In this near-infrared mosaic, the sun shines off of the seas on Saturn's moon, Titan. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/University of Idaho
Saturn’s largest moon Titan is a truly fascinating place. Aside from Earth, it is the only place in the Solar System where rainfall occurs and there are active exchanges between liquids on the surface and fog in the atmosphere – albeit with methane instead of water. It’s atmospheric pressure is also comparable to Earth’s, and it is the only other body in the Solar System that has a dense atmosphere that is nitrogen-rich.
For some time, astronomers and planetary scientists have speculated that Titan might also have the prebiotic conditions necessary for life. Others, meanwhile, have argued that the absence of water on the surface rules out the possibility of life existing there. But according to a recent study produced by a research team from Cornell University, the conditions on Titan’s surface might support the formation of life without the need for water.
When it comes to searching for life beyond Earth, scientists focus on targets that possess the necessary ingredients for life as we know it – i.e. heat, a viable atmosphere, and water. This is essentially the “low-hanging fruit” approach, where we search for conditions resembling those here on Earth. Titan – which is very cold, quite distant from our Sun, and has a thick, hazy atmosphere – does not seem like a viable candidate, given these criteria.
Diagram of the internal structure of Titan according to the fully differentiated dense-ocean model. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Kelvinsong
However, according to the Cornell research team – which is led by Dr. Martin Rahm – Titan presents an opportunity to see how life could emerge under different conditions, one which are much colder than Earth and don’t involve water.
Previous experiments have shown that hydrogen cyanide (HCN) molecules can link together to form polyimine, a polymer that can serve as a precursor to amino acids and nucleic acids (the basis for protein cells and DNA). Previous surveys have also shown that hydrogen cyanide is the most abundant hydrogen-containing molecule in Titan’s atmosphere.
As Professor Lunine – the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences and Director of the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science and co-author of the study – told Universe Today via email: “Organic molecules, liquid lakes and seas (but of methane, not water) and some amount of solar energy reaches the surface. So this suggests the possibility of an environment that might host an exotic form of life.”
Titan’s thick, hazy atmosphere may conceal clues as to the possibility of life-giving conditions on its surface. Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI/J. Major
Using quantum mechanical calculations, the Cornell team showed that polyimine has electronic and structural properties that could facilitate prebiotic chemistry under very cold conditions. These involve the ability to absorb a wide spectrum of light, which is predicted to occur in a window of relative transparency in Titan’s atmosphere.
Another is the fact that polyimine has a flexible backbone, and can therefore take on many different structures (aka. polymorphs). These range from flat sheets to complex coiled structures, which are relatively close in energy. Some of these structures, according to the team, could work to accelerate prebiotic chemical reactions, or even form structures that could act as hosts for them.
“Polyimine can form sheets,” said Lunine, “which like clays might serve as a catalytic surface for prebiotic reactions. We also find the polyimine absorbs sunlight where Titan’s atmosphere is quite transparent, which might help to energize reactions.”
In short, the presence of polyimine could mean that Titan’s surface gets the energy its needs to drive photochemical reactions necessary for the creation of organic life, and that it could even assist in the development of that life. But of course, no evidence has been found that polyimine has been produced on the surface of Titan, which means that these research findings are still academic at this point.
Proposed missions to Titan have included (from left to right) the TALISE (Titan Lake In-situ Sampling Propelled Explorer) and NASA’s Titan Mare Explorer. Credit: bisbos.com
However, Lunine and his team indicate that hydrogen cyanide may very well have lead to the creation of polyimine on Titan, and that it might have simply escaped detection because of Titan’s murky atmosphere. They also added that future missions to Titan might be able to look for signs of the polymer, as part of ongoing research into the possibility of exotic life emerging in other parts of the Solar System.
“We would need an advanced payload on the surface to sample and search for polyimines,” answered Lunine, “or possibly by a next generation spectrometer from orbit. Both of these are “beyond Cassini”, that is, the next generation of missions.”
Perhaps when Juno is finished surveying Jupiter’s atmosphere in two years time, NASA might consider retasking it for a flyby of Titan? After all, Juno was specifically designed to peer beneath a veil of thick clouds. They don’t come much thicker than on Titan!
The Andromeda Galaxy, viewed using conventional optics and IR. Credit: Kitt Peak National Observatory
Imagine, if you will, that the Universe was once a much dirtier place than it is today. Imagine also that what we see around us, a relatively clean and unobscured Universe, is the result of billions of years of stars behaving like giant celestial Roombas, cleaning up the space around them in preparation for our arrival. According to a set of recently published catalogues, which detail the latest findings from the ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory, this description is actually quite fitting.
These catalogues represents the work of an international team of over 100 astronomers who have spent the past seven years analyzing the infrared images taken by the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (Herschel-ATLAS). Presented earlier this week at the National Astronomy Meeting in Nottingham, this catalogue revealed that 1 billion years after the Big Bang, the Universe looked much different than it does today.
In order to put this research into context, it is important to understand the important of infrared astronomy. Prior to the deployment of missions like Herschel (which was launched in 2009), astronomers were unable to see a good portion of the light emitted by stars and galaxies. With roughly half of this light being absorbed by interstellar dust grains, research into the birth and lives of galaxies was difficult.
But thanks to surveys like Herschel ATLAS – as well NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) – astronomers have been able to account for this missing energy. And what they have seen (especially from this latest survey) has been quite remarkable, presenting a Universe that is far denser than previously expected.
Artist’s impression of the Herschel Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/AOES Medialab/NASA/ESA/STScI
Professor Haley Gomez of Cardiff University presented this catalogue during the third day of the National Astronomy Meeting (which ran from June 27th to July 1st). As she told Universe Today via email:
“The Herschel survey is the largest one of the sky in these special infrared light. Because of this we see rare objects that we might not see in a smaller patch of sky, but also we now see hundreds of thousands of dusty galaxies, compared to the few hundred we saw in previous telescopes. So this is a massive improvement in terms of knowing what kinds of galaxies there are. Some of these are so covered in dust we might never had seen them using visible light telescopes. Because of the unprecedented large area we have with this Herschel survey, we see a huge variety in the type of objects too, from nearby dusty star forming clouds, to nearby dusty galaxies like Andromeda, to galaxies that shone their infrared light more than 12 billion years ago. We can also use this survey to understand the structure of galaxies in the universe – the so-called cosmic web in a way we’ve never been able to do in the far infrared.”
The images they showed gave all those present a glimpse of the unseen stars and galaxies that have existed over the last 12 billion years of cosmic history. In sum, over half-a-million far-infrared sources have been spotted by the Herschel-ATLAS survey. Many of these sources were galaxies that are nearby and similar to our own, and which are detectable using using conventional telescopes.
The others were much more distant, their light taking billions of years to reach us, and were obscured by concentrations of cosmic dust. The most distant of these galaxies were roughly 12 billion light-years away, which means that they appeared as they would have 12 billion years ago.
Herschel fig2smallAn illustration of the time reach of the Herschel ATLAS and the kinds of objects it has discovered. Credit: Herschel-ATLAS/ESA/ALMA/ NRAO
Ergo, astronomers now know that 12 billion years ago (i.e. shortly after the Big Bang)., stars and galaxies were much dustier than they are now. They further concluded that the evolution of our galaxies since shortly after the Big Bang has essentially been a major clean-up effort, as stars gradually absorbed the dust that obscured their light, thus making it the more “visible” place it is today.
The data released by the survey includes several maps and additional files which were described in an article produced by Dr. Elisabetta Valiante and a research team from Cardiff University – titled “The Herschel-ATLAS Data Release 1 Paper I: Maps, Catalogues and Number Counts“. As Dr. Valiante told Universe Today via email:
“Gas and dust are the main components of stars: they collapse to form stars and they are ejected at the end of stars’ life. The interesting thing that has been discovered thanks to the Herschel data is that the two phenomena are not in equilibrium. We knew this was true 10 billion years ago, but we expected, according to the current models, that some equilibrium was reached at more recent times. Instead, the amount of dust in galaxies 5 billion years ago was much larger than the amount we see in galaxies today: this was unexpected.”
Until recently, such a survey would have been impossible due to the fact that many of these infrared sources would have been invisible to astronomers. The reason for this, which was revealed by the survey, was that these galaxies were so dusty that they would have been virtually impossible to detect with conventional optics. What’s more, their light would have been gravitationally magnified by intervening galaxies.
Infrared images (like the one captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope here) show countless stars and galaxies that are obscured in visible-light by cosmic dust. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The huge size of the survey has also meant that changes that have occurred in galaxies – relatively recent in cosmic history – can be studied for the first time. For instance, the survey showed that even only one billion years in the past, a small fraction of the age of the universe, galaxies were forming stars at a faster rate and contained more dust than they do today.
Dr. Nathan Bourne – from the University of Edinburgh – is the lead author of another other paper describing the catalogues. As he told Universe Today via email:
“We can think of galaxies as big recycling machines. When they form, they accrete gas (mostly hydrogen and helium, with traces of lithium and a couple of other elements) from the universe around them, and they turn it into stars. As time goes on, the stars pump this gas back out into the galaxy, into the interstellar medium. Due to the nuclear processes within the stars, the gas is now enriched by heavy elements (what we call metals, though they include both metals and non-metals), and some of these form microscopic solid particles of dust, as a sort of by-product.
“But there are still stars forming, and the next generations of stars recycle this interstellar material, and now that it contains heavy elements and dust, things are a bit different, and planets can also form around the new stars, from accumulations of this heavy material. So, if you look at the big picture, when the first galaxies started forming within the first billion years after the Big Bang, they began using up the gas around them, and then while they are active they fill their interstellar medium up with gas and dust, but by the end of a galaxy’s lifecycle, it has used up all this gas and dust, and you could say that it has cleaned itself.”
The catalogues and maps of the hidden universe are a triumph for the Herschel team. Despite the fact that the last information obtained by the Herschel observatory was back in 2013, the maps and catalogues produced from its years of service have become vital to astronomers. In addition to showing the Universe’s hidden energy, they are also laying the groundwork for future research.
IR images of the entire sky take by the WISE All-Sky Data Release (top), and a projection of the IR sky created by images taken by the COBE spacecraft (bottom). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA (top), NASA/DIRBE Team/COBE/ (bottom)
“Now we need to explain why there is dust where we did not expect to find it.” said Valiante. “And to explain this, we need to change our theories about how the Universe evolves. Our data poses a challenge we have accepted, but we haven’t overcome it yet!”
“[W]e understand a lot more about how galaxies evolve,” added Bourne, “about when most of the stars formed, what happens to the gas and dust as galaxies evolve, and how rapidly the star-forming activity in the Universe as a whole has faded in the latter half of the Universe’s history. It’s fair to say that this understanding comes from having a whole suite of different types of instruments studying different aspects of galaxies in complementary ways, but Herschel has certainly contributed a major part of that effort and will have a lasting legacy.”
Ensuring Herschel’s lasting legacy is one of the main aims of the Herschel Extragalactic Project (HELP) program, which is overseen by the EU Research Executive Agency. Other projects they oversee include the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES), which also released survey data late last month. All of this has left a lasting mark on the field of astronomy, despite the fact that Herschel is no longer in operation. As Professor Gomez said of the Herschel Observatory’s enduring contributions:
“The Herschel Space Observatory stopped taking data in 2013, yet our understanding of the dusty universe is really only just starting with the release of large surveys and galaxy catalogues in recent months. Ultimately, once astronomers have gone through all the valuable data, Herschel will have provided a view of the infrared universe covering 1000 square degrees of the sky.”
The implications of these findings are also likely to have a far-reaching effect, ranging from cosmology and astronomy, to perhaps shedding some light on that tricky Fermi paradox. Could it be intelligent life that emerged billions of years ago didn’t venture to other star systems because they couldn’t see them? Just a thought…
NASA's Juno spacecraft launched on August 6, 2011 and should arrive at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Credit: NASA / JPL
Ever since Galileo first observed it through a telescope in 1610, Jupiter and its system of moons have fascinated humanity. And while many spacecraft have visited the system in the past forty years, the majority of these missions were flybys. With the exception of the Galileo space probe, the visits of these spacecraft to the Jupiter system were one of several intended objectives, taking place before they made their way deeper into the Solar System.
Having launched on August 5th, 2011, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has a different purpose in mind. Using a suite of scientific instruments, Juno will study Jupiter’s atmosphere, magnetic environment, weather patterns, and shed light on the history of its formation. In essence, it will be the first probe since the Galileo mission to orbit Jupiter, where it will spend the next two years sending information about the gas giant back to Earth.
If successful, Juno will prove to be the only other long-term mission to Jupiter. However, compared to Galileo – which spent seven years in orbit around the gas giant – Juno’s mission is planned to last for just two years. However, its improved suite of instruments are expected to provide a wealth of information in that time. And barring any mission extensions, its targeted impact on the surface of Jupiter will take place in February of 2018.
Juno will dive between the planet and its intense belts of charged particle radiation, coming within 5,000 kilometers (about 3,000 miles) from the cloud tops. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Background:
As part of the NASA’s New Frontiers program, the Juno mission is one of several medium-sized missions intended to explore the various bodies of the Solar System. It is currently one of three probes that NASA is operating, or in the process of building. The other two are the New Horizons probe (which flew by Pluto in 2015) and OSIRIS-REx, which is expected to fly to asteroid 101955 Bennu in 2020 and bring samples back to Earth.
During a 2003 decadal survey – titled “New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy” – The National Research Council discussed destinations that would serve as the source for the first competition for the New Frontiers program. A Jupiter orbiter was identified as a scientific priority, which it was hoped would address several unanswered questions pertaining to the gas giant.
These included whether or not Jupiter had a central core (the research of which would help establish how the planet was formed), the water content of Jupiter’s atmosphere, how its weather systems can remain stable, and what the nature of the magnetic field and plasma surrounding Jupiter are. In 2005, Juno was selected for the New Frontiers program alongside New Horizons and OSIRIS-REx.
Though it was originally intended to launch in 2009, NASA budget restrictions forced a delay until August of 2011. The probe was named in honor of the Roman goddess Juno, the wife of Jupiter (the Roman equivalent of Zeus) who was able to peer through a veil of clouds that Jupiter drew around himself. The name was previously a backronym which stood for JUpiter Near-polar Orbiter as well.
Mission Profile:
The Juno mission was created for the specific purpose of studying Jupiter for the sake of learning more about the formation of the Solar System. For some time, astronomers have understood that Jupiter played an important role in the development Solar System. Like the other gas giants, it was assembled during the early stages, before our Sun had the chance to absorb or blow away the light gases in the huge cloud from which they were born.
As such, Jupiter’s composition could tell us much about the early Solar System. Similarly, the gas giants are believed to have played a major role in the process of planet formation because their huge masses allowed them to shape the orbits of other objects – planets, asteroids and comets – in their planetary systems.
However, for astronomers and planetary scientists, much still remains unknown about this massive gas giant. For instance, Jupiter’s interior structure and composition, as well as what drives its magnetic field, are still the subject of theory. Because Jupiter formed at the same time as the Sun, their chemical compositions should be similar, but research has shown that Jupiter has more heavy elements than our Sun (such as carbon and nitrogen).
In addition, there are some unanswered questions about when and where the planet formed. While it may have formed in its current orbit, some evidence suggests that it could have formed farther from the sun before migrating inward. All of these questions, it is hoped, are things the Juno mission will answer.
Having launched on August 5th, 2011, the Juno spacecraft spent the next five years in space, and will reach Jupiter on July 4th, 2018. Once in orbit, it will spend the next two years orbiting the planet a total of 37 times from pole to pole, using its scientific instruments to probe beneath the gas giant’s obscuring cloud cover.
Instrumentation:
The Juno spacecraft comes equipped with a scientific suite of 8 instruments that will allow it to study Jupiter’s atmosphere, magnetic and gravitational field, weather patterns, its internal structure, and its formational history. They include:
Gravity Science: Using radio waves and measuring them for Doppler effect, this instrument will measure the distribution of mass inside Jupiter to create a gravity map. Small variations in gravity along the orbital path of the probe will induce small changes in velocity. The principle investigators of this instrument are John Anderson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Luciano Iess of the Sapienza University of Rome.
JunoCam: This visible light/telescope is the spacecraft’s only imaging device. Intended for public outreach and education, it will provide breathtaking pictures of Jupiter and the Solar System, but will operate for only seven orbits around Jupiter (due to the effect Jupiter’s radiation and magnetic field have on instruments). The PI for this instrument is Michael C. Malin, of Malin Space Science Systems
Jovian Auroral Distribution Experiment (JADE): Using three energetic particle detectors, the JADE instrument will measure the angular distribution, energy, and velocity vector of low energy ions and electrons in the auroras of Jupiter. The PI is David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).
Jovian Energetic Particle Detector Instrument (JEDI): Like JADE, JEDI will measure the angular distribution and the velocity vector of ions and electrons, but at high-energy and in the magnetosphere of Jupiter. The PI is Barry Mauk of NASA’s Applied Physics Laboratory.
Juno spacecraft and its science instruments. Credit: NASA/JPL
Jovian Infrared Aural Mapper (JIRAM): Operating in the near-infrared, this spectrometer will be responsible for mapping the upper layers of Jupiter’s atmosphere. By measuring the heat that is radiated outward, it will determine how water-rich clouds can float beneath the surface. It will also be able to assess the distribution of methane, water vapor, ammonia and phosphine in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Angioletta Coradini of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics is the PI on this instrument.
Magnetometer: This instrument will be used to map Jupiter’s magnetic field, determine the dynamics of the planet’s interior and determine the three-dimensional structure of the polar magnetosphere. Jack Connemey of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is the instrument’s PI.
Microwave Radiometer: The MR instrument will perform measurements of the electromagnetic waves that pass through the Jovian atmosphere, measuring the abundance of water and ammonia in its deep layers. In so doing, it will obtain a temperature profile at various levels and determine how deep the atmospheric circulation of Jupiter is. The PI for this instrument is Mike Janssen of the JPL.
Radio and Plasma Wave Sensor (RPWS): This RPWS will measure the radio and plasma spectra in Jupiter’s auroral region. In the process, it will identify the regions of auroral currents that define the planet’s radio emissions and accelerate its auroral particles. William Kurth of the University of Iowa is the PI.
Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVS): The UVS will record the wavelength, position and arrival time of detected ultraviolet photons, providing spectral images of the UV auroral emissions in the polar magnetosphere. G. Randall Gladstone of the SwRI is the PI.
In addition to its scientific suite, the Juno spacecraft also carries a commemorative plaque dedicated to Galileo Galilei. The plaque was provided by the Italian Space Agency and depicts a portrait of Galileo, as well as script that had been composed by Galileo himself on the occasion that he observed Jupiter’s four largest moons (known today as the Galilean Moons).
The Galileo plague aboard the Juno spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/KSC
The text, written in Italian and transcribed from Galileo’s own handwriting, translates as:
“On the 11th it was in this formation, and the star closest to Jupiter was half the size than the other and very close to the other so that during the previous nights all of the three observed stars looked of the same dimension and among them equally afar; so that it is evident that around Jupiter there are three moving stars invisible till this time to everyone.”
The spacecraft also carries three Lego figurines representing Galileo, the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno. The figure of Juno holds a magnifying glass as a sign of her searching for the truth, Jupiter holds a lightning bolt, and the figure of Galileo Galilei holds his famous telescope. Lego made these figurines out of aluminum (instead of the usual plastic) to ensure they would survive the extreme conditions of space flight.
Launch:
The Juno mission launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5th, 2011, atop an Atlas V rocket. After approximately 1 minute and 33 seconds, the five Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) reached burnout and then fell away. After 4 minutes and 26 seconds after liftoff, the Atlas V main engine cut off, followed 16 seconds later by the separation of the Centaur upper stage rocket.
After a burn that lasted for 6 minutes, the Centaur was put into its initial parking orbit. It coasted for approximately 30 minutes before its engine conducted a second firing which lasted for 9 minutes, putting the spacecraft on an Earth escape trajectory. About 54 minutes after launch, the spacecraft separated from the Centaur and began to extend its solar panels.
A year after launch, between August and September 2012, the Juno spacecraft successfully conducted two Deep Space Maneuvers designed to correct its trajectory. The first maneuver (DSM-1) occurred on August 30th, 2012, with the main engine firing for approximately 30 minutes and altering its velocity by about 388 m/s (1396.8 km/h; 867 mph).
The second maneuver (DSM-2), which had a similar duration and resulted in a similar velocity change, took place on September 14th. The two firings occurred when the probe was about 480 million km (298 million miles) from Earth, and altered the spacecraft’s speed and its Jupiter-bound trajectory, setting the stage for a gravity assist from its flyby of Earth.
Earth Flyby:
Juno’s Earth flyby took place on October 9th, 2013, after the spacecraft completed one elliptical orbit around the Sun. During its closest approach, the probe was at an altitude of about 560 kilometers (348 miles). The Earth flyby boosted Juno’s velocity by 3,900 m/s (14162 km/h; 8,800 mph) and placed the spacecraft on its final flight path for Jupiter.
During the flyby, Juno’s Magnetic Field Investigation (MAG) instrument managed to capture some low-resolution images of the Earth and Moon. These images were taken while the Juno probe was about 966,000 km (600,000 mi) away from Earth – about three times the Earth-moon separation. They were later combined by technicians at NASA’s JPL to create the video shown above.
The Earth flyby was also used as a rehearsal by the Juno science team to test some of the spacecraft’s instruments and to practice certain procedures that will be used once the probe arrives at Jupiter.
Rendezvous With Jupiter:
The Juno spacecraft reached the Jupiter system and established polar orbit around the gas giant on July 4th, 2016. It’s orbit will be highly elliptical and will take it close to the poles – within 4,300 km (2,672 mi) – before reaching beyond the orbit of Callisto, the most distant of Jupiter’s large moons (at an average distance of 1,882,700 km or 1,169,855.5 mi).
This orbit will allow the spacecraft to avoid long-term contact with Jupiter’s radiation belts, while still allowing it to perform close-up surveys of Jupiter’s polar atmosphere, magnetosphere and gravitational field. The spacecraft will spend the next two years orbiting Jupiter a total of 37 times, with each orbit taking 14 days.
Already, the probe has performed measurements of Jupiter’s magnetic field. This began on June 24th when Juno crossed the bow shock just outside Jupiter’s magnetosphere, followed by it’s transit into the lower density of the Jovian magnetosphere on June 25. Having made the transition from an environment characterized by solar wind to one dominated by Jupiter’s magnetosphere, the ship’s instruments revealed some interesting information about the sudden change in particle density.
The probe entered its polar elliptical orbit on July 4th after completing a 35-minute-long firing of the main engine, known as Jupiter Orbital Insertion (or JOI). As the probe approached Jupiter from above its north pole, it was afforded a view of the Jovian system, which it took a final picture of before commencing JOI.
On July 10th, the Juno probe transmitted its first imagery from orbit after powering back up its suite of scientific instruments. The images were taken when the spacecraft was 4.3 million km (2.7 million mi) from Jupiter and on the outbound leg of its initial 53.5-day capture orbit. The color image shows atmospheric features on Jupiter, including the famous Great Red Spot, and three of the massive planet’s four largest moons – Io, Europa and Ganymede, from left to right in the image.
While the mission team had hoped to reduce Juno’s orbital period to 14 days, thus allowing for it to conduct a total of 37 perijoves before mission’s end. However, due to a malfunction with the probe’s helium valves, the firing was delayed. NASA has since announced that it will not conduct this engine firing, and that the probe will conduct a total perijoves in total before the end of its mission.
End of Mission:
The Juno mission is set to conclude in February of 2018, after completing 12 orbits of Jupiter. At this point, and barring any mission extensions, the probe will be de-orbited to burn up in Jupiter’s outer atmosphere. As with the Galileo spacecraft, this is meant be to avoid any possibility of impact and biological contamination with one of Jupiter’s moons.
The mission is managed by the JPL, and its principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute. NASA’s Launch Services Program, located at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for managing launch services for the probe. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
As of the writing of this article, the Juno mission is one day, four hours and fifty-five minutes away from its historic arrival with Jupiter. Check out NASA’s Juno mission page to get up-to-date information on the mission, and stay tuned to Universe Today for updates!
Radio image of the night sky. Credit: Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, generated by Glyn Haslam.
One of the defining characteristics of the New Space era is partnerships. Whether it is between the private and public sector, different space agencies, or different institutions across the world, collaboration has become the cornerstone to success. Consider the recent agreement between the Netherlands Space Office (NSO) and the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) that was announced earlier this week.
In an agreement made possible by the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2015 between the Netherlands and China, a Dutch-built radio antenna will travel to the Moon aboard the Chinese Chang’e 4 satellite, which is scheduled to launch in 2018. Once the lunar exploration mission reaches the Moon, it will deposit the radio antenna on the far side, where it will begin to provide scientists with fascinating new views of the Universe.
The radio antenna itself is also the result of collaboration, between scientists from Radboud University, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) and the small satellite company Innovative Solutions in Space (ISIS). After years of research and development, these three organizations have produced an instrument which they hope will usher in a new era of radio astronomy.
Diagram showing how the Chang’e 4 satellite will rotate around a fixed point behind the moon – the second Lagrange, or L2, point in the Earth-moon system. Credit: ru.nl
Essentially, radio astronomy involves the study of celestial objects – ranging from stars and galaxies to pulsars, quasars, masers and the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) – at radio frequencies. Using radio antennas, radio telescopes, and radio interferometers, this method allows for the study of objects that might otherwise be invisible or hidden in other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
One drawback of radio astronomy is the potential for interference. Since only certain wavelengths can pass through the Earth’s atmosphere, and local radio wave sources can throw off readings, radio antennas are usually located in remote areas of the world. A good example of this is the Very-Long Baseline Array (VLBA) located across the US, and the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) under construction in Australia and South Africa.
One other solution is to place radio antennas in space, where they will not be subject to interference or local radio sources. The antenna being produced by Radbound, ASTRON and ISIS is being delivered to the far side of the Moon for just this reason. As the latest space-based radio antenna to be deployed, it will be able to search the cosmos in ways Earth-based arrays cannot, looking for vital clues to the origins of the universe.
As Heino Falke – a professor of Astroparticle Physics and Radio Astronomy at Radboud – explained in a University press release, the deployment of this radio antenna on the far side of the Moon will be an historic achievement:
“Radio astronomers study the universe using radio waves, light coming from stars and planets, for example, which is not visible with the naked eye. We can receive almost all celestial radio wave frequencies here on Earth. We cannot detect radio waves below 30 MHz, however, as these are blocked by our atmosphere. It is these frequencies in particular that contain information about the early universe, which is why we want to measure them.”
The planned Square Kilometer Array will be the world’s largest radio telescope when it begins operations in 2018. Credit: SKA Project Development Office/SAP
As it stands, very little is known about this part of the electromagnetic spectrum. As a result, the Dutch radio antenna could be the first to provide information on the development of the earliest structures in the Universe. It is also the first instrument to be sent into space as part of a Chinese space mission.
Alongside Heino Falcke, Marc Klein Wolt – the director of the Radboud Radio Lab – is one of the scientific advisors for the project. For years, he and Falcke have been working towards the deployment of this radio antenna, and have high hopes for the project. As Professor Wolt said about the scientific package he is helping to create:
“The instrument we are developing will be a precursor to a future radio telescope in space. We will ultimately need such a facility to map the early universe and to provide information on the development of the earliest structures in it, like stars and galaxies.”
Together with engineers from ASTRON and ISIS, the Dutch team has accumulated a great deal of expertise from their years working on other radio astronomy projects, which includes experience working on the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) and the development of the Square Kilometre Array, all of which is being put to work on this new project.
A radio antenna on the far side of the Moon will enable deep space surveys that were never before possible. Credit: NASA Goddard
Other tasks that this antenna will perform include monitoring space for solar storms, which are known to have a significant impact on telecommunications here on Earth. With a radio antenna on the far side of the Moon, astronomers will be able to better predict such events and prepare for them in advance.
Another benefit will be the ability to measure strong radio pulses from gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, which will help us to learn more about their rotational speed. Combined with the recent ESO efforts to map Jupiter at IR frequencies, and the data that is already arriving from the Juno mission, this data is likely to lead to some major breakthroughs in our understanding of this mysterious planet.
Last, but certainly not least, the Dutch team wants to create the first map of the early Universe using low-frequency radio data. This map is expected to take shape after two years, once the Moon has completed a few full rotations around the Earth and computer analysis can be completed.
It is also expected that such a map will provide scientists with additional evidence that confirms the Standard Model of Big Bang cosmology (aka. the Lambda CDM model). As with other projects currently in the works, the results are likely to be exciting and groundbreaking!
Jupiter has an extremely powerful magnetic field. Ganymede has one, too, and is the only moon with one. Jupiter's envelops Ganymede's and their interactions are just part of the pair's complicated relationship. Image Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Jupiter is a huge planet, but its magnetosphere is mind-blowingly massive. It extends out to nearly 5 million kilometers (3 million miles) wide on average, 150 times wider than Jupiter itself and almost 15 times wider than the Sun, making it one of the largest structures in the Solar System.
“If you were to look up into the night sky and if we could see the outline of Jupiter’s magnetosphere, it would be about the size of the Moon in our sky,” said Jack Connerney, deputy principal investigator and head of the Juno mission magnetometer team. “It’s a very large feature in our Solar System, and it’s a pity we can’t see it.”
But the Juno spacecraft is about to change our understanding of Jupiter’s magnetosphere and allow scientists to “see” for the first time Jupiter’s magnetic field.
A magnetosphere is the area of space around a planet that is controlled by the planet’s magnetic field. The stronger the magnetic field, the larger the magnetosphere. It is estimated that Jupiter’s magnetic field is about 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s.
Jupiter has spectacular aurora, such as this view captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Auroras are formed when charged particles in the space surrounding the planet are accelerated to high energies along the planet’s magnetic field. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Nichols (University of Leicester)
Magnetic fields are produced by what are known as dynamos – an electric current created from the convection motion of a planet’s interior. Earth’s magnetic field is generated by its circulating core of molten iron and nickel. But what creates Jupiter’s dynamo? Is it like Earth’s or could it be very different? Jupiter consists predominantly of hydrogen and helium, and it is currently unknown if there is a rocky core at the center of the planet.
“With Jupiter, we don’t know what material is producing the planet’s magnetic field,” said Jared Espley, Juno program scientist for NASA Headquarters, “What material is present and how deep down it lies is one of the questions Juno is designed to answer.”
Juno has a pair of magnetometers to basically look inside the planet. The magnetometers will allow scientists to map Jupiter’s magnetic field with high accuracy and observe variations in the field over time. The instruments will be able to show how the magnetic field is generated by dynamo action deep in the planet’s interior, providing the first look at what the magnetic field looks like from the surface of the dynamo where it is generated.
“The best way to think of a magnetometer is like a compass,” said Connerney. “Compasses record the direction of a magnetic field. But magnetometers expand on that capability and record both the direction and magnitude of the magnetic field.”
But Jupiter presents a lot of problems as far as being nice to instruments. Trapped within the magnetosphere are charged particles from the Sun that form intense radiation belts around the planet. These belts are similar to the Earth’s Van Allen belts, but are many millions of times stronger.
To help protect the spacecraft and instrument electronics, Juno has a radiation vault about the size of a car trunk made of titanium that limits the radiation exposure to Juno’s command and data handling box (the spacecraft’s brain), power and data distribution unit (its heart) and about 20 other electronic assemblies. But the instruments themselves need to be outside of the vault in order to make their observations. Workers place the special radiation vault for NASA’s Juno spacecraft onto the propulsion module. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LMSS
The magnetometer sensors are on a boom attached to one of the solar arrays, placing them about 40 feet (12 meters) from the body of the spacecraft. This helps ensure that the rest of the spacecraft does not interfere with the magnetometer.
But there are other ways to help limit the amount of radiation exposure, at least in the first part of the mission.
Scientists designed a path that takes Juno around Jupiter’s poles so that the spacecraft spends the least amount of time possible in those blistering radiation belts around Jupiter’s equator. Engineers also used designs for electronics already approved for the Martian radiation environment, which is harsher than Earth’s, though not as harsh as Jupiter’s.
That elliptical orbit — between radiation belt and the planet — also puts the spacecraft very close to Jupiter, about 5,000 km above the cloud tops, enabling a close-up look at this amazing planet.
“This is our first opportunity to do very precise, high-accuracy mapping of the magnetic field of another planet,” Connerney said. “We are going to be able to explore the entire three-dimensional space around Jupiter, wrapping Jupiter in a dense net of magnetic field observations completely covering the sphere.”
By studying Jupiter’s magnetosphere, scientists will gain a better understanding about how Jupiter’s magnetic field is generated. They also hope to measure how fast Jupiter is spinning, determine whether the planet has a solid core, and learn more about Jupiter’s formation.
“It’s always incredible to be the first person in the world to see anything,” Connerney said, “and we stand to be the first to look down upon the dynamo and see it clearly for the first time.”
An image of a small section (0.4%) of the UDS field - showing a series of very distant galaxies as they appeared 9 billion years ago. Credit: Omar Almaini, University of Nottingham
This past Monday (June 27th), the National Astronomy Meeting – which is hosted by the Royal Astronomy Society – kicked off at the University of Nottingham in the UK. As one of the largest professional conferences in Europe (with over 500 scientists in attendance), this annual meeting is an opportunity for astronomers and scientists from a variety of fields to present that latest in their research.
And of the many presentations made so far, one of the most exciting came from a research team from the University of Nottingham’s School of Physics and Astronomy, which presented the latest near-infrared images obtained by the Ultra Deep Survey (UDS). In addition to being a spectacular series of pictures, they also happened to be the deepest view of the Universe to date.
The UDS survey, which began in 2005, is one of the five projects that make up the UKIRT’s Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS). For the sake of their survey, the UDS team relies on the Wide Field Camera (WFCAM) on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. At 3.8-metres in diameter, the UKIRT is the world’s second largest telescope dedicated to infrared astronomy.
As Professor Omar Almaini, the head of the University of Nottingham research team, explained to Universe Today via email:
“The UDS is by far the deepest near-infrared survey over such a large, contiguous area (0.8 sq degrees). There is only one other similar survey, which is known as UltraVISTA. It covers a larger area (1.5 sq degree) but is not quite so deep. Together the UDS and UltraVISTA should revolutionize studies of the high-redshift Universe over the next few years.”
An optical/IR image taken with the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope as part of the UDS. Credit: nottingham.ac.uk
Ultimately, the goal of UDS is shed light on how and when galaxies form, and to chart their evolution over the course of the last 13 billion years (roughly 820 million years after the Big Bang). For over a decade, the UDS has been observing the same patch of sky repeatedly, relying on optical and infrared imaging to ensure that the light of distant objects (which is redshifted due to the profound distances involved) can be captured.
“Stars emit most of their radiation at optical wavelengths, which is redshifted to the near-infrared at high redshift,” said Almaini. “Near-infrared surveys therefore provide the least biased census of galaxies in the early Universe and the best measurements of the stellar mass. Deep optical surveys will only detect galaxies that are bright in the rest-frame ultraviolet, so they are biased against galaxies that are obscured by dust, or those that have stopped forming stars.”
In total, the project has accumulated more than 1000 hours of exposure time, detecting over two hundred and fifty thousand galaxies – several hundred of which were observed within the first billion years after the Big Bang. The final images, which were released yesterday and presented at the National Astronomy Meeting, showed an area four times the size of the full Moon, and at an unprecedented depth.
Data previously released by the UDS project has already led to several scientific advances. These include studies of the earliest galaxies in the Universe after the Big Bang, measurements on the build-up of galaxies over time, and studies of the large-scale distribution of galaxies to measure the influence of dark matter.
Research into the USD images is inspiring scientific research, which includes studies into dark matter. Credit: Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics
With this latest release, many more are anticipated, with astronomers around the world spending the next few years studying the early stages of galaxy formation and evolution. As Almaini put it:
“With the UDS (and UltraVISTA) we now have the ability to study large samples of galaxies in the distant Universe, rather than just a handful. With thousands of galaxies at each epoch we can perform detailed comparisons of the evolving galaxy populations, and we can also study their large-scale structure to understand how they trace the underlying cosmic web of dark matter. With large samples we can also look for rare but important populations, such as those in transition.”
“A key aim is to understand why many massive galaxies abruptly stop forming stars around 10 billion years ago, and also how they transform from disk-like systems into elliptical galaxies. We have recently identified a few hundred examples of galaxies in the process of transformation at early times, which we are actively studying to understand what is driving the rapid changes.”
Along with the subject of galaxy surveys and large scale structure, “galaxy formation and evolution” and “galaxy surveys and large scale structure” were two of the 2016 National Astronomy Meeting’s main themes. Naturally, the UDS release fit neatly into both categories. The others themes included the Sun, stars and planetary science, gravitational waves, modified gravity, archeoastronomy, astrochemistry, and education and outreach.
The Meeting will run until tomorrow (Friday, July 1st), and also included a presentations on the latest infrared images of Jupiter, which were taken by the ESO in preparation for the Juno spacecraft’s arrival on July 4th.
NASA's Deep Space Network is responsible for communicating with spacecraft. Pictured is the Goldstone facility in California, one of three facilities that make up the Network. Image: NASA/JPL
The much-anticipated arrival of NASA’s Juno spacecraft at Jupiter is almost here. Juno will answer many questions about Jupiter, but at the cost of a mission profile full of challenges. One of those challenges is communicating with Juno as it goes about its business in the extreme radiation environment around Jupiter. Communications with Juno rely on a network of radio dishes in strategic locations around the world, receivers cooled to almost absolute zero, and a team of dedicated people.
The task of communicating with Juno falls to NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), a system of three facilities around the world whose job it is to communicate with all of the spacecraft that venture outside Earth’s vicinity. That network is in the hands of Harris Corporation, experts in all sorts of communications technologies, who are contracted to run these crucial facilities.
The person responsible is Sonny Giroux, DSN Program Manager at Harris. In an interview with Universe Today, Sonny explained how the DSN works, and describes some of the challenges the Juno mission poses.
“The network itself consists of three primary communication facilities; one in Goldstone, California, out in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The other facility is in Madrid Spain, and the third is in Canberra Australia. These three facilities are separated by about 120 degrees, which means that any spacecraft that’s out there is capable of communicating with Earth at any point in time,” said Giroux.
Deep Space Network facilities are positioned 120 degrees apart to give total sky coverage. Image: NASA/JPL
“Each facility has several antennae, the largest of which is 70 m in diameter, about the size of a football field. These antennae can be aimed at any angle. Then there are smaller antennae at 34 m in size, and we have a number of those at each complex.”
According to Giroux, the dishes can work independently, or be arrayed together, depending on requirements. At the DSN website, you can see which antenna is communicating with which of NASA’s missions at any time.
At the Deep Space Network’s website, you can see which of the network’s dishes are communicating with which spacecraft. During Juno’s mission, you can expect to see its name beside many of the dishes. Image: NASA/JPL/DSN
Juno is a complex mission with a dynamic orbit, and Jupiter itself is an extreme radiation environment. Juno will have to weave its way through Jupiter’s radiation belts in its polar orbit. According to Giroux, this creates additional communication problems for the DSN.
“As Juno goes into its orbital insertion phase, the spacecraft will have to turn away from Earth. Our signal strength will drop dramatically,” Giroux said. “In order to capture the data that Juno is going to send, we’re going to array all of our antennae at Goldstone and Canberra together.”
Juno’s orbit around Jupiter will be highly elliptical as it contends with Jupiter’s powerful radiation belts. Image: NASA/JPL
This means that a total of 9 antennae will be arrayed in two groups to communicate with Juno. The 4 dishes at the Canberra, Australia site will be arrayed together, and the 5 dishes at the Goldstone, California site will be arrayed together.
This combined strength is crucial to the success of Juno during JOI (Juno Orbital Insertion.) Said Giroux, “We need to bring Juno’s signal strength up to the maximum amount that we can. We need to know what phases Juno is in as it executes its sequence.”
“We’ve never arrayed all of our antennae together like this. This is a first for Juno.”
This combined receiving power is a first for the DSN, and another first for the Juno mission. “We’ve never arrayed all of our antennae together like this,” said Giroux. “This is a first for Juno. We’ve done a couple together before for a spacecraft like Voyager, which is pretty far out there, but never all of them like this. In order to maximize our success with Juno, we’re arraying everything. It will be the first time in our history that we’ve had to array together all of our assets.”
Arraying multiple dishes together provides another benefit too, as Giroux told us. “The DSN is able to have two centres view the spacecraft at the same time. If one complex goes down for whatever reason, we would have the other one still available to communicate with the spacecraft.”
The most visible part of the DSN are the antennae themselves. But the electronics at the heart of the system are just as important. And they’re unique in the world, too.
“We cool them down to almost absolute zero to remove all of the noise out.”
“We have very specialized receivers that are built for the DSN. We cool them down to almost absolute zero to remove all of the noise out. That allows us to really focus on the signal that we’re looking for. These are unique to DSN,” said Giroux.
Juno itself has four different transmitters on-board. Some are able to transmit a lot of data, and some can transmit less. These will be active at different times, and form part of the challenge of communicating with Juno. Giroux told us, “Juno will be cycling through all four as it performs its insertion and comes back out again on the other side of the planet.”
“We just get the ones and zeroes…”
The DSN is a communications powerhouse, the most powerful tool ever devised for communicating in space. But it doesn’t handle the science. “DSN for the most part will receive whatever the spacecraft is sending to us. We just get the ones and zeroes and relay that data over to the mission. It’s the mission that breaks that down and turns it into science data.”
The three facilities that make up the DSN. Each is separated by 120 degrees. Image: NASA/JPL
Juno will be about 450 million miles away at Jupiter, which is about a 96 minute round trip for any signal. That great distance means that Juno’s signal strength is extremely weak. But it won’t be the weakest signal that the DSN contends with. A testament to the strength of the DSN is the fact that it’s still receiving transmissions from the Voyager probes, which are transmitting at miniscule power levels. According to Giroux, “Voyager is at a billionth of a billionth of a watt in terms of its signal strength.”
Juno is different than other missions like New Horizons and Voyager 1 and 2. Once Juno is done, it will plunge into Jupiter and be destroyed. So all of its data has to be captured quickly and efficiently. According to Giroux, that intensifies the DSN’s workload for the Juno mission.
“Juno is different. We’ve got to make sure to capture that data regularly.”
“Juno has a very defined mission length, with start and stop dates. It will de-orbit into Jupiter when it’s finished its science phase. That’s different than other missions like New Horizons where it has long periods where its able to download all of the data it’s captured. Juno is different. We’ve got to make sure to capture that data regularly. After JOI we’ll be in constant communication with Juno to make sure that’s happening.”
In preparation for the arrival of Juno, the ESO’s released stunning IR images of Jupiter, taken by the VLT. Credit: ESO
The next most important event in Juno’s mission is its orbital insertion around Jupiter, and Giroux and the team are waiting for that just like the rest of us are. “Juno’s big burn as it slows itself enough to be captured by Jupiter is a huge milestone that we’ll be watching for,” said Giroux.
The first signal that the DSN receives will be a simple three second beep. “Confirmation of the insertion will occur at about 9:40 p.m.,” said Giroux. That signal will have been sent about 45 minutes before that, but the enormous distance between Earth and Jupiter means a long delay in receiving it. But once we receive it, it will tell us that Juno has finished firing its engine for orbital insertion. Real science data, including images of Jupiter, will come later.
“We want to see a successful mission as much as anybody else.”
All of the data from the DSN flows through the nerve center at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When the signal arrives indicating that Juno has fired its engines successfully, Giroux and his team will be focussed on that facility, where news of Juno’s insertion will first be received. And they’ll be as excited as the rest of us to hear that signal.
“We want to see a successful mission as much as anybody else. Communicating with spacecraft is our business. We’ll be watching the same channels and websites that everybody else will be watching with bated breath,” said Giroux.
“Its great to be a part of the network. It’s pretty special.”
Artist concept of Blue Origin's 750,000 square foot spacecraft factory. Credit: Blue Origin.
Blue Origin and its founder Jeff Bezos do a little one-upmanship on the old saying, “go big or go home.” With the groundbreaking of their new orbital vehicle manufacturing complex, they are going big AND going home. The new facility will be located near Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will house Blue Origin’s orbital launch vehicle, which Bezos has sometimes referred to as “Very Big Brother.” The new facility has a planned grand opening of December 2017.
Site preparation for Blue Origin’s new orbital vehicle manufacturing complex in Florida. Credit: Blue Origin.
Blue Origin announced the plans for the complex in September 2015, and bulldozers started clearing ground this week (June 28, 2016). The facility will be where Blue Origin manufactures, processes, integrates and tests its rockets.
“It’s exciting to see the bulldozers in action,” Bezos wrote in an email update. “We’re clearing the way for the production of a reusable fleet of orbital vehicles that we will launch and land, again and again.”
Bezos said the 750,000 square foot (70,000 sq. meter) building will be “custom-built from the ground up” and will enable “large scale friction stir welding and automated composite processing equipment,” among other things.
The entire launch vehicle will be manufactured in this new facility except for the engines, the BE-4 — which Blue Origin says will be flight qualified by 2017 — and are currently produced in Blue Origin’s Kent, Washington facility. But they plan to build a new, larger engine production facility to accommodate their projected need for higher production rates, and they will conduct a site selection process for that facility later this year.
Another artist concept of Blue Origin’s orbital vehicle manufacturing complex in Florida. Credit: Blue Origin.
Another little one-upmanship: Blue Origin’s new facility will best SpaceX’s main factory, which is about 550,000 square feet (51,000 sq. meters). SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California building was originally used by Northrup Aircraft to build 747 fuselages (although, SpaceX’s total campus of buildings in Hawthorne is over 1.6 million square feet.)
Very Big Brother (VBB) will get an official name at some point, but it will be a vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) system, like Blue Origin’s smaller suborbital New Shepard rocket. The plan is to have VBB’s lower stage be reusable and the upper stage be expendable.
For launches, Blue Origin will share Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 36 with Google Lunar X PRIZE team Moon Express (MoonEx).
The New Shepard rocket launching from its facility in West Texas. Image: Blue Origin
In preparation for the arrival of Juno, the ESO's released stunning IR images of Jupiter, taken by the VLT. Credit: ESO
Launching back in 2011, NASA’s Juno mission has spent the past five years traversing the gulf that lies between Earth and Jupiter. When it arrives (in just a few days time!), it will be the second long-term mission to the gas giant in history. And in the process, it will obtain information about its composition, weather patterns, magnetic and gravitational fields, and history of formation.
With just days to go before this historic rendezvous takes place, the European Southern Observatory is taking the opportunity to release some spectacular infrared images of Jupiter. Taken with the Very Large Telescope (VLT), these images are part of a campaign to create high-resolutions maps of the planet, and provide a preview of the work that Juno will be doing in the coming months.
Using the VTL Imager and Spectrometer for mid-Infrared (VISIR) instrument, the ESO team – led by Dr. Leigh Fletcher of the University of Leicester – hopes that their efforts to map the planet will improve our understanding of Jupiter’s atmosphere. Naturally, with the upcoming arrival of Juno, some may wonder if these efforts are necessary.
Using images obtained by the Very Large Telescope, an ESO team managed to obtain detailed IR images of Jupiter’s atmosphere. Credit: ESO/G. Hüdepohl
After all, ground-based telescopes like the VLT are forced to contend with limitations that space-based probes are not. These include interference from our constantly-shifting atmosphere, not to mention the distances between Earth and the object in question. But in truth, the Juno mission and ground-based campaigns like these are often highly complimentary.
For one, in the past few months, while Juno was nearing in on its destination, Jupiter’s atmosphere has undergone some significant shifts. Mapping these is important to Juno‘s upcoming arrival, at which point it will be attempting to peer beneath Jupiter’s thick clouds to discern what is going on beneath. In short, the more we know about Jupiter’s shifting atmosphere, the easier it will be to interpret the Juno data.
As Dr. Fletcher described the significance of his team’s efforts:
“These maps will help set the scene for what Juno will witness in the coming months. Observations at different wavelengths across the infrared spectrum allow us to piece together a three-dimensional picture of how energy and material are transported upwards through the atmosphere.”
Like all ground-based efforts, the ESO campaign – which has involved the use of several telescopes based in Hawaii and Chile, as well as contributions from amateur astronomers around the world – faced some serious challenges (like the aforementioned interference). However, the team used a technique known as “lucky imaging” to take the breathtaking snapshots of Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere.
This view compares a lucky imaging view of Jupiter from VISIR (left) at infrared wavelengths with a very sharp amateur image in visible light from about the same time (right). Credit: ESO/L.N. Fletcher/Damian Peach
What this comes down to is taking many sequences of images with very short exposures, thus producing thousands of individual frames. The lucky frames, those where the image are least affected by the atmosphere’s turbulence, are then selected while the rest discarded. These selected frames are aligned and combined to produce final pictures, like the one shown above.
In addition to providing information that would be of use to the Juno mission, the ESO’s campaign has value that extends beyond the space-based mission. As Glenn Orton, the leader of ESO’s ground-based campaign, explained, observations like these are valuable because they help to advance our understanding of planets as a whole, and provide opportunities for astronomers from all over the world to collaborate.
“The combined efforts of an international team of amateur and professional astronomers have provided us with an incredibly rich dataset over the past eight months,” he said. “Together with the new results from Juno, the VISIR dataset in particular will allow researchers to characterize Jupiter’s global thermal structure, cloud cover and distribution of gaseous species.”
The Juno probe will be arriving at Jupiter this coming Monday, July 4th. Once there, it will spend the next two years orbiting the gas giant, sending information back to Earth that will help to advance our understanding of not only Jupiter, but the history of the Solar System as well.
In honor of Dr. Stephen Hawking, the COSMOS center will be creating the most detailed 3D mapping effort of the Universe to date. Credit: BBC, Illus.: T.Reyes
Back in 1997, a team of leading scientists and cosmologists came together to establish the COSMOS supercomputing center at Cambridge University. Under the auspices of famed physicist Stephen Hawking, this facility and its supercomputer are dedicated to the research of cosmology, astrophysics and particle physics – ultimately, for the purpose of unlocking the deeper mysteries of the Universe.
Yesterday, in what was themed as a “tribute to Stephen Hawking”, the COSMOS center announced that it will be embarking on what is perhaps the boldest experiment in cosmological mapping. Essentially, they intend to create the most detailed 3D map of the early universe to date, plotting the position of billions of cosmic structures including supernovas, black holes, and galaxies.
This map will be created using the facility’s supercomputer, located in Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Currently, it is the largest shared-memory computer in Europe, boasting 1,856 Intel Xeon E5 processor cores, 31 Intel Many Integrated Core (MIC) co-processors, and 14.5 terabytes of globally shared memory.
The COSMOS IX supercomputer. Credit: cosmos.damtp.cam.ac.uk
The 3D will also rely on data obtained by two previous surveys – the ESA’s Planck satellite and the Dark Energy Survey. From the former, the COSMOS team will use the detailed images of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) – the radiation leftover by the Big Ban – that were released in 2013. These images of the oldest light in the cosmos allowed physicists to refine their estimates for the age of the Universe (13.82 billion years) and its rate of expansion.
This information will be combined with data from the Dark Energy Survey which shows the expansion of the Universe over the course of the last 10 billion years. From all of this, the COSMOS team will compare the early distribution of matter in the Universe with its subsequent expansion to see how the two link up.
The project is also expected to receive a boost from the deployment of the ESA’s Euclid probe, which is scheduled for launch in 2020. This mission will measure the shapes and redshifts of galaxies (looking 10 billion years into the past), thereby helping scientists to understand the geometry of the “dark Universe” – i.e. how dark matter and dark energy influence it as a whole.
Artist impression of the Euclid probe, which is set to launch in 2020. Credit: ESA
The plans for the COSMOS center’s 3D map are will be unveiled at the Starmus science conference, which will be taking place from July 2nd to 27th, 2016, in Tenerife – the largest of the Canary Islands, located off the coast of Spain. At this conference, Hawking will be discussing the details of the COSMOS project.
In addition to being the man who brought the COSMOS team together, the theme of the project – “Beyond the Horizon – Tribute to Stephen Hawking” – was selected because of Hawking’s long-standing commitment to physics and cosmology. “Hawking is a great theorist but he always wants to test his theories against observations,” said Prof. Shellard in a Cambridge press release. “What will emerge is a 3D map of the universe with the positions of billions of galaxies.”
Hawking will also present the first ever Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, an award established by Hawking that will be bestowed on those who help promote science to the public through media – i.e. cinema, music, writing and art. Other speakers who will attending the event include Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chris Hadfield, Martin Rees, Adam Riess, Rusty Schweickart, Eric Betzig, Neil Turok, and Kip Thorne.
Professor Hawking and colleagues from the Royal Society announcing the launch of the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, Dec. 16th, 2015. Credit: starmus.com
Naturally, it is hoped that the creation of this 3D map will confirm current cosmological theories, which include the current age of the Universe and whether or not the Standard Model of cosmology – aka. the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model – is in fact the correct one. As Hawking is surely hoping, this could bring us one step closer to a Theory of Everything!
