Fireworks and the quarter Moon seen over the skies of Pisa, Italy on June 16, 2013. Credit and copyright: Giuseppe Petricca.
This lovely image of the Moon with fireworks exploding nearby in the sky was taken by astrophotgrapher Giuseppe Petricca over the weekend. “In Pisa, it was the Patron Saint’s Day, and I managed to catch fireworks, launched from the middle of the river Arno, exploding near the first quarter Moon!” This is an actual shot — not a mosaic — and Guiseppe said he only used Photoshop to make the Moon’s surface detail more clear and reduced the overall noise in the picture.
The event must have been awe-inspiring in person!
This image taken with a Nikon P90 Bridge Digital Camera on tripod.
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This is an image of a unique eclipse as viewed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, with a model of the moon from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter replacing the lunar shadow. Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC
You’ve probably never before seen an image like the one above. That’s because it is the first time something like this has ever been created, and it is only possible thanks to two fairly recent NASA missions, the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. We’ve shared previously how two or three times a year, SDO goes through “eclipse season” where it observes the Moon traveling across the Sun, blocking its view.
Now, Scott Wiessinger and Ernie Wright from Goddard Space Flight Center’s Scientific Visualization Studio used SDO and LRO data to create a model of the Moon that exactly matches SDO’s perspective of a lunar transit from October 7, 2010. They had to precisely match up data from the correct time and viewpoint for the two separate spacecraft, and the end result is this breathtaking image of the Sun and the Moon.
“The results look pretty neat,” Wiessinger said via email, “and it’s a great example of everything working: SDO image header data, which contains the spacecraft’s position; our information about lunar libration, elevation maps of the lunar surface, etc. It all lines up very nicely.”
‘Nicely’ is an understatement. How about “freaking awesome!”
And of course, they didn’t just stop there.
his is an up close shot of two NASA images: An image rendered from a model of the moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter overlaid onto an image of the sun from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, during a lunar transit as seen by SDO on Oct. 7, 2010. The various features of the moon’s horizon are labeled. Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC
Since the data from both spacecraft are at such high resolution, if you zoom in to the LRO image, features of the Moon’s topography are visible, such as mountains and craters. This annotated image shows what all is visible on the Moon. And then there’s the wonderful and completely unique view in the background of SDO’s data of the Sun.
So while the imagery is awesome, this exercise also means that both missions are able to accurately provide images of what’s happening at any given moment in time.
The image on the left is a view of the sun captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on Oct. 7, 2010, while partially obscured by the moon. Looking closely at the crisp horizon of the moon against the sun shows the outline of lunar mountains. A model of the moon from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been inserted into a picture on the right, showing how perfectly the moon’s true topography fits into the shadow observed by SDO. Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC
The CRaTER instrument aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter measures the effect of cosmic rays on "human tissue-equivalent" plastic. (NASA)
It could work, say researchers from the University of New Hampshire and the Southwest Research Institute.
One of the inherent dangers of space travel and long-term exploration missions beyond Earth is the constant barrage of radiation, both from our own Sun and in the form of high-energy particles originating from outside the Solar System called cosmic rays. Extended exposure can result in cellular damage and increased risks of cancer at the very least, and in large doses could even result in death. If we want human astronauts to set up permanent outposts on the Moon, explore the dunes and canyons of Mars, or mine asteroids for their valuable resources, we will first need to develop adequate (and reasonably economical) protection from dangerous space radiation… or else such endeavors will be nothing more than glorified suicide missions.
While layers of rock, soil, or water could protect against cosmic rays, we haven’t yet developed the technology to hollow out asteroids for spaceships or build stone spacesuits (and sending large amounts of such heavy materials into space isn’t yet cost-effective.) Luckily, there may be a much easier way to protect astronauts from cosmic rays — using lightweight plastics.
While aluminum has always been the primary material in spacecraft construction, it provides relatively little protection against high-energy cosmic rays and can add so much mass to spacecraft that they become cost-prohibitive to launch.
Using observations made by the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) orbiting the Moon aboard LRO, researchers from UNH and SwRI have found that plastics, adequately designed, can provide better protection than aluminum or other heavier materials.
“This is the first study using observations from space to confirm what has been thought for some time—that plastics and other lightweight materials are pound-for-pound more effective for shielding against cosmic radiation than aluminum,” said Cary Zeitlin of the SwRI Earth, Oceans, and Space Department at UNH. “Shielding can’t entirely solve the radiation exposure problem in deep space, but there are clear differences in effectiveness of different materials.”
Zeitlin is lead author of a paper published online in the American Geophysical Union journal Space Weather.
A block of tissue-equivalent plastic (TEP) Credit: UNH
The plastic-aluminum comparison was made in earlier ground-based tests using beams of heavy particles to simulate cosmic rays. “The shielding effectiveness of the plastic in space is very much in line with what we discovered from the beam experiments, so we’ve gained a lot of confidence in the conclusions we drew from that work,” says Zeitlin. “Anything with high hydrogen content, including water, would work well.”
The space-based results were a product of CRaTER’s ability to accurately gauge the radiation dose of cosmic rays after passing through a material known as “tissue-equivalent plastic,” which simulates human muscle tissue.
(It may not look like human tissue, but it collects energy from cosmic particles in much the same way.)
Prior to CRaTER and recent measurements by the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) on the Mars rover Curiosity, the effects of thick shielding on cosmic rays had only been simulated in computer models and in particle accelerators, with little observational data from deep space.
The CRaTER observations have validated the models and the ground-based measurements, meaning that lightweight shielding materials could safely be used for long missions — provided their structural properties can be made adequate to withstand the rigors of spaceflight.
OK, it’s a bad gag, I know. But the movie Man of Steel isn’t the only thing that’s “super” about June this year. The closest full Moon of 2013 occurs on June 23, when it will be 356,991 kilometres from Earth, within 600 kilometres of its closest possible approach. When the Moon is closest to Earth in its orbit, it also appears just a bit larger in the sky. But that’s if you’re really paying attention, however!
Some claims circulating on the Internet tend to exaggerate how large the Moon will actually appear. And as for the assertions that the Moon will look bright purple or blue on June 23, that’s just not true. As seems to happen every year, the term “supermoon” has once again reared its (ugly?) head across ye ole Internet. Hey, it’s a teachable moment, a good time to look at where the term came from, and examine the wonderful and wacky motion of our Moon.
I’ll let you in on a small secret. Most astronomers, both of the professional and backyard variety, dislike the informal term “supermoon”. It arose in astrology circles over the past few decades, and like the term “Blue Moon” seems to have found new life on the Internet. A better term from the annuals of astronomy for the near-coincidence of the closest approach of the Full Moon would be Perigee Full Moon. And if you really want to be archaic, Proxigean Moon is also acceptable.
On June 23, 2013, the Moon will be full at 7:32 AM EDT/ 11:32 UT, only 20 minutes after it reaches perigee, or its closest point to Earth in its orbit.
You can see the change in apparent size of the Moon (along with a rocking motion of the Moon known as nutation and libration) in this video from the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Scientific Visualization Studio. You can also see full animations for Moon phases and libration for 2013 from the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere.
And all perigees are not created equal, either. Remember, a Full Moon is an instant in time when the Moon’s longitude along the ecliptic is equal to 180 degrees. Thus, the Full Moon rises (unless you’re reading this from high polar latitudes!) opposite as the Sun sets. Perigee also oscillates over a value of just over 2 Earth radii (14,000 km) from 356,400 to 370,400 km. And while that seems like a lot, remember that the average distance to the Moon is about 60 earth radii, or 385,000 km distant.
Astronomers yearn for kryptonite for the supermoon. The Moon passes nearly as close every 27.55 days, which is the time that it takes to go from one perigee to another, known as an anomalistic month. This is not quite two days shorter than the more familiar synodic month of 29.53 days, the amount of time it takes the Moon to return to similar phase (i.e. New to New, Full to Full, etc).
This offset may not sound like much, but 2 days can add up. Thus, in six months time, we’ll have perigee near New phase and the smallest apogee Full Moon of the year, falling in 2013 on December 19th. Think of the synodic and anomalistic periods like a set of interlocking waves, cycling and syncing every 6-7 months.
You can even see this effect looking a table of supermoons for the next decade;
Super Moons for the Remainder of the Decade 2013-2020.
Year
Date
Perigee Time
Perigee Distance
Time from Full
Notes
2013
June 23
11:11UT
356,989km
< 1 hour
2013
July 21
20:28UT
358,401km
-21 hours
2014
July 13
8:28UT
358,285km
+21 hours
2014
August 10
17:44UT
356,896km
< 1 hour
2014
September 8
3:30UT
358,387km
-22 hours
2015
August 30
15:25UT
358,288km
+20 hours
2015
September 28
1:47UT
356,876km
-1 hour
Eclipse
2015
October 26
13:00UT
358,463km
-23 hours
2016
October 16
23:37UT
357,859km
+19 hours
Farthest
2016
November 14
11:24UT
356,511km
-2 hours
Closest
2017
December 4
8:43UT
357,495km
+16 hours
2018
January 1
21:56UT
356,565km
-4 hours
2019
January 21
19:59UT
357,344km
+14 hours
Eclipse
2019
February 19
9:07UT
356,761km
-6 hours
2020
March 10
6:34UT
357,122km
+12 hours
2020
April 7
18:10UT
356,908km
-8 hours
Sources: The fourmilab Lunar Perigee & Apogee Calculator & NASA’s Eclipse Website 2011-2020.Note: For the sake of this discussion, a supermoon is defined here as a Full Moon occurring within 24 hours of perigee. Other (often arbitrary) definitions exist!
Note that the supermoon slowly slides through our modern Gregorian calendar by roughly a month a year.
In fact, the line of apsides (an imaginary line drawn bisecting the Moon’s orbit from perigee to apogee) completes one revolution every 8.85 years. Thus, in 2022, the supermoon will once again occur in the June-July timeframe.
To understand why this is, we have to look at another unique feature of the Moon’s orbit. Unlike most satellites, the Moon’s orbit isn’t fixed in relation to its primaries’ (in this case the Earth’s) equator. Earth rotational pole is tilted 23.4 degrees in relation to the plane of its orbit (known as the ecliptic), and the Moon’s orbit is set at an inclination of 5.1 degrees relative to the ecliptic. In this sense, the Earth-Moon system behaves like a binary planet, revolving around a fixed barycenter.
The two points where the Moon’s path intersects the ecliptic are known as the ascending and descending nodes. These move around the ecliptic as well, lining up (known as a syzygy) during two seasons a year to cause lunar and solar eclipses.
The complex motion of the Moon, depicting the movement of the nodes versus the average movement of the line of apsides. (Credit: Geologician, Homunculus 2. Wikimedia Commons graphic under a Creative Common Attribution 3.0 Unported license).
But our friend the line of apsides is being dragged backwards relative to the motion of the nodes, largely by the influence of our Sun. Not only does this cause the supermoons to shift through the calendar, but the Moon can also ride ‘high’ with a declination of around +/-28 degrees relative to the celestial equator once every 19 years, as happened in 2006 and will occur again in 2025.
Falling only two days after the solstice, this month’s supermoon is also near where the Sun will be in December and thus will also be the most southerly Full Moon of 2013. Visually, the Full Moon only varies 14% in apparent diameter from 34.1’ (perigee) to 29.3’ (apogee).
Can you see the difference? A side by side comparison of the perigee and apogee Moon. (Credit: Inconstant Moon).
A fun experiment is to photograph the perigee Moon this month and then take an image with the same setup six months later when the Full Moon is near apogee. Another feat of visual athletics would be to attempt to visually judge the Full Moons throughout a given year. Which one do you think is largest & smallest? Can you discern the difference with the naked eye? Of course, you’d also have to somehow manage to insulate yourself from all the supermoon hype!
A comparison of the rising Moon (left) & the Full Moon high in the sky… as you can see, atmospheric refraction actually tends to “shrink” the apparent size of a rising Moon! (Credit & Copyright: Richard Fleet (@dewbow) The Moon Illusion).
Many folks also fall prey to the rising “Moon Illusion.” The Moon isn’t visually any bigger on the horizon than overhead. In fact, you’re about one Earth radii closer to the Moon when it’s at the zenith than on the horizon. This phenomenon is a psychological variant of the Ponzo illusion.
The supermoon of March 19, 2011 (right), compared to an average moon of December 20, 2010 (left). Note the size difference. Image Credit: Marco Langbroek, the Netherlands, via Wikimedia Commons.
Here are some of the things that even a supermoon can’t do, but we’ve actually heard claims for:
– Be physically larger. You’re just seeing the regular-sized Moon, a tiny bit closer.
– Cause Earthquakes. Yes, we can expect higher-than-normal Proxigean ocean tides, and there are measurable land tides that are influenced by the Moon, but no discernible link between the Moon and earthquakes exists. And yes, we know of the 2003 Taiwanese study that suggested a weak statistical correlation. And predicting an Earthquake after it has occurred, (as happened after the 2011 New Zealand quake) isn’t really forecasting, but a skeptical fallacy known as retrofitting.
– Influence human behavior. Well, maybe the 2013 Full Moon will make some deep sky imagers pack it in on Sunday night. Lunar lore is full of such anecdotes as more babies are born on Full Moon nights, crime increases, etc. This is an example the gambler’s fallacy, a matter of counting the hits but not the misses. There’s even an old wives tale that pregnancy can be induced by sleeping in the light of a Full Moon. Yes, we too can think of more likely explanations…
– Spark a zombie apocalypse. Any would-be zombies sighted (Rob Zombie included) during the supermoon are merely coincidental.
Do get out and enjoy the extra illumination provided by this and any other Full Moon, super or otherwise. Also, be thankful that we’ve got a large nearby satellite to give our species a great lesson in celestial mechanics 101!
Looking west at sunset from latitude 30 degrees north. The ecliptic and Mercury's orbit along with a 10 degree field of view outlined for reference. All graphics created by the author using Starry Night).
If you’ve never seen Mercury, this week is a great time to try.
Over the past few weeks, observers worldwide have been following the outstanding tight triple conjunction of Mercury, Venus and Jupiter low to the west at dusk.
Jupiter has exited the evening sky, headed for conjunction with the Sun on June 19th. I caught what was probably our last glimpse of Jupiter for the season clinging to the murky horizon through binoculars just last week. If you’re “Jonesin’ for Jove,” you can follow its progress this week through superior conjunction as it transits the Solar Heliospheric Observatory’s LASCO C3 camera.
This leaves the two innermost worlds of our fair solar system visible low to the west at dusk. And tonight, they’re joined by a very slender waxing crescent Moon, just over two days after New phase.
The Moon, Venus and Mercury as seen from 30 degrees north tonight at 9PM EDT.
The evening of June 10th finds a 4% illuminated Moon passing just over 5 degrees (about 10 Full Moon diameters) south of Venus and Mercury. Venus will be the first to appear as the sky darkens, shining at magnitude -3.9 and Mercury will shine about 40 times fainter above it at magnitude +0.3.
Ashen light, also known as Earthshine will also be apparent on the darkened limb of the Moon. Another old-time term for this phenomenon is “the Old Moon in the New Moon’s Arms.” Ashen light is caused by sunlight being reflected off of the Earth and illuminating the nighttime Earthward facing portion of the Moon. Just how prominent this effect appears can vary depending on the total amount of cloud cover on the Earth’s Moonward facing side.
….and the orientation of the Moon, Mercury and Venus on the night of June 12th and ~9PM EDT.
This week sets the stage for the best dusk apparition of Mercury for northern hemisphere viewers in 2013. Orbiting the Sun every 88 Earth days, we see Mercury either favorably placed east of the Sun in the dusk sky or west of the Sun in the dawn sky roughly six times a year. Mercury’s orbit is markedly elliptical, and thus not all apparitions are created the same. An elongation near perihelion, when Mercury is 46 million kilometers from the Sun, can mean its only 17.9 degrees away from the Sun as viewed from the Earth. An elongation near aphelion, 69.8 million kilometers distant, has a maximum angular separation of 27.8 degrees.
This week’s greatest elongation of 24.3 degrees occurs on June 12th. It’s not the most extreme value for 2013, but does have another factor going for it; the angle of the ecliptic. As we approach the solstice of June 21st, the plane of the solar system as traced out by the orbit of the Earth is at a favorable angle relative to the horizon. Thus, an observer from 35 degrees north latitude sees Mercury 18.4 degrees above the horizon at sunset, while an observer at a similar latitude in the southern hemisphere only sees it slightly lower at 16.9 degrees.
Venus and the Moon make great guides to locate Mercury over the next few nights. It’s said that Copernicus himself never saw Mercury with his own eyes, though this oft repeated tale is probably apocryphal.
We also get a shot at a skewed “emoticon conjunction” tonight, not quite a “smiley face” (: as occurred between Jupiter, Venus and the Moon in 2008, but more of a “? :” Stick around until February 13th, 2056 and you’ll see a much tighter version of the same thing! A time exposure of a pass of the International Space Station placed near Mercury and Venus could result in a planetary “meh” conjunction akin to a “/:” Hey, just throwing that obscure challenge out there. Sure, there’s no scientific value to such alignments, except as testimony that the universe may just have a skewed sense of humor…
Through the telescope, Venus currently shows a 10” diameter gibbous phase, while Mercury is only slightly smaller at 8” and is just under half illuminated. No detail can be discerned on either world, as a backyard telescope will give you the same blank view of both worlds that vexed astronomers for centuries. These worlds had to await the dawn of the space age to give up their secrets. NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft entered a permanent orbit around Mercury in 2011, and continues to return some outstanding science.
Both planets are catching up to us from the far side of their orbits. Mercury will pass within 2 degrees of Venus on June 20th, making for a fine wide field view in binoculars.
And now for the wow factor of what you’re seeing tonight. The Moon just passed apogee on June 9th and is currently about 416,500 kilometers or just over one light second distant. Mercury meanwhile, is 0.86 astronomical units (A.U.), or almost 133 million kilometers, or about 7 light minutes away. Finally, Venus is currently farther away from the Earth than the Sun at 1.59 A.U.s, or about 13.7 light minutes distant.
All this makes for a great show in the dusk skies this week. And yes, lunar apogee just after New sets us up for the closest Full Moon of 2013 (aka the internet sensation known as the “Super Moon”) on June 23rd. More to come on that soon!
Do you live in the southern hemisphere? Are you tired of all those views of the Moon that favor celestial north as up? Well here’s a video just for you from the good folks at the GSFC Scientific Visualization Center — it shows the full 2013 year of lunar phases and libration as seen from Earth’s southern half using data gathered by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. (Because what’s so great about north, anyway?)
Each frame represents one hour. Side graphs indicate the Moon’s orbit position, sub-Earth and subsolar points, and distance from the Earth at true scale. Awesome! Um, I mean… bonzer!
And what’s up with all that wobbling around? Find out more below:
The Moon always keeps the same face to us, but not exactly the same face. Because of the tilt and shape of its orbit, we see the Moon from slightly different angles over the course of a month. When a month is compressed into 24 seconds, as it is in this animation, our changing view of the Moon makes it look like it’s wobbling. This wobble is called libration.
The word comes from the Latin for “balance scale” and refers to the way such a scale tips up and down on alternating sides.
The Moon is subject to other motions as well. It appears to roll back and forth around the sub-Earth point (the location on the Moon’s surface where the Earth appears directly overhead, at the zenith.) The roll angle is given by the position angle of the axis, which is the angle of the Moon’s north pole relative to celestial north. The Moon also approaches and recedes from us, appearing to grow and shrink. The two extremes, called perigee (near) and apogee (far), differ by more than 10%.
Read more and see the current phase of the Moon (bottom up) on the GSFC Dial-a-Moon page here.
The blue areas show locations on the Moon's south pole where water ice is likely to exist (NASA/GSFC)
The Moon might seem like a poor place to hunt for water, but in fact there’s a decent amount of the stuff dispersed throughout the lunar soil — and even more of it existing as ice deposits in the dark recesses of polar craters. While the LCROSS mission crashed a rocket stage into one of these craters in October 2009 and confirmed evidence of water in the resulting plume of debris, there haven’t been any definitive maps made of water deposits across a large area on the Moon — until now.
Over the course of several years, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter scanned the Moon’s south pole using its Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) to measure how much hydrogen is trapped within the lunar soil. Areas exhibiting suppressed neutron activity — shown above in blue — indicate where hydrogen atoms are concentrated most, strongly suggesting the presence of water molecules… aka H2O.
The incredibly-sensitive LEND instrument measures the flux of neutrons from the Moon, which are produced by the continuous cosmic ray bombardment of the lunar surface. Even a fraction of hydrogen as small as 100 ppm can make a measurable change in neutron distribution from the surface of worlds with negligible atmospheres, and the hydrogen content can be related to the presence of water.
No other neutron instrument with LEND’s imaging capability has ever been flown in space.
Watch the video below for more details as to how LRO and LEND obtained these results:
“While previous lunar missions have observed indications of hydrogen at the Moon’s south pole, the LEND measurements for the first time pinpoint where hydrogen, and thus water, is likely to exist.”
What’s so important about finding water on the Moon? Well besides helping answer the question of where water on Earth and within the inner Solar System originated, it could also be used by future lunar exploration missions to produce fuel for rockets, drinking water, and breathable air. Read more here.
GRAIL mission in Lunar Orbit. Artist concept of twin GRAIL spacecraft flying in tandem orbits around the moon to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail. Credit: NASA/JPL
The moon’s gravity has been a headache ever since the Apollo era. Areas of “mass concentration” or mascons, discovered in 1968, affected spacecraft orbits and made landing on Earth’s neighbor a tricky challenge.
The phenomenon has puzzled scientists, but new data shows that mascons might have come to be after asteroids or comets hit the moon a long time ago.
For nine months last year, until their mission ended with a deliberate crash on a moon mountain, twin washing-machine sized spacecraft Ebb and Flow circled the planet. Their work was known as the GRAIL mission (also known as Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory.) As they orbited together, gravity changes in the moon below them slightly changed their distances to each other — sometimes closer, sometimes further.
This allowed scientists to map out the mascons to high precision once they combined that information with computer models of big asteroid impacts as well as how craters on the moon evolved.
Craters on the Moon. Image credit: NASA
Mascons, which are invisible on the surface but appear in gravity maps as a sort of bulls-eye, arise “as a natural consequence of crater excavation, collapse and cooling following an impact,” NASA stated.
The center of the bulls-eye has stronger gravity, with a ring of weaker gravity surrounding the bulls-eye, and then another ring of strong gravity surrounding the bulls-eye and inner ring.
“GRAIL data confirm that lunar mascons were generated when large asteroids or comets impacted the ancient moon, when its interior was much hotter than it is now,” stated Jay Melosh, lead researcher and a GRAIL co-investigator at Purdue University.
“We believe the data from GRAIL show how the moon’s light crust and dense mantle combined with the shock of a large impact to create the distinctive pattern of density anomalies that we recognize as mascons.”
What’s more, researchers expect they’ll be able to apply that understanding to Mercury and Mars, as mascons were also discovered on those terrestrial planets.
The findings appeared in the May 30 edition of Science. You can read the entire article here.
The system the European Space Agency is using to aim for pinpoint landings on nearby moons and planets. Credit: ESA
Mission planners really hate it when space robots land off course. We’re certainly improving the odds of success these days (remember Mars Curiosity’s seven minutes of terror?), but one space agency has a fancy simulator up its sleeve that could make landings even more precise.
Shown above, this software and hardware (tested at the European Space Agency) so impressed French aerospace center ONERA that officials recently gave the lead researcher an award for the work.
“If I’m a tourist in Paris, I might look for directions to famous landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe or Notre Dame cathedral to help find my position on a map,” stated Jeff Delaune, the Ph.D. student performing the research.
“If the same process is repeated from space with enough surface landmarks seen by a camera, the eye of the spacecraft, it can then pretty accurately identify where it is by automatically comparing the visual information to maps we have onboard in the computer.”
ESA’s SMART-1 mission took this collection of lunar pictures around the south pole, a possible landing target for future missions. Credit: ESA
Because landmarks close-up can look really different from far away, this system has a method to try and get around that problem.
The so-called ‘Landing with Inertial and Optical Navigation’ (LION) system takes the real-time images generated by the spacecraft’s camera and compares it to maps from previous missions, as well as 3-D digital models of the surface.
LION can take into account the relative size of every point it sees, whether it’s a huge crater or a tiny boulder.
At ESA’s control hardware laboratory in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, officials tested the system with a high-res map of the moon.
Though this is just a test and there is still a ways to go before this system is space-ready, ESA said simulated positional accuracy was better than 164 feet at 1.86 miles in altitude (or 50 meters at three kilometers in altitude.)
Oh, and while it’s only been tested with simulated moon terrain so far, it’s possible the same system could help a robot land on an asteroid, or Mars, ESA adds.
No word on when the system will first hitch an interplanetary ride, but Delaune is working to apply the research to terrestrial matters such as unmanned aerial vehicles.
The RepRap self-replicating printer 'Mendel". (Credit: CharlesC under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).
The International Space Station may soon have its very own Star Trek food replicator.
Earlier this week, NASA awarded a $125,000 six month grant to the Systems & Materials Research Cooperation to design a 3D printer capable of printing a pizza from 30-year shelf stable foodstuffs.
Founded by Anjan Contractor, SMRC built a basic food printer from a chocolate printer to win NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research Program in a trial video. The design is based on an open-source RepRap 3D printer.
Contractor and SMRC will begin construction on the pizza-printing prototype in two weeks. Pizza has been one item missing from astronauts menu for years. The 3D printer would “build-up” a pizza serving by first layering out the dough onto a heated plate then adding tomato sauce and toppings.
But this isn’t your mother’s pizza, as the proteins would be provided by cartridge injectors filled with organic base powders derived from algae, insects and grass.
Yummy stuff, to be sure!
Of course, one can see an immediate application of 3D food printing technology for long duration space missions. Contractor and SMRC envisions 3D food printing as the wave of the future, with the capacity to solve world hunger for a burgeoning human population.
Could a 3D food printer be coming to a kitchen near you?
Curiously, printing confectioneries and pet food pellets would be the simplest application of said technology. Printing a soufflé and crowned rack of lamb will be tougher. 3D printing technology has made great strides as of late, and RepRap has made a printer which is capable of printing itself. Those who fear the rise of Von Neumann’s self-replicating robots should take note…
Should we welcome or fear our self-replicating, pizza-bearing overlords?
The International Space Station is due for the delivery of its first 3D printer in 2014. This will give astros the capability to fabricate simple parts and tools onsite without requiring machining. Of course, the first question on our minds is: How will a 3D printer function in zero-g? Will one have tomato paste an insect parts flying about? Recent flights aboard a Boeing 727 by Made in Space Inc have been testing 3D printers in micro-gravity environments.
Made in Space demonstrates 3D Printing technology headed to the ISS next year. (Credit: Made in Space Inc./NASA).
Further afield, 3D replicators may arrive on the Moon or Mars ahead of humans, building a prefab colony with raw materials available for colonists to follow.
Artist’s conception of a lunar base constructed with 3D printing technology. (Credit: NASA Lunar Science Institute).
Will 3D food replicators pioneered by SMRC be a permanent fixture on crewed long duration space missions? Plans such as Dennis Tito’s Mars 2018 flyby and the one way Mars One proposal will definitely have to address the dietary dilemmas of hungry astronauts. Biosphere 2 demonstrated that animal husbandry will be impractical on long term missions. Future Martian colonists will definitely eat much farther down the food chain to survive. SpaceX head Elon Musk has recently said in a Twitter response to PETA that he won’t be the “Kale Eating Overlord of Mars,” and perhaps “micro-ranching” of insects will be the only viable alternative to filet mignon on the Red Planet. Hey, it beats Soylent Green… and the good news is, you can still brew beer from algae!
Diagram of a proposed 3D food printer based on ReRap. (Credit: SMRC).
Would YOU take a one way journey to Mars? Would you eat a bug to do it? It’ll be interesting to watch these 3D printers in action as they take to space and print America’s favorite delivery fast food. But it’s yet to be seen if home replicators will put Dominos Pizza out of business anytime soon. Perhaps they’ll only be viable if they can print a pizza in less than “30 minutes!”
