TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Sep 11, 2023
Beautiful Comet Nishimura
This scene would be beautiful even without the comet. By itself, the sunrise sky is an elegant deep blue on high, with faint white stars peeking through, while near the horizon is a pleasing tan. By itself, the foreground hills of eastern Slovakia are appealingly green, with the Zadňa hura and Veľká hora hills in the distance, and with the lights of small towns along the way. Venus, by itself on the right, appears unusually exquisite, surrounded by a colorful atmospheric corona. But what attracts the eye most is the comet. On the left, in this composite image taken just before dawn yesterday morning, is Comet Nishimura. On recent mornings around the globe, its bright coma and long ion tail make many a morning panoramic photo unusually beautiful. Tomorrow, C/2023 P1 (Nishimura) will pass its nearest to the Earth for about the next 434 years.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
Mysterious moonquake traced to Apollo 17 lunar lander base
Sep 11, 2023
When they went to the moon, Apollo astronauts placed seismometers on the surface. Those instruments strikingly revealed that the moon experiences moonquakes, just as the Earth experiences earthquakes. In fact, scientists have since determined there are four types of moonquakes: Deep, shallow, thermal and the kind stemming from meteorite impacts.
But a new look at thermal earthquake data recorded by instruments from the Apollo 17 mission has unveiled a fifth and unexpected type of moonquake — one that emanates from the Apollo 17 lunar lander base itself.
During the Apollo 17 mission, scientists calibrated three seismometers to record thermal earthquakes on the moon. Placed on the lunar surface, these devices recorded data from October 1976 to May 1977. Such thermal quakes are caused by intense temperature changes that occur on the moon as it transitions from the lunar day to lunar night, which can swing from 250 degrees Fahrenheit (121 degrees Celsius) to -208 degrees Fahrenheit (-133 degrees Celsius).
Using modern techniques, including machine learning, researchers from the California Institute of Technology reanalyzed the data, determining that thermal quakes occur with very precise regularity the day. But, they also found new tremors in the data that weren't linked to the thermal quakes — ones that only occurred in the morning.
Triangulating the origin of the mystery quakes, researchers surprisingly realized they came from the Apollo 17 lunar lander base, which expands and vibrates each morning as it becomes heated by the sun.
"Every lunar morning when the sun hits the lander, it starts popping off," Allen Husker, a Caltech research professor of geophysics who worked on the project, said in a statement. "Every five to six minutes another one, over a period of five to seven Earth hours. They were incredibly regular and repeating."
So while these new moonquakes might not be moon-generated quakes, they're still contributing to our seismic knowledge of the celestial body — and that's particularly important for future lunar development.
"It's important to know as much as we can from the existing data so we can design experiments and missions to answer the right questions," said Husker. "The Moon is the only planetary body other than the Earth to have had more than one seismometer on it at a time. It gives us the only opportunity to thoroughly study another body."
A new seismic instrument just landed on the moon last month with India's Chandrayaan 3 Lander, and it managed to record its own evidence of moonquakes. The Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA), comprising six high-sensitivity accelerometers, recorded a seemingly natural moonquake on August 26, 2023 — though the source is being investigated. Chandrayaan-3 entered sleep mode on Sept. 2 in preparation for the lunar night.
Through further lunar seismic research, "[w]e will hopefully be able to map out the subsurface cratering and to look for deposits," said Husker. "There are also certain regions in craters at the Moon's South Pole that never see sunlight; they are permanently shadowed. If we could put up a few seismometers there, we could look for water ice that may be trapped in the subsurface; seismic waves travel slower through water."
The team's research was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets on September 5.
https://www.space.com/new-moonquakes-traced-to-apollo-17-lander
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2022JE007704
JET PANIC Nine passengers injured as plane makes terrifying emergency landing after engine catches fire and cabin fills with smoke
Updated: 15:58 ET, Sep 10 2023
TERRIFYING footage has emerged of a plane cabin filling up with smoke after its engine burst into flames mid-air.
Nine people sustained "minor injuries" after the Air China flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore, authorities said.
Flight CA403 from the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu "encountered smoke in the forward cargo hold and lavatory" while on its way to the city-state, Changi Airport said in a statement on Facebook.
The plane, which held 146 passengers and nine crew, landed safely at around 4:15pm local time.
A statement reported that "all passengers and crew have evacuated safely".
It also confirmed that "The fire in the left engine has been put out.
"Nine passengers sustained minor injuries related to smoke inhalation and abrasions during the evacuation process.
"They have since been attended to."
A video clip posted on X showed passengers exiting what appeared to be the damaged aircraft down an emergency slide as the blaze relented.
The runway was closed briefly and one aircraft was diverted to the nearby island of Batam in Indonesia, The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said.
It said the Transport Safety Investigation Bureau was investigating the incident and has contacted its Chinese counterpart to help.
Air China did not respond to an AFP query.
It comes after passengers frantically pleaded for oxygen masks to descend as smoke began to fill the cabin mid-air.
Travellers on the Gol Airlines flight across Brazil were left gasping for air as pilots were forced to make a dramatic emergency landing.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/9054451/nine-injured-plane-terrifying-emergency-landing/
Kombucha: Ally for Moon and Mars
11/09/2023
ESA is testing kombucha cultures, famous for their fermentative properties and potential health benefits, to assess their resilience in space. These cultures hold great promise for supporting humans on the Moon and Mars.
Multicellular biofilms found in kombucha, have shown promise in surviving harsh environments on Earth, prompting scientists to investigate their potential to endure space’s extreme conditions. The microorganisms are even being considered as bio-factories for self-sustaining life support systems for space settlements.
Kombucha in space
ESA's Expose facility held experiments on the International Space Station to investigate if and how bacteria survive in space and in simulated martian conditions.
Samples flew on the outside of the Space Station. The results show that a microorganism, cyanobacterium, was able to repair its DNA and resume cell division even after being exposed to cosmic radiation, even resisting the destructive iron ions that cause extensive cell damage.
In many living beings, tissues regenerate like human skin or bacterial biofilms by consistently multiplying through a process of cell division. The way these cells stop dividing until they've fixed their DNA damage is still a mystery, but researchers suspect a specific gene – the sulA gene – could play a part in it. The sulA gene acts like a traffic signal for cells. It stops cells from dividing until they've repaired their DNA, like a red light stops cars from moving. It's a crucial part of a cell's safety system, ensuring that any damages are fixed before the cells continue to multiply.
Another experiment revealed that cell clusters provided a microhabitat for smaller species, showing that some cells can ‘hitchhike’ through space within larger groups of cells that protect the hitchhikers.
Planetary protection is a set of protocols to prevent harmful biological and chemical contamination from Earth reaching other planets, moons, or celestial bodies, and vice-versa. Experiments like these can help understand how cell clusters and biofilms protect against the extremes of space, preventing contamination and preventing the contamination of space missions. They could also be used to shield organisms on longer journeys through space.
Microbes can also be a valuable ‘radiation model’. By understanding how these microorganisms respond, researchers can gain insights to comprehend and enhance human health and well-being. This includes developing radiation-protection strategies for astronauts in space.
To Moon and Mars
Future Artemis missions to the lunar Gateway could involve cultivating microorganisms on the Moon.
"The cultures show great potential in supporting long-term human presence on the Moon and on Mars,” says Petra Rettberg, Head of the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) astrobiology group.
“Due to their ability to produce oxygen and function as bio-factories, this biotechnology could significantly enhance future space missions and human space exploration efforts," adds ESA deep space exploration scientist Nicol Caplin.
“I hope to see our samples attached to the lunar Gateway in the future or perhaps utilised on the surface of the Moon and beyond. Until then, we will continue to explore the possibilities our bio-cultures offer.”
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Kombucha_Ally_for_Moon_and_Mars