Solar System Archives

May 14, 2014December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission to Provide 1st 3-D View of Earth’s Magnetic Reconnection Process – Cleanroom visit with Bolden

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden poses with the agency’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft, mission personnel, Goddard Center Director Chris Scolese and NASA Associate Administrator John Grunsfeld, during visit to the cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
Story updated[/caption]

NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, MD – NASA’s upcoming Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is comprised of a quartet of identically instrumented observatories aimed at providing the first three-dimensional views of a fundamental process in nature known as magnetic reconnection. They were unveiled to greet NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Monday, May 12, in a rare fully stacked arrangement inside the Goddard cleanroom.

Universe Today was on hand with NASA Administrator Bolden, Science Mission Chief John Grunsfeld and the MMS mission team at Goddard for a first hand inspection and up close look at the 20 foot tall, four spacecraft stacked configuration in the cleanroom and for briefings about the projects fundamental science goals.

“I’m visiting with the MMS team today to find out the status of this mission scheduled to fly early in 2015. It’s one of many projects here at Goddard,” NASA Administrator Bolden told me in an exclusive one-on-one interview at the MMS cleanroom.

“MMS will help us study the phenomena known as magnetic reconnection and help us understand how energy from the sun – magnetic and otherwise – affects our own life here on Earth. MMS will study what effects that process … and how the magnetosphere protects Earth.”

Magnetic reconnection is the process whereby magnetic fields around Earth connect and disconnect while explosively releasing vast amounts of energy.

Technicians work on NASA’s 20-foot-tall Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mated quartet of stacked observatories in the cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com — Technicians work on NASA’s 20-foot-tall Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mated quartet of stacked observatories in the cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com

MMS measurements should lead to significant improvements in models for yielding better predictions of space weather and thereby the resulting impacts for life here on Earth as well as for humans aboard the ISS and robotic satellite explorers in orbit and the heavens beyond.

The four identical spacecraft – which are still undergoing testing – were stacked in a rarely seen launch arrangement known affectionately as the “IHOP configuration” – because they look rather like a stack of luscious pancakes.

“MMS is a fundamental heliophysics science mission,” Craig Tooley told me at the MMS cleanroom. Tooley is MMS project manager at NASA Goddard.

“Unlike Hubble that uses remote sensing, MMS is like a flying laboratory ‘in situ’ that will capture events that are the major energy transfer from the sun’s magnetic field into our Earth’s space weather environment and magnetosphere.”

“These are called magnetic reconnection events that pump enormous amounts of energy into the plasma and the fields around Earth. It’s one of the main drivers of space weather and a fundamental physical process that is not very well understood,” Tooley explained.

“The spacecraft were built in-house here at Goddard and just completed vibration testing.”

MMS will launch atop an Atlas V rocket in March 2015 from Space launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

Artist rendition of the four MMS spacecraft in orbit in Earth’s magnetic field. Credit: NASA

The vibration testing is a major milestone and is conducted to ensure the spacecraft can withstand the most extreme vibration and dynamic loads they will experience and which occurs during liftoff inside the fairing of the Atlas V booster.

MMS is also another highly valuable NASA science mission (along with MAVEN, LADEE and others) which suffered launch delays and increased costs as a result of the US government shutdown last October 2013, Bolden confirmed to Universe Today.

“We ended up slipping beyond the original October 2014 date due to the government shutdown and [the team] being out of work for a couple of weeks. MMS is now scheduled to launch in March 2015,” Bolden told me.

“So then you are at the mercy of the launch provider.”

“The downside to slipping that far is that’s its [MMS] costing more to launch,” Bolden stated.

Each of the Earth orbiting spacecraft is outfitted with 25 science sensors to study the microphysics of three fundamental plasma processes: magnetic reconnection, energetic particle acceleration, and turbulence.

Magnetic reconnection occurs throughout our universe.

“The primary mission will last two years,” Tooley told me.

“Each spacecraft carries about 400 kilograms of fuel. There is a possibility to extend the mission by about a year based on fuel consumption.”

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Ken Kremer (Universe Today) inspect NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mated quartet of stacked spacecraft at the cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com — NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Ken Kremer (Universe Today) inspect NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mated quartet of stacked spacecraft at the cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com

The spacecraft will use the Earth itself as a laboratory to unlock the mysteries of magnetic reconnection – the primary process that transfers energy from the solar wind into Earth’s magnetosphere and is responsible for geomagnetic storms.

“To understand the fundamental physics, they will fly in a pyramid-like formation and capture the magnetic reconnection events in 3-D by flying through them as they happen – that’s why we have 4 spacecraft,” Tooley explained.

“Initially they will be spaced apart by about 10 to 30 kilometers while they fly in a tetrahedron formation and scan with their booms spread out – depending on what the scientists says is the optimal configuration.”

“They fly in a highly elliptical orbit between about 7,000 and 75,000 kilometers altitude during the first half of the mission. Eventually the orbit will be extended out to about 150,000 kilometers.”

The best place to study magnetic reconnection is ‘in situ’ in Earth’s magnetosphere.

This will lead to better predictions of space weather phenomena.

NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) science mission

Magnetic reconnection is also believed to help trigger the spectacular aurora known as the Northern or Southern lights.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing MMS, Curiosity, Opportunity, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, Boeing, Orion, LADEE, MAVEN, MOM, Mars and more planetary and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

………

Ken’s upcoming presentation: Mercy College, NY, May 19: “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars” and “NASA’s Future Crewed Spaceships.”

MMS Project Manager Craig Tooley (right) and Ken Kremer (Universe Today) discuss science objectives of NASA’s upcoming Magnetospheric Multiscale mission by 20 foot tall mated quartet of stacked spacecraft at the cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com — MMS Project Manager Craig Tooley (right) and Ken Kremer (Universe Today) discuss science objectives of NASA’s upcoming Magnetospheric Multiscale mission by 20 foot tall mated quartet of stacked spacecraft at the cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com

May 12, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Why Earth’s Spores Could Survive A Trip to Mars

Artist's conception of Mars, with asteroids nearby. Credit: NASA

Here’s a finding to give planetary protectionists pause: two species of spores mounted on the International Space Station’s hull a few years back showed a high survival rate after 18 months in space.

Providing that they are shielded against solar radiation, it appears the spores are quite hardy and could easily transport on a spacecraft headed for Mars — which is concerning since so many scientific investigations there these days are focused on habitability of Martian life (whether past or present). The experiment was published in 2012, but highlighted in a recent NASA press release about planetary protection.

The experiment was called PROTECT (an acronym of Resistance of spacecraft isolates to outer space for planetary protection purposes) and studied spores of Bacillus subtilis 168 and Bacillus pumilus SAFR-032. B. pumilus spores were found in an air lock between a “clean room” and entrance floor at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and in previous studies were shown to be more resistant to UV radiation and hydrogen peroxide than “wild” strains. B. subtilis is a spore that has been studied in other space environment experiments.

Samples of both spores were mounted on the EXPOSE-E facility on the space station, which provides up to two years of space exposure. The major goal of this European Space Agency experiment is to study “the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe,” NASA states, adding that anything mounted outside of there has to survive “cosmic radiation, vacuum, full-spectrum solar light including UV-C, freezing/thawing cycles [and] microgravity.”

The European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) attached to the Columbus module of the International Space Station. Credit: DLR, Institute of Aerospace Medicine/Dr. Gerda Horneck

The experiment found that if the spores were in areas replete with solar UV radiation, most of them were killed. If those rays were filtered out, however, the spores showed a 50 percent survival rate on both space and simulated “Mars” conditions. It is most concerning to scientists when considering a situation where spores could be hiding underneath each other during a spacecraft trip. The ones on the outside would likely die, but the ones on the inside — shielded from solar radiation — could make it there.

One key limitation in this study, however, is that only two types of spores were studied. This does present a case for doing more studies on this matter in the future, however. Space agencies are quite aware of the problem of planetary protection, as evidenced by departments such as NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection and ESA’s Planetary Protection Officer.

Spacecraft designers constantly make decisions to keep the extraterrestrial bodies we study as safe from Earth contamination as possible; one famous example was when the Galileo probe was deliberately sent into Jupiter in 2003 to protect Europa and other potentially life-bearing moons of the giant planet from possible contamination.

Images of Bacillus pumilus SAFR-032 spores (seen in an electron micrograph) on aluminum before and after being exposed to space on an International Space Station experiment. Credit: P. Vaishampayan, et al./Astrobiology

You can read the entire study (led by DLR’s Gerda Horneck) in Astrobiology. Also note that there are two other EXPOSE-E studies published around the same time: “Survival of Rock-Colonizing Organisms After 1.5 Years in Outer Space” and “Survival of Bacillus pumilus Spores for a Prolonged Period of Time in Real Space Conditions.”

The rock study (led by Tuscia University’s Silvano Onofri) takes the question of the spores in a different direction, which is examining the phenomenon of “lithopanspermia” — how organisms might move between planets (say, on a meteor). Since Mars meteorites have been found on Earth, some researchers have wondered if life could have spread between our two planets. If that were to happen, the researchers cautioned, the spores would have to survive for thousands or millions of years.

The other B. pumilus paper (led by NASA’s Parag A. Vaishampayan) noted that those spores mounted outside of the space station that survived, showed higher concentrations of proteins that could be linked to resisting UV radiation.

May 12, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Found! Sun’s ‘Sibling’ Likely Formed From Same Gas Cloud, Astronomers Say

Location chart for HD 162826, considered a sibling to the sun. Credit: Ivan Ramirez/Tim Jones/McDonald Observatory

Peer about 110 light-years away from our solar system, and you might catch a glimpse of how our own neighborhood came together. The recent discovery that HD 162826 — a star bright enough to be seen in binoculars — could be a “sibling” of our sun could shed more light on the solar system’s formation, astronomers said.

“We want to know where we were born,” stated Ivan Ramirez, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin who led the research. “If we can figure out in what part of the galaxy the sun formed, we can constrain conditions on the early solar system. That could help us understand why we are here.”

The star is called a “sibling” because it could have formed from the same gas and dust cloud in which our own solar system was formed, some 4.5 billion years ago. Since life is in our own solar system, a natural next question is whether HD 162826 could also have life-bearing planets. There is a tiny reason for “yes”, the astronomers said.

Basically, the argument goes that when the stars were first born and close together, chunks of matter could have been knocked off protoplanets and travelled between the two solar systems. There’s a small chance that this could have brought primitive life to Earth, although of course there’s a long way to go before that could even be proved.

This artist's conception shows a newly formed star surrounded by a swirling protoplanetary disk of dust and gas. Credit: University of Copenhagen/Lars Buchhave — This artist’s conception shows a newly formed star surrounded by a swirling protoplanetary disk of dust and gas. Credit: University of Copenhagen/Lars Buchhave

That said, no planets have yet been found around HD 162826. (The star was known before, but just recently identified as a “sibling.”) Separate studies by the University of Texas and University of South Wales said there are likely no “hot Jupiters” (Jupiter-sized planets close to the star) nor Jupiter-sized planet in the solar system even further away. Smaller terrestrial planets, however, would have escaped the notice of this particular study.

The star is about 15 percent more massive than our sun and was selected from a list of 30 candidates based on its chemistry and orbit. There could also be more siblings out there to find, with one potential big help coming soon: the Gaia survey from the European Space Agency launched in December, which will chart the Milky Way in three dimensions.

Because Gaia will showcase the distance and motions of a billion stars, this will allow astronomers to look for these “solar siblings” as far in as the galaxy’s center, increasing the number of stars studied by a factor of 10,000. The exciting thing, the astronomers add, is with enough stars pinpointed as siblings to our sun, their orbits can then be traced back to the origin point — showing the location in the cosmos where the sun first came to be.

More information will be available in the June 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. A preprint version is available on Arxiv.

Source: University of Texas at Austin

May 8, 2014December 23, 2015 by Bob King

Asteroid 2013 UQ4 Suddenly Becomes a Dark Comet with a Bright Future

Comet C/2013 UQ4, once thought to be an asteroid, now shows characteristics of a comet including a coma. This photo was made on May 7, 2014. Credit: Artyom Novichonok and Taras Prystavski

On October 23, 2013, astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey picked up a very faint asteroid with an unusual orbit more like a that of a comet than an asteroid. At the time 2013 UQ4 was little more than a stellar point with no evidence of a hazy coma or tail that would tag it as a comet. But when it recently reappeared in the morning sky after a late January conjunction with the sun, amateur astronomers got a surprise.

On May 7, Comet ISON co-discoverer Artyom Novichonok, and Taras Prystavski used a remote telescope located in Siding Spring, Australia to take photos of 2013 UQ4 shortly before dawn in the constellation Cetus. Surprise, surprise. The asteroid had grown a little fuzz, making the move to comethood. No longer a starlike object, 2013 UQ4 now displays a substantial coma or atmosphere about 1.5 arc minutes across with a more compact inner coma measuring 25 arc seconds in diameter. No tail is visible yet, and while its overall magnitude of +13.5 won’t make you break out the bottle of champagne, it’s still bright enough to see in a 12-inch telescope under dark skies.

Wide field map showing the comet's movement from Cetus through Pisces and into Cepheus in July when it becomes circumpolar for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes. It should reach peak brightness of 7th magnitude in early July. Created with Chris Marriott's SkyMap program — Wide field map showing the comet’s movement from Cetus through Pisces and into Cepheus in July when it becomes circumpolar for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes. It should reach a peak brightness of 7th magnitude in early July. Click to enlarge. Created with Chris Marriott’s SkyMap program

The best is yet to come. Assuming the now renamed C/2013 UQ4 continues to spout dust and water vapor, it should brighten to magnitude +11 by month’s end as it moves northward across Pisces and into a dark morning sky. Perihelion occurs on June 5 with the comet reaching magnitude +8-9 by month’s end. Peak brightness of 7th magnitude is expected during its close approach of Earth on July 10 at 29 million miles (46.7 million km).

This should be a great summer comet, plainly visible in binoculars from a dark sky as it speeds across Cepheus and Draco during convenient viewing hours at the rate of some 7 degrees per night! That’s 1/3 of a degree per hour or fast enough to see movement through a telescope in a matter of minutes when the comet is nearest Earth.

Lightcurve showing the date on the bottom and magnitude along the vertical. Work by Artyom Novichonok and Taras Prystavski — Light curve showing C/2013 UQ4 brightening to a sharp peak in early July and then quickly fading. Created by Artyom Novichonok and Taras Prystavski

Come August, C/2013 UQ4 rapidly fades to magnitude +10 and then goes the way of so many comets – a return to a more sedentary lifestyle in the cold bones of deep space.

C/2013 UQ4 belongs to a special category of asteroids called damocloids (named for asteroid 5335 Damocles) that have orbits resembling the Halley-family comets with long periods, fairly steep inclinations and highly eccentric orbits (elongated shapes). Some, like Comet Halley itself, even travel backwards as they orbit the sun, an orbit astronomers describe as ‘retrograde’.

Evolution of a comet as it orbits the sun. Credit: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Sciences/ NASA

Damocloids are thought to be comets that have lost all their fizz. With their volatile ices spent from previous trips around the sun, they stop growing comas and tails and appear identical to asteroids. Occasionally, one comes back to life. It’s happened in at least four other cases and appears to be happening with C/2013 UQ4 as well.

Studies of the comet/asteroid’s light indicate that UQ4 is a very dark but rather large object some 4-9 miles (7-15 km) across. It’s estimated that C/2013 UQ4 takes at least 500 years to make one spin around the sun. Count yourself lucky this damocloid decided to spend its summer vacation in Earth’s skies. We’ll have more detailed maps and updates as the comet becomes more easily visible next month. Stay tuned.

May 7, 2014December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

The Hunt for KBOs for New Horizons’ Post-Pluto Encounter Continues

An artist’s conception of a KBO encounter by New Horizons. Credit: JHUAPL/SwRI.

Are you ready for the summer of 2015? A showdown of epic proportions is in the making, as NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is set to pass within 12,500 kilometres of Pluto — roughly a third of the distance of the ring of geosynchronous satellites orbiting the Earth — a little over a year from now on July 14th, 2015.

But another question is already being raised, one that’s assuming center stage even before we explore Pluto and its retinue of moons: will New Horizons have another target available to study for its post-Pluto encounter out in the Kuiper Belt? Researchers say time is of the essence to find it.

To be sure, it’s a big solar system out there, and it’s not that researchers haven’t been looking. New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on January 19^th, 2006 atop an Atlas V rocket flying in a 551 configuration in one of the fastest departures from Earth ever: it took New Horizons just nine hours to pass Earth’s moon after launch.

New Horizons spends its last days on Earth pre-encapsulation. (Credit: NASA/KSC).

The idea has always been out there to send New Horizons onward to explore and object beyond Pluto in the Kuiper Belt, but thus far, searches for a potential target have turned up naught.

A recent joint statement from NASA’s Small Bodies and Outer Planets Assessment Groups (SBAG and OPAG) has emphasized the scientific priority needed for identifying a possible Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) for the New Horizons mission post-Pluto encounter. The assessment notes that such a chance to check out a KBO up close may only come once in our lifetimes: even though it’s currently moving at a heliocentric velocity of just under 15 kilometres a second, it will have taken New Horizons almost a decade to traverse the 32 A.U. distance to Pluto.

The report also highlights the fact that KBOs are expected to dynamically different from Pluto as well and worthy of study. The statement also notes that the window may be closing to find such a favorable target after 2014, as the upcoming observational apparition of Pluto as seen from Earth — and the direction New Horizons is headed afterwards — reaches opposition this summer on July 4^th.

But time is of the essence, as it will allow researchers to plan for a burn and trajectory change for New Horizons shortly after its encounter with Pluto and Charon using what little fuel it has left. Then there’s the issue of debris in the Pluto system that may require fine-tuning its trajectory pre-encounter as well. New Horizons will begin long range operations later this year in November, switching on permanently for two years of operations pre-, during and post- encounter with Pluto.

And there currently isn’t a short-list of “next best thing” targets for New Horizons post-Pluto encounter. One object, dubbed VNH0004, may be available for distant observations in January of next year, but even this object will only pass 75 million kilometres — about 0.5 A.U. — from New Horizons at its closest.

Ground based assets such as the Keck, Subaru and Gemini observatories have been repeatedly employed in the search over the past three years. The best hopes lie with the Hubble Space Telescope, which can go deeper and spy fainter targets.

Nor could New Horizons carry out a search for new targets on its own. Its eight inch (20 cm in diameter) LORRI instrument has a limiting magnitude of about +18, which is not even close to what would be required for such a discovery.

New Horizons currently has 130 metres/sec of hydrazine fuel available to send it onwards to a possible KBO encounter, limiting its range and maneuverability into a narrow cone straight ahead of the spacecraft. This restricts the parameters for a potential encounter to 0.35 A.U. off of its nominal path for a target candidate be to still be viable objective. New Horizons will exit the Kuiper Belt at around 55 A.U. from the Sun, and will probably end its days joining the Voyager missions probing the outer solar system environment. Like Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2 and the upper stage boosters that deployed them, New Horizons will escape our solar system and orbit the Milky Way galaxy for millions of years. We recently proposed a fun thought experiment concerning just how much extraterrestrial “space junk” might be out there, littering the galactic disk.

And while the crowd-sourced Ice Hunters project generated lots of public engagement, a suitable target wasn’t found. There is talk of a follow up Ice Investigators project, though it’s still in the pending stages.

Another issue compounding the problem is the fact that Pluto is currently crossing the star rich region of the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius. Telescopes looking in this direction must contend with the thousands of background stars nestled towards the galactic center, making the detection of a faint moving KBO difficult. Still, if any telescope is up to the task, it’s Hubble, which just entered its 25^th year of operations last month.

Credit Starry Night — The path of Pluto through the constellation Sagittarius through August 2015. Credit: Starry Night.

Shining at +14^th magnitude, Pluto will be very near the 3.5^th magnitude star Xi² Sagittarii during the July 2015 encounter.

New Horizons is currently 1.5 degrees from Pluto — about 3 times the angular size of a Full Moon —as seen from our Earthly vantage point, and although neither can be seen with the naked eye, you can wave in their general direction this month on May 18^th, using the nearby daytime Moon as a guide.

July 2015 will be an exciting and historic time in solar system exploration. Does Pluto have more undiscovered moons? A ring system of its own? Does it resemble Neptune’s moon Triton, or will it turn out looking entirely different ?

If nothing else, exploration of Pluto will finally give us science writers some new images to illustrate articles on the distant world, rather than recycling the half a dozen-odd photos and artist’s conceptions that are currently available. An abundance of surface features will then require naming as well. It would be great to see Pluto’s discoverer Clyde Tombaugh and Venetia Burney — the girl who named Pluto — get their due. We’ll even assume our space pundit’s hat and predict a resurgence of the “is it a planet?” debate once again in the coming year as the encounter nears…

Onward to Pluto and the brave new worlds beyond!

May 6, 2014December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Drills Deep into 3rd Martian Rock for Sampling Analysis

Composite photo mosaic shows deployment of NASA Curiosity rovers robotic arm and two holes after drilling into ‘Windjana’ sandstone rock on May 5, 2014, Sol 621, at Mount Remarkable as missions third drill target for sample analysis by rover’s chemistry labs. The navcam raw images were stitched together from several Martian days up to Sol 621, May 5, 2014 and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
See additional Curiosity mosaics below-See our APOD featured on May 7, 2014[/caption]

After a rather satisfying test bore into a sandstone slab at “Kimberley” just last week, NASA’s rover Curiosity decided to go all the way for a deep drill excursion into the Red Planet rock target called “Windjana” and successfully collected powdery samples from the interior on Monday evening, May 5, Sol 621, that the rover will soon consume inside her belly for high tech compositional analysis with her state-of-the-art science instruments.

NASA reported the great news today, Tuesday, May 6, soon after receiving confirmation of the successful acquisition effort by the hammering drill, located at the terminus of the 1 ton robots 7-foot-long (2 meter) arm.

At long last its “Drill, Baby, Drill” time on Mars.

The “Kimberley Waypoint” drill campaign into “Windjana” at the Mount Remarkable butte thus marks only the third Martian rock bored for sampling analysis by the SUV sized rover. This also counts as a new type of Mars rock – identified as sandstone, compared to the pair of mudstone rocks bored into last year.

This May 5, 2014, image (Sol 621) from the Navigation Camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows two holes at top center drilled into a sandstone target called "Windjana." The farther hole was created by the rover's drill while it collected rock-powder sample material from the interior of the rock that will be fed to the rovers chemistry labs for analysis. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech — This May 5, 2014, image (Sol 621) from the Navigation Camera on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows two holes at top center drilled into a sandstone target called “Windjana.” The farther hole was created by the rover’s drill while it collected rock-powder sample material from the interior of the rock that will be fed to the rovers chemistry labs for analysis. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The fresh hole in “Windjana” created on Monday night was clearly visible in images received this afternoon and showed it was 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter and about 2.6 inches (6.5 centimeters) deep.

The operation went exactly as planned and left behind a residual pile of drill tailings much darker in color compared to the ubiquitous red color seen covering most of Mars surface.

The new full-depth hole is very close in proximity to the shallower “Mini-drill” test hole operation carried out on April 29 at Windjama to determine if this site met the science requirements for sampling analysis and delivery to the two onboard, miniaturized chemistry labs – SAM and CheMin.

“Windjana” is named after a gorge in Western Australia.

Curiosity’s Panoramic view of Mount Remarkable at ‘The Kimberley Waypoint’ where rover will conduct 3rd drilling campaign inside Gale Crater on Mars. The navcam raw images were taken on Sol 603, April 17, 2014, stitched and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer - kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo — Curiosity’s Panoramic view of Mount Remarkable at ‘The Kimberley Waypoint’ where rover will conduct 3rd drilling campaign inside Gale Crater on Mars. The navcam raw images were taken on Sol 603, April 17, 2014, stitched and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
Featured on APOD – Astronomy Picture of the Day on May 7, 2014

“The drill tailings from this rock are darker-toned and less red than we saw at the two previous drill sites,” said Jim Bell of Arizona State University, Tempe, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity’s Mast Camera (Mastcam).

“This suggests that the detailed chemical and mineral analysis that will be coming from Curiosity’s other instruments could reveal different materials than we’ve seen before. We can’t wait to find out!”

In coming days, the sample will be pulverized and sieved prior to delivery to the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) and the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM) for chemical and compositional analysis.

Windjana is an outcrop of sandstone located at the base of a Martian butte named Mount Remarkable at “The “Kimberley Waypoint” – a science stopping point reached by the rover in early April 2014 halfway along its epic trek to towering Mount Sharp, the primary destination of the mission.

See herein our illustrative photo mosaics of the Kimberly Waypoint region assembled by the image processing team of Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer.

Multisol composite photo mosaic shows deployment of Curiosity’s rovers robotic arm and APXS X-ray spectrometer onto the ‘Winjana’ rock target at Mount Remarkable for evaluation as missions third drill target inside Gale Crater on Mars. The colorized navcam raw images were stitched together from several Martian days up to Sol 612, April 26, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer - kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo — Multisol composite photo mosaic shows deployment of Curiosity’s rovers robotic arm and APXS X-ray spectrometer onto the ‘Winjana’ rock target at Mount Remarkable for evaluation as missions third drill target inside Gale Crater on Mars. The colorized navcam raw images were stitched together from several Martian days up to Sol 612, April 26, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

The first two drill campaigns conducted during 2013 at ‘John Klein’ and ‘Cumberland’ inside Yellowknife Bay were on mudstone rock outcrops.

The science team chose Windjana for drilling “to analyze the cementing material that holds together sand-size grains in this sandstone,” says NASA.

“The Kimberley Waypoint was selected because it has interesting, complex stratigraphy,” Curiosity Principal Investigator John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, told me.

Curiosity snaps selfie at Kimberley waypoint with towering Mount Sharp backdrop on April 27, 2014 (Sol 613). Inset shows MAHLI camera image of rovers mini-drill test operation on April 29, 2014 (Sol 615) into “Windjama” rock target at Mount Remarkable butte. MAHLI color photo mosaic assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 613, April 27, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer - kenkremer.com — Curiosity snaps selfie at Kimberley waypoint with towering Mount Sharp backdrop on April 27, 2014 (Sol 613). Inset shows MAHLI camera image of rovers mini-drill test operation on April 29, 2014 (Sol 615) into “Windjana” rock target at Mount Remarkable butte. MAHLI color photo mosaic assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 613, April 27, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com

Curiosity departed the ancient lakebed at the Yellowknife Bay region in July 2013 where she discovered a habitable zone with the key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that could have supported microbial life billions of years ago – and thereby accomplished the primary goal of the mission.

Windjama is about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) southwest of Yellowknife Bay.

Curiosity still has about another 4 kilometers to go to reach the base of Mount Sharp sometime later this year.

Martian landscape with rows of curved rock outcrops at ‘Kimberly’ in the foreground and spectacular Mount Sharp on the horizon. NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover pulled into Kimberly waypoint dominated by layered rock outcrops as likely drilling site. This colorized navcam camera photomosaic was assembled from imagery taken on Sol 576 (Mar. 20, 2014). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com

The sedimentary foothills of Mount Sharp, which reaches 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the Martian sky, is the 1 ton robots ultimate destination inside Gale Crater because it holds caches of water altered minerals. Such minerals could possibly indicate locations that sustained potential Martian life forms, past or present, if they ever existed.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Curiosity, Opportunity, Chang’e-3, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, LADEE, MAVEN, MOM, Mars and more planetary and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

Curiosity scans scientifically intriguing rock outcrops of gorgeous Martian terrain at ‘The Kimberley’ waypoint in search of next drilling location beside Mount Remarkable butte, at right. Mastcam color photo mosaic assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 590, April 4, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer - kenkremer.com — Curiosity scans scientifically intriguing rock outcrops of gorgeous Martian terrain at ‘The Kimberley’ waypoint in search of next drilling location beside Mount Remarkable butte, at right. Mastcam color photo mosaic assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 590, April 4, 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com

May 6, 2014December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

Dangling Dextre Digs out Docked Dragon Depot prior to Station Departure

Backdropped against a cloudy portion of Earth, Canada’s Dextre robotic "handyman" and Canadarm2 dig out the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon cargo vessel docked to the ISS after completing a task 225 miles above the home planet. Credit: NASA

To close out their final week aboard the International Space Station, three of the six Expedition 39 crew members are completing their unloading tasks inside the docked commercial SpaceX Dragon cargo freighter and other duties while teams at Mission Control in Houston conduct delicate robotics work outside with dazzling maneuvers of the Dextre robot to remove the last external experiment from the vessels storage truck.

See a dazzling gallery of photos of Dextre dangling outside the docked Dragon depot – above and below.

On Monday, May 5, the robotics team at NASA Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston carefully guided Canada’s Dextre robotic “handyman” attached to the end of the 57-foot long Canadarm2 to basically dig out the final payload item housed in the unpressurized trunk section at the rear of the SpaceX Dragon cargo vessel docked to the ISS.

Dextre stands for “Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator” and was contributed to the station by the Canadian Space Agency. It measures 12 feet tall and is outfitted with a pair of arms and an array of finely detailed tools to carry out intricate and complex tasks that would otherwise require spacewalking astronauts.

The Canadarm2 with Dextre in its grasp conducts external cargo transfers from the SpaceX Dragon resupply ship. Credit: NASA TV

The massive orbiting outpost was soaring some 225 miles above the home planet as Dextre’s work was in progress to remove the Optical PAyload for Lasercomm Science, or OPALS, from the Dragon’s truck.

The next step is to install OPALS on the Express Logistics Carrier-1 (ELC-1) depot at the end of the station’s port truss on Wednesday.

Monday’s attempt was the second try at grappling OPALS. The initial attempt last Thursday “was unsuccessful due to a problem gripping the payload’s grapple fixture with the Special Purpose Dextrous Manipulator, or Dextre,” NASA reported.

A software patch solved the problem.

Canada’s Dextre manipulator attached to Canadarm2 conducts external cargo transfers from the SpaceX Dragon resupply ship. Credit: NASA TV

Dragon thundered to orbit atop SpaceX’s powerful new Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket on April 18, from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

This unmanned Dragon delivered about 4600 pounds of cargo to the ISS including over 150 science experiments, a pair of hi tech legs for Robonaut 2, a high definition Earth observing imaging camera suite (HDEV), the laser optical communications experiment (OPALS), the VEGGIE lettuce growing experiment as well as essential gear, spare parts, crew provisions, food, clothing and supplies to the six person crews living and working aboard in low Earth orbit, under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract.

OPALS uses laser light instead of radio waves to beam back precisely guided data packages to ground stations. The use of lasers should greatly increase the amount of information transmitted over the same period of time, says NASA.

The science experiments carried aboard Dragon are intended for research to be conducted by the crews of ISS Expeditions 39 and 40.

Robotics teams had already pulled out the other payload item from the truck, namely the HDEV imaging suite. It is already transmitting back breathtaking real time video views of Earth from a quartet of video cameras pointing in different directions mounted on the stations exterior.

The SpaceX CRS-3 mission marks the company’s third resupply mission to the ISS under a $1.6 Billion contract with NASA to deliver 20,000 kg (44,000 pounds) of cargo to the ISS during a dozen Dragon cargo spacecraft flights through 2016.

After spending six months in space, Station Commander Koichi Wakata from Japan as well as NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin will be departing the station in a week aboard their Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft on May 13 at 6:33 p.m. EDT.

They are scheduled to land some 3.5 hours later in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 9:57 p.m. (7:57 a.m. Kazakh time on May 14). The events will be carried live on NASA TV.

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon resupply ship launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on April 18, 2014. Credit: Jeff Seibert/Wired4Space

To prepare for the journey home, the trio also completed fit checks on their Russian Sokol launch and entry suits on Monday.

Meanwhile Dragon is also set to depart the station soon on May 18 for a parachute assisted splashdown and recovery by boats in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California.

Dragon has been docked to the station since arriving on Easter Sunday morning, April 20.

It was grappled using Canadarm 2 and berthed at the Earth facing port of the Harmony module by Commander Wakata and flight engineer Mastracchio while working at the robotics work station inside the seven windowed domed Cupola module.

For the return trip, the Expedition 39 crew is also loading Dragon with precious science samples collected over many months from the crews research activities as well as trash and no longer needed items.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, commercial space, Orion, Chang’e-3, LADEE, Curiosity, Mars rover, MAVEN, MOM and more planetary and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

May 6, 2014December 23, 2015 by Bob King

“Tea, Earl Grey, Hot”… How Scientists Replicated a Mars Meteorite

The 'Block Island' meteorite reproduced in plastic at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Captain Picard orders tea

“Tea, Earl Grey, hot.” Who doesn’t remember that famous command by Captain Picard’s of TV’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation”? While no one’s yet invented a replicator that can brew a cup of tea out of thin air, scientists have taken in step in that direction by creating an amazing replica of a Martian meteorite using a 3D printer.

Without the fuss and expense of a sample retrieving mission to Mars, NASA scientists now have a realistic, true to life facsimile of the ‘Block Island’ meteorite discovered by the Opportunity Rover in 2009. Block Island, an iron-nickel meteorite similar to those found at Meteor Crater in Arizona, is the largest meteorite found on the Red Planet.

The real Block Island, the largest meteorite yet found on Mars, photographed by Opportunity's panoramic camera.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell — The real Block Island, the largest meteorite yet found on Mars, photographed by Opportunity’s panoramic camera.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell

Measuring about two feet (60 cm) across, it’s about the size of picnic cooler and weighs an estimated 1,000 pounds. The replica’s made of plastic – you could tote it around like a … picnic cooler.

Analysis of Block Island’s composition using the rover’s alpha particle X-ray spectrometer confirmed that it’s rich in iron and nickel. Scientists based the design of the plastic meteorite on detailed measurements and stereo images taken by Opportunity’s panoramic camera.

Get out your red-blue plastic glasses to get a look at Block Island in stereo. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The rover made a 360-degree study of the meteorite five years ago taking measurements and many stereo images. But because Opportunity couldn’t see every square inch of the rock, the missing data created holes in the computer model, making it a poor candidate for 3D printing.

Last summer, scientists got around that problem by filling in the missing data and building small scale models of Block Island. To build the life-sized rock, they created depth meshes of the meteorite’s surface from six positions, then combined them into a three-dimensional digital model, according to researcher Kris Capraro of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Researcher Kris Capraro (second from left) adds the finishing touches of realistic color to a model of the "Block Island" meteorite.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech — Researcher Kris Capraro (second from left) adds the finishing touches of realistic color to a model of the “Block Island” meteorite.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The printer built the meteorite from ABS plastic, the same material used in Lego bricks, with cord the width of the plastic line in your weed-whacker. One small problem remained before the replica could be executed – it was too big to fit in the printer’s building space. So researchers broke up the computer model of the meteorite into 11 sections. Printing took 305 hours and 36 minutes.

Researchers created each of 11 pieces in the 3D printer and glued them together to build the true-size model. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The sections were assembled and then painted to match the real rock. Said Capraro: “it’s the next best thing to bringing back real Martian rock samples back to Earth.”

Scientists hope someday to use 3D printing to not only replicate more Mars rocks but terrains across the solar system.

May 5, 2014December 23, 2015 by Shannon Hall

NASA Seeks Ideas for Mission to Europa

Jupiter's icy moon: Europa. Image Credit: NASA

Europa — a moon of Jupiter first discovered by Galileo — never ceases to surprise and amaze astronomers and amateurs alike.

Last December astronomers announced water plumes erupting 100 miles high from the moon’s icy south pole. It was the best evidence yet that Europa, heated internally by the powerful tidal forces generated by Jupiter’s gravity, has a deep subsurface ocean. It caused the search for life in the outer solar system to take quite a turn.

Now, NASA has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to science and engineering communities for ideas for a mission to the enigmatic moon. Any ideas need to address fundamental questions about the subsurface ocean and the search for life beyond Earth.

“This is an opportunity to hear from those creative teams that have ideas on how we can achieve the most science at minimum cost,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, in a press release.

The RFI’s focus is for concepts for a mission that costs less than $1 billion.

“Europa is one of the most interesting sites in our solar system in the search for life beyond Earth,” said Grunsfield. “The drive to explore Europa has stimulated not only scientific interest but also the ingenuity of engineers and scientists with innovative concepts.”

The Decadal Survey deemed a mission to Europa as an extremely high priority for scientific pursuits by NASA. It lists five key science objectives that are necessary to improve our understanding of this potentially habitable moon. Primarily, the mission will need to:

— Characterize the extent of the ocean and its relation to the deeper interior

— Characterize the ice shell and any subsurface water, including their heterogeneity, and the nature of surface-ice-ocean exchange

— Determine global surface, compositions and chemistry, especially as related to habitability

— Understand the formation of surface features, including sites of recent or current activity, identify and characterize candidate sites for future detailed exploration

— Understand Europa’s space environment and interaction with the magnetosphere.

Although Europa has been visited by spacecraft and imaged distantly by Hubble, more detailed research is necessary to understand the complexities of this moon and its potential for life. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, launched in 1989 was the only mission to visit Europa, passing close by the moon fewer than a dozen times.

What are your ideas for a mission to the icy moon? Comment below.

May 4, 2014December 23, 2015 by Bob King

Revisit Halley’s Comet – Stay Up Late for This Week’s Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower is active in early May and peaks before dawn on Tuesday and Wednesday May 6-7 this year. Watch for it before the start of morning twilight in the eastern sky. Created with Stellarium

UPDATE: Watch a live webcast of the meteor shower, below, from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center during the night of Monday, May 5 to the early morning of May 6.

Halley’s Comet won’t be back in Earth’s vicinity until the summer of 2061, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait 47 years to see it. The comet’s offspring return this week as the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower. Most meteor showers trace their parentage to a particular comet. The Perseids of August originate from dust strewn along the orbit of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which drops by the inner solar system every 133 years after “wintering” for decades just beyond the orbit of Pluto, but the Eta Aquarids (AY-tuh ah-QWAR-ids) have the best known and arguably most famous parent of all – Halley’s Comet. Twice each year, Earth’s orbital path intersects dust and rock particles strewn by Halley during its cyclic 76-year journey from just beyond Uranus to within the orbit of Venus. When we do, the grit meets its demise in spectacular fashion as wow-inducing meteors.

Video streaming by Ustream

Composite of Aquarid meteors from the 2012 shower. Credit: John Chumack

Meteoroids enter the atmosphere and begin to glow some 70 miles high. The majority of them range from sand to pebble sized but most no more than a gram or two. Speeds range from 25,000-160,000 mph (11-72 km/sec) with the Eta Aquarids right down the middle at 42 miles per second (68 km/sec). Most burn white though ‘burn’ doesn’t quite hit the nail on the head. While friction with the air heats the entering meteoroid, the actual meteor or bright streak is created by the speedy rock exciting atoms along its path. As the atoms return to their neutral state, they emit light. That’s what we see as meteors. Picture them as tubes of glowing gas.

The farther south you live, the higher the shower radiant will appear in the sky and the more meteors you’ll see. For southern hemisphere observers this is one of the better showers of the year with rates around 30-40 meteors per hour. With no moon to brighten the sky, viewing conditions are ideal. Except for maybe the early hour. The shower is best seen in the hour or two before the start of dawn.

The Eta Aquarid shower originates with material left behind by Halley's Comet when the sun boils dust and ice from its nucleus around the time of perihelion. This photo from May 1986 during its last pass by Earth. Credit: Bob King — The Eta Aquarid shower originates with material left behind by Halley’s Comet when the sun boils dust and ice off its nucleus around the time of perihelion. This photo from May 1986 during Halley’s last visit. Credit: Bob King

From mid-northern latitudes the radiant or point in the sky from which the meteors will appear to originate is low in the southeast before dawn. At latitude 50 degrees north the viewing window lasts about 1 1/2 hours; at 40 degrees north, it’s a little more than 2 hours. If you live in the southern U.S. you’ll have nearly 3 hours of viewing time with the radiant 35 degrees high.

A bright, earthgrazer Eta Aquarids streaks across Perseus May 6, 2013. Because the radiant is low for northern hemisphere observers, earthgrazers - long, bright meteors that come up from near the horizon and have long-lasting trails. Credit: Bob King — A bright, earthgrazing Eta Aquarid meteor streaks across Perseus May 6, 2013. Because the radiant is low for northern hemisphere observers, watch for earthgrazers – long, bright meteors that come up from near the horizon and have long-lasting trails. Credit: Bob King

Northerners might spy 5-10 meteors per hour over the next few mornings. Face east for the best view and relax in a reclining chair. One good thing about this event – it won’t be anywhere near as cold as watching the December Geminids or January’s Quadrantids. We must be grateful whenever we can.

Meteor shower members can appear in any part of the sky, but if you trace their paths in reverse, they’ll all point back to the radiant. Other random meteors you might see are called sporadics and not related to the Eta Aquarids. Because Aquarius is home to at least two radiants, we distinguish the Etas, which radiate from near Eta Aquarii, from the Delta Aquarids, an unrelated shower active in July and August.

Wishing you clear skies and plenty of hot coffee at the ready.