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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Nov 10, 2023
UHZ1: Distant Galaxy and Black Hole
Dominated by dark matter, massive cluster of galaxies Abell 2744 is known to some as Pandora's Cluster. It lies 3.5 billion light-years away toward the constellation Sculptor. Using the galaxy cluster's enormous mass as a gravitational lens to warp spacetime and magnify even more distant objects directly behind it, astronomers have found a background galaxy, UHZ1, at a remarkable redshift of Z=10.1. That puts UHZ1 far beyond Abell 2744, at a distance of 13.2 billion light-years, seen when our universe was about 3 percent of its current age. UHZ1 is identified in the insets of this composited image combining X-rays (purple hues) from the spacebased Chandra X-ray Observatory and infrared light from the James Webb Space Telescope. The X-ray emission from UHZ1 detected in the Chandra data is the telltale signature of a growing supermassive black hole at the center of the ultra high redshift galaxy. That makes UHZ1's growing black hole the most distant black hole ever detected in X-rays, a result that now hints at how and when the first supermassive black holes in the universe formed.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
Bulgaria Signs Artemis Accords at NASA Headquarters; Joins 31 Nations
NOV 09, 2023
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson participated in a signing ceremony Thursday with Bulgaria’s Milena Stoycheva, minister of innovation and growth, as her country became the 32nd nation to sign the Artemis Accords.
The Artemis Accords establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations, including those participating in NASA’s Artemis program.
Also participating in the event at NASA Headquarters in Washington were NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, Georgi Panayotov, ambassador of Bulgaria to the United States and Sonata Coulter, deputy assistant secretary, U.S. Department of State.
“NASA is honored to welcome Bulgaria as the 32nd nation to sign the Artemis Accords,” said Nelson. “The global partnerships made in the Artemis era will create possibilities that benefit members of the Artemis Generation in both our countries – and around the world. Bulgaria’s leadership will help ensure humanity’s journey to the Moon and beyond is done peacefully, safely, and transparently.”
NASA, in coordination with the U.S. Department of State, established the Artemis Accords in 2020 together with seven other original signatories. Since then, the Accords signatories have held focused discussions on how best to implement the Artemis Accords principles.
“It is a historical moment for Bulgaria to join the Artemis Accords. We believe that pushing the boundaries of human quest in space with the support of AI and deep technologies will ensure peaceful and sustainable coexistence on Earth. For years, NASA has been a symbol of aspiration for development through technology and spirit. It is an honor for us to join with our human and artificial intelligence for a peaceful journey into new territories,” said Stoycheva.
The Artemis Accords reinforce and implement key obligations in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. They also strengthen the commitment by the United States and signatory nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.
More countries are expected to sign the Artemis Accords in the months and years ahead, as NASA continues to work with its international partners to establish a safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space. Working with both new and existing partners adds new energy and capabilities to ensure the entire world can benefit from our journey of exploration and discovery.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/bulgaria-signs-artemis-accords-at-nasa-headquarters-joins-31-nations/
UFO Researcher Warns as He Finishes New Project: ‘Someone’s Trying to Extinguish My Career’
Nov 7, 2023
UFO documentarian and researcher James Fox revealed on social media that his career may be in danger. He said the entire situation is terrifying, and he will likely be opening up more about what’s going on in the near future. The news comes as he nears completion of a new project that included filming David Grusch’s congressional hearing, and filming locations at Area 51 and Lockheed Martin Skunkworks.
Fox is a well-known and highly respected documentarian, who directed “The Phenomenon” in 2020, which examined numerous UFO claims and included testimony from high-ranking government officials and NASA astronauts. In 2022, he directed “Moment of Contact,” a UFO documentary that explored the extraterrestrial encounters in Varginha, Brazil, in 1996.
In a video that he posted to X (formerly known as Twitter), Fox shared: “I’m writing this post because I’ve been holding something in for the last six months. Dealing with career-related issues, the likes of which I’ve never experienced in my entire life. So challenging, it feels like someone’s trying to extinguish my career. It’s pretty terrifying.”
He then revealed that he will most likely share more details later this week, after he gets a legal go-ahead.
“I’ll probably be going public with it later this week,” he said. “For legal reasons I can’t discuss it right now. But I wanted to give you all a head’s up and thank you for all your support. It means the world to me.”
In the caption that went along with his post, Fox wrote: “I wanted to share a a rather devastating career issue I’ve been dealing with for the last eight months. I can’t go into too much detail at this moment, but more will come soon. Your support means the world to me. ⭐️”
And then he replied to his own post, adding: “Will make a full announcement as soon as I’m able but I can say that if I did what’s being done to me I’d go straight to jail. Unbelievable what these execs can get away with.”
Fox’s revelation comes as he nears completing a new film project.
On November 1 he wrote on X: “Our latest film has been shot (98%) and am currently in the edit room for the next 4-6 months — this moment with @timburchett was incredibly powerful as he was sharing the level of shock some fellow lawmakers experienced after hearing David Grusch testify.”
On October 1, he revealed that he had spent nearly a month going across the country, which included filming with Garry P. Nolan.
On September 28, he revealed that one of the stops for this new production was at Lockheed Martin Skunkworks.
He also wrote about hiking to the top of Tikaboo peak, “the last remaining spot where one can see parts of the infamous Area 51.”
He added: “Recent interviews discussed aspects of their experiences while there and we needed images for our latest film. Won’t be doing that again soon.”
Fox is a well-known and highly respected documentarian, who directed “The Phenomenon” in 2020, which examined numerous UFO claims and included testimony from high-ranking government officials and NASA astronauts. In 2022, he directed “Moment of Contact,” a UFO documentary that explored the extraterrestrial encounters in Varginha, Brazil, in 1996.
In September, Fox revealed that another UFO whistleblower with firsthand knowledge is ready to come forward about a UAP retrieval program.
He also held NASA’s feet to the fire with some very pointed questions during a recent press briefing.
https://www.postapocalypticmedia.com/ufo-researcher-someone-trying-to-extinguish-career/
https://twitter.com/jamescfox/status/1721569029456822671
NASA’s Webb, Hubble Combine to Create Most Colorful View of Universe
NOV 09, 2023
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope have united to study an expansive galaxy cluster known as MACS0416. The resulting panchromatic image combines visible and infrared light to assemble one of the most comprehensive views of the universe ever taken. Located about 4.3 billion light-years from Earth, MACS0416 is a pair of colliding galaxy clusters that will eventually combine to form an even bigger cluster.
The image reveals a wealth of details that are only possible to capture by combining the power of both space telescopes. It includes a bounty of galaxies outside the cluster and a sprinkling of sources that vary over time, likely due to gravitational lensing – the distortion and amplification of light from distant background sources.
This cluster was the first of a set of unprecedented, super-deep views of the universe from an ambitious, collaborative Hubble program called the Frontier Fields, inaugurated in 2014. Hubble pioneered the search for some of the intrinsically faintest and youngest galaxies ever detected. Webb’s infrared view significantly bolsters this deep look by going even farther into the early universe with its infrared vision.
“We are building on Hubble’s legacy by pushing to greater distances and fainter objects,” said Rogier Windhorst of Arizona State University, principal investigator of the PEARLS program (Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science), which took the Webb observations.
What the Colors Mean
To make the image, in general the shortest wavelengths of light were color-coded blue, the longest wavelengths red, and intermediate wavelengths green. The broad range of wavelengths, from 0.4 to 5 microns, yields a particularly vivid landscape of galaxies.
Those colors give clues to galaxy distances: The bluest galaxies are relatively nearby and often show intense star formation, as best detected by Hubble, while the redder galaxies tend to be more distant as detected by Webb. Some galaxies also appear very red because they contain copious amounts of cosmic dust that tends to absorb bluer colors of starlight.
“The whole picture doesn’t become clear until you combine Webb data with Hubble data,” said Windhorst.
Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster
While the new Webb observations contribute to this aesthetic view, they were taken for a specific scientific purpose. The research team combined their three epochs of observations, each taken weeks apart, with a fourth epoch from the CANUCS (CAnadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey) research team. The goal was to search for objects varying in observed brightness over time, known as transients.
They identified 14 such transients across the field of view. Twelve of those transients were located in three galaxies that are highly magnified by gravitational lensing, and are likely to be individual stars or multiple-star systems that are briefly very highly magnified. The remaining two transients are within more moderately magnified background galaxies and are likely to be supernovae.
“We’re calling MACS0416 the Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster, both because it’s so colorful and because of these flickering lights we find within it. We can see transients everywhere,” said Haojing Yan of the University of Missouri in Columbia, lead author of one paper describing the scientific results.
Finding so many transients with observations spanning a relatively short time frame suggests that astronomers could find many additional transients in this cluster and others like it through regular monitoring with Webb.
A Kaiju Star
Among the transients the team identified, one stood out in particular. Located in a galaxy that existed about 3 billion years after the big bang, it is magnified by a factor of at least 4,000. The team nicknamed the star system “Mothra” in a nod to its “monster nature,” being both extremely bright and extremely magnified. It joins another lensed star the researchers previously identified that they nicknamed “Godzilla.” (Both Godzilla and Mothra are giant monsters known as kaiju in Japanese cinema.)
Interestingly, Mothra is also visible in the Hubble observations that were taken nine years previously. This is unusual, because a very specific alignment between the foreground galaxy cluster and the background star is needed to magnify a star so greatly. The mutual motions of the star and the cluster should have eventually eliminated that alignment.
The most likely explanation is that there is an additional object within the foreground cluster that is adding more magnification. The team was able to constrain its mass to be between 10,000 and 1 million times the mass of our Sun. The exact nature of this so-called “milli-lens,” however, remains unknown.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-hubble-combine-to-create-most-colorful-view-of-universe/
NASA's modified U-2 spy plane is hunting for 'strategic minerals' in the desert. Here's why
Nov 9, 2023
NASA's high-altitude ER-2 aircraft have their roots in the American desert.
The agency's two ER-2 (Earth Resources 2) aircraft are based on the Lockheed U-2 spy plane that was developed in the 1950s at the highly secretive Groom Lake test site that would become the United States Air Force's infamous Area 51 facility.
Like their U-2 predecessors, NASA's ER-2s can fly well above 60,000 feet (18,000 meters) and have flown over 4,500 missions studying Earth's atmosphere and related phenomena, ozone levels and have even been used to test new satellite sensors.
Now, the ER-2 are back above the desert, where the U-2s they're modified from were once the cause of UFO sightings. Since September 2023, NASA has tasked one of those ER-2 aircraft with helping to locate stores of minerals hidden in the American desert, minerals that are vital for electronics manufacturing, the U.S. economy and, by extension, national security. The mission is known as GEMx, or the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment, and is being conducted in collaboration with the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
"The U.S. depends on a reliable supply of Earth materials to support its economy and national security," said USGS geophysicist Raymond Kokaly in a NASA statement. "Such materials have been deemed critical minerals because disruption of their supply would have significant negative impacts. Undiscovered deposits of at least some of these critical and strategic minerals almost certainly exist in the United States, but modern geophysical data is needed to increase our knowledge of these resources."
The GEMx mission involves flying NASA's ER-2 and one of its modified Gulfstream V business jets over the American Southwest, including California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. For this particular experiment, the ER-2 is flying over these arid regions at altitudes of 65,000 feet (19,800 m) with special sensors that collect what are known as hyperspectral images.
These images consist of not only visible light but also multiple bands of infrared and thermal radiation, allowing researchers to see what NASA refers to as "geophysical complexities behind seemingly simple or monochromatic surfaces" that might suggest the presence of the critical minerals the GEMx mission is hunting.
Ultimately, the mission is one of national security, aimed at helping the United States wean itself off of its dependence on foreign supplies of electronics for not only consumer use but also government and military customers. "If this mission can successfully identify critical minerals in minable locations in the U.S., we could be less dependent on foreign entities for these critical minerals," said Kevin Reath, NASA deputy program manager for GEMx, in the agency's statement.
The Biden-Harris administration has made it a priority in recent years to expand the United States' domestic supply of these minerals, signing an Executive Order in 2021 aimed at reducing "over-reliance on foreign sources and adversarial nations for critical minerals and materials posed national and economic security threats."
Currently, China has the market on these minerals cornered. "Globally, China controls most of the market for processing and refining for cobalt, lithium, rare earths and other critical minerals," a White House fact sheet published in 2022 states.
NASA expects the GEMx project to cost $16 million and continue through fall 2026.
https://www.space.com/nasa-er-2-spy-plane-mineral-mapping