NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Nov 28, 2023

Ganymede from Juno

What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like? Jupiter's moon Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has an icy surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges. The cause of the grooved terrain remains a topic of research, with a leading hypothesis relating it to shifting ice plates. Ganymede is thought to have an ocean layer that contains more water than Earth – and might contain life. Like Earth's Moon, Ganymede keeps the same face towards its central planet, in this case Jupiter. The featured image was captured in 2021 by NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft when it passed by the immense moon. The close pass reduced Juno's orbital period around Jupiter from 53 days to 43 days. Juno continues to study the giant planet's high gravity, unusual magnetic field, and complex cloud structures.

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

NASA Scientific Balloons Ready for Flights Over Antarctica

NOV 27, 2023

NASA kicks off its annual Antarctic Long Duration Balloon Campaign around Dec. 1, which includes three scientific balloon flights planned for launch from the long-duration balloon (LDB) Camp near McMurdo Station, Antarctica. NASA’s stadium-sized, zero-pressure balloons will support a total of five missions on the long-duration flights with one mission vying to break NASA’s heavy-lift, long-duration balloon flight record, which stands at 55 days, 1 hour, and 34 minutes.

“The annual Antarctic long-duration balloon campaign is the program’s flagship event for long-duration missions,” said Andrew Hamilton, acting chief of NASA’s Balloon Program Office (BPO). “The environment and stratospheric wind conditions provide a unique and valuable opportunity to fly missions in a near-space environment for days or weeks at a time. The BPO team is excited to provide support to all our missions this year.”

Headlining this year’s campaign is the Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) mission. This Astrophysics mission is managed by NASA’s Explorers Program Office at Goddard Space Flight Center. The mission is led by principal investigator Christopher Walker from the University of Arizona with support from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. GUSTO will aim for 55-plus days in flight above the southernmost hemisphere’s skies to map a large part of the Milky Way galaxy, including the galactic center, and the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. The GUSTO telescope is equipped with very sensitive detectors for carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen emission lines. Measuring these emission lines will give the GUSTO team deep insight into the full lifecycle of the interstellar medium, the cosmic material found between stars. GUSTO’s science observations will be performed from Antarctica to allow for enough observation time aloft, access to astronomical objects, and solar power provided by the austral summer in the polar region.

Additional missions set to fly during the Antarctic LDB campaign include:

• Anti-Electron Sub-Orbital Payload (AESOP-Lite): The mission, led by a team from the University of Delaware and University of California Santa Cruz, will measure cosmic-ray electrons and positrons. These electron measurements will be compared to Voyager I and II, which reached interstellar space and have been measuring cosmic ray electrons since 2012 and 2018, respectively. AESOP-Lite will fly on a 60 million cubic feet balloon, a test flight set to qualify the balloon for reaching altitudes greater than 150,000 feet, which is higher than NASA’s current stratospheric inventory.

• Long durAtion evalUation solaR hand LAunch (LAURA): This engineering test flight, led by NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, will utilize solar panels to extend the science capability of the hand launch platform from a few days in flight to long-duration flights. Hand-launched balloons are about 40 times smaller in volume than the heavy-lift balloons and have limited time aloft due to the amount and weight of batteries used for powering the science and balloon instruments.

• Anihala (Antarctic Infrasound Hand Launch): This piggyback payload on the AESOP-Lite launch, a cooperative mission between the Swedish Institute of Space Physics and Sandia National Lab, aims to measure natural background sound in the stratosphere over a continent where human-generated sound is largely absent.

Zero-pressure balloons feature open ducts that allow gas to escape and prevent an increase in pressure from inside the balloon. Gas expansion occurs as it heats during the balloon’s rise above Earth’s surface or by temperature increases from a rising Sun. These balloons, which typically have a shorter flight duration due to the loss of gas from the cycle of day to night, can only fly long-duration missions during the constant daylight of summer in polar regions, where the balloon stays in constant sunlight.

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia manages the agency’s scientific balloon flight program with 10 to 15 flights each year from launch sites worldwide. Peraton, which operates NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) in Texas, provides mission planning, engineering services, and field operations for NASA’s scientific balloon program. The CSBF team has launched more than 1,700 scientific balloons over some 40 years of operations. NASA’s balloons are fabricated by Aerostar. The NASA Scientific Balloon Program is funded by the NASA Headquarters Science Mission Directorate Astrophysics Division.

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/scientific-balloons/nasa-scientific-balloons-ready-for-flights-over-antarctica/

Cassini 10 Years at Saturn Top Images

NOV 27, 2023

The Cassini team is proud to celebrate 10 years since arriving at Saurn with this collection of images selected by members of the team.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/cassini-10-years-at-saturn-top-images/

SpaceX Starlink Mission

On Monday, November 27 at 11:20 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

This was the 17th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, Inspiration4, Ax-1, Nilesat 301, OneWeb Launch 17, ARABSAT BADR-8, and now 10 Starlink missions.

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=sl-6-30

China's Hypersonic Missiles Can Kill US B-21 Bomber, Researchers Say

Nov 28, 2023 at 6:48 AM EST

The unveiling of the U.S. Air Force's latest stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, comes amid lingering concerns about missile technology being developed by peer adversaries such as China, whose advances may one day challenge the aircraft's survivability in combat.

A report by the South China Morning Post on Monday indicated that China's hypersonic weapons—capable of Mach 6, or six times the speed of sound, and operating on a unique trajectory—could potentially counter the sophisticated B-21, which American plane spotters saw in person for the first time this month.

The report cited a Chinese academic study that typified the ongoing arms race between the world's two largest economies, which also remain reliant on each other's markets for continued prosperity. The authors were affiliated with China's Northwestern Polytechnical University, an institution on the U.S.'s sanctions list for its ties to the People's Liberation Army.

As the dominant global power since the end of World War II, the United States has enjoyed a decades-long lead in military technologies, but China's defense research and development is sprinting to catch up—with a view to countering each of America's new capabilities.

The B-21 is among the greatest leaps forward for American combat aviation in decades. One of its primary challenges will be to maintain air dominance in a new era in which next-generation missile technology could detect, track and potentially strike the Air Force's most advanced bomber yet.

In a simulated war game, "a B-21-like stealth platform and its companion drone were both shot down by China's air-to-air missiles, which can reach a top speed of Mach 6," according to The Post, the Hong Kong newspaper.

The findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica by the team of Chinese aerospace researchers who detailed China's progress in missile technology as well as the rapidly evolving nature of future aerial warfare.

"China's hypersonic missiles are built with special features to track and kill stealth aircraft. Using a new solid fuel 'pulse engine' that can adjust power output at will throughout the flight, the missile can first go up to near space and come down on the enemy aircraft at an extremely high speed," the report said, citing the research.

This missile trajectory—referred to as the "Qian Xuesen trajectory" after the father of China's rocket program in the 1940s—could be challenging for U.S. defense planners to predict because of the greater distances it will cover compared to traditional missile paths, the newspaper said.

"But in the simulated battle, the Chinese missiles could make a sharp turn soon after launch, allowing the AI to come up with some attack plans previously thought unfeasible," said The Post, whose report quotes the authors as saying the B-21 "forced China to develop countermeasures with new technology."

Beijing has been tight-lipped about the PLA's own stealth bomber program.

Earlier this month, aviation enthusiasts in Palmdale, California, captured the B-21's maiden test flight.

The Air Force has ordered at least 100 of the futuristic and nuclear-capable warplanes from Northrop Grumman to replace the B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit—introduced in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively—and possibly also the long-lasting B-52 Stratofortress from the 1950s after that.

"Flight testing is a critical step in the test campaign managed by the Air Force Test Center and 412th Test Wing's B-21 Combined Test Force to provide survivable, long-range penetrating strike capabilities to deter aggression and strategic attacks against the United States, allies, and partners," Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek told Newsweek at the time.

When the bomber was unveiled in December last year, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said "50 years of advances" had gone into the Raider's stealth technology, and that "even the most sophisticated air defense systems will struggle to detect a B-21 in the sky."

"The B-21's edge will last for decades to come," Austin said.

The Pentagon didn't return a written request for comment before publication.

https://www.newsweek.com/china-b-21-hypersonic-missile-study-1847463

73 Ancient Mummies Unearthed With ‘False Heads’

November 28, 2023 9:33 AM ET

Archaeologists from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru revealed Monday the discovery of 73 intact pre-Incan burial bundles containing ancient mummies.

The bodies are believed to be roughly 1,000 years old, with many of them adorned with “false heads,” a type of carved wood and ceramic burial mask, according to a blog post from the university. The bodies were found at Pachacámac near Lima, Peru, an extensive cemetery complex containing burials from a variety of different cultures and time periods.

It’s believed the most recent discoveries are of individuals from the Wari Empire, since the bodies were buried near a Wari Painted Temple dating to around 800 to 1,100, AD, according to the blog post. The male and female remains were wrapped in colorful fabric and ropes, and some graves contained colorful ceramics and other items.

The Wari were known for creating well-preserved mummies and intricate artistry, as well as their cultural and religious use of hallucinogens, according to Live Science.

Only a small number of the graves excavated at the sprawling archaeological site have withstood the test of time, which is why this new discovery is so significant. Not only is it unique in the sense of its exceptional preservation, but it helps fill out our understanding of this time in history.

Researchers know the Wari traded with other tribes or traveled throughout the region, as large fragments of imported shells from Ecuador were also found at the site, per the blog post. What we don’t know is just how extensive and developed Central and South America’s population grew over the last several thousand years. With new discoveries emerging from the jungle every day, it could be that our ancient ancestors’ globalized culture originated in this lush part of our planet.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/11/28/73-ancient-mummies-unearth-false-heads/