Newswand: The Hubble has sent a spectacular image in which a jet from a newly formed star is seen flaring into the shining depths of reflection nebula NGC 1977 which is part of a trio of reflection nebulae that make up the Running Man Nebula in the constellation Orion.
Photo credit: NASA
The jet (the orange object at the bottom center of the image) is being emitted by the young star Parengo 2042, which is embedded in a disk of debris that could give rise to planets.
The star powers a pulsing jet of plasma that stretches over two light-years through space, bending to the north in this image. The gas of the jet has been ionized until it glows by the radiation of a nearby star, 42 Orionis. This makes it particularly useful to researchers because its outflow remains visible under the ionizing radiation of nearby stars. Typically the outflow of jets like this would only be visible as it collided with surrounding material, creating bright shock waves that vanish as they cool.
In this image, red and orange colors indicate the jet and glowing gas of related shocks. The glowing blue ripples that seem to be flowing away from the jet to the right of the image are bow shocks facing the star 42 Orionis (not shown). Bow shocks happen in space when streams of gas collide, and are named after the crescent-shaped waves made by a ship as it moves through water.
The bright western lobe of the jet is cocooned in a series of orange arcs that diminish in size with increasing distance from the star, forming a cone or spindle shape. These arcs may trace the ionized outer rim of a disk of debris around the star with a radius of 500 times the distance between the Sun and Earth and a sizable (170 astronomical units) hole in the center of the disk. The spindle-like shape may trace the surface of an outflow of material away from the disk and is estimated to be losing the mass of approximately a hundred-million Suns every year.
Newswand: Scientists recently added a whopping 301 newly validated exoplanets to the total exoplanet tally. The throng of planets is the latest to join the 4,569 already validated planets orbiting a multitude of distant stars. How did scientists discover such a huge number of planets, seemingly all at once? The answer lies with a new deep neural network called ExoMiner.
Photo credit: NASA
Deep neural networks are machine learning methods that automatically learn a task when provided with enough data. ExoMiner is a new deep neural network that leverages NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer, and can distinguish real exoplanets from different types of imposters, or “false positives.” Its design is inspired by various tests and properties human experts use to confirm new exoplanets. And it learns by using past confirmed exoplanets and false positive cases.
ExoMiner supplements people who are pros at combing through data and deciphering what is and isn’t a planet. Specifically, data gathered by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft and K2, helps in this exercise. For missions like Kepler, with thousands of stars in its field of view, each holding the possibility to host multiple potential exoplanets, it’s a hugely time-consuming task to pore over massive datasets. ExoMiner solves this dilemma.
What is the difference between a confirmed and validated exoplanet? A planet is “confirmed,” when different observation techniques reveal features that can only be explained by a planet. A planet is “validated” using statistics – meaning how likely or unlikely it is to be a planet based on the data.
In a paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, the team at Ames shows how ExoMiner discovered the 301 planets using data from the remaining set of possible planets – or candidates – in the Kepler Archive. All 301 machine-validated planets were originally detected by the Kepler Science Operations Center pipeline and promoted to planet candidate status by the Kepler Science Office. But until ExoMiner, no one was able to validate them as planets.
The paper also demonstrates how ExoMiner is more precise and consistent in ruling out false positives and better able to reveal the genuine signatures of planets orbiting their parent stars – all while giving scientists the ability to see in detail what led ExoMiner to its conclusion.
None of the newly confirmed planets are believed to be Earth-like or in the habitable zone of their parent stars. But they do share similar characteristics to the overall population of confirmed exoplanets in our galactic neighborhood.
As the search for more exoplanets continues – with missions using transit photometry such as NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, and the European Space Agency’s upcoming PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars, or PLATO, mission – ExoMiner will have more opportunities to prove it’s up to the task.
Newswand: Engineering teams have completed additional testing confirming NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is ready for flight, and launch preparations are resuming toward Webb’s target launch date of Wednesday, Dec. 22, at 7:20 a.m. EST.
Photo credit: ESA
Additional testing was conducted this week to ensure the observatory’s health following an incident that occurred when the release of a clamp band caused a vibration throughout the observatory.
On Wednesday, Nov. 24, engineering teams completed these tests, and a NASA-led anomaly review board concluded no observatory components were damaged in the incident. A “consent to fuel” review was held, and NASA gave approval to begin fueling the observatory.
The Webb Space Telescope is an international partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies. It will explore every phase of cosmic history – from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe, and everything in between. Webb will reveal new and unexpected discoveries, and help humanity understand the origins of the universe and our place in it.
Newswand: Now NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, DART, is on its way to test the kinetic impact technique of asteroid deflection, ESA’s Hera will be Earth’s next planetary defence mission, scheduled to fly to the same body that DART will impact next year.
Photo credit: ESA
“I’m extremely happy to see the DART mission on its way,” says Ian Carnelli, managing Hera. “Great work from from NASA, SpaceX and Applied Physics Laborator teams – they make it look easy!”
DART will collide with the smaller body of the Didymos binary asteroid system in September 2022, striking at a speed of around 6.6 km per second. While the Didymos asteroid system will maintain its motion around the Sun unperturbed, the collision is expected to shift the orbit of the 160-metre-diameter Dimorphos around its 780-metre-diameter parent Didymos in a small but distinct way – just a fraction of one per cent – sufficient to be measured with Earth-based telescopes and radar.
But observing from across space will still leave multiple unknowns, such as the precise mass of Dimorphos, its makeup and its internal structure – as well as the size and shape of the crater left by DART. So, in November 2024 Hera will head towards the Didymos system, commencing its detailed ‘crime scene investigation’ of the two asteroids in late 2026.
By gathering data close-up, Hera will help turn DART’s grand scale impact experiment into a well-understood and repeatable deflection technique – ready to be deployed if an asteroid should ever be spotted heading Earthward.
The main Hera spacecraft will also deploy a pair of shoebox sized CubeSats to perform supporting observations: Milani will make spectral surface observations, while Juventas will undertake the first-ever radar soundings within an asteroid.
The Hera spacecraft is being built by OHB in Germany while other mission elements take shape across Europe. For instance, the engineering model of Hera’s precision guidance, navigation and control system – essential to guide the desk-sized spacecraft to and around its twin-asteroid destination – is being put together by GMV in Spain, while the Juventas radar prototype is currently undergoing testing at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands.
Newswand: NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the world’s first full-scale mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards, was launched on November 24 at 1:21 a.m. EST on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Just one part of NASA’s larger planetary defense strategy, DART – built and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland – will impact a known asteroid that is not a threat to Earth. Its goal is to slightly change the asteroid’s motion in a way that can be accurately measured using ground-based telescopes.
DART will show that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it – a method of deflection called kinetic impact. The test will provide important data to help better prepare for an asteroid that might pose an impact hazard to Earth, should one ever be discovered.
LICIACube, a CubeSat riding with DART and provided by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), will be released prior to DART’s impact to capture images of the impact and the resulting cloud of ejected matter. Roughly four years after DART’s impact, ESA’s (European Space Agency) Hera project will conduct detailed surveys of both asteroids, with particular focus on the crater left by DART’s collision and a precise determination of Dimorphos’ mass.
At 2:17 a.m., DART separated from the second stage of the rocket. Minutes later, mission operators received the first spacecraft telemetry data and started the process of orienting the spacecraft to a safe position for deploying its solar arrays. About two hours later, the spacecraft completed the successful unfurling of its two, 28-foot-long, roll-out solar arrays. They will power both the spacecraft and NASA’s Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial ion engine, one of several technologies being tested on DART for future application on space missions.
DART’s one-way trip is to the Didymos asteroid system, which comprises a pair of asteroids. DART’s target is the moonlet, Dimorphos, which is approximately 530 feet (160 meters) in diameter. The moonlet orbits Didymos, which is approximately 2,560 feet (780 meters) in diameter.
Since Dimorphos orbits Didymos at much a slower relative speed than the pair orbits the Sun, the result of DART’s kinetic impact within the binary system can be measured much more easily than a change in the orbit of a single asteroid around the Sun.
The spacecraft will intercept the Didymos system between Sept. 26 and Oct. 1, 2022, intentionally slamming into Dimorphos at roughly 4 miles per second (6 kilometers per second). Scientists estimate the kinetic impact will shorten Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos by several minutes. Researchers will precisely measure that change using telescopes on Earth. Their results will validate and improve scientific computer models critical to predicting the effectiveness of the kinetic impact as a reliable method for asteroid deflection.
DART’s single instrument, the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO), will turn on a week from now and provide first images from the spacecraft. DART will continue to travel just outside of Earth’s orbit around the Sun for the next 10 months until Didymos and Dimorphos will be a relatively close 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth.
A sophisticated guidance, navigation, and control system, working together with algorithms called Small-body Maneuvering Autonomous Real Time Navigation (SMART Nav), will enable the DART spacecraft to identify and distinguish between the two asteroids. The system will then direct the spacecraft toward Dimorphos. This process will all occur within roughly an hour of impact.
Johns Hopkins APL manages the DART mission for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office as a project of the agency’s Planetary Missions Program Office.
Newswand: NASA is planning to use Fission Power System to provide electricity to the research activities to be taken up by astronauts on Moon and Mars in future by staying there.
Exploration of the Moon and Mars requires the power of human imagination and vision. It also takes the power of electricity to bring science and technology to life when astronauts land and stay on the surface.
Photo credit: NASA
NASA has plans for a robust presence on the Moon under Artemis and eventually Mars, including the development of a fission surface power system for safe, efficient, and reliable electrical power. Fission surface power – in conjunction with solar cells, batteries, and fuel cells – can provide the power to operate rovers, conduct experiments, and use the Moon’s resources to produce water, propellant, and other supplies for life support.
“Plentiful energy will be key to future space exploration,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) in Washington, which funds NASA’s fission surface power project. “I expect fission surface power systems to greatly benefit our plans for power architectures for the Moon and Mars and even drive innovation for uses here on Earth.”
NASA, in coordination with the Department of Energy (DOE), is asking American companies for design concepts for a fission surface power system that could be ready to launch within a decade for a demonstration on the Moon. The system should be capable of autonomous operation from the deck of a lunar lander or a lunar surface rover.
Why fission?
• It’s reliable. Fission systems can operate continuously around the clock in shadowy craters and during the weeks-long lunar nights, when power generation from sunlight is difficult.
• It’s powerful. The systems NASA is asking companies to design would provide at least 40 kilowatts of power, enough to continuously power 30 households for ten years.
• It can be compact and lightweight. Systems like these could someday provide enough power to establish an outpost on Mars.
“NASA and the DOE are collaborating on this important and challenging development that, once completed, will be an incredible step towards long-term human exploration of the Moon and Mars,” said Fission Surface Power Project manager Todd Tofil at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. “We’ll take advantage of the unique capabilities of the government and private industry to provide reliable, continuous power that is independent of the lunar location.”
Fission surface power technologies will also help NASA mature nuclear propulsion systems that rely on reactors to generate power.
NASA and the DOE (through the Idaho National Laboratory operated by Battelle Energy Alliance) will select competing U.S. companies to develop initial designs over a 12-month period. The resulting designs will inform an industry solicitation for the final design and build of a flight-qualified fission power system to send to the Moon on a demonstration mission.
NASA’s fission surface power project is managed by NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. The technology development and demonstration are funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Technology Demonstration Missions program, which is hosted at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Newswand: Space debris is posing a risk to the satellites and spacecrafts and European Space Agency is trying to find ways to mitigate the problem.
Some 36 000 objects larger than a tennis ball are orbiting Earth, and only 13 per cent of these are actively controlled. The rest comprise space debris, the direct result of ‘fragmentation events’ of which roughly 630 are known to have occurred to date.
Photo credit: ESA
Based on observations of larger objects together with statistical models (for those objects too small to be observed with telescopes on Earth), ESA estimates there are in orbit today:
• 36,500 objects greater than 10 cm in size
• 1,000,000 objects from 1 cm to 10 cm
• 330 million objects from 1 mm to 1 cm
After each new fragmentation event, ESA’s Space Debris Office begins its analysis. What happened? How will this shape the debris environment, now and in the future? What has been the change in collision risk to active satellites and spacecraft in orbit? Which altitudes and orbits are the most affected?
In 2021 so far, some 2,467 new objects large enough to be tracked have been added to world catalogues of orbital objects, out of which 1493 are new satellites and the rest are debris. While new objects are added, others are dragged down to Earth by the atmosphere where they safely burn up, resulting in a net increase of at least 1387 trackable objects between 2020 and 2021.
In addition, an estimated 1500 new objects – an increase of about 5 per cent with respect to the total population – were added recently.
Because debris objects travel at high velocities, a collision with a fragment as small as just 1 cm in diameter can generate the same amount of destructive energy as a small car crashing at 40 km/h.
While the smallest, sub-millimetre-sized debris particles may only degrade the functioning of a satellite upon impact, ‘larger’ pieces – in the centimeter range – can cause complete destruction.
Earth’s atmosphere can cause orbital objects to re-enter over time and burn up. The higher the orbital altitude, the thinner the atmosphere, and so the longer objects will naturally stay in space. In altitudes above 600 km, the natural ‘residence time’ in space for such objects is typically more than 25 years.
ESA’s Earth Observation missions, which orbit in this region, have each had to perform two ‘collision avoidance manoeuvres’ on average per year, to dodge oncoming debris.
After fragmentation events, such as one that happened recently, the risk to missions must be reassessed.
Space debris are constantly monitored by the US space surveillance network, and ESA’s space debris experts use this and other monitoring data to improve and update models to better understand the evolving debris environment.
By performing daily collision risk analyses and creating models that predict the future position and density of debris objects at various altitudes, the team can advise satellite operators on how best to keep their missions safe.
The United Nations has set out guidelines to reduce the growing amount of space debris in orbit. Experts from ESA’s Space Debris Office have contributed to these guidelines and routinely advised on how to implement them for ESA missions.
Furthermore, as part of the Agency’s space safety and security activities, ESA is working to keep Earth’s commercially and scientifically vital orbital environment as debris-free as possible and to pioneer an eco-friendly approach to space activities.
ESA is the first space agency to adopt the ambitious target of inverting Europe’s contribution to space debris by 2030, directly tackling the issue of space debris by advancing the technology needed to maintain a clean space environment. ESA has initiated the first active debris-removal mission to be launched in 2025 to demonstrate the ability to remove debris from an orbit at 700 km.
But as the ‘New Space’ era beckons, and large constellations comprising thousands of satellites start to be launched, much more needs to be done to ensure Earth’s space environment is used sustainably for future generations.
The current situation calls for new technology that will allow regulators to consider a systematic implementation of zero-debris policies. A new European commercial capability needs to be forged to provide innovative in-orbit services, such as refueling, refurbishing and extending the life of existing missions. This will lead to a ‘circular economy’ in space.
To ensure safe access to space, high-precision position information on all orbital objects must become available, and automated coordination between spacecraft operators must be implemented. Novel technology will be required for these ambitious steps, which are proposed as part of the new ‘Protect’ Accelerator, one of three currently being defined to help shape Europe’s future in space.
Space technology, and the multitude of applications that flow from it, is vital to Europe’s economy. Ensuring the safety of our space infrastructure and investments, and therefore Europe’s non-dependent use of space, is vital for safeguarding businesses, economies and ultimately our way of life.
Newswand: The Solar Orbiter is getting ready to make a close pass to the Sun, called perihelion, about 50 million kilo meters, in March, next year, as the mission shifts into the main science phase.
Solar Orbiter is returning to Earth for a flyby before starting its main science mission to explore the Sun and its connection to ‘space weather’.
Credit: ESA
Its Earth flyby takes place on 27 November. At 04:30 GMT (05:30 CET) on that day, the spacecraft will be at its closest approach, just 460 km above North Africa and the Canary Islands. This is almost as close as the orbit of the International Space Station.
In March, Solar Orbiter will make a close pass to the Sun, called perihelion. Its first perihelion took place in June 2020, with the spacecraft closing to 77 million kilo meters. This time, Solar Orbiter will draw to within 50 million kilo meters – providing a significant boost to the science that can be done.
This will be at a third of the distance between the Sun and Earth. So compared to all the interesting high resolution images that have been already gotten everything now will be zoomed in by about a factor of two.
This includes new views of the enigmatic ‘campfires’ that Solar Orbiter saw at the first perihelion. The campfires could hold clues about how the Sun’s outer atmosphere has a temperature of millions of degrees, while the surface has a temperature of thousands – which seemingly defies physics because heat should not be able to flow from a colder to a hotter object.
And while Solar Orbiter is not going as close to the Sun as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, this is by design because it allows Solar Orbiter to not only measure what is happening in the solar wind, but to also carry telescopes that can look at the Sun without being destroyed by the heat. The two data sets can then be compared to link activity on the Sun’s surface to the space weather around the spacecraft.
Solar Orbiter’s Earth flyby offers a unique opportunity to study the Earth’s magnetic field. This is a subject of intense interest because the magnetic field is our atmosphere’s interface with the solar wind, the constant ‘wind’ of particles given off by the Sun. Not only can particles from the solar wind penetrate the magnetic field and spark the aurora in our skies, but atoms from our atmosphere can also be lost into space.
Solar Orbiter’s flyby offers a unique opportunity to take even more data. It will sweep into the Earth’s magnetic field from out beyond Clusters orbit, approach Swarm’s orbit at closest approach and then fly back out again. This will provide even more data points from which to reconstruct the condition and behaviour of Earth’s magnetic field during the flyby.
The flyby marks a major milestone for Solar Orbiter. From its launch in February 2020 to July of that year, the spacecraft was in its commissioning phase, during which the scientists and engineers tested out the spacecraft and its instruments. From July 2020 to now, Solar Orbiter has been in the cruise phase. During this time, the in-situ instruments have been taking measurements of the solar wind and other conditions around the spacecraft, while the remote sensing instruments designed to look at the Sun have been in their extended calibration and characterisation mode.
Newswand: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam executive officer Dr KS Jawahar Reddy appealed to the pilgrims not to believe fake reports and videos on the situation in Tirumala and Tirupati which are making rounds in social media since November 18.
The EO inspected the ongoing restoration works at Second Ghat road on November 19.
Later speaking to the media he said, due to unprecedented rains, boulders and hill rocks had fallen at different points in both first and second ghats. “As a safety measure, we have closed both ghats on Thursday evening. The restoration works were completed on down ghat and we allowed pilgrims to and fro movements on the same ghat.”
The EO said that as the repair works are still under way in upghat road, they were assessing the situation. Once the boulders are cleared, they will open the road. But some miscreants are creating unnecessary panic among pilgrims by posting wrong videos. TTD has taken all safety measures for the protection of devotees who were stranded both at Tirupati and also in Tirumala.
He also inspected GNC at Tirumala, Narayanagiri Rest House, Akkagarla temple, Kapileswara Temple in Tirupati and gave some important instructions.
JEO Veerabrahmam, CE Nageswara Rao, SE2 Jagadeeshwar Reddy, Deputy EO Subramaniam have accompanied the EO.
News Wand 