NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

June 23, 2023

Giant Galaxies in Pavo

Over 500,000 light years across, NGC 6872 (top right) is a truly enormous barred spiral galaxy, at least 5 times the size of our own very large Milky Way. The appearance of this giant galaxy's distorted and stretched out spiral arms suggests the magnificent wings of a giant bird. Of course its popular moniker is the Condor galaxy. It lies about 200 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Pavo, the Peacock. Lined with star-forming regions, the distorted spiral arms are due to NGC 6872's gravitational interaction with the nearby smaller galaxy IC 4970, seen just above the giant galaxy's core. The Pavo galaxy group's dominant giant elliptical galaxy, NGC 6876 is below and left of the soaring Condor galaxy.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?

One Last Look from Skylab 2

Jun 22, 2023

During the Skylab 2 crew's final fly-around inspection on June 22, 1973, they saw this overhead view of the Skylab space station. It has a single solar panel and a parasol solar shield, rigged to replace the micrometeoroid shield. A mishap in the original Skylab 1 liftoff and orbital insertion resulted in damage: both the second solar panel and the micrometeoroid shield were torn away.

When commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, pilot Paul J. Weitz, and science pilot Joseph P. Kerwin launched to the Skylab space station, the first part of their mission was to make repairs to the station, resulting in a record-breaking spacewalk. In the second half of their mission, Conrad, Weitz, and Kerwin focused on completing as much science as possible, research being the primary goal of Skylab.

On June 22, after undocking from Skylab and photographing it during a fly-around inspection, they fired the service module’s engine to bring them home, after completing 404 orbits around the Earth. They splashed down about 800 miles southwest of San Diego and 6.5 miles from the prime recovery ship, the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/one-last-look-from-skylab-2

NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft Stuns with Ultraviolet Views of Red Planet

June 22, 2023

NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) mission acquired stunning views of Mars in two ultraviolet images taken at different points along our neighboring planet’s orbit around the Sun.

By viewing the planet in ultraviolet wavelengths, scientists can gain insight into the Martian atmosphere and view surface features in remarkable ways.

MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument obtained these global views of Mars in 2022 and 2023 when the planet was near opposite ends of its elliptical orbit.

The IUVS instrument measures wavelengths between 110 and 340 nanometers, outside the visible spectrum. To make these wavelengths visible to the human eye and easier to interpret, the images are rendered with the varying brightness levels of three ultraviolet wavelength ranges represented as red, green, and blue. In this color scheme, atmospheric ozone appears purple, while clouds and hazes appear white or blue. The surface can appear tan or green, depending on how the images have been optimized to increase contrast and show detail.

The first image was taken in July 2022 during the southern hemisphere’s summer season, which occurs when Mars passes closet to the Sun. The summer season is caused by the tilt of the planet’s rotational axis, similar to seasons on Earth. Argyre Basin, one of Mars’ deepest craters, appears at bottom left filled with atmospheric haze (depicted here as pale pink). The deep canyons of Valles Marineris appear at top left filled with clouds (colored tan in this image). The southern polar ice cap is visible at bottom in white, shrinking from the relative warmth of summer. Southern summer warming and dust storms drive water vapor to very high altitudes, explaining MAVEN’s discovery of enhanced hydrogen loss from Mars at this time of year.

The second image is of Mars’ northern hemisphere and was taken in January 2023 after Mars had passed the farthest point in its orbit from the Sun. The rapidly changing seasons in the north polar region cause an abundance of white clouds. The deep canyons of Valles Marineris can be seen in tan at lower left, along with many craters. Ozone, which appears magenta in this UV view, has built up during the northern winter’s chilly polar nights. It is then destroyed in northern spring by chemical reactions with water vapor, which is restricted to low altitudes of the atmosphere at this time of year.

MAVEN launched in November 2013 and entered Mars’ orbit in September 2014. The mission’s goal is to explore the planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere, and interactions with the Sun and solar wind to explore the loss of the Martian atmosphere to space. Understanding atmospheric loss gives scientists insight into the history of Mars' atmosphere and climate, liquid water, and planetary habitability. The MAVEN team is preparing to celebrate the spacecraft’s 10th year at Mars in September 2024.

MAVEN’s principal investigator is based at the University of California, Berkeley, while NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the MAVEN mission. Lockheed Martin Space built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California provides navigation and Deep Space Network support. The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder is responsible for managing science operations and public outreach and communications.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-s-maven-spacecraft-stuns-with-ultraviolet-views-of-red-planet

India signs Artemis Accords, tightening ties with US in space race with China

June 22, 2023

WASHINGTON — India has signed the Artemis Accords designed to set norms for exploration and exploitation of the Moon, Mars and potentially mineral-rich asteroids, in what Biden administration officials and experts say is a strategic win for US space policy.

“India signing the Accords is a transformative moment for the Accords and the Artemis program,” Mike Gold, a former NASA official who did much of the original negotiating on the accords, told Breaking Defense.

The signature was formally announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden in a press conference this afternoon. The deal came as part of a package of agreements inked during Modi’s first official state visit to Washington that began Wednesday.

“By taking the decision to join the Artemis Accords, we have taken a big leap forward in our space cooperation. In fact, in short, for India and America’s partnership, even the sky is not the limit,” Modi said.

Modi met with Biden this morning, and tomorrow will attend a lunch meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris, who chairs the National Space Council, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whose department is leading the Biden administration’s charge to establish international norms of behavior for military space activities.

In particular, officials and experts said, New Delhi’s adherence to the Accords represents a boost to US efforts to rally allies to help counter China’s expansion of its own civil and military space activities, as well as Beijing’s use of space as a soft-power tool on the global stage. India long has seen China as its key geopolitical rival — for example joining the US, Australia, and Japan in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, commonly known as the Quad, in 2007.

India’s signing of the Artemis Accords “takes forward what India can do within platforms like the Quad — an earlier Quad statement said that the Quad partners will partner with each other in terms of global rules of the road for outer space — this is a concrete action of that position that India signed on to in the Quad statement,” explained Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, director of the Center for Security, Strategy & Technology at the Observer Researcher Foundation in New Delhi, in an email.

Victoria Samson, head of Secure World Foundation’s Washington office, said that the move is “significant because it is a step toward the US approach to the Moon, not China’s. Space has long been used as a form of soft power outreach, and frankly China has been excellent at doing that lately. … The Artemis Accords are, in their own way, a form of soft power outreach by the US too.”

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India, like China, further has been rushing to enhance its space prowess and power — building up its military and laying out an ambitious civil exploration program. India also belongs to the small club of nations that have tested anti-satellite missiles, joining the US, Russia, and China in 2019 with Mission Shakrit, which destroyed a test satellite using a modified version of the Privthi ballistic missile.

“India is already proceeding with lunar and Martian exploration, therefore, India committing to the principles of the Accords is a vital step forward toward achieving the Artemis vision of a peaceful, transparent, and collaborative future in space for all of humanity to enjoy,” Gold said.

New Delhi long has been famous for avoiding strong space policy ties with either the US or Russia, and for the adamant independence of both its civil and military space development efforts.

“This is a big deal! … India has long seen itself as an important counterweight to geopolitical rivalries,” said Samson, whose organization for several years has been working the Indian government and non-governmental organizations on space sustainability and security issues.

Further, India has been wary of voluntary accords for fleshing out international space policy, instead favoring the creation of a body of international law to govern global space activities. For example, New Delhi for many years has advocated for a legally binding treaty to prevent the weaponization of space to be negotiated at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

Signing the Artemis Accords thus is “indeed a very big deal as it is a general departure from the way India [has] managed international space treaties and negotiations,” Pranav Satyanath, a research associate at the Council for Strategic and Defense Research in New Delhi, tweeted today. “India has a distinct preference for legally-binding instruments for both civilian and military-related space activities.”

India is the 27th country to sign the accords, which US officials see as a key component in Washington’s overarching strategy to reduce the potential for future conflict in space as countries scramble for access to orbital real estate (including around the Moon in cislunar space) and, in the future, resources like water and strategic minerals.

Ecuador just Wednesday inked the Accords themselves, in a signing ceremony at the country’s embassy here.

“India and Ecuador together demonstrate the breadth of the Artemis Accords, which is fueled by global diversity and determination to boldly go to the stars in peace,” Gold said.

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/06/india-signs-artemis-accords-tightening-ties-with-us-in-space-race-with-china-sources/

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-accords/index.html

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FACT SHEET: Republic of India Official State Visit to the United States

JUNE 22, 2023

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/06/22/fact-sheet-republic-of-india-official-state-visit-to-the-united-states/

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