Solar System Archives

November 19, 2015December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

Curiosity Mars Rover Nears First Study Site of Active Sand Dunes Beyond Earth

The dark band in the lower portion of this Martian scene is part of the "Bagnold Dunes" dune field lining the northwestern edge of Mount Sharp. The view combines multiple images taken with the Mast Camera on Curiosity on Sept. 25, 2015, Sol 1115th. The images are from Mastcam's right-eye camera, which has a telephoto lens. The view is toward south-southeast. The scene is white balanced. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Curiosity rover is on the Martian road to soon start the first ever study of currently active sand dunes anywhere beyond Earth. The dunes are located nearby, at the foothills of Mount Sharp, and Curiosity is due to arrive for an up close look in just a few days to start her unique research investigations.

The eerily dark dunes, named the “Bagnold Dunes,” skirt the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp. Ascending and diligently exploring the sedimentary layers of Mount Sharp is the primary goal of the mission.

“The ‘Bagnold Dunes’ are tantalizingly close,” says Ken Herkenhoff, Research Geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and an MSL science team member, in a mission update on Wednesday, Nov. 18.

The “Bagnold Dunes” have been quite noticeable in numerous striking images taken from Mars orbit, during the vehicles nail biting ‘7 Minutes of Terror’ descent from orbit, as well as in thousands upon thousands of images taken by Curiosity herself as the robot edged ever closer during her over three year long traverse across the floor of the Gale Crater landing site.

Curiosity must safely cross the expansive dune field before climbing Mount Sharp.

Although multiple NASA rovers, including Curiosity, have studied much smaller Martian sand ripples or drifts, none has ever visited and investigated up close these types of large dunes that range in size as tall as a two story building or more and as wide as a football field or more.

Moreover the Martian dunes are shifting even today.

“Shifting sands lie before me,” Curiosity tweeted. “Off to image, scoop and scuff active dunes on Mars. I’ll be the first craft to visit such dunes beyond Earth!”

Mount Sharp and dark Bagnold Dunes
Curiosity rover panorama of Mount Sharp captured on June 6, 2014 (Sol 651) during traverse inside Gale Crater. Note rover wheel tracks at left. She will eventually ascend the mountain at the ‘Murray Buttes’ at right later this year. Assembled from Mastcam color camera raw images and stitched by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com

“The Bagnold Dunes are active: Images from orbit indicate some of them are migrating as much as about 3 feet (1 meter) per Earth year. No active dunes have been visited anywhere in the solar system besides Earth,” notes NASA.

Curiosity is currently only some 200 yards or meters away from the first dune she will investigate, simply named “Dune 1.”

Curiosity approaches the dark Bagnold Dunes for first in-place study of an active sand dune anywhere other than Earth. This photo mosaic is stitched from navcam camera raw images taken on Sol 1168, Nov. 18, 2015. Credit: NASA/JPL/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

As the rover approaches closer and closer, the dune research campaign is already in progress as she snaps daily high resolution images and gathers measurements of the area’s wind direction and speed.

“We’ve planned investigations that will not only tell us about modern dune activity on Mars but will also help us interpret the composition of sandstone layers made from dunes that turned into rock long ago,” said Bethany Ehlmann of the California Institute of Technology and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California, in a statement.

After arriving at the dune, the team will command Curiosity to scoop up samples for analysis by the rover’s pair of miniaturized chemistry instruments inside its belly. It will also scuff the dune with a wheel to examine and compare the surface and interior physical characteristics.

This Sept. 25, 2015, view from the Mast Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows a dark sand dune in the middle distance. The rover's examination of dunes on the way toward higher layers of Mount Sharp will be the first in-place study of an active sand dune anywhere other than Earth. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS — This Sept. 25, 2015, view from the Mast Camera on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows a dark sand dune in the middle distance. The rover’s examination of dunes on the way toward higher layers of Mount Sharp will be the first in-place study of an active sand dune anywhere other than Earth. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The dark dunes are informally named after British military engineer Ralph Bagnold (1896-1990), who conducted pioneering studies of the effect of wind on motion of individual particles in dunes on Earth. Curiosity will carry out “the first in-place study of dune activity on a planet with lower gravity and less atmosphere.”

Although the huge Bagnold dunes are of great scientific interest, the team will also certainly exercise caution in maneuvering the car sized six wheel robot.

Recall that NASA’s smaller golf cart Spirit Mars rover perished a few years back – albeit over 6 years into her 3 month mission – when the robot became unexpectedly mired in a nearly invisible sand ripple from which she was unable to escape.

Likewise, sister Opportunity got stuck in a sand ripple earlier in her mission that took the engineering team weeks of painstaking effort to extricate from a spot subsequently named ‘Purgatory’ that resulted in many lessons learned for future operations.

Opportunity is still hard at work – currently exploring Marathon Valley – nearly a dozen years into her planned 3 month mission.

Based on orbital observations by the CRISM and HiRISE instruments aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the science team has concluded that the Bagnold Dunes are mobile and also have an uneven distribution of minerals, such as olivine.

“We will use Curiosity to learn whether the wind is actually sorting the minerals in the dunes by how the wind transports particles of different grain size,” Ehlmann said.

“If the Bagnold campaign finds that other mineral grains are sorted away from heavier olivine-rich grains by the wind’s effects on dune sands, that could help researchers evaluate to what extent low and high amounts of olivine in some ancient sandstones could be caused by wind-sorting rather than differences in alteration by water,” say researchers.

“These dunes have a different texture from dunes on Earth,” said team member Nathan Bridges, of the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland.

“The ripples on them are much larger than ripples on top of dunes on Earth, and we don’t know why. We have models based on the lower air pressure. It takes a higher wind speed to get a particle moving. But now we’ll have the first opportunity to make detailed observations.”

Last month Curiosity conducted her eighth drill campaign for sample chemical analysis at the ‘Big Sky’ site, before moving on to ‘Greenhorn’. Big Sky was an area of cross-bedded sandstone rock in the Stimson geological unit on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp.

NASA Curiosity rover reaches out with robotic arm to drill into cross-bedded sandstone rock at ‘Big Sky’ target on Sol 1119, Sept. 29, 2015, in this photo mosaic stitched from navcam camera raw images and colorized. Big Sky is located in the Stimson unit on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

Curiosity has already accomplished her primary objective of discovering a habitable zone on the Red Planet – at the Yellowknife Bay area – that contains the minerals necessary to support microbial life in the ancient past when Mars was far wetter and warmer billions of years ago.

As of today, Sol 1168, November 19, 2015, she has driven over 6.9 miles (11.1 kilometers) kilometers and taken over 282,100 amazing images.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in mid-November 2015 through Sol 1165, approaching examples of dunes in the "Bagnold Dunes" dune field. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona — This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in mid-November 2015 through Sol 1165, approaching examples of dunes in the “Bagnold Dunes” dune field. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

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Learn more about Orbital ATK Cygnus, ISS, ULA Atlas rocket, SpaceX, Boeing, Space Taxis, Mars rovers, Orion, SLS, Antares, NASA missions and more at Ken’s upcoming outreach events:

Dec 1 to 3: “Orbital ATK Atlas/Cygnus launch to the ISS, ULA, SpaceX, SLS, Orion, Commercial crew, Curiosity explores Mars, Pluto and more,” Kennedy Space Center Quality Inn, Titusville, FL, evenings

Dec 8: “America’s Human Path Back to Space and Mars with Orion, Starliner and Dragon.” Amateur Astronomers Assoc of Princeton, AAAP, Princeton University, Ivy Lane, Astrophysics Dept, Princeton, NJ; 7:30 PM.

November 16, 2015December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

New Dwarf Planet is Most Distant Object Yet Observed in our Solar System

A newly found object named V774104 was found using the Subaru Telescope. Credit: Scott Sheppard, Chad Trujillo, and David Tholen.

It has been estimated that there may be hundreds of dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt and Oort Cloud of the outer Solar System. So far we’ve found – and actually seen – just a few. This past week, one more dwarf planet was added to the list and comes in at the most distant object ever seen in the Solar System.

This newly found world, initially named V774104, is about 15.4 billion kilometers from the Sun. At 103 AU, it is three times further from the Sun than Pluto, and is more distant than the previous record holder, Eris, which lies at 97 AU.

The discovery of V774104 was announced by one of the astronomers who found the object, Scott Sheppard, from the Carnegie Institution for Science, at the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences fall meeting last week. Sheppard, along with Chad Trujillo and David Tholen used Japan’s 8-meter Subaru Telescope in Hawaii to make the find.

Astronomers say this newly spotted dwarf planet shows the depths of our Solar System.

“The discovery of V774104 is more proof that the Solar System is bigger than we thought,” said astronomer Joseph Burns from Cornell University, who was not associated with the discovery. “We need a little more time to pin down the orbit and determine the object’s exact size, but it must be big to see it at this distance.”

The size of V774104 is currently estimated to be between 500 and 1000 kilometers in diameter, which is less than half Pluto’s size.

While the size of the object is of some interest to astronomers who are searching for KBOs, even more interesting is pinning down its orbit. With its recent discovery, the orbit of V774104 has yet to be tracked for long periods of time.

If the orbit of V774104 comes closer to the Sun, such as between 30 to 50 AU, then it would be considered an icy Kuiper Belt objects which are more common among bodies like this found so far. Their orbits are more elongated because they fall under the gravitational influence of Neptune.

Of even more interest are what Sheppard called “inner Oort Cloud objects,” (also called “sednoids”). Theses bodies exist in a part of the Solar System that astronomers used to think was fairy empty. Of the two previously observed objects in this class — Sedna and 2012 VP113. — their orbits never come closer to the Sun than 50 AU, and they have a semi-major axis greater than 150 AU. The eccentric orbits of these objects have yet to be explained.

Colin Johnston from the Armagh Planetarium clarifies:

This means at their closest to the Sun they are still beyond the Kuiper Belt which lies 30-50 au from the Sun. Only two other objects in this category are known: 90377 Sedna and 2012 VP113.

They intrigue astronomers as they inhabit what was expected to be a largely empty region between the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, the Solar System’s yet to observed reservoir of comets. As well, the current highly elliptical orbits of Sednoids cannot be their original orbits, the chance of smaller bodies in such eccentric paths accreting into objects hundreds of kilometres across is fantastically low. Sednoids must have originally formed in relatively circular orbits, possibly in the Oort Cloud.

“Non-eccentric orbits seem to be the anomaly here,” Burns told Universe Today.

So, this likely means that something other than the Sun is responsible for influencing the erratic orbits of such small objects like V774104. One theory is that there might be a large planet at the outer reaches of the Solar System influencing the orbits of these distant objects.

Of course, among some crowds that brings up the hypothetical Planet X. But Burns was quick to dismiss that idea.

“While we certainly don’t understand well these objects, we may want to scatter off an object like Planet X,” he said via email.

At the AAS meeting last week, Sheppard said the likely alternative is that the orbits of these objects might reflect the primordial conditions of the Solar System, which formed more than 4.5 billion years ago. This makes them even more enticing for study, and Sheppard and his team will be keeping a close eye on V774104 to try and learn more. Nature News reported that the team plans to look for it again this week using the Magellan Telescopes in Chile, and then again in a year, to calculate its orbit and determine whether if it is an inner Oort cloud resident or an icy Kuiper Belt object.

Further reading: Nature, Armagh Planetarium,Centauri Dreams, Science.

November 15, 2015December 14, 2015 by Ken Kremer

Cygnus Freighter Fueled and Loaded to Resume American Cargo Launches to Space Station

First enhanced Orbital ATK Cygnus commercial cargo ship is fully assembled and being processed for blastoff to the ISS on Dec. 3, 2015 on an ULA Atlas V rocket. This view shows the Cygnus, named the SS Deke Slayton II, and twin payload enclosure fairings inside the Kennedy Space Center clean room. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – The largest and most advanced version of the privately developed Cygnus cargo freighter ever built by Orbital ATK is fueled, loaded and ready to go to orbit – signifying a critical turning point towards resuming American commercial cargo launches to the space station for NASA that are critical to keep it functioning.

The enhanced and fully assembled commercial Cygnus was unveiled to the media, including Universe Today, during an exclusive tour inside the clean room facility on Friday, Nov. 13, where it is undergoing final prelaunch processing at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

Blastoff of Cygnus atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket on the OA-4 resupply mission under contract to NASA is anticipated on Continue reading “Cygnus Freighter Fueled and Loaded to Resume American Cargo Launches to Space Station”

November 15, 2015December 23, 2015 by Bob King

Sweet Sights for November Nights

A pretty crescent moon will be the first thing you'll see appear in the sky tonight. Look southwest shortly after sunset to spot it. Source: Stellarium

Clear night ahead? Let’s see what’s up. We’ll start close to home with the Moon, zoom out to lonely Fomalhaut 25 light years away and then return to our own Solar System to track down the 7th planet. Even before the sky is dark, you can’t miss the 4-day-old crescent Moon reclining in the southwestern sky. Watch for it to wax to a half-moon by Thursday as it circles Earth at an average speed of 2,200 mph (3,600 km/hr). That fact that it orbits Earth means that the angle the Moon makes with the sun and our planet constantly varies, the reason for its ever-changing phase.

You'll see two and possibly three lunar "seas" tonight (Nov. 15). Only a portion of Mare Tranquilliitatis (Seas of Tranquility) is exposed. The large crater Janssen, 118 miles wide and 1.8 miles deep, is visible in binoculars. Credit: Virtual Moon Atlas / Legrande and Chevalley — You’ll see two and possibly three lunar “seas” tonight (Nov. 15). Only a portion of Mare Tranquilliitatis (Seas of Tranquility) is exposed. The large crater Janssen, 118 miles wide and 1.8 miles deep, is visible in binoculars. Credit: Virtual Moon Atlas / Legrande and Chevalley

With the naked eye you’ll be able to make two prominent dark patches within the crescent — Mare Crisium (Sea of Crises) and Mare Fecunditatis (Sea of Fecundity). Each is a vast, lava-flooded plain peppered with thousands of craters , most of which require a telescope to see. Not so Janssen. This large, 118-mile-wide (190-km) ring will be easy to pick out in a pair of seven to 10 power binoculars. Janssen is named for 19th century French astronomer Pierre Janssen, who was the first to see the bright yellow line of helium in the sun’s spectrum while observing August 1868 total solar eclipse.

Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish, has but one bright star, 1st magnitude Fomalhaut. It shines all by its lonesome in the south around 7 p.m. local time at mid-month. The star is located only 25 light years from Earth. Source: Stellarium

English scientist Norman Lockyer also observed the line later in 1868 and concluded it represented a new solar element which he named “helium” after “helios”, the Greek word for sun. Helium on Earth wouldn’t be discovered for another 10 years, making this party-balloon gas the only element first discovered off-planet!

See the fish now? Greek mythology tells us that Piscis Austrinus is the "Great Fish", the parent of the two fish in the zodiacal constellation of Pisces the Fish. Source: Stellarium — See the fish now? Greek mythology tells us that Piscis Austrinus is the “Great Fish”, the parent of the two fish in the zodiacal constellation of Pisces the Fish. Source: Stellarium

Directing your gaze south around 7 o’clock, you’ll see a single bright star low in the southern sky. This is Fomalhaut in the dim constellation of Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish. The Arabic name means “mouth of the fish”. If live under a dark, light-pollution-free sky, you’ll be able to make out a loop of faint stars vaguely fish-like in form. Aside from being the only first magnitude star among the seasonal fall constellations, Fomalhaut stands out in another way — the star is ringed by a planet-forming disk of dust and rock much as our own Solar System was more than 4 billion years ago.

The planet Fomalhaut b orbits Fomalhaut inside a circumstellar disk of dust and rock, taking about 1,700 years to orbit. Brilliant Fomalhaut, represented by the small, white dot, has been masked from view, so astronomers could photograph the much fainter disk. Credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Space Telescope

Within that disk is a new planet, Fomalhaut b, with less than twice Jupiter’s mass and enshrouded either by a cloud of dusty debris or a ring system like Saturn. Fomalhaut b has the distinction of being the first extrasolar planet ever photographed in visible light. The plodding planet takes an estimated 1,700 years to make one loop around Fomalhaut, with its distance from its parent star varying from about 50 times Earth’s distance from the sun at closest to 300 times that distance at farthest.

Shoot a diagonal across the Square of Pegasus to 4th magnitude Delta Piscium. Point your binoculars here and slide east to 4th magnitude Epsilon and 2° south to the planet Uranus shines at magnitude +5.7 and can be glimpsed with the naked eye from a dark sky site. Time shown is around 7 p.m. local time. See detailed map below. Source: Stellarium

Next, we move on to one of the more remote planets in our own solar system, Uranus. The 7th planet from the sun, Uranus reached opposition — its closest to Earth and brightest appearance for the year — only a month ago. It’s well-placed for viewing in Pisces the Fish after nightfall high in the southeastern sky below the prominent sky asterism, the Great Square of Pegasus.

Wide-field binocular view of Uranus' travels now through next April. I've labeled two stars near the planet with their magnitudes - 5.5 and 6.0 - which are similar to Uranus in brightness, so you don't confuse them with the planet. The others are naked eye stars in Pisces. Source: Chris Mariott's SkyMap — Wide-field binocular view of Uranus’ travels now through next April. I’ve labeled several stars near the planet with their magnitudes, which are similar in brightness to Uranus, so you’ll know to tell them apart from the planet. The others are naked eye stars in Pisces. Source: Chris Mariott’s SkyMap

A telescope will tease out its tiny, greenish disk, but almost any pair of binoculars will easily show the planet as a star-like point of light slowly marching westward against the starry backdrop in the coming weeks. Check in every few weeks to watch it move first west, in retrograde motion, and then turn back east around Christmas. For those with 8-inch and larger telescopes who love a challenge, use this Uranian Moon Finder to track the planet’s two brightest moons, Titania and Oberon, which glimmer weakly around 14th magnitude.

We’ve barely scratched the surface of the vacuum with these offerings; they’re just a few of the many highlights of mid-November nights that also include the annual Leonid meteor shower, which peaks Tuesday and Wednesday mornings (Nov. 17-18). So much to see!

November 11, 2015December 15, 2015 by Ken Kremer

NASA and Space Station Astronauts Salute Americas Veterans This Veteran’s Day

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly salutes all past and present US Veterans from the International Space Station on Veteran’s Day Nov. 11, 2015. Credit: NASA/Scott Kelly

The entire NASA family on Earth and NASA’s two astronauts serving aboard the Earth orbiting International Space Station (ISS) salute all our country’s brave veterans on this Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11, 2015.

NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren saluted America’s veterans today with out of this world salutes and beautiful photos of the American flag back dropped by Earth from the stations orbital altitude of 250 miles (400 km) above the planet. See above and below.

“NASA salutes our country’s veterans this Veteran’s Day,” wrote NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a special Veteran’s Day message. Bolden is also a former astronaut and served as Major General in the US Marine Corps. Continue reading “NASA and Space Station Astronauts Salute Americas Veterans This Veteran’s Day”

November 11, 2015December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

MESSENGER Spies a Meteor Shower… on Mercury

Leonid meteor storms. Taurid meteor swarms. Earth is no stranger to meteor showers, that’s for sure. Now, it turns out that the planet Mercury may experience periodic meteor showers as well.

The news of extraterrestrial meteor showers on Mercury came out of the annual Meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society currently underway this week in National Harbor, Maryland. The study was carried out by Rosemary Killen of NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center, working with Matthew Burger of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland and Apostolos Christou from the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. The study looked at data from the MErcury Surface Space Environment Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, which orbited Mercury until late April of this year. Astronomers published the results in the September 28^th issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

Micrometeoroid debris litters the ecliptic plane, the result of millions of years of passages of comets through the inner solar system. You can see evidence of this in the band of the zodiacal light visible at dawn or dusk from a dark sky site, and the elusive counter-glow of the gegenschein.

The orbit of comet 2P Encke. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Researchers have tagged meteoroid impacts as a previous source of the tenuous exosphere tails exhibited by otherwise airless worlds such as Mercury. The impacts kick up a detectable wind of calcium particles as Mercury plows through the zodiacal cloud of debris.

“We already knew that impacts were important in producing exospheres,” says Killen in a recent NASA Goddard press release. “What we did not know was the relative importance of comet streams over zodiacal dust.”

This calcium peak, however, posed a mystery to researchers. Namely, the peak was occurring just after perihelion—Mercury orbits the Sun once every 88 Earth days, and travels from 0.31 AU from the Sun at perihelion to 0.47 AU at aphelion—versus an expected calcium peak predicted by researchers just before perihelion.

A key suspect in the calcium meteor spike dilemma came in the way of periodic Comet 2P Encke. Orbiting the Sun every 3.3 years—the shortest orbit of any known periodic comet—2P Encke has made many passages through the inner solar system, more than enough to lay down a dense and stable meteoroid debris stream over the millennia.

With an orbit ranging from a perihelion at 0.3 AU interior to Mercury’s to 4 AU, debris from Encke visits Earth as well in the form of the November Taurid Fireballs currently gracing the night skies of the Earth.

The Encke connection still presented a problem: the cometary stream is closest to the orbit of Mercury about a week later than the observed calcium peak. It was as if the stream had drifted over time…

Enter the Poynting-Robertson effect. This is a drag created by solar radiation pressure over time. The push on cometary dust grains thanks to the Poynting-Robertson effect is tiny, but it does add up over time, modifying and moving meteor streams. We see this happening in our own local meteor stream environment, as once great showers such as the late 19^th century Andromedids fade into obscurity. The gravitational influence of the planets also plays a role in the evolution of meteor shower streams as well.

Researchers in the study re-ran the model, using MESSENGER data and accounting for the Poynting-Robertson effect. They found the peak of the calcium emissions seen today are consistent with millimeter-sized grains ejected from Comet Encke about 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. That grain size and distribution is important, as bigger, more massive grains result in a smaller drag force.

A 2015 Taurid meteor. Image credit: Kevin Palmer

This finding shows the role and mechanism that cometary debris plays in exosphere production on worlds like Mercury.

“Finding that we can move the location of stream to match MESSENGER’s observations is gratifying, but the fact that the shift agrees with what we know about Encke and its stream from independent source makes us confident that the cause-and-effect relationship is real, says Christou in this week’s NASA Goddard press release.

Launched in 2004, MESSENGER arrived at Mercury in March 2011 and orbited the world for over four years, the first spacecraft to do so. MESSENGER mapped the entire surface of Mercury for the first time, and became the first human-made artifact to impact Mercury on April 30^th, 2015.

The joint JAXA/ESA mission BepiColombo is the next Mercury mission in the pipeline, set to leave Earth on 2017 for insertion into orbit around Mercury on 2024.

An interesting find on the innermost world, and a fascinating connection between Earth and Mercury via comet 2P Encke and the Taurid Fireballs.

November 9, 2015December 15, 2015 by Ken Kremer

Opportunity Rover Driving Between ‘Lily Pads’ in Search of Martian Sun and Science

NASA’s Opportunity rover peers outwards across to the vast expense of Endeavour Crater from current location descending along steep walled Marathon Valley in early November 2015. Marathon Valley holds significant deposits of water altered clay minerals holding clues to the planets watery past. Shadow of Pancam Mast assembly and robots deck visible at right. This navcam camera photo mosaic was assembled from images taken on Sol 4181 (Oct. 29, 2015) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

Just shy of an unfathomable 4200 Sols traversing ravishing alien terrain on the Red Planet, the longest living ‘Martian’ – NASA’s robot ‘Opportunity’ – is driving between “lily pads” down steep walled Marathon Valley in search of life giving sun that enables spectacular science yielding clues to Mars watery past. All this as she strives to survive utterly harsh climate extremes, because ‘winter is coming’ for her seventh time on the fourth rock from the sun!

“Opportunity is driving east and southeast down Marathon Valley, bisecting the region in which we detect smectites [clay minerals] using CRISM [spectrometer] data,” Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis, told Universe Today.

The ancient, weathered slopes around Marathon Valley became a top Continue reading “Opportunity Rover Driving Between ‘Lily Pads’ in Search of Martian Sun and Science”

November 2, 2015December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

International Space Station Achieves 15 Years of Continuous Human Presence in Orbit

The International Space Station (ISS) has grown tremendously in size and complexity and evolved significantly over 15 years of continuous human occupation from Nov. 2, 2000 to Nov. 2, 2015. Credit: NASA

The International Space Station (ISS) achieved 15 years of a continuous human presence in orbit, as of today, Nov. 2, aboard the football field sized research laboratory ever since the first Russian/American crew of three cosmonauts and astronauts comprising Expedition 1 arrived in a Soyuz capsule at the then much tinier infant orbiting complex on Nov. 2, 2000.

Today, the space station is host to the Expedition 45 crew of six humans – from America, Russia and Japan – that very symbolically also includes the first ever crew spending one year aboard and that highlights the outposts expanding role from a research lab to a deep space exploration test bed for experiments and technologies required for sending humans on interplanetary journeys to the Martian system in the 2030s.

The ISS was only made possible by over two decades of peaceful and friendly international cooperation by the most powerful nations on Earth on a scale rarely seen.

“I believe the International Space Station should be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week during remarks to the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC., on October 28, 2015.

“Exploration has taught us more than we have ever known about our Universe and our place in it.”

“The ISS has already taught us what’s possible when tens of thousands of people across 15 countries collaborate so that human beings from different nations can live and work in space together.”

“Yet, for all these accomplishments, when you consider all the possibilities ahead of us you can only reach one conclusion; We are just getting started!”

6 person ISS Expedition 45 Crew celebrates 15 Years of operation with humans on 2 Nov 2015. Credit: NASA

“No better place to celebrate #15YearsOnStation! #HappyBday, @space_station! Thanks for the hospitality! #YearInSpace.” tweeted NASA astronaut Scott Kelly from the ISS today along with a crew portrait.

The space station is the largest engineering and construction project in space combining the funding, hardware, knowhow, talents and crews from 5 space agencies and 15 countries – NASA, Roscomos, ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson, an Expedition 24 flight engineer in 2010, took a moment during her space station mission to enjoy an unmatched view of home through a window in the Cupola of the International Space Station, the brilliant blue and white part of Earth glowing against the blackness of space. Credits: NASA

The collaborative work in space has transcended our differences here on Earth and points the way forward to an optimistic future that benefits all humanity.

The station orbits at an altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth. It measures 357 feet (109 meters) end-to-end and has an internal pressurized volume of 32,333 cubic feet, equivalent to that of a Boeing 747.

The uninterrupted human presence on the station all began when Expedition 1 docked at the outpost on Nov. 2, 2000, with its first residents including Commander William Shepherd of NASA and cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko of Roscosmos.

For the first station trio in November 2000, the vehicle included three modules; the Zarya module and the Zvezda service module from Russia and the Unity module from the US.

In this photo, Expedition 1 crew members (from left to right) Commander Bill Shepherd, and Flight Engineers Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev pose with a model of their home away from home. Image Credit: NASA

Over the past 15 years, after more than 115 construction and logistics flight, the station has grown by leaps and bounds from its small initial configuration of only three pressurized modules from Russian and America into a sprawling million pound orbiting outpost sporting a habitable volume the size of a six bedroom house, with additional new modules and hardware from Europe, Japan and Canada.

The ISS has been visited by over 220 people from 17 countries.

The “1 Year ISS crew” reflects the international cooperation that made the station possible and comprises current ISS commander NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, who are now just past the half way mark of their mission.

“Over the weekend, I called NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who is currently halfway through his one-year mission aboard the International Space Station, to congratulate him on setting the American records for both cumulative and continuous days in space,” Bolden said in a NASA statement released today.

“I also took the opportunity to congratulate Commander Kelly — and the rest of the space station crew — for being part of a remarkable moment 5,478 days in the making: the 15th anniversary of continuous human presence aboard the space station.”

Scott Kelly, U.S. astronaut and commander of the current Expedition 45 crew, broke the US record for time spent in space on Oct. 16, 2015. Credit: NASA

The complete Expedition 45 crew members include Station Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren of NASA, Flight Engineers Mikhail Kornienko, Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Volkov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

For the first nine years, the station was home to crews of two or three. Starting in 2009 the crew size was doubled to a permanent crew of six humans after the habitable volume, research facilities, equipment and supporting provisions had grown sufficiently.

“Humans have been living in space aboard the International Space Station 24-7-365 since Nov. 2, 2000. That’s 15 Thanksgivings, New Years, and holiday seasons astronauts have spent away from their families. 15 years of constant support from Mission Control Houston. And 15 years of peaceful international living in space,” says NASA.

Expedition 45 Crew Portrait: Station Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren of NASA, Flight Engineers Mikhail Kornienko, Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Volkov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Credit: NASA/Roscosmos/JAXA

The US contributed and built the largest number of segments of the space station, followed by Russia.

NASA’s Space Shuttles hauled the US segments aloft inside the orbiters huge payload bay, starting from the first construction mission in 1998 carrying the Unity module to the final shuttle flight STS-135 in 2011, which marked the completion of construction and retirement of the shuttles.

With the shuttle orbiters now sitting in museums and no longer flying, the Russian Soyuz capsule is the only means of transporting crews to the space station and back.

The longevity of the ISS was recently extended from 2020 to 2024 after approval from President Obama. Most of the partners nations have also agreed to the extension. Many in the space community believe the station hardware is quite resilient and hope for further extensions to 2028 and beyond.

“The International Space Station, which President Obama has extended through 2024, is a testament to the ingenuity and boundless imagination of the human spirit. The work being done on board is an essential part of NASA’s journey to Mars, which will bring American astronauts to the Red Planet in the 2030s,” says Bolden.

“For 15 years, humanity’s reach has extended beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Since 2000, human beings have been living continuously aboard the space station, where they have been working off-the-Earth for the benefit of Earth, advancing scientific knowledge, demonstrating new technologies, and making research breakthroughs that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space.”

A key part of enabling long duration space missions to Mars is the 1 Year ISS Mission.

Scott Kelly recently set the US records for most time in space and longest single space mission.

In coming years, additional new pressurized modules and science labs will be added by Russia and the US.

And NASA says the stations crew size will expand to seven after the US commercial Starliner and Dragon space taxis from Boeing and SpaceX start flying in 2017.

NASA is now developing the new Orion crew capsule and mammoth Space Launch System (SLS) heavy lift rocket to send astronauts to deep space destination including the Moon, asteroids and the Red Planet.

In the meantime, Kelly and his crew are also surely looking forward to the arrival of the next Orbital ATK Cygnus resupply ship carrying science experiments, provisions, spare parts, food and other goodies after it blasts off from Florida on Dec. 3 – detailed in my story here.

Infographic: 15 Years of Continuous Human Presence Aboard the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

STS-135: Last launch using RS-25 engines that will now power NASA’s SLS deep space exploration rocket. NASA’s 135th and final shuttle mission takes flight on July 8, 2011 at 11:29 a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida bound for the ISS and the high frontier with Chris Ferguson as Space Shuttle Commander. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com — STS-135: Last launch using RS-25 engines that will now power NASA’s SLS deep space exploration rocket. NASA’s 135th and final shuttle mission takes flight on July 8, 2011 at 11:29 a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida bound for the final flight to the ISS and the high frontier with Chris Ferguson as Space Shuttle Commander. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com

October 30, 2015October 31, 2015 by Ken Kremer

One Year after Antares Failure, Orbital ATK Revamps Rocket for 2016 ‘Return to Flight’

Base of Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explodes moments after blastoff from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, VA, on Oct. 28, 2014, at 6:22 p.m. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com

One year after the catastrophic launch failure of Orbital ATK’s private Antares rocket seconds after liftoff with the Cygnus cargo freighter bound for the International Space Station (ISS), the firm is well on the way towards revamping the booster with modern new engines and implementing a ‘Return or Flight’ by approximately mid-2016, company officials told Universe Today. Antares is on the comeback trail.

Some 15 seconds after blastoff of the firms Antares/Cygnus rocket on October 28, 2014 on the Orb-3 resupply mission for NASA to the space station, the flight rapidly devolved into total disaster when one of the rockets first stage AJ26 engines suddenly blew up without warning after liftoff from NASA Wallops Island facility along the Eastern shore of Virginia at 6:22 p.m. ET.

After thoroughly investigating and evaluating the causes of the Orb-3 disaster, the top management of Continue reading “One Year after Antares Failure, Orbital ATK Revamps Rocket for 2016 ‘Return to Flight’”

October 29, 2015December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

Dawn Starts Steep Descent to Most Dazzling Orbit of Ceres

This mosaic shows Ceres' Occator crater and surrounding terrain from an altitude of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers), as seen by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Occator is about 60 miles (90 kilometers) across and 2 miles (4 kilometers) deep. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

The most dazzling views ever seen of dwarf planet Ceres and its mysterious bright spots are what’s on tap by year’s end as NASA’s amazing Dawn spacecraft starts a gradual but steep descent over the next two months to its lowest and final orbit around the bizarre icy body.

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) successfully fired up the probes exotic ion propulsion system to begin lowering Dawn’s orbital altitude to less than a quarter of what it has been for the past two months of intense mapping operations.

On Oct. 23, Dawn began a seven-week-long dive that uses ion thruster #2 to reduce the spacecrafts vantage point from 915 miles (1,470 kilometers) at the High Altitude Mapping Orbit (HAMO) down to less than 235 miles (380 kilometers) above Ceres at the Low Altitude Mapping Orbit (LAMO).

Dawn is slated to arrive at LAMO by mid-December, just in time to begin delivering the long awaiting Christmas treats.

Ceres has absolutely tantalized researchers far beyond their wildest expectations.

When Dawn arrives at LAMO it will be the culmination of an eight year interplanetary voyage that began with a blastoff on September 27, 2007 by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta II Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex-17B (SLC-17B) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

LAMO marks Dawn’s fourth, lowest and final science orbit at Ceres where the highest resolution observations will be gathered and images from the framing camera will achieve a resolution of 120 feet (35 meters) per pixel.

Dawn’s low altitude mapping orbit LAMO. This shows how the orbit naturally shifts slightly (relative to the sun) during the three months of LAMO, starting in blue and ending in red. The spacecraft completes each revolution in 5.5 hours, and Ceres rotates in 9.1 hours, so Dawn will be able to view the entire surface. Credit: NASA/JPL

At LAMO, researchers hope to finally resolve the enduring mystery of the nature of the bright spots that have intrigued science and the general public since they were first glimpsed clearly early this year as Dawn was on its final approach to Ceres.

Dawn arrived in orbit this past spring on March 6, 2015.

This image was taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft of dwarf planet Ceres on Feb. 19 from a distance of nearly 29,000 miles (46,000 km). It shows that the brightest spot on Ceres has a dimmer companion, which apparently lies in the same basin. See below for the wide view. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA — This image was taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft of dwarf planet Ceres on Feb. 19 from a distance of nearly 29,000 miles (46,000 km). It shows that the brightest spot on Ceres has a dimmer companion, which apparently lies in the same basin. See below for the wide view. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

The science team has just released a new mosaic of the brightest spots on Ceres found at Occator crater and the surrounding terrain – see above.

The images were taken from the HAMO altitude of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers) during the first of six mapping cycles. They have a resolution of 450 feet (140 meters) per pixel.

Occator measures about 60 miles (90 kilometers) across and 2 miles (4 kilometers) deep.

This image, made using images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft during the mission's High Altitude Mapping Orbit (HAMO) phase, shows Occator crater on Ceres, home to a collection of intriguing bright spots. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA — This image, made using images taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft during the mission’s High Altitude Mapping Orbit (HAMO) phase, shows Occator crater on Ceres, home to a collection of intriguing bright spots. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Because the spots are so bright they are generally overexposed. Therefore the team took two sets of images, with shorter and longer exposure times, to maximize the details of the interior of Occator.

“This view uses a composite of two images of Occator: one using a short exposure that captures the detail in the bright spots, and one where the background surface is captured at normal exposure.”

The bright spots at Occator crater remain the biggest Cerean mystery.

So far the imagery and other science data may point to evaporation of salty water from the interior as the source of the bright spots.

“Occasional water leakage on to the surface could leave salt there as the water would sublime,” Prof. Chris Russell, Dawn principal investigator told Universe Today exclusively.

“The big picture that is emerging is that Ceres fills a unique niche.”

“Ceres fills a unique niche between the cold icy bodies of the outer solar system, with their rock hard icy surfaces, and the water planets Mars and Earth that can support ice and water on their surfaces,” Russell, of the University of California, Los Angeles, told me.

Dawn has peeled back Ceres secrets as the spacecraft orbits lower and lower. Detailed measurements gathered to date have yielded global mineral and topographic maps from HAMO with the best resolution ever as the science team painstakingly stitched together the probes spectral and imaging products.

And the best is yet to come at LAMO.

At HAMO, Dawn’ instruments, including the Framing Camera and Visible and Infrared Spectrometer (VIR) were aimed at slightly different angles in each mapping cycle allowing the team to generate stereo views and construct 3-D maps.

“The emphasis during HAMO is to get good stereo data on the elevations of the surface topography and to get good high resolution clear and color data with the framing camera,” Russell explained.

This view from NASA's Dawn spacecraft is a color-coded topographic map of Occator crater on Ceres. Blue is the lowest elevation, and brown is the highest. The crater, which is home to the brightest spots on Ceres, is approximately 56 miles (90 kilometers wide). Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA — This view from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is a color-coded topographic map of Occator crater on Ceres. Blue is the lowest elevation, and brown is the highest. The crater, which is home to the brightest spots on Ceres, is approximately 56 miles (90 kilometers wide). Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Dawn is Earth’s first probe in human history to explore any dwarf planet, the first to explore Ceres up close and the first to orbit two celestial bodies.

The asteroid Vesta was Dawn’s first orbital target where it conducted extensive observations of the bizarre world for over a year in 2011 and 2012.

Ceres is a Texas-sized world, ranks as the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and may have a subsurface ocean of liquid water that could be hospitable to life.

This map-projected view of Ceres was created from images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft during its high-altitude mapping orbit, in August and September, 2015. This color coded map can provide valuable insights into the mineral composition of the surface, as well as the relative ages of surface features. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA — This map-projected view of Ceres was created from images taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft during its high-altitude mapping orbit, in August and September, 2015. This color coded map can provide valuable insights into the mineral composition of the surface, as well as the relative ages of surface features. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

The mission is expected to last until at least March 2016, and possibly longer, depending upon fuel reserves.

“It will end some time between March and December,” Dr. Marc Rayman, Dawn’s chief engineer and mission director based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, told Universe Today.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer