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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Dec 14, 2023
Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A
Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After only a few million years for the most massive stars, the enriched material is blasted back into interstellar space where star formation can begin anew. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of this final phase of the stellar life cycle. Light from the supernova explosion that created this remnant would have been first seen in planet Earth's sky about 350 years ago, although it took that light 11,000 years to reach us. This sharp NIRCam image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the still hot filaments and knots in the supernova remnant. The whitish, smoke-like outer shell of the expanding blast wave is about 20 light-years across. Light echoes from the massive star's cataclysmic explosion are also identified in Webb's detailed image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
NASA’s Webb Identifies Tiniest Free-Floating Brown Dwarf
DEC 13, 2023
Brown dwarfs are objects that straddle the dividing line between stars and planets. They form like stars, growing dense enough to collapse under their own gravity, but they never become dense and hot enough to begin fusing hydrogen and turn into a star. At the low end of the scale, some brown dwarfs are comparable with giant planets, weighing just a few times the mass of Jupiter.
What are the smallest stars?
Astronomers are trying to determine the smallest object that can form in a star-like manner. A team using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has identified the new record-holder: a tiny, free-floating brown dwarf with only three to four times the mass of Jupiter.
“One basic question you’ll find in every astronomy textbook is, what are the smallest stars? That’s what we’re trying to answer,” explained lead author Kevin Luhman of Pennsylvania State University.
Search Strategy
To locate this newfound brown dwarf, Luhman and his colleague, Catarina Alves de Oliveira, chose to study the star cluster IC 348, located about 1,000 light-years away in the Perseus star-forming region. This cluster is young, only about 5 million years old. As a result, any brown dwarfs would still be relatively bright in infrared light, glowing from the heat of their formation.
The team first imaged the center of the cluster using Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) to identify brown dwarf candidates from their brightness and colors. They followed up on the most promising targets using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) microshutter array.
Webb’s infrared sensitivity was crucial, allowing the team to detect fainter objects than ground-based telescopes. In addition, Webb’s sharp vision enabled them to determine which red objects were pinpoint brown dwarfs and which were blobby background galaxies.
This winnowing process led to three intriguing targets weighing three to eight Jupiter masses, with surface temperatures ranging from 1,500 to 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit (830 to 1,500 degrees Celsius). The smallest of these weighs just three to four times Jupiter, according to computer models.
Explaining how such a small brown dwarf could form is theoretically challenging. A heavy and dense cloud of gas has plenty of gravity to collapse and form a star. However, because of its weaker gravity, it should be more difficult for a small cloud to collapse to form a brown dwarf, and that is especially true for brown dwarfs with the masses of giant planets.
“It’s pretty easy for current models to make giant planets in a disk around a star,” said Catarina Alves de Oliveira of ESA (European Space Agency), principal investigator on the observing program. “But in this cluster, it would be unlikely this object formed in a disk, instead forming like a star, and three Jupiter masses is 300 times smaller than our Sun. So we have to ask, how does the star formation process operate at such very, very small masses?”
A Mystery Molecule
In addition to giving clues about the star-formation process, tiny brown dwarfs also can help astronomers better understand exoplanets. The least massive brown dwarfs overlap with the largest exoplanets; therefore, they would be expected to have some similar properties. However, a free-floating brown dwarf is easier to study than a giant exoplanet since the latter is hidden within the glare of its host star.
Two of the brown dwarfs identified in this survey show the spectral signature of an unidentified hydrocarbon, or molecule containing both hydrogen and carbon atoms. The same infrared signature was detected by NASA’s Cassini mission in the atmospheres of Saturn and its moon Titan. It has also been seen in the interstellar medium, or gas between stars.
“This is the first time we’ve detected this molecule in the atmosphere of an object outside our solar system,” explained Alves de Oliveira. “Models for brown dwarf atmospheres don’t predict its existence. We’re looking at objects with younger ages and lower masses than we ever have before, and we’re seeing something new and unexpected.”
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-identifies-tiniest-free-floating-brown-dwarf/
NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover
@NASAPersevere
Sol in, sol out! I completed 1,000 Martian days…and my work is far from done.
Learn more about my unique rock collection, travels across Jezero Crater’s ancient river and lake system, and what’s next for my exploration plans: http://go.nasa.gov/4ajURvd
4:50 PM · Dec 12, 2023
https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1734737408934166557
Navy Releases 109 Pages Of UFO Sightings
December 14th, 2023
The U.S. Navy has just dropped a new trove of UFO sightings: 109 pages of “range fouler” incidents that it had not released previously. These UAP incidents are heavily redacted, but uncover an intriguing pattern of frequent sightings at military sites. One of those sightings even includes an interesting connection to whales. You can read the full set of documents below.
The documents are filed in the Navy’s FOIA reading room under a PDF document called “RF Reports Navy Redcated (20306).pdf” (RF stands for Range Fouler.) The Black Vault reported that these documents appear to have dropped in December 2023, despite the PDF filename indicating they’re from June. Black Vault also noted that the term “range fouler” appears to be new, originating in a June 2021 report.
Range Fouler refers to “any activity or object that interrupts pre-planned training or other military activity in a military operating area or restricted air space,” according to the Director of National Intelligence’s preliminary UAP assessment in June 2021.
https://mitechnews.com/guest-columns/navy-releases-109-pages-of-ufo-sightings/
https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/CaseFiles/UAP%20INFO/RF%20Reports%20Navy%20Redacted%20(202306).pdf
China launches mystery reusable spaceplane for third time
December 14, 2023
HELSINKI — China launched its experimental reusable spacecraft for the third time Thursday while maintaining strict secrecy around the mission.
A Long March 2F rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert Dec. 14, sending a “reusable test spacecraft” into low Earth orbit, Chinese language state media Xinhua reported.
Airspace closure notices suggest a launch time of around 10:00 a.m. Eastern (1500 UTC), but the report, published within an hour of expected launch, did not provide a time. The terse report stated that the test spacecraft will “operate in orbit for a period of time” before returning to its intended landing site in China.
“During this period, reusable technology verification and space science experiments will be carried out as planned to provide technical support for the peaceful use of space,” the report read, according to a machine translation.
The gap between the spacecraft’s first and second missions—launching in 2020 and 2022 respectively—was one year and 11 months. The third launch comes just over seven months after the spacecraft returned to Earth after its 276-day-long second mission.
The shortened time between missions suggests the spacecraft’s developer, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), has made progress in aspects relating to reusability of the spacecraft.
China has revealed no details of its experimental reusable spacecraft project. No images of any of the launches have been published. The suspected spaceplane is launched vertically on a Long March 2F, a rocket used to launch China’s Shenzhou crewed missions.
The launcher has a payload capacity of just over eight metric tons to low Earth orbit. This suggests that the spacecraft could be somewhat similar in size and function to U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane.
This notion is reinforced by apparent images of the payload fairing wreckage recovered from the second launch and posted on the Sina Weibo social media site. The images give possible clues as to the dimensions and shape of the spacecraft.
The previous missions included deploying satellites into orbit and may have involved scientific and other experiments. The spacecraft also performed numerous small and much larger orbital maneuvers during its second flight. The third flight will likely have a different scope and seek to further test the spacecraft’s capabilities.
The reusable spacecraft may be the orbital segment which will operate in combination with a reusable suborbital first stage. A reusable suborbital spacecraft was tested for the first time in 2021. A second mission launched in August 2022. The suborbital craft uses a vertical takeoff and a horizontal landing.
CASC has previously stated plans to develop a fully reusable, two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) space transportation system. CASC’s spaceplane project last year acquired national level funding from the Natural Science Foundation of China.
https://spacenews.com/china-launches-mystery-reusable-spaceplane-for-third-time/
Senators question White House mission authorization proposal
December 14, 2023
As officials from several federal agencies expressed support for a White House proposal for oversight of novel space activities, the chair of a key Senate subcommittee raised concerns about it.
At a Dec. 13 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), chair of the subcommittee, said that while she welcomed the mission authorization legislative proposal released by the National Space Council Nov. 15, there were a number of problems with it.
“I am heartened that the administration is working on this critical issue, but the proposal contains numerous ambiguities, new undefined terms and broad grants of open-ended authority,” she said.
Sinema did not elaborate on those concerns, and she left the hearing shortly after her opening statement. She did state that she had asked the National Space Council to participate in the hearing, but that the White House declined to offer someone.
The subcommittee’s ranking member, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), also expressed disappointment that the council did not offer a witness for the hearing. He said he supported “balanced, light-tough policies that empower, not hinder, ingenuity and innovation and the get the government out of the way.”
One major criticism of the White House proposal is that it splits mission authorization between the Department of Transportation and the Department of Commerce. The Department of Transportation, through the Federal Aviation Administration, would be responsible for human spaceflight as well as in-space transportation of goods, while the Department of Commerce, through the Office of Space Commerce, would handle all other commercial space activities not currently regulated by the FAA or other agencies.
The House Science Committee advanced a bill Nov. 29 that would take a different approach, assigning mission authorization entirely to the Department of Commerce. An industry group, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF), criticized the dual-agency approach because it could result in “duplicative and conflicting” requirements between the two agencies, and out of concerns that it would further burden the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which handles launch and reentry licensing.
The National Space Council’s Users’ Advisory Group also questioned that approach. During a Dec. 1 meeting of the committee, a subcommittee offered 12 recommendations for handling mission authorization, among them having “one clear agency industry works with for this kind of authorization to minimize confusion and compliance burden,” said committee member Karina Drees of the CSF.
During the Senate hearing, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) quizzed the witnesses on scenarios that might fall in the jurisdiction of both agencies, such as an in-orbit servicing vehicle docking with a commercial space station for refueling. Richard DalBello, director of the Office of Space Commerce, explained that servicing vehicle would be licensed by Commerce while the space station would be licensed by Transportation.
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“There will be a robust interagency process,” he said, to address any jurisdictional issues, while maintaining strict timelines to review license applications. “Where there is a jump ball, there will be an interagency discussion.”
“For a single activity, only a single agency will have oversight of that responsibility,” added Kelvin Coleman, director of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST. “There is no situation where both the Department of Commerce and the Department of Transportation will have joint oversight responsibilities for a single activity.”
Two other agencies offered their support for the Space Council’s mission authorization proposal. “As NASA is increasingly a customer of commercial services, we really need greater clarity regarding who is responsible for authorizing and supervising commercial space activities,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. She said the proposal offered “a logical extension of the authorities of the Departments of Commerce and Transportation” to provide that authorization and supervision.
John Hill, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space and missile defense, noted the proposal would also give the Commerce Department the authorities it needs to handle civil space traffic coordination, allowing the DOD to focus its resources on the “inherent military aspects” of space domain awareness. “We urge your support.”
One concern from industry about the White House mission authorization proposal is that giving even a subset of responsibilities to AST would further burden an office that is scrambling to keep up with a growing pace of commercial launches and reentries.
“Launch licensing is an intense process,” Coleman said, but argued that mission authorization would be different because of a far lower risk to the uninvolved public that drives the rigor of the launch licensing process. “We envision a very light-touch approach.”
In an interview after the hearing, Coleman said his office had not determined the level of staffing it would need to implement the mission authorization proposal from the White House, but noted it would likely follow existing procedures for payload and interagency policy reviews for launch licensing.
“I view authorization of these activities in sort of a different light than I would view licensing for a launch because the risks posed to the public is significantly different,” he said. “I believe a light-touch approach is appropriate and there should be a commensurate amount of resources associated with that kind of approach.”
At the hearing, some senators mentioned that they are working on a commercial space bill, yet to be introduced, that would offer their own version of mission authorization. They did not disclose details about their proposal, but industry officials said they expect it to differ from both the White House proposal and the House bill.
https://spacenews.com/senators-question-white-house-mission-authorization-proposal/
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House committee debates space mining
December 12, 2023
A House hearing on space mining turned into a partisan debate about both the viability of the nascent field and the jurisdiction of the committee to examine it.
The oversight and investigation subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee took up the topic of mining the moon and asteroids for the first time at a Dec. 12 hearing, where witnesses argued that space resource extraction could be essential for the future of the United States but required both careful study and government support.
“Humanity stands on a precipice of a new era, one that will be defined by space development and utilization of space resources,” said Eric Sundby, chief executive of mineral exploration company TerraSpace and executive director of the Space Force Association. “Space holds an endless amount of opportunity for America.”
However, he and some other witnesses cautioned that the United States was at risk of falling behind China in extracting space resources. “Any delay in America’s development of space resources, no matter how well intended, will leave the field to that rapacious regime,” Greg Autry, a professor at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management, said of China.
Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the University of Mississippi’s Center for Air and Space Law, provided a similar assessment. “Winning requires only getting there first,” she said. Interpretations of the concept of “due regard” in the Outer Space Treaty, she argued, could mean that a spacecraft that lands or even crashes on the moon or other celestial body could create an exclusion zone that would reserve the mineral resources within it. “We must accelerate our efforts to assure continued access to extraterrestrial resources.”
A fourth witness, though, offered a more cautionary view about space mining. “I am not opposed to mining in space. Personally, I think there may be more positive outcomes than negative,” said Moses Milazzo, a planetary scientist and owner of the consulting company Other Orb. However, he said any decisions on whether and how to proceed with space mining should be examined by a committee with representation from science and industry but also including cultural experts, ethicists and others to fully review the potential benefits and impacts.
The hearing revealed a sharp partisan divide on the issue. “Space mining is more and more a necessity,” said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), chairman of the subcommittee, based on the growing demand for minerals like rare earth metals and concerns about relying on China for them.
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Democrats, though, raised questions about the need for space mining or even a hearing about it. “It is an important conversation to be had in the committee that can consider legislation about it. Newsflash: that committee is not this one,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) She said she asked the committee’s Republican leadership for a “clear jurisdictional justification” for the Natural Resources committee to take up space mining but never received a response.
Democrats argued that the issue of space mining should instead be considered by the House Science Committee, which has previously taken up the topic, including legislation about rights to extracted space resources that became law in the 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act.
“The committee does have jurisdiction on this issue,” countered Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), chairman of the full Natural Resources committee, later in the hearing. The committee’s jurisdiction, as stated on its website, does mention “mining interests generally” but not specifically resources beyond the Earth.
Democrats also questioned whether space mining was a near-term priority, particularly if it requires government support. That prioritization includes “whether to not it makes sense to try to outcompete China by unilaterally spending billions of dollars to subsidize private industry for 60 to 80 years out in the future,” said. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), ranking member of the subcommittee.
One Republican member of the subcommittee also questioned space mining, but on different grounds. “Looking to space for minerals where they may be plentiful is interesting, but it will present incredible access challenges,” said Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), who called himself a “skeptic” on the topic. He said any consideration of space mining should be balanced by the “immediate advantages of more cost effective and less risk intensive resource mining here at home.”
Witness tried to stay above the partisan debate. “I’m hoping, frankly, to keep space as a nonpartisan domain,” said Autry after a line of questions from Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) veered into allegations that China provided money to the president’s son, Hunter Biden. Autry said after the hearing that he wanted to use the hearing to build support for funding for NASA science and technology programs that could benefit space mining, as well as programs in other agencies like the U.S. Geological Survey that could include “dual use” technologies for mining in space and on Earth.
“One thing that kind of makes me sad here is that we have the opportunity to reach across the aisle and agree on quite a number of things that we’re talking about here,” said Milazzo, such as funding dual-use mining technologies. “We have to approach this in a collaborative manner rather than an acrimonious manner.”
https://spacenews.com/house-committee-debates-space-mining/
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Former Navy rear admiral supports UFO whistleblower claims
Updated: DEC 14, 2023 / 09:20 AM CST
A former Navy rear admiral and administrator of the government’s lead meteorological agency told NewsNation he believes whistleblower David Grusch’s claims of a secret UFO retrieval program run by the Pentagon.
These are historic times in the growing push for greater government transparency surrounding UAPs, more commonly called UFOs.
Legislation that adds unprecedented disclosure demands to the annual defense spending bill hangs in the balance.
NewsNation continues to put a spotlight on whistleblower testimony and efforts by lawmakers to bring more transparency to the UFO issue. One of those people is retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, who led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under former President Donald Trump.
Gallaudet said he is convinced the story Grusch is telling is true based on his experience in the military and government. He also told NewsNation correspondent Ross Coulthart there were attempts to cover up UFO sightings by members of the military. NewsNation is not able to independently verify the evidence that Gallaudet said led him to this conclusion.
Gallaudet said the planet has been visited by entities he described as “non-human.” He said he absolutely believes non-human intelligent beings are real.
“We’re being visited by non-human intelligence with technology we really don’t understand and with intentions we don’t understand either,” he said.
Gallaudet spent his career serving his country, starting in the Navy where he worked in areas like aircraft carrier combat operations and assisting Navy SEAL teams during counter-terrorism operations, according to his official biography.
More recently he served as acting administrator of NOAA, the agency that forecasts weather and monitors ocean and atmospheric conditions, where he analyzed the science behind weather and other phenomena.
“One of my jobs in the Navy, I was the chief meteorologist of the Navy at the time when Orion was encountering the UAP off the U.S. East Coast,” he said.
Gallaudet said he received a video containing the “Go fast” video, which shows a fighter pilot’s encounter with a UAP, from his superior officers.
“I learn now that these were occurring in training airspace and causing near mid-air collisions. So that safety issue is important,” he said. “But the Navy didn’t do anything about it. Then they actually pulled back that email from my computer on the secret network.”
Gallaudet believes that was part of a cover-up.
“This technology, we’re still trying to learn about and it could give us an advantage in any military conflict,” Gallaudet said. “That’s a good reason not to disclose the nature of the technology. I think for the foreseeable future, we don’t want to release and disclose all of the technology that we’ve recovered. However, I think it’s about time that we do disclose that we are in contact with non-human intelligence, that’s what needs to be put out there in the public.”
Gallaudet also said it’s important to talk openly about the flight safety risks that go along with UAP encounters.
Despite his level of seniority in the Navy and NOAA, Gallaudet said he was not put into any UAP programs.
“They’re special access programs, very tightly restricted. So you have to look into what one’s job is and the need to know,” he said.
For classification or clearance at a certain level, Gallaudet explained those two elements are prerequisites to gaining access.
“In my job as oceanographer of the Navy, for example, it really wouldn’t have made sense for me to have been read into these crash retrieval programs,” Gallaudet said. “it’s really kind of a Cold War legacy of over classification.”
The government has continued to deny any crash-retrieval programs involving non-human technology. While those like Grusch and Gallaudet are speaking out about their experiences, other high-ranking people in government continue to say they have seen no credible evidence of UAP phenomena.
“What you have going on right now with legacy classify programs, special access programs without Congressional direction and White House policy, that’s not going to change,” he said.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/navy-officer-supports-ufo-claims/
Eirsat-1, Ireland's 1st satellite, makes space history
Dec 13, 2023
Ireland has joined the space club with the launch of its first satellite to low-Earth orbit, setting the stage for students of all ages across the Emerald Isle to get involved in space science.
The Educational Irish Research Satellite-1 (Eirsat-1) blasted into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Dec. 1. Around an hour and a half after launch, the tiny satellite, which is not much larger than a house brick, unfolded and deployed its antenna.
Eirsat-1 made contact with its operators via ground stations here on Earth on Dec. 2, and it is operating as expected. By Dec. 4, ground control was happily receiving and uploading data from the tiny satellite.
Developed by around 50 students at University College Dublin (UCD), Eirsat-1 is still in commissioning mode but is expected to enter operational mode and start collecting science data as soon as next month.
UCD Space Science postdoctoral researcher David Murphy, who has been involved in Eirsat-1 for six years, described the feeling of witnessing the satellite heading to space.
"It really was quite incredible. You see these launches streamed online all the time, but it's a completely different thing to see it with your own eyes and to have that investment of having a payload on the rocket," Murphy told Space.com. "We were completely overwhelmed, and the tears definitely started to flow."
Meet the Eirsat-1 experiments
Eirsat-1 carries three main instruments. They will investigate very different things, collecting data that could help solve some of science's most pressing mysteries as well as assisting future space missions.
"So it's got three scientific payloads on board," Murphy said. "Those are the Gamma-Ray Detector (GMOD), a thermal materials experiment ENBIO Module (EMOD), and then the Wave-Based Control (WBC) control algorithm."
GMOD will detect high-energy electromagnetic radiation called gamma rays outside the interference of Earth's atmosphere. The data it collects could help establish the sources of powerful blasts of this radiation, which are believed to be violent cosmic events such as supernovas  —  the explosions that happen when massive stars die  —  and the collision of neutron stars, black holes or even mixed mergers between the two. ​GMOD is estimated to be on course to detect around 10 gamma-ray bursts every year.
Eirsat-1's EMOD experiment is designed to test the thermal surface treatments SolarWhite and SolarBlack, which are currently being used close to the sun by the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter mission, but in low-Earth orbit. It's thought that oxygen atoms around Earth not found where Solar Orbiter operates could erode spacecraft surfaces, so the data EMOD collects could be vital in developing surfaces for future spacecraft.
WBC is an experiment that uses generated magnetic fields within a spacecraft to interact with Earth's magnetic fields and control altitude. This tech could be adapted in the future to also control how satellites rotate, allowing spacecraft to ride on magnetic waves with low power and mass with zero moving parts.
"At the moment, it looks like we're going to have at minimum two and a half years in orbit with Eirsat-1," Murphy said.
"That is the nominal mission, but we will use this asset for as long as we have it to train students," he added, "enabling the next generation of space scientists and engineers to have real hands-on experience with a spacecraft."
UCD PhD student and Eirsat-1 team member Bas Stijnen told Space.com that Eirsat-1 had been deployed at a slightly lower orbit than was desired, adding that this orbit would allow it to remain operational for around four years before it deorbits.
"The satellite was injected into an orbit that was on the low side, so the orbital lifetime is going to be relatively short. We're looking at three and a half, maybe four years before Eirsat-1 will de-orbit," Stijnen said. "We won't rush, but we have to make sure now to use the time that we have to conduct the science that we want to do."
As exciting as the satellite's science work sounds, Murphy said that it may well be the impact of Eirstat-1 on education and industry in Ireland that's the satellite's longest-lasting and most important legacy.
"Hopefully, we've inspired the next generation of students to build the next Irish satellite and the next Irish satellite after that and shown that it can be done in a university, and that this is something that many universities across Ireland can achieve," Murphy concluded. "Hopefully, it's just the start of ongoing space activities that we will have in Irish industry and education."
https://www.space.com/ireland-first-satellite-eirsat-1