA

The camera will ride inside, bolted to a rack, and transmit the last 20 seconds of its lifetime to a special Reentry Satcom capsule that is designed to survive the breakup. The data will in turn be sent to Earth using an Iridium satellite.

While the SatCom will be protected by a heatshield, the challenge will be transmitting the information through the plasma generated as it falls at 6 to 7 kilometers (3.7 to 4.3 miles) a second. The breakup will happen at 80 kilometers (50 miles) and the plasma will be there until below an altitude of about 40 kilometers (25 miles), ESA stated.

“The fall will generate high-temperature plasma around it, but signals from its omnidirectional antenna should be able to make it through any gap in the plasma to the rear,” the agency added.

Georges Lemaître is expected to launch later this month and last six months in space before re-entry.

Source: European Space Agency

July 17, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

ISON Stopped Making Dust Just Before It Passed By The Sun And Disintegrated

Bright, brighter, brightest: these views of Comet ISON after its closest approach to the sun Nov. 28 show that a small part of the nucleus may have survived the comet's close encounter with the sun. Images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. Credit: ESA/NASA/SOHO/GSFC

Last year’s Thanksgiving adventure for astronomers happened when Comet ISON passed within 1.2 million kilometres (750,000 miles) of the Sun. While many people were hoping the comet would stick around and produce a good show, the comet disintegrated despite a brief flare-up shortly after passing perihelion.

Scientists have just modelled the production of dust on the comet and concluded there was a “violent outburst” that happened 8.5 hours before closest approach, when the comet spewed out 11,500 tonnes (12,765 tons) of material.

“It is most likely that the final break-up of the nucleus triggered this eruption, abruptly releasing gas and dust trapped inside the nucleus,” stated Werner Curdt from the Max Planck Institute of Solar System Research, who was the lead researcher on the project. “Within a few hours the dust production stopped completely.”

Because the last few parts of the comet’s encounter were obscured by an occulting disk on the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), astronomers decided to model the encounter based on other data they gathered before and after.

Comet ISON captured in an image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)'s Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation (SUMER) instrument. Credit: MPS — Comet ISON captured in an image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)’s Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation (SUMER) instrument. Credit: MPS

They did have one source of data, which was another instrument called the Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation (SUMER). It’s usually used to investigate plasma activity on the sun and not faint comets, but the scientists felt it could be repurposed. T

hey switched modes on the instrument and captured the tail in far ultraviolet light, light “emitted from the solar disc and reflected by the dust particles into space,” the European Space Agency stated.

Then they compared what they saw with computer simulations, coming up with the dust estimations.

The paper is available in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and also in preprint version on Arxiv.

Source: European Space Agency

July 17, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

‘Moonwalk One’ Makes Us Excited About Apollo 11 All Over Again

A sign wishing the Apollo 11 crew good luck prior to the launch on July 16, 1969. Screenshot from the 1970 documentary "Moonwalk One." Credit: NASA/Theo Kamecke/YouTube

Long lineups at Cape Kennedy. Every television channel playing the same breathless coverage. Shots of rockets, of men in spacesuits, and of course the ghostly image of people stepping on to the moon for the first time.

If you’re old enough to remember Apollo 11, this documentary above should bring back a lot of warm memories. And even if you’re not (which includes the writer of this article), it gives you a small taste of just how awesome the atmosphere must have been.

“Moonwalk One” is a 1970 documentary directed by Theo Kamecke, and now we’re lucky enough to watch it for free on NASA’s YouTube channel. As soon as you can spare a couple of hours, do watch it.

The first few minutes alone are fun, with dramatic shots of Stonehenge and the Saturn V contrasted with frantic shots of traffic and dancing and signs all over the Cape.

Apollo 11's Saturn V rocket prior to the launch July 16, 1969. Screenshot from the 1970 documentary "Moonwalk One." Credit: NASA/Theo Kamecke/YouTube — Apollo 11’s Saturn V rocket prior to the launch July 16, 1969. Screenshot from the 1970 documentary “Moonwalk One.” Credit: NASA/Theo Kamecke/YouTube

Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin in a screenshot from the 1970 documentary "Moonwalk One." Credit: NASA/Theo Kamecke/YouTube — Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin in a screenshot from the 1970 documentary “Moonwalk One.” Credit: NASA/Theo Kamecke/YouTube

July 16, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Ancient Snow Shaped A Martian Basin That’s Half The Size Of Brazil

Perspective view of Hellas Basin taken with the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express in January 2014, and released in July 2014. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Such great heights! A mountain chain peeks in the background of this new view of Hellas Basin, based on information taken by a European spacecraft circling the Red Planet.

Beyond the pretty picture is a tale of how snow behaved on the Martian surface, according to the European Space Agency. The vast basin is about half the size of Brazil.

The wrinkled view of that crater in front is a product of snowing and freezing that took place when the Martian surface was wetter, ESA said.

A map of the Hellas basin in the southern hemisphere of Mars, as well as the rocky Hellespontus Montes. Image taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express. Credit: NASA MGS MOLA Science Team/Freie Universitaet Berlin

“During this period, snow fell and covered the surface and later moved downhill into the crater. Once inside the crater, the snow became trapped and soon covered by surface dust, before compacting to form ice. The number of concentric lines indicates many cycles of this process and it is possible that craters like these may still be rich in ice hidden beneath just tens of metres of surface debris.”

Additionally, the high hill chain in the back (called Hellespontus Montes) is a remnant of how Hellas basin was formed, the agency said.

“This feature is a product of the final stages of the formation of the vast Hellas impact basin itself, most likely as the basin walls – which were first pushed outwards by the extraordinary forces at work during the formation of the basin – later collapsed and sank inwards to create the observed stair-stepped shape.”

The image was taken by ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, which is just one of several robotic emissaries circling the Red Planet.

Source: European Space Agency

July 16, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Feel The Heat! New Mars Map Shows Differences Between Bedrock And Sand

An impact crater on Mars called Graterri, which is only 4.3 miles (6.9 km) in diameter, shines in a global heat map of the Red Planet produced in 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University

For years, NASA’s Mars Odyssey has been working on some night moves. It’s been taking pictures of the Red Planet during nighttime — more than 20,000 in all — to see how the planet’s heat signature looks while the sun is down.

The result is the highest-resolution map ever of the thermal properties of Mars, which you can see here. Why is this important? Researchers say it helps tell the story about things such as if an area is shrouded with dust, where bare bedrock is, and whether sediments in a crater are packed tight or floating freely.

“Darker areas in the map are cooler at night, have a lower thermal inertia and likely contain fine particles, such as dust, silt or fine sand,” stated Robin Fergason at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Arizona, who led the map’s creation. Brighter areas are warmer, likely yielding regions of bedrock, crust or coarse sand.

The map from Odyssey’s Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) is also used for a more practical purpose: deciding where to set down NASA’s next Mars mission.

After assisting in landing site selection for the Curiosity mission, the THEMIS data will be used to figure out where the Mars 2020 rover will be placed, Arizona State University stated.

You can check out more recent THEMIS images (updated daily) on this website.

Source: Arizona State University

July 15, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Vine Video Of Auroras From Space Is Too Hypnotizing For Words

Screenshot of a Vine video from space taken by Expedition 40 astronaut Reid Wiseman in July 2014. Credit: Reid Wiseman/Vine

Looks like NASA’s Reid Wiseman is at it again. The prolific social-media-posting astronaut on the International Space Station just put up this Vine video showing auroras shining over Australia. Hard to believe this was captured from Earth orbit.

It seems the astronaut is quite fascinated by these lights, which are produced when particles from the sun move along magnetic field lines around our planet and “excite” molecules high in the atmosphere. Previously, Wiseman posted another Vine video of auroras while constellation Orion rose in the background.

Wiseman is also among those crew members posting pictures of Tropical Storm Arthur and participating in friendly head shave-offs for the World Cup (Wiseman was among those who lost.) And he’s a pretty adept photographer, too.

You can follow the many updates from space on Reid Wiseman’s Twitter feed. He’s just one of six crew members with Expedition 40.

July 15, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Look Out, Pluto! Spacecraft Will Fly By In Less Than One Year

A NASA "poster" marking the one year to Pluto encounter by New Horizons. Credit: NASA

Countdown! Just under one year from now, the New Horizons will finally reach its mission goal after sailing through the solar system for the better part of a decade. It will fly by the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons on July 14, 2015, showing us the surface of these distant bodies for the very first time.

And the New Horizon’s team reported a thruster burn yesterday has put the spacecraft right on course to correct the spacecraft’s arrival time – a year from now – at the precisely intended aim point at Pluto.

The spacecraft fired its thrusters for just under 88 seconds, which sped the craft up by about 3.8 km/h (2.4 miles per hour.)

“If we hadn’t performed this maneuver, we would have arrived at Pluto about 36 minutes later than we wanted to,” said Mark Holdridge, New Horizons encounter mission manager. “Making the adjustment now means we won’t have to perform a bigger maneuver – and use more of the spacecraft’s fuel – down the road.”

“It was a great burn, performed flawlessly” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator. “You could say that New Horizons just lit a little candle for its one year out anniversary.”

It was the spacecraft’s sixth course correction maneuver since launch in January 2006, and the first since 2010.

“Pluto gets closer by the day, and New Horizons continues into rare territory, as just the fifth probe to traverse interplanetary space so far from the sun,” said NASA on the New Horizon’s website. “And the first ever to travel to Pluto.”

It’ll be a treat to see what the dwarf planet looks like after so many tantalizing glimpses by the Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons spacecraft itself (see this story from last week for some views.) Happy sailing!

Pluto's surface as viewed from the Hubble Space Telescope in several pictures taken in 2002 and 2003. Though the telescope is a powerful tool, the dwarf planet is so small that it is difficult to resolve its surface. Astronomers noted a bright spot (180 degrees) with an unusual abundance of carbon monoxide frost. Credit: NASA — Pluto’s surface as viewed from the Hubble Space Telescope in several pictures taken in 2002 and 2003. Though the telescope is a powerful tool, the dwarf planet is so small that it is difficult to resolve its surface. Astronomers noted a bright spot (180 degrees) with an unusual abundance of carbon monoxide frost. Credit: NASA

July 15, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Targeting Icy Europa: NASA Seeks Ideas To Explore Potentially Habitable Moon

A "colorized" image of Europa from NASA's Galileo spacecraft, whose mission ended in 2003. The whiteish areas are believed to be pure water ice. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

What lies beneath the cracked, thick ice on the surface of Europa? NASA is hoping to fly a mission to the Jupiter moon in the coming years to see if it is indeed a promising site for life. If this concept is approved in the budget, think of the mission as a recce: NASA will either orbit the moon, or do several flybys on it, to scout the surface for science and potential landing sites.

NASA just announced its desire to have science instruments proposed for the mission. Of the submitted list, 20 proposals will be selected in a year’s time, when selectees will have $25 million to do a more advanced concept study.

“The possibility of life on Europa is a motivating force for scientists and engineers around the world,” stated John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate. “This solicitation will select instruments which may provide a big leap in our search to answer the question: are we alone in the universe?”

The Europa mission is not a guarantee, and it’s unclear just how much money will be allocated to it in the long run. (NASA has requested $15 million in fiscal 2015 for the mission). The mission is also subject to budgetary approvals from Congress. If it passes all obstacles, it would fly sometime in the 2020s, according to information released with the budget earlier this year.

Reprocessed Galileo image of Europa's frozen surface by Ted Stryk (NASA/JPL/Ted Stryk) — Reprocessed Galileo image of Europa’s frozen surface by Ted Stryk (NASA/JPL/Ted Stryk)

In April, NASA sent out a request for information to interested potential participants on the mission itself, which it plans to cost less than $1 billion (excluding launch costs).

“Recent NASA studies have focused on an orbiter mission concept and a multiple flyby mission concept as the most compelling and feasible,” the agency stated.

Besides its desire to look for landing sites, NASA said the instruments should also be targeted to meet the National Resource Council’s (NRC) Planetary Decadal Survey’s desires for science on Europa. In NASA’s words, these are what those objectives are:

Rendering showing the location and size of water vapor plumes coming from Europa's south pole. Credit: NASA/ESA/L. Roth/SWRI/University of Cologne — Rendering showing the location and size of water vapor plumes coming from Europa’s south pole. Credit: NASA/ESA/L. Roth/SWRI/University of Cologne

Characterize the extent of the ocean and its relation to the deeper interior;
Characterize the ice shell and any subsurface water, including their heterogeneity, and the nature of surface-ice-ocean exchange;
Determine global surface, compositions and chemistry, especially as related to habitability;
Understand the formation of surface features, including sites of recent or current activity, identify and characterize candidate sites for future detailed exploration;
Understand Europa’s space environment and interaction with the magnetosphere.

Any instruments must meet NASA’s landing scout goal or the NRC goals, the agency said. The instruments also must be highly protected against the harsh radiation in the area, and also meet planetary protection requirements to ensure no extraterrestrial life is contaminated with our own.

Just yesterday (July 15), a NASA symposium on extraterrestrial life included a musing that the agency’s unflown next-generation rocket could send a Europa mission there in three years instead of the expected seven. That said, the Space Launch System is not tested in space and it is unclear what the budgetary environment for the rocket would be in the coming years.

You can view the entire solicitation on this page. Solicitations are due Oct. 17.

Source: NASA

July 15, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Rosetta’s Lander Facing An Unexpected Comet Shape: A Double Nucleus

A view from the Rosetta spacecraft on July 11, 2014 showing what appears to be double lobes in the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Screenshot from YouTube. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

A view of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s nucleus, appearing to show a double binary. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

It appears that Rosetta’s comet has a double nucleus. A video from the spacecraft speeding towards Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko shows what looks two lobes touching each other, which could send a small wrinkle in the plans to land Philae on the comet’s surface later this year.

Edit, July 17: As the original video was removed off of YouTube, we have now replaced it with a GIF of the comet from here.

Citing a French space agency webpage that is now unavailable, the Planetary Society’s Emily Lakdawalla said she can hardly wait to see more views of the comet.

“The nucleus of the comet is clearly a contact binary — two smaller (and unequally sized object) in close contact,” she wrote, adding the nucleus measures 4 kilometers by 3.5 kilometers (2.5 miles by 2.17 miles).

It has a rotational period of about 12.4 hours.

“Philippe Lamy is quoted as estimating that the two components would have come into contact at a relative speed of about 3 meters per second in order to stick together in this way … This unusual shape could present a navigational challenge for the Philae lander team.

“The CNES release quotes Philae navigator Eric Jurado,” she continued, “as saying that ‘navigation around such a body should not be much more complex than around a nucleus of irregular spherical type, but landing the Philae probe [scheduled for November 11], however, could be more difficult, as this form restricts potential landing zones.’ ”

Only a handful of spacecraft have ever got up close to a comet (see the picture gallery of the others here). While a contact binary may be a surprise to scientists, the irregular shape spotted from afar was something that we’ve seen before in other comets.

“Irregular, elongated, and structured shapes are not uncommon for small bodies such as asteroids and comets,” stated the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in a release last week. “Of the five cometary nuclei that have been visited by spacecraft in close flybys so far, all are far from spherical.”

Makes us all eager to see what Rosetta finds out as it draws closer to the comet, for its rendezvous in August. The spacecraft will remain with the comet as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko makes its closest approach to the Sun in 2015.

Some astronomers are already having fun imagining the possibilities of the new shape, such as the University of California, Berkeley’s Alex Parker.

.@elakdawalla Contact binary? Anvil? Boot? No, the morphology is clear: Churyumov-Gerasimenko is a rubber duckie. pic.twitter.com/AqtsXqQtVj

— Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) July 15, 2014

July 14, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

The Search for Alien Life Could Get A Boost From NASA’s Next-Generation Rocket

Artist's conception of NASA's Space Launch System with Orion crewed deep space capsule. Credit: NASA

In three years, NASA is planning to light the fuse on a huge rocket designed to bring humans further out into the solar system.

We usually talk about SLS here in the context of the astronauts it will carry inside the Orion spacecraft, which will have its own test flight later in 2014. But today, NASA advertised a possible other use for the rocket: trying to find life beyond Earth.

At a symposium in Washington on the search for life, NASA associate administrator John Grunsfeld said SLS could serve two major functions: launching bigger telescopes, and sending a mission on an express route to Jupiter’s moon Europa.

The James Webb Space Telescope, with a mirror of 6.5 meters (21 feet), will in part search for exoplanets after its launch in 2018. Next-generation telescopes of 10 to 20 meters (33 to 66 feet) could pick out more, if SLS could bring them up into space.

“This will be a multi-generational search,” said Sara Seager, a planetary scientist and physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She added that the big challenge is trying to distinguish a planet like Earth from the light of its parent star; the difference between the two is a magnitude of 10 billion. “Our Earth is actually extremely hard to find,” she said.

Much like our solar system, Kepler-62 is home to two habitable zone worlds. The small shining object seen to the right of Kepler-62f is Kepler-62e. Orbiting on the inner edge of the habitable zone, Kepler-62e is roughly 60 percent larger than Earth. Image credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech.

While the symposium was not talking much about life in the solar system, Europa is considered one of the top candidates due to the presence of a possible subsurface ocean beneath its ice. NASA is now seeking ideas for a mission to this moon, following news that water plumes were spotted spewing from the moon’s icy south pole. A mission to Europa would take seven years with the technology currently in NASA’s hands, but the SLS would be powerful enough to speed up the trip to only three years, Grunsfeld said.

And that’s not all that SLS could do. If it does bring astronauts deeper in space as NASA hopes it will, this opens up a range of destinations for them to go to. Usually NASA talks about this in terms of its human asteroid mission, an idea it has been working on and pitching for the past year to a skeptical, budget-conscious Congress.

But in passing, John Mather (NASA’s senior project scientist for Webb) said it’s possible astronauts could be sent to maintain the telescope. Webb is supposed to be parked in a Lagrange point (gravitationally stable location) in the exact opposite direction of the sun, almost a million miles away. It’s a big contrast to the Hubble Space Telescope, which was conveniently parked in low Earth orbit for astronauts to fix every so often with the space shuttle.

An Artist's Conception of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: ESA. — An Artist’s Conception of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: ESA.

While NASA works on the funding and design for larger telescope mirrors, Webb is one of the two new space telescopes it is focusing on in the search for life. Webb’s infrared eyes will be able to peer at solar systems being born, once it is launched in 2018. Complementary to that will be the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which will fly in 2017 and examine planets that pass in front of their parent stars to find elements in their atmospheres.

The usual cautions apply when talking about this article: NASA is talking about several missions under development, and it is unclear yet what the success of SLS or any of these will be until they are battle-tested in space.

But what this discussion does show is the agency is trying to find many purposes for its next-generation rocket, and working to align it to astrophysics goals as well as its desire to send humans further out in the solar system.