Elizabeth Howell is the senior writer at Universe Today. She also works for Space.com, Space Exploration Network, the NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Astrobiology Magazine and LiveScience, among others. Career highlights include watching three shuttle launches, and going on a two-week simulated Mars expedition in rural Utah. You can follow her on Twitter @howellspace or contact her at her website.
Artist's conception of the SWIFT satellite in the act of capturing a gamma-ray burst. Credit: NASA
Supermassive black holes likely are behind most of the nearly 100,000 new X-ray sources plotted by the Swift X-ray Telescope, according to findings led by the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. The results came from poring over eight years of data produced by the Swift space observatory.
“Stars and galaxies emit X-rays because the electrons in them move at extremely high speeds, either because they are very hot (over a million degrees) or because extreme magnetic fields accelerate them. The underlying cause is usually gravity; gas can be compressed and heated as it falls on to black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs or when trapped in the turbulent magnetic fields of stars like our Sun,” the university stated.
“Most of the newly discovered X-ray sources are expected to signal the presence of super-massive black holes in the centers of large galaxies many millions of light-years from earth, but the catalog also contains transient objects (short-lived bursts of X-ray emission) which may come from stellar flares or supernovae.”
Plot points across the sky showing the new X-ray sources that the SWIFT satellite found. Blue represents higher-energy sources, and red lower-energy ones. The line represents the galactic plane, where many of the sources are concentrated. Source: Evans (University of Leicester)
NASA Television graphic of where spare cooling pumps are located on station as of Dec. 13, 2013. On that day, NASA was weighing whether spacewalks were necessary to deal with a cooling problem caused by a malfunctioning flow control valve inside of a pump. Credit: NASA TV
NASA may allow its first spacewalk since summer to deal with a malfunction that crippled a cooling loop on the International Space Station.
If extravehicular activity is deemed necessary for a fix, it would be the first time NASA spacesuits were used “outside” since Luca Parmitano, an Italian astronaut, experienced a water leak in one that cut short a spacewalk in July. NASA suspended all spacewalks as a precaution while the cause was investigated.
Since then, the agency has put in place procedures to protect astronauts from it happening again, opening up a spacewalk or spacewalks as an option to deal with a balky control valve inside a pump on the station.
The valve is an essential part of an S1 (starboard) truss pump that helps maintain the correct temperature for space station electronics. Ammonia circulates through two external cooling loops and is put through radiators to bleed off heat. The valve is required to mix the cool and warm parts of liquid in the ammonia loop.
Expedition 35 Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy (left) and Tom Marshburn completed a the 5-hour, 30-minute spacewalk on May 11 to inspect and replace a pump controller box on the International Space Station’s far port truss (P6) leaking ammonia coolant. Credit: NASA
A pump automatically shut down on Wednesday (Dec. 11) when the loop got too cold. As NASA began troubleshooting the issue, it powered down non-critical systems (including experiments and redundant systems) in the Columbus laboratory, Harmony node and Japanese Kibo laboratory. Primary systems are still online.
The astronauts are safe, NASA said today (Dec. 13), with the biggest impact to their activities being the science they perform. Expedition 38 astronaut Rick Mastracchio did a live media interview this morning (EST) where he similarly assured reporters that everyone on board is fine.
Cooling problems have happened on station before, most recently in May when an emergency spacewalk was needed to replace a pump controller box on the P6 (far port) truss. This particular cooling system experienced an issue in 2010, which required three contingency spacewalks to remove and replace a failed pump on the S1 truss.
Expedition 24 astronaut Douglas Wheelock exits the Quest airlock at the beginning of a spacewalk Aug. 11, 2010 to replace a failed ammonia pump on the International Space Station’s S1 truss. Credit: NASA
If a spacewalk is needed this time around, NASA has three spare pumps available on station for astronauts to use. NASA, however, is looking at all options before making a decision — including ways of controlling the errant valve from the ground. The agency is holding multiple meetings to decide what to do next after turning on and off the cooling loop yesterday and seeing the same malfunction.
On Monday, NASA will decide whether to move forward with a launch of a cargo spacecraft expected to head to the station on Dec. 18. The window for Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus spacecraft extends to Dec. 21 or 22, but as of Thursday (Dec. 12), the agency said the lack of redundant systems on station violates certain “commit criteria” for the launch to move forward.
While NASA spacewalks were suspended, activity using the Russian Orlan spacesuits has continued as usual. A spacewalk took place in November with the Olympic torch, amid other duties. Another spacewalk is planned Dec. 27 to install high- and medium-resolution cameras, put in a foot restraint, and remove and replace several external experiment packages.
The Helix nebula is visible in the center of this image, surrounded by tracks of asteroids that are much closer to Earth (yellow dots). Click on the image to see them. The streaks you see are from satellites or cosmic rays. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Besides being a darn pretty picture of the Helix nebula, this snapshot is a bit of symbolism for NASA. The spacecraft that nabbed this view is called the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. If you look very carefully — you may have to click on the picture for a closer view — you can see little dots showing the paths of asteroids in the picture. (The streaks are cosmic rays and satellites.)
WISE has an interesting history. It began as a telescope seeking secrets of the universe in infrared light, but ran out of coolant in 2010 and was repurposed for asteroid searching under the NEOWISE mission. It wrapped up its mission, was put into hibernation in February 2011, then reactivated this August to look for asteroids again for at least the next three years. You can see some pictures and data WISE collected during its mission below the jump.
It’s a nice way, NASA said, to celebrate the fourth anniversary of WISE’s launch. “WISE is the spacecraft that keeps on giving,” said Ned Wright of UCLA, who was the principal investigator of WISE before it transitioned into NEOWISE.
Results from NASA’s NEOWISE survey find that more potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are closely aligned with the plane of our solar system than previous models suggested. Image credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechThis enormous section of the Milky Way galaxy is a mosaic of images from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus are featured in this 1,000-square degree expanse. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLAThis oddly colorful nebula is the supernova remnant IC 443 as seen by WISE. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Artist's conception of the Kepler Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Exoplanets are really tiny compared to their host star, and it’s hard to imagine sometimes how astronomers can even find one of these worlds — let alone thousands of them. This nifty two-part series from PBS explains how it’s possible in an easy-to-understand and hilarious way. As an example, this is how they describe the Kepler space telescope’s capabilities:
“It can’t actually see those exoplanets because the stars that they surround are so big and bright. Instead, it looks for the tiny shadow of the planet as it passes in front of its parent star. If that sounds hard, that’s because it is. It’s like seeing a flea in a lightbulb in Los Angeles from New York City,” said host Joe Hanson in the video.
Near the end, he provides an interesting segway into the question of life beyond Earth: “The question we’re really interested in is not how common are planets, but how common are we.” That gets tackled in part 2 of the video, which you can see below the jump.
Remember that 2014 will be an interesting year for Kepler as NASA figures out what to do next with the observatory. It isn’t able to perform its primary mission (seeking exoplanets in Cygnus) because two of its four reaction wheels or pointing devices are malfunctioning. NASA, however, has an innovative fix on the books that could allow it to swing different fields of view during the year — check out this infographic for more details.
A view of the International Space Station as seen by the last departing space shuttle crew, STS-135. Credit: NASA
The decision to launch a cargo flight to the International Space Station next week has been pushed back until Monday (Dec. 16) because of a cooling problem on station that forced the shutdown of redundant systems, according to a NASA update.
Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus commercial spacecraft is expected to blast off on Dec. 18 from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. However, with some station systems offline, the launch does not now meet certain “commit criteria” to make its journey to space next week, said Kenny Todd, the space station’s mission integration and operations manager.
“We haven’t lost any primary functionality,” he said in a NASA Television update today (Dec. 12), emphasizing that the six-person Expedition 38 crew is fine. “There is some redundancy that we’re down right now, but that’s not something I would call critical to day-to-day station operations.”
While a spacewalk is a possibility to fix the problem, it’s too early to say what NASA and other space station partners will decide to do.
NASA controllers spent the night examining a control valve blamed for causing an ammonia pump to shut down yesterday (Dec. 12). The space station uses liquid ammonia to maintain its temperature, pumping the ammonia through external radiators to bleed off heat. Astronauts have made periodic spacewalks to repair parts of the ammonia system, most recently in May when Expedition 35 replaced a pump controller box on the P6 (far port) truss just days before some crew members went home.
Expedition 35 Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy (left) and Tom Marshburn on a spacewalk on May 11 to inspect and replace a pump controller box on the International Space Station’s far port truss (P6) leaking ammonia coolant. Credit: NASA.
“The pump module on one of ISS two external cooling loops automatically shut down today when it got too cold,” stated the NASA Johnson Space Center Twitter feed yesterday (Dec. 11).
“The pump was brought back online, but they think a valve may not be working correctly inside it. Some of the station’s internal electrical systems were moved over to the second loop, and some noncritical things were powered down. The crew was always safe and will work with the ground teams as they figure out what caused the issue.”
Non-critical systems were powered down in the Harmony node, Columbus Laboratory and Japanese Kibo laboratory. After confirming that the new configuration was stable, controllers began this morning (EST) to move the troublesome valve to several positions and monitor the effect on cooling temperatures, according to a NASA TV update.
The Japanese Kibo module on the International Space Station as photographed by a member of the Expedition 38 crew in 2013. Credit: NASA
The crew is going about their activities as much as possible, although they’re on a “reduced timeline” because some of the experiments aren’t running as usual. (Science collected up to now is “not at risk”, Todd said.)
Responding to questions on social media, NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock — who led three unplanned spacewalks in 2010 to replace a broken ammonia pump module on the S1 truss in the same cooling loop — said he is working with Mission Control to see what needs to be done next.
NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock during a contingency spacewalk Nov. 16, 2010 after an ammonia cooling pump failed aboard the International Space Station. During this spacewalk, Wheelock and fellow Expedition 24 crew member Tracy Caldwell installed a spare ammonia pump module on the S1 Truss on the space station. The duo did three contingency spacewalks during the mission to address the problem. Credit: NASA
Astronauts have been troubleshooting the suit periodically on board station, but NASA is planning to send it back on the next SpaceX Dragon flight to Earth for further investigation. SpaceX isn’t planning to get to the station again until late February, media reports say. Russian spacewalks can still continue as they use a separate suit; the most recent one took place in November with the Olympic torch.
While Todd didn’t quite say the ban on spacewalks has been lifted, he added that NASA has new procedures in place to guard against another crew member facing the same water issue. He did not elaborate on what those procedures are.
The current launch window for Cygnus extends as far as Dec. 21 and “possibly” the 22nd, Todd said, but emphasized more time is needed to come to a decision. “At this point, for lack of a better term, we’re going to kick the can a little bit and let the team work a little bit more,” he said.
Updates will follow as the situation and fix progresses.
Layered deposits in Juventae Chasma as seen by the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter's high-resolution stereo camera in November 2013. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
Above is a time capsule of more than three billion years of Mars history. The right-hand side shows a bunch of blocky-looking things that formed after volcanic activity made the walls of Juventae Chasma collapse. In the center are what the European Space Agency calls “mystery mounds” made up of sulphate materials (indicating that they were changed by water a long time ago.)
“The mounds contain numerous layers that were most likely built up as lake-deposits during the Chasma’s wet epoch. But ice-laden dust raining out from the atmosphere – a phenomenon observed at the poles of Mars – may also have contributed to the formation of the layers,” ESA stated.
“While the water has long gone, wind erosion prevails, etching grooves into the exposed surfaces of the mounds and whipping up the surrounding dust into ripples.”
The picture was snapped Nov. 4 by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission. There’s been a lot of talk about water on Mars this past week, between this possible salty water find at the equator and news of the Mars Curiosity rover stumbling on to an ancient lake that could have supported life.
Mars Express has been humming along for 10 years and counting above the Red Planet. Check out some of its top discoveries in the past decade in this past article by Universe Today’s Ken Kremer.
This artist’s concept shows Mars Express set against a 35 km-wide crater in the Vastitas Borealis region of Mars at approximately 70.5°N / 103°E. The crater contains a permanent patch of water-ice that likely sits upon a dune field – some of the dunes are exposed towards the top left in this image. Copyright ESA/DLR/FU-Berlin-G.Neukum
Jupiter's moon, Europa, appears to have clay-like minerals on it (visible in blue in the false-color patch, amid red-colored water ice). The information came from new data analysis from NASA's Galileo mission, which concluded in 2003. The backdrop is a mosaic of visual-light images from Galileo's Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI
The cool thing about space missions is long after they conclude, the data can yield the most interesting information. Here’s an example: Jupiter’s moon Europa may have a ripe spot for organic materials to take root.
Scouring the data from NASA’s past Galileo mission — which ended a decade ago — scientists unveiled an area with “clay-like minerals” on it that came to be after an asteroid or comet smashed into the surface. The connection? These celestial party-crashers often carry organics with them.
“Organic materials, which are important building blocks for life, are often found in comets and primitive asteroids,” stated Jim Shirley, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Finding the rocky residues of this comet crash on Europa’s surface may open up a new chapter in the story of the search for life on Europa.”
Reprocessed Galileo image of Europa’s frozen surface by Ted Stryk (NASA/JPL/Ted Stryk)
Europa is considered one of the best spots in our solar system to look for life, due to the ocean lurking beneath its icy surface, surface salts that can provide energy, and a source of heat as the mighty Jupiter squeezes and releases the moon like a tennis ball.
The minerals (called phyllosilicates) emerged after Shirley’s team ran a new analysis on infrared pictures snapped by Galileo in 1998, basically working to refine the signal out of the images (which are much lower quality than what we are capable of today).
After the analysis, the phyllosilicates appeared in a “broken ring”, NASA stated, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) away from a crater site. The crater itself is about 20 miles (30 kilometers) in diameter. Scientists are betting that the ring of phyllosilicates is debris (“splash back of material”, NASA says), after a celestial body struck at or around a 45 degree angle from vertical. It’s unlikely the phyllosilicates came from Europa’s ocean given the crust, which can be as thick as 60 miles (100 kilometers).
Europa Report was a 2013 film that focused on a human mission to the Jovian moon. Poster by Start Motion Pictures.
“If the body was an asteroid, it was likely about 3,600 feet (1,100 meters) in diameter. If the body was a comet, it was likely about 5,600 feet (1,700 meters) in diameter. It would have been nearly the same size as the comet ISON before it passed around the sun a few weeks ago,” NASA stated.
To be clear, nobody has found organic materials on Europa directly, and even if they were detected it would then be another feat of science to determine if they related to life or not. This does, however, lend credence to theories that life came to Earth through comets and asteroids.
NASA's Morpheus Project -- a prototype for vertical landing and takeoff for other planets -- during a free flight test Dec. 10, 2013. Credit: NASA (@MorpheusLander Twitter feed)
What an otherworldly experience, without having to leave Earth! The Morpheus Project wrapped up a successful free-flight test yesterday. That picture above is just to whet your appetite for the actual video, which you can see (and definitely hear) after the jump below.
“WOOOOHOOOOO! How about them apples?!” the @MorpheusLander Twitter feed said shortly after the test wrapped up with a takeoff, hover and landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. “Successful #FREEFLIGHT @NASAKennedy today!” the feed added later. “Get ready for us to #increasetheawesome as we progress through our tests!”
The team is of course analyzing the data to see how successful this free flight was for the planetary landing prototype that NASA is testing.
NASA’s goal with Morpheus is to demonstrate landing technologies at low cost, to possibly bring on to planetary missions in the future — and ultimately, human ones as well.
“The Morpheus project and the Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) project provide technological foundations for key components of the greater exploration architecture necessary to move humans beyond low Earth orbit (LEO),” the project stated on its website.
A series of images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show how the appearance of dark markings on Martian slope changes with the seasons. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona.
Get ready, because here are some more findings about possible water on Mars. This picture above from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a series showing changing dark lines on an equatorial hillside — which could be an indication of salty water, scientists said.
As MRO circled the planet and peered at the lines with its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, it tracked these changes at five locations in Valles Marineris, the biggest canyon our solar system has to offer. The lines were on slopes that faced the north and the south, and most intriguingly, they activated when the sun hit their respective sides.
“The equatorial surface region of Mars has been regarded as dry, free of liquid or frozen water, but we may need to rethink that,” stated Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona in Tucson.
“The explanation that fits best is salty water is flowing down the slopes when the temperature rises,” added McEwen, who is HiRISE principal investigator. “We still don’t have any definite identification of water at these sites, but there’s nothing that rules it out, either.”
A 2010 image of ice excavated on Mars after a recent meteorite impact. Image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Scientists first spotted these types of features two years ago in the mid-latitudes of Mars, but in that case these were small features (usually less than 16 feet or five meters wide). The slopes observed here range as wide as 4,000 feet (1,200 meters).
Salt can keep water flowing even in temperatures where more pure water gets frozen, and also reduce the evaporation rate. NASA also noted it used data from two other MRO instruments (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars and the Context Camera) and the Mars Oddysey’s Thermal Emission Imaging System.
That’s not all, however. Scientists also reported 15 fresh craters that excavated ice that used to be hidden underneath the soil of Mars.
A radar on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has detected widespread deposits of glacial ice in the mid-latitudes of Mars.NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASI/University of Rome/Southwest Research Institute
“The more we find, the more we can fill in a global map of where ice is buried,” stated Colin Dundas of the United States Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz.
“We’ve now seen icy craters down to 39 degrees north, more than halfway from the pole to the equator. They tell us that either the average climate over several thousand years is wetter than present or that water vapor in the current atmosphere is concentrated near the surface. Ice could have formed under wetter conditions, with remnants from that time persisting today, but slowly disappearing.”
Results were presented at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting this week.
Artist's conception of the European Space Agency's CryoSat mission. Credit: ESA – P. Carril
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing the equivalent of a Lake Tahoe in ice every single year, according to new measurements from the European Space Agency CryoSat satellite — quite a bit more than what was measured earlier. That’s 36 cubic miles or 150 cubic kilometers every single year.
The measured loss also affects sea levels around the world. Between 2005 and 2010, polar scientists previously calculated, oceans rose about 0.0110 inches (0.28 mm) a year due to West Antarctic melting. The new results suggest that the melting is about 15% higher. That would put the new sea-rise rate at 0.0115 inches (0.32 mm) a year.
“We find that ice thinning continues to be most pronounced along fast-flowing ice streams of this sector and their tributaries, with thinning rates of between 4–8 m [13 to 26 feet] per year near to the grounding lines – where the ice streams lift up off the land and begin to float out over the ocean – of the Pine Island, Thwaites and Smith Glaciers,” stated Malcolm McMillan, a research fellow at the United Kingdom’s University of Leeds.
West Antarctic thinning between 2010 and 2013, as measured by the European Space Agency’s CryoSat satellite. Credit: CPOM/ESA
What scientists don’t know is whether the ice is thinning faster due to melting glaciers or if CryoSat — the European Space Agency satellite that made these measurements by radar following its launch in 2010 — is simply mapping the same rate of loss but in higher resolution as what was seen before.
“Thanks to its novel instrument design and to its near-polar orbit, CryoSat allows us to survey coastal and high-latitude regions of Antarctica that were beyond the capability of previous altimeter missions, and it seems that these regions are crucial for determining the overall imbalance,” stated Andrew Shepherd, a University of Leeds researcher who led the study.
The research was presented at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting this week.
