NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Dec 4, 2023

Plane Crossing Crescent Moon

No, the Moon is not a bow, and no, it did not shoot out a plane like an arrow. What is pictured is a chance superposition. The plane's contrail would normally appear white, but the large volume of air toward the rising Sun preferentially knocked away blue light, not only making the sky blue, but giving the reflected trail a bright red hue. Far in the distance, well behind the plane, the crescent Moon also appears slightly reddened. Captured early last month from Bolton, UK, the featured image was taken so soon after sunrise that the plane was sunlit from below, as was its contrail. Within minutes, unfortunately, the impromptu sky show ended. The plane moved out of sight. The Moon kept rising but became harder to see through a brightening sky. And the contrail gradually dispersed.

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

AFWERX and NASA collaborate to develop digital Advanced Air Mobility operations center

Nov. 28, 2023

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFRL) – AFWERX is partnering with NASA to develop a digital operations center for future Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) efforts through the Civilian Commercialization Readiness Pilot Program (CCRPP) awardee, ResilienX.

With the fast-growing field of AAM technology, AFWERX’s Airspace Innovation and Prime Partnerships program has partnered with NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration to fill in technological and administrative gaps that present themselves. Earlier in 2023, AFWERX formalized these partnerships with a Memorandum of Understanding and participation in the AAM Interagency Working Group to plot the future of AAM.

The CCRPP is a NASA Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer program which takes mission-relevant technologies in development and infuses them with funding intended to foster commercialization.

This system is intended to enhance base security, special forces efforts, emergency disaster response, and passenger and cargo transportation planning. It is further being developed to include other technologies necessary for air domain awareness.

“CCRPP is a true example of public-private partnership where government stakeholders and an industry consortium are working together on the airspace efforts,” said Darshan Divakaran, AFWERX Airspace Innovation and Prime Partnerships program manager.

ResilienX is a company focused on the holistic safety assurance of AAM ecosystems and is leading the way with an industry consortium to create a digital system for AAM operations. The project intends to define and perform initial integration of an AAM Operations Center that is scalable, tactical and enables verification and validation of the various systems and sensors involved in uncrewed aerial systems, electric vertical take-off and landing operations, and other advanced aviation technologies. The initial AAM Operations Center will be built out in collaboration with NUAIR at the Syracuse Hancock International Airport, with an aim to test and transition it to additional locations by 2025.

Each company in the consortium contributes their industry expertise and technological advancements to create the most robust system possible. As additional requirements are included by military and other government stakeholders, AFWERX plans to bring in additional industry partners in the next phase.

“We are thrilled with the trust AFWERX has put in us to lead this consortium,” said Ryan Pleskach, CEO of ResilienX. “Through a dedicated systems engineering approach, we intend to develop a dual-use solution to the core digital infrastructure needed for advanced air mobility that is inherently scalable and extensible. Through this pioneering effort and with support of all the federal stakeholders that AFWERX is bringing to the table, we believe this solution will be turnkey and available to government and commercial markets in late 2024.”

Utilizing the research expertise of NASA and AFWERX’s subject matter experts, this collaborative project will attempt to meet the needs of the emerging field of AAM operations. It is informed by the U.S. Air Force AAM Operations Center requirements through testing and operator interactions.

“Agility Prime helped pave the way for government and industry to work together on aircraft certification,” said Divakaran. “The Airspace Innovation team is taking it a step forward with airspace integration, management and security efforts focused on emerging aviation technologies.”

The first phase of development will include a detailed need and task assessment, feature development with user interviews and observations, initial integration of baseline technologies, and testing. The second phase will see user testing of human factors, safety development, prototype testing, and a live demonstration of the system.

For this project, ResilienX has received $4.8 million in AFWERX and NASA funding through the CCRPP. The program is planned to progress through October 2025.

https://www.afrl.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3599105/afwerx-and-nasa-collaborate-to-develop-digital-advanced-air-mobility-operations/

NASA, Partners Launch US Greenhouse Gas Center to Share Climate Data

DEC 04, 2023

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan, and other United States government leaders unveiled the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center Monday during the 28th annual United Nations Climate Conference (COP28).

“NASA data is essential to making the changes needed on the ground to protect our climate. The U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center is another way the Biden-Harris Administration is working to make critical data available to more people – from scientists running data analyses, to government officials making decisions on climate policy, to members of the public who want to understand how climate change will affect them,” said Nelson. “We’re bringing space to Earth to benefit communities across the country.”

The U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center will serve as a hub for collaboration between agencies across the U.S. government as well as non-profit and private sector partners. Data, information, and computer models from observations from the International Space Station, various satellite and airborne missions, and ground stations are available online.

As the lead implementing agency of the center, NASA partnered with the EPA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Science experts from each of these U.S. federal agencies curated this catalog of greenhouse gas datasets and analysis tools.

“A goal of the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center is to accelerate the collaborative use of Earth science data,” said Argyro Kavvada, center program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’re working to get the right data into the hands of people who can use it to manage and track greenhouse gas emissions.”

The center’s data catalog includes a curated collection of data sets that provide insights into greenhouse gas sources, sinks, emissions, and fluxes. Initial information in the center website is focused on three areas:

• Estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities

• Naturally occurring greenhouse gas sources and sinks on land and in the ocean.

• Large methane emission event identification and quantification, leveraging aircraft and space-based data

An example of a dataset is the methane gas information detected by NASA’s EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) mission. Located on the International Space Station, EMIT is an imaging spectrometer that measures light in visible and infrared wavelengths and thus can measure release of methane on Earth.

Built on open-source principles, the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center’s datasets, related algorithms, and supporting code are fully open sourced. This allows anyone to test the data, algorithms, and results. The center also includes user support and an analysis hub for users to perform advanced data analysis with computational resources and an interactive, visual interface for storytelling. NASA encourages feedback and ideas on the center’s evolution. The center is part of a broader administration effort to enhance greenhouse gas information, outlined in the recently released National Strategy to Advance an Integrated U.S. Greenhouse Gas Measurement, Monitoring, and Information System.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-partners-launch-us-greenhouse-gas-center-to-share-climate-data/

US Air Force to Organize Space Medical Research Group

DECEMBER 4, 2023

The US Air Force will launch a new military research working group focusing on space defense-related medical solutions.

The Clinical and Operational Space Medicine Innovation Consortium (COSMIC) will be established as a committee combining performance and health research capabilities through the expertise of participating organizations.

Work under the future COSMIC programs will be led by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Ohio-based 711th Human Performance Wing’s (HPW) Human Effectiveness Directorate.

“This is a win for all involved,” 711th HPW Senior Aerospace Medicine Physician and Researcher Dr. James McEachen stated.

“COSMIC provides an important venue to respond to emerging space-linked medical research requirements while simultaneously promoting collaboration and innovation among our government, academic and industry partners.”

Once operational, COSMIC will partner with the Texas-based 59th Medical Wing (MDW), the US Air Force’s largest medical segment with six groups across San Antonio.

“COSMIC represents a significant milestone in our collective efforts to establish defense space medical research capabilities,” 59th MDW Emergency Physician Maj. Craig Nowadly explained.

“By combining the strengths of both organizations, COSMIC has access to research expertise across a continuum of both clinical medicine and human performance optimization.”

Integrating Knowledge for US Space Defense Operations

McEachen added further benefits of the COSMIC initiative to the US Department of Defense’s understanding of human capabilities when personnel are deployed for missions in the space domain.

“It is important for the [Department of Defense] to understand how human health and performance are impacted during military space operations and to develop capabilities to sustain human performance and mitigate health risks,” McEachen said.

“By establishing this collaborative research working group, COSMIC aims to spearhead more efficient and effective processes for addressing top priority clinical care and human performance research needs for [Department of Defense] space medicine.”

https://www.thedefensepost.com/2023/12/04/us-space-medical-research-group/

Strange 'blob' circling Milky Way's central black hole is shooting powerful radiation at Earth every 76 minutes

Dec 4, 2023

Something near the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way has been firing regular blasts of high-energy gamma-rays toward Earth, and scientists may finally know what it is.

In new non-peer-reviewed research posted to the preprint server arXiv, a duo of astrophysicists at the National Autonomous University of Mexico conclude that the bursts of radiation are emanating from a blob of gas spinning around the black hole at almost one-third the speed of light. The team's findings may solve a mystery regarding the Milky Way's central black hole — formally named Sagittarius A (Sgr A) and  located around 26,700 light-years from Earth — that has perplexed astronomers for two years .

The gamma-ray radiation pulses from around Sgr A* were first detected belting Earth in 2021. The team behind the observation knew that the radiation couldn't be coming from within the supermassive black hole  itself, however.

That's because all black holes are bound by a region called an event horizon, which marks the point beyond which nothing,   not even light,  has the velocity needed to escape the black hole's immense gravity. This means black holes don't emit radiation themselves, so the gamma-rays must be coming from the environment of Sgr A*.

Other supermassive black holes are known to emit powerful radiation from their immediate surroundings when their gravitational influence generates turbulent conditions in surrounding gas and dust, forming a structure called an accretion disk. As black holes feed on this matter, the accretion disk emits light that spans the electromagnetic spectrum,  from low-energy radio waves to high-energy gamma-rays.

This can't account for the gamma-rays from Sgr A*, however, as the Milky Way's black hole is surrounded by very little matter and is feeding so slowly that it would be equivalent to a human living on a diet of one grain of rice every million years, according to University of Arizona astronomer Chris Impey, who was not involved in the research.

Using data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope collected between June and December 2022, the researchers aimed to discover the origin of these gamma-rays.

The duo searched the publicly available Fermi data for patterns of periodicity in the gamma-ray emissions. They found that the pulses emerge from close to Sgr A* roughly once every 76.32 minutes. This period of emission is half the time between pulses of X-ray radiation also seen coming from the vicinity of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, suggesting the two emissions are in harmony and are likely related.

"The coincidence of the multiwavelength periodicity in X-ray and gamma-ray points towards a single physical mechanism that produces it," the team wrote in the paper.

This revelation of what the researchers call a "unique oscillatory physical mechanism" led them to conclude that both the gamma-rays and the X-rays are being emitted by a "blob" of gas that is swirling around Sgr A at around 30% the speed of light  —  or around 200 million mph (320 million km/h). They think this speeding lump of matter is emitting light across several wavelengths of radiation as it swirls around Sgr A, flaring periodically as its orbit proceeds.

The discovery could give scientists a better understanding of the environments around supermassive black holes, particularly less-ravenous examples, such as the one at the heart of the Milky Way.

https://www.space.com/strange-blob-circling-milky-way-center-shooting-radiation-every-76-minutes

DAF leaders emphasize adapting AI for warfighting success

Dec. 2, 2023

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall made it clear that the Air Force and Space Force are fully committed — and pushing hard — to develop and deploy artificial intelligence as a key element in meeting security challenges posed by China and other adversaries Dec. 2.

Kendall’s remarks were not new, but by voicing them during a session at the influential Reagan National Defense Forum, he added additional weight to the Department of the Air Force’s efforts to use AI as part of a larger push to modernize.

I care a lot about civil society and the law of armed conflict,” Kendall said. “Our policies are written around those laws. You don’t enforce laws against machines, you enforce them against people. Our challenge is not to limit what we can do with AI but to find how to hold people accountable for what the AI does. The way we should approach is to figure out how to apply the laws of armed conflict to the applications of AI. Who do we hold responsible for the performance of that AI and what do we require institutions to do before we field these kinds of capabilities and use them operationally.”

Kendall pointed out that China and other adversaries are aggressively using AI, and while the U.S. maintains an edge, it is shrinking. Kendall’s comments dovetailed with those from Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, who said at a separate session during the conference that the Air Force must modernize to properly meet the security threats of today.

Part of that effort, Allvin said, is diligently working to integrate AI and machine learning into new capabilities that mesh seamlessly with mission needs and proven technologies, while understanding performance tradeoffs.

“I do believe the future is going to be about human-machine teaming,” Allvin said. “Optimizing the performance and being able to operate at speed. That investment in our collaborative combat aircraft program is what is going to get us there.”

Speed and automation of AI systems have vastly shortened decision timelines. That’s why the DoD’s National Defense Strategy focuses on accelerating decision making and the way information is analyzed and shared.

“We are leveraging algorithms and starting with data fusion and being able to gain insights,” Allvin said. “The changing character of war is speed. If we are going to be privileging speed and have massive amounts of data, the ability to have algorithms and the tools that support and let the analysts do what only humans can do which is make that human decision.”

“Our job on the government side more than anything else is to thoroughly understand this technology, have the expertise we need to really get into the details of it and appreciate how it really works,” Kendall said. “To be creative about helping industry find new applications for that technology and developing ways to evaluate it get the confidence we’re going to need to ensure that it can be used ethically and reliably when it is in the hands of our warfighters.”

Replacing obsolete, legacy systems by harnessing emerging information, communications, and AI technologies to provide operational targeting and decision support with the speed, adaptability and resilience needed to fight in a highly contested environment is a priority for DAF and falls under Kendall’s Operation Imperatives.

“The critical parameter on the battlefield is time,” Kendall said. “The AI will be able to do much more complicated things much more accurately and much faster than human beings can. If the human is in the loop, you will lose. You can have human supervision and watch over what the AI is doing, but if you try to intervene you are going to lose. The difference in how long it takes a person to do something and how long it takes the AI to do something is the key difference.”

Rapid AI development requires DAF to be agile and adaptable in its approach, focusing on rapid testing, experimentation and deployment. The Department of Defense continues to maintain a robust regulatory and ethical framework to ensure the responsible use of AI in defense.

Both men stressed the importance of innovation. Allvin said that innovation is a critical element of modernization and is necessary for maintaining readiness.

“War is a human thing and the ability to leverage technology with human innovation is something we can never walk away from as we’re continuing to develop and more sophisticated systems,” Allvin said.

https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3604801/daf-leaders-emphasize-adapting-ai-for-warfighting-success/