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NASA Telescopes Start the Year With a Double Bang
JAN 03, 2024
A colorful, festive image shows different types of light containing the remains of not one, but at least two, exploded stars. This supernova remnant is known as 30 Doradus B (30 Dor B for short) and is part of a larger region of space where stars have been continuously forming for the past 8 to 10 million years. It is a complex landscape of dark clouds of gas, young stars, high-energy shocks, and superheated gas, located 160,000 light-years away from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
The new image of 30 Dor B was made by combining X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple), optical data from the Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile (orange and cyan), and infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (red). Optical data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was also added in black and white to highlight sharp features in the image.
A team of astronomers led by Wei-An Chen from the National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan, have used over two million seconds of Chandra observing time of 30 Dor B and its surroundings to analyze the region. They found a faint shell of X-rays that extends about 130 light-years across. (For context, the nearest star to the Sun is about 4 light-years away). The Chandra data also reveals that 30 Dor B contains winds of particles blowing away from a pulsar, creating what is known as a pulsar wind nebula.
When taken together with data from Hubble and other telescopes, the researchers determined that no single supernova explosion could explain what is being seen. Both the pulsar and the bright X-rays seen in the center of 30 Dor B likely resulted from a supernova explosion after the collapse of a massive star about 5,000 years ago. The larger, faint shell of X-rays, however, is too big to have resulted from the same supernova. Instead, the team thinks that at least two supernova explosions took place in 30 Dor B, with the X-ray shell produced by another supernova more than 5,000 years ago. It is also quite possible that even more happened in the past.
This result can help astronomers learn more about the lives of massive stars, and the effects of their supernova explosions.
The paper led by Wei-An Chen describing these results was recently published in the Astronomical Journal. The co-authors of the paper are Chuan-Jui Li, You-Hua Chu, Shutaro Ueda, Kuo-Song Wang, Sheng-Yuan Liu, all from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, in Taipei, Taiwan, and Bo-An Chen from National Taiwan University.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-telescopes-start-the-year-with-a-double-bang/
Setting the Stage for PACE at AGU
January 3, 2024
After years of planning, building, and testing, 2024 is the PACE mission’s time to shine: Launch is slated for February and the team is eagerly awaiting a wealth of ocean- and atmosphere-related data to dig into soon after.
Several PACE scientists closed out 2023 by sharing this enthusiasm for the mission at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting December 11-15 in San Francisco, which drew more than 24,000 Earth and space scientists.
“This is such a profound quantum leap forward in terms of our ability to monitor our home planet,” Jeremy Werdell, PACE project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told a group gathered in front of NASA’s hyperwall screens.
He showed a visualization highlighting Earth’s pulsing phytoplankton blooms, masses of aerosols drifting across oceans, ice sheets retreating, and more. It’s 20 years of our home planet breathing, Werdell said. Insights like these about Earth are one of NASA’s key accomplishments, he said, right up there with landing on the Moon.
In the conference’s poster hall, researchers presented their work to get ready for using the data. Amir Ibrahim, an ocean scientist with NASA Goddard, talked to colleagues about a tool he is using to simulate the data that the team will receive once PACE’s Ocean Color Instrument is up and running in orbit.
“We’re here to interact with the community who will use the data, and share with them the great capabilities OCI will offer across various disciplines,” Ibrahim said, standing in front of a poster filled with data visualizations and charts.
Data from PACE will touch on many aspects of the interconnected Earth system, including air quality and water quality, Natasha Sadoff, PACE applications deputy coordinator, told the audience at a presentation later that day. With aerosol products from the mission, people can help improve health advisories for wildfire smoke. Other data products will help notify resource managers of harmful algal blooms, wetland health indicators, or even oil spills and seeps.
She showed a global map of the locations of mission Early Adopters, people who are working with the mission ahead of launch to figure out how to use the satellite data to help address different questions across a wide range of disciplines. PACE will generate a new world of data, Sadoff said, and the mission welcomes others interested in exploring it.
“We’re always looking for new community members,” she said.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/pace/2024/01/03/setting-the-stage-for-pace-at-agu/
NASA Invites You to X-59 Rollout Watch Party
JAN 03, 2024
It’s almost time for NASA’s supersonic X-59 airplane to make its red, white, and blue public debut, and you’re invited to join friends and family in taking a front-row, virtual VIP seat to the rollout ceremony in the California high desert.
As a historic milestone in aviation history, NASA is encouraging people across the nation and around the world to get together and celebrate the occasion by hosting a watch party to view the rollout festivities from their classrooms, homes, or anywhere else.
Although NASA won’t provide snacks and refreshments, the agency does have some ideas to help you host a successful watch party. They include printable invitations, links to STEM-related activities, and a complete X-59 Watch Party Planning Guide.
The centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission to study sound and help reduce the sonic boom made by supersonic flight to a sonic thump, the Lockheed Martin-built X-59 is scheduled to be rolled out from the company’s Skunk Works hangar in Palmdale, California on Jan. 12.
The X-59’s rollout ceremony will be broadcast live on the NASA+ streaming service beginning at 4 p.m. EST on Jan. 12, 2024. The event also will air live on the NASA app, YouTube, and on the agency’s website. Viewers can also learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms, including social media.
If you’re ready to commit to hosting an X-59 rollout ceremony watch party let us know and we’ll add your location to our world map, where a growing list of dozens of sites are already signed up.
All the details for signing up and more are available on our Watch Party web page.
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/armd/quesst-virtual-watch-party/
https://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics/x-59-rollout-watch-party/
Australia celebrates space history on world's 1st coin minted in 2024
Jan 4, 2024
The world's first coin to be struck in 2024 highlights Australian space exploration history.
"Out of this World - Australia in Space" was chosen by the Royal Australian Mint as its 2024 theme "to showcase Australia's history and significance as one of the earliest nations to launch its own satellite."
The coin's reverse, or tails side, depicts an Australian astronaut on a spacewalk and the launch of WRESAT-1 on a modified U.S. Redstone rocket in 1967. The satellite, which carried upper atmospheric radiation measurement experiments, established Australia as the seventh nation to put a satellite into orbit and the third country to launch from its own territory, after the Soviet Union and United States.
The coin's design also includes Earth, with the Australian continent clearly visible, and the moon, the latter an homage to the country's role in relaying the live television signal during Apollo 11, the first moon landing, and to an Australian-built robotic rover that will explore the lunar surface as part of NASA's Artemis program.
Though not stated by the mint, the astronaut could be a nod to Andrew Thomas, the first Australia-born career astronaut to fly into space and who performed a spacewalk on his third of four spaceflights with NASA. The depiction could also be a reference to Paul Scully Powers, the first Aussie to launch into space, but as an oceanographer flying as a payload specialist on a U.S. space shuttle.
Related: Australia votes to name its 1st moon rover 'Roo-ver'
Along the border of the coin's reverse are inscribed the words, "rovers, technology, rockets, astronauts, satellites, communications, GPS, astronomy, exploration and discovery."
The mint worked with the Australian Space Agency to design the coin.
"Space is critical to our everyday lives, as well as solving some of the greatest challenges we face — and the agency is ensuring Australia plays its part. Space is also a global effort, and the agency supports Australian organizations by working with partners like NASA, the European Space Agency, Japan's JAXA and more," reads the folder that comes with the 2024 coin.
The 1-inch (25 millimeterS) aluminum bromide coin weighs 0.3 ounces (9 grams) and has the legal tender of one dollar. Though it is a collectible, it is not a limited edition.
The uncirculated coin is also the first commemorative to feature the effigy of King Charles III on its obverse, or heads side.
In celebration of the new year and new coin, the Royal Australian Mint held a drawing for the right to strike the first coin. Izzy Zaharis, a 12-year-old girl from Wollongong, was the winner. She and 99 others who gathered in Canberra were able to press their own coin to take home, complete with a certificate of authentication from the mint.
Monday's (Jan. 1) release was only for the gallery press coin. Additional finishes will be released in early February, including a $10 gold proof, a $1 silver proof and an uncirculated four-coin set.
https://www.space.com/royal-australian-mint-out-of-this-world-2024-coin
Discovering the ‘Holy Grail’ for Detecting Alien Life with Howard Chemistry Professor Jim Cleaves
Jan 3, 2024
“Are we alone in the Universe?”
That question has intrigued humans for eons, but even with today’s latest technology — spacecraft exploring the solar system’s outer reaches, eagle eyed telescopes peering into distant galaxies and radar dishes continually eaves dropping on the cosmos — there still isn’t a definitive answer.
But groundbreaking research from Howard University’s department of chemistry led by Jim Cleaves, Ph.D., the new chair of the department, promises to finally put the question to rest.
“The holy grail of astrobiology is detecting life beyond earth and our technique uses instruments that are already on spacecraft that can detect with 95% confidence whether a sample is derived from living systems,” said Cleaves, who is also president of the International Society for the Study of the Origins of Life.
A grant from the John Templeton Foundation funded the research. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Journal published Cleaves and his team’s findings.
The revolutionary technique uses machine learning to quickly and reliably determine whether matter contains past or present life based on a simple pyrolysis–gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) chemical analysis instruments. Cleaves said many existing spacecraft and rovers are already equipped with Py-GC-MS analysis, meaning they can likely search for signs of life before samples are returned to Earth.
“The fact that you can do this in situ is pretty cool,” he said.
The breakthrough came through using artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly detect biological patterns with remarkable accuracy, even in samples that were hundreds of millions of years old. To do so, Cleaves and his team trained the AI models with multidimensional data from molecular analyses of 134 known abiotic or biotic carbon-rich samples.
Cleaves compared the AI/machine learning technique to facial recognition on a phone. “Basically, you have a contour map and you’re comparing this data against a library of other contour maps — if they are similar enough, there you go,” he said.
The algorithm’s ability to detect biological patterns rather than terrestrial markers such as DNA or RNA is also important. “We don’t know what life beyond Earth will be like, so the test needs to be agnostic about what is biotic. Cells are more or less cells on Earth, but Martians don’t have to use DNA to pass on heritable information,” Cleaves said.
But the test can do more than just answer extraterrestrial questions.
The technique could settle one of the biggest questions about when life began on Earth through an analysis of the oldest known cherts and shales. “We suspect that life started on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago, but there’s still some doubt about on the quality of the evidence. This could help put that question to rest,” he said.
In the future, Cleaves said the diagnostic tool could be applied in other novel ways. For instance, he said the tool could track illegal lumber traffic, because it can quickly determine the type of tree and the region it came from. The same method could be used to detect disease markers in humans. “This general approach could be used for all sorts of chemical diagnostics,” he said. “There are so many possibilities.”
https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/discovering-holy-grail-detecting-alien-life-howard-chemistry-professor-jim-cleaves
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