Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)
Guests:
Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @cosmic_chatter)
Brian Koberlien (@briankoberlein)
Alessondra Springmann (@sondy)
Matthew Francis (CosmoAcademy.org, @DrMRFrancis)
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout – June 6, 2014: Comets & Cosmos?”
Titan Balloon Among Far-Out Concepts NASA Selects For Funding
Sometimes a good idea takes some tinkering. You have a thought that it will work, but what it really requires is you take some money and time and test it out in a small form. This principle is sound if you’re trying to do home renovation (a paint splash on a wall can let you see if the color will work) and it is especially true if you’re planning a multi-million dollar mission to another planet.
This is the thought behind the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts office, which announced a dozen far-flung drawing-board proposals that received $100,000 in Phase 1 funding for the next 9-12 months. There are vehicles to explore the soupy moon of Titan, a design to snag a tumbling asteroid, and other ideas to explore the solar system. (But be patient: These testbed ideas would take decades to come to fruition, if they are even accepted for further study and funding.) Check out a full list of the concepts below.
Titan Aerial Daughtercraft: A small rotorcraft that can touch down from a balloon or lander, with the idea being that it can jump between several spots to do close-up views. It would then bring its samples back to the “mothership” and possibly recharge there as well. “The autonomy needed for this concept is also applicable to exciting rotorcraft mission concepts for Mars and to in-situ exploration of Enceladus,” the description stated, referring to an icy moon of Saturn.
Titan Submarine: A small submarine would dive into Kraken Mare on Saturn’s moon, and there would be plenty to explore: 984 feet (300 meters) of depth, stretching across 621 miles (1,000 km). “Kraken Mare is comparable in size to the Great Lakes and represents an opportunity for an unprecedented planetary exploration mission,” the description stated. It would explore “chemical composition of the liquid, surface and subsurface currents, mixing and layering in the ‘water’ column, tides, wind and waves, bathymetry, and bottom features and composition.”
Comet Hitchhiker: This would be a “tethered” spacecraft that swings from comet to comet to explore icy bodies in the solar system. “First, the spacecraft harpoons a target as it makes a close flyby in order to attach a tether to the target. Then, as the target moves away, it reels out the tether while applying regenerative brake to give itself a moderate (<5g) acceleration as well as to harvest energy,” the description stated.
Weightless Rendezvous And Net Grapple to Limit Excess Rotation (WRANGLER): This idea would capture space debris and small asteroids. It will use a small nanosatellite equipped with a “net capture device” and a winch. “The leverage offered by using a tether to extract angular momentum from a rotating space object enables a very small nanosatellite system to de-spin a very massive asteroid or large spacecraft,” the description stated.
The Aragoscope: A telescope that would look through an opaque disk at a distant object, which is different from the usual mirror arrangement.”Rather than block the view, the disk boosts the resolution of the system with no loss of collecting area,” the description states. This architecture … can be used to achieve the diffraction limit based on the size of the low cost disk, rather than the high cost telescope mirror.”
Mars Ecopoiesis Test Bed: A machine that would test how well bacteria from Earth could survive on Mars, which could be a precursor to “terraforming” the planet to make it more like our own. Researchers would select “pioneer organisms” and put them into a device that would embed itself into the Martian regolith (soil) in an area that would have liquid water. It would “completely seal itself to avoid planetary contamination, release carefully selected earth organisms (extremophiles like certain cyanobacteria), sense the presence or absence of a metabolic product (like O2), and report to a Mars-orbiting relay satellite,” the description states.
ChipSats: Instead of having an orbiter and a lander in separate missions, why not put them in one? While there have been combinations before (e.g. Cassini/Huygens), this is a bit different: This concept would have a set of tiny sensor chips (ChipSats) that deploy from a larger mothership to make a landing on a distant planet or moon.
Swarm Flyby Gravimetry: While whizzing by a comet or asteroid, a single spacecraft would release a swarm of tiny probes. “By tracking those probes, we can estimate the asteroid’s gravity field and infer its underlying composition and structure,” the description stated.
Probing icy worlds concept: How thick is the ice on Jupiter’s Europa or Ganymede, or Saturn’s Enceladus? Open question, and makes it hard to predict how tough of a drill one would need to probe the ice — or how well life could survive. This concept would send a probe to one of these locations and receive “a naturally occurring signal generated by interactions of deep penetrating cosmic ray neutrinos” to better get a sense of the depth. This could allow for maps of the ice.
Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (HERTS): This would be a mission that goes deep into the solar-system and out to the heliopause, the spot where the sun’s sphere of influence gives way to the interstellar medium. Using no propellant, the spacecraft would use solar wind protons to bring it out into the solar system. “The propulsion system consists of an array of electrically biased wires that extend outward 10 to 30 km [6.2 miles to 18.6 miles] from a rotating spacecraft,” the researchers stated.
3D Photocatalytic Air Processor: A new design to make it easier to generate oxygen on a spacecraft, using “abundant high-energy light in space,” the proposal states. ” The combination of novel photoelectrochemistry and 3-dimensional design allows tremendous mass saving, hardware complexity reduction, increases in deployment flexibility and removal efficiency.”
PERIapsis Subsurface Cave OPtical Explorer (PERISCOPE): A way to probe caves on the moon from orbit. Using a concept called “photon time-of-flight imaging”, the researchers say they would be able to bounce the signal off of the walls of the canyon to peer into the crevice and see what is there.
Hulk Smash! Collision That Formed Our Moon Shows Up In Lunar Rocks, Study Says
Billions of years ago, so the theory goes, a Mars-sized body (sometimes called “Theia”) smashed into our young planet and caused a near-catastrophe. Earth fortunately survived the risk of blowing apart, and the fragments from the crash gradually coalesced into the Moon that we see today.
Even though this happened a heck of a long time ago, scientists believe they have found traces of Theia in lunar rocks pulled from the Apollo missions.
The isotopes or types of oxygen revealed in the new research appear to be different between the Earth and the Moon. And that’s important, because it implies that a body of different composition caused the changes. “If the Moon formed predominantly from the fragments of Theia, as predicted by most numerical models, the Earth and Moon should differ,” the study states.
Scientists scanned samples from the Apollo 11, 12 and 16 missions with scanning electron microscopes that are more powerful than what was available in the 1960s and 1970s, when scientists first looked at these samples from the manned moon missions.
Before, the “resolution” of these microscopes couldn’t find any significant differences, but the new data reveals the moon rocks have 12 parts per million more oxygen-17 than the Earth rocks.
“The differences are small and difficult to detect, but they are there,” stated lead researcher Daniel Herwartz, who was formerly with the University of Gottingen and is now with the University of Cologne. “This means two things; firstly we can now be reasonably sure that the giant collision took place. Secondly, it gives us an idea of the geochemistry of Theia.”
The work was published in Science and will also be presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in California on June 11.
Eager To Tour SpaceX’s Headquarters? Here’s Your Chance To Go For Charity
Hot off the excitement of showing off the inside of its manned Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX is prepared to offer a few members of the public a rare chance for a tour of its facilities. There’s a lot on the agenda, including seeing an uncrewed Dragon that has actually returned from space.
Here’s the deal: SpaceX has partnered with Charitybuzz to offer a single tour for up to 10 people. Bidding is open now and closes June 19 at this site.
“At SpaceX your party will tour the world’s largest facility developing the complete design, fabrication and assembly of rockets, engines and spacecraft,” SpaceX stated on the Charitybuzz website.
“You will see Falcon 9 rockets being assembled, Merlin engines being constructed, Dragon spacecraft in production and even a Dragon that has returned from space! Following the tour, guests will have a chance to meet Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO [chief operating officer] of SpaceX in person.”
Just like for NASA Socials, you are responsible for your own travel and accommodation. The tour is expected to last 1.5 to 2 hours and will take place at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. The benefitting charity is the Women in Technology Foundation, whose stated mandate is “education to create awareness, excitement, and opportunity among girls and women, and to encourage them to work in technology-related fields.”
More details are available at Charitybuzz. SpaceX uses its Dragon spacecraft to make regular cargo shipments to the International Space Station, and is one of three companies competing for the chance to do the same with astronauts.
Astrophoto: Sky of Milk in a Lake of Fire
A gorgeous new 21-image mosaic from our of our “regulars,” Miguel Claro. Miguel explains the view:
Azores is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal, composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. One of the islands is São Miguel, where we can find a beautiful lake in the crater center, called Lake of Fire, “Lagoa do Fogo”. Above it, the sky reveals the magnificent arc of our galaxy, the Milky Way, besides the light pollution coming from Vila Franca do Campo, a small town at the southern shore of the island, that illuminates the clouds near the horizon with the an orange tone. From left to right, we can see the swan (Cygnus) constellation, with its North America nebula (NGC7000) clearly visible below the Deneb star, down to the right, we can find Aquila. Sagittarius is covered by the cloud. Near the right limit, we find Scorpius and it´s super giant star, Antares, following to the right edge of the picture, it is visible the planet Saturn, in Libra.
His equipment and specs: Canon 60Da – ISO2500; 24mm at f/2; Exp. 20 secs. in 04/05/2014 at 3:45 AM.
There is also an annotated version available here.
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
Enter the Dragon: First Look Inside SpaceX’s New Crew Transporter to Orbit – Photos
Would you ‘Enter the Dragon’?
First look inside SpaceX Dragon V2 next generation astronaut spacecraft unveiled by CEO Elon Musk on May 29, 2014. Credit: Robert Fisher/AmericaSpace[/caption]
Would you like to ‘Enter the Dragon’ for an up close look inside SpaceX’s new ‘V2’ crew transport ship to Earth orbit and the space station?
We’ve shown you lots of exterior shots of SpaceX’s next generation manned Dragon V2 spacecraft after Billionaire entrepreneur and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk pulled the curtain off to reveal his future plans for human spaceflight on May 29 during a live webcast from SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, Calif.
And we’ve shown you the cool animation to see exactly ‘How it Works!’ from launch to landing.
Now we’ve compiled a stunning collection of imagery revealing what it’s like to actually stand within the gleaming walls of the futuristic Dragon spaceship from an astronauts perspective.
Check out the gallery of Dragon V2 imagery above and below.
Experience this exciting new chapter of American ‘Commercial Human Spaceflight’ coming to fruition.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) is a public private partnership between NASA and a trio of amazing American aerospace companies – SpaceX, Boeing amd Sierra Nevada – to create inexpensive but reliable new astronaut spaceships to the High Frontier.
And NASA’s unprecedented commercial crew program is so far ahead of any international competitors that I think they’ll soon be knocking at the door and regret not investing in a similar insightful manner.
The goal is to get American’s back in space on American rockets from American soil – rather than being totally dependent on Russian rocket technology and Soyuz capsules for astronaut rides to the International Space Station (ISS) and back.
“We need to have our own capability to get our crews to space. Commercial crew is really, really, really important,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told me in an exclusive interview – here.
Boeing and Sierra Nevada are competing with SpaceX to build the next generation spaceship to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS by 2017 using seed money from NASA’s CCP.
The Boeing CST-100 and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser ‘space taxis’ are also vying for funding in the next round of contracts to be awarded by NASA around late summer 2014.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Orbital Sciences, commercial space, Orion, Mars rover, MAVEN, MOM and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
How Sentinel Will Hunt for Hidden Asteroids
Asteroids of various sizes whiz past our planet all the time. Some we know about, but many we don’t, and new ones are identified on an almost weekly basis. (In fact one such recently-discovered asteroid named 2014 HQ214, an object the length of an aircraft carrier, will pass us at a mere 3 lunar distances today June 8… watch live coverage here.) And, of course, some actually do impact Earth, and if they are large enough the results can be quite… energetic, to put it lightly.
While there aren’t yet any programs in place that can prevent a large asteroid impact from happening, there are some that are at least on the lookout for potential impactors. The B612 Foundation’s privately-funded Sentinel mission is one of them and, once launched and placed in orbit around the Sun in 2018, will hunt for near-Earth asteroids down to about 140 meters in size using the most advanced infrared imaging technology… and no federal budget cuts or red tape to worry about.
The video above, produced by B612 Foundation’s primary contractor Ball Aerospace, shows how Sentinel will work, and why development has been going so well.
“I see this as the wave of the future — the ability for non-governmental organizations to put together the funding, working with outstanding technical organizations like Ball Aerospace, and produce space missions where the government isn’t involved and where the price is much, much less, and we still get the same kind of great information.”
– Dr. Scott Hubbard, B612 Program Architect and former director of the NASA Ames Research Center
First Precise Measurement of Antihydrogen
The best science — the questions that capture and compel any human being — is enshrouded in mystery. Here’s an example: scientists expect that matter and antimatter were created in equal quantities shortly after the Big Bang. If this had been the case, the two types of particles would have annihilated each other, leaving a Universe permeated by energy.
As our existence attests, that did not happen. In fact, nature seems to have a one-part in 10 billion preference for matter over antimatter. It’s one of the greatest mysteries in modern physics.
But the Large Hadron Collider is working hard, literally pushing matter to the limit, to solve this captivating mystery. This week, CERN created a beam of antihydrogen atoms, allowing scientists to take precise measurements of this elusive antimatter for the first time.
Antiparticles are identical to matter particles except for the sign of their electric charge. So while hydrogen consists of a positively charged proton orbited by a negatively charged electron, antihydrogen consists of a negatively charged antiproton orbited by a positively charged anti-electron, or a positron
While primordial antimatter has never been observed in the Universe, it’s possible to create antihydrogen in a particle accelerator by mixing positrons and low energy antiprotons.
In 2010, the ALPHA team captured and held atoms of antihydrogen for the first time. Now the team has successfully created a beam of antihydrogen particles. In a paper published this week in Nature Communications, the ALPHA team reports the detection of 80 antihydrogen atoms 2.7 meters downstream from their production.
“This is the first time we have been able to study antihydrogen with some precision,” said ALPHA spokesperson Jeffrey Hangst in a press release. “We are optimistic that ALPHA’s trapping technique will yield many such insights in the future.”
One of the key challenges is keeping antihydrogen away from ordinary matter, so that the two don’t annihilate each other. To do so, most experiments use magnetic fields to trap antihydrogen atoms long enough to study them.
However, the strong magnetic fields degrade the spectroscopic properties of the antihydrogen atoms, so the ALPHA team had to develop an innovative set-up to transfer antihydrogen atoms to a region where they could be studied, far from the strong magnetic field.
To measure the charge of antihydrogen, the ALPHA team studied the trajectories of antihydrogen atoms released from the trap in the presence of an electric field. If the antihydrogen atoms had an electric charge, the field would deflect them, whereas neutral atoms would be undeflected.
The result, based on 386 recorded events, gives a value of the antihydrogen electric charge at -1.3 x 10-8. In other words, its charge is compatible with zero to eight decimal places. Although this result comes as no surprise, since hydrogen atoms are electrically neutral, it is the first time that the charge of an antiatom has been measured to such high precision.
In the future, any detectable difference between matter and antimatter could help solve one of the greatest mysteries in modern physics, opening up a window into a new realm of science.
The paper has been published in Nature Communications.
Captain HiRISE, Space Detective Beams Martian History Album To Earth
Mars, that ever-changing and beautiful Red Planet practically next door to us, is one of the most well-studied places humans have in the universe. We’ve sent spacecraft there for about 50 years. Yet there’s still a lot of mysteries out there.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is among the investigating spacecraft in the area checking out the planet’s past and looking for any interesting clues to tell us more about how Mars — and the Earth, and the solar system, and planets in general — formed. Mars had a wetter past (as the rovers have showed us), but where the water went and why its atmosphere are so thin are among the things scientists are trying to understand.
Luckily for us, the catalog of the University of Arizona’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) is easily available online for all of us to marvel at. Here are just some of the pictures sent back from across the solar system. To see more, look below and check out this HiRISE web page.
Virtual Star Party – June 1, 2014: Paul brings his “A” game!
Host: Scott Lewis
Guests: Michael Phillips, Bill McLaughlin, Paul Stewart
Continue reading “Virtual Star Party – June 1, 2014: Paul brings his “A” game!”