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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Jan 30, 2024
SLIM Lands on the Moon
New landers are on the Moon. Nearly two weeks ago, Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) released two rovers as it descended, before its main lander touched down itself. The larger of the two rovers can hop like a frog, while the smaller rover is about the size of a baseball and can move after pulling itself apart like a transformer. The main lander, nicknamed Moon Sniper, is seen in the featured image taken by the smaller rover. Inspection of the image shows that Moon Sniper's thrusters are facing up, meaning that the lander is upside down from its descent configuration and on its side from its intended landing configuration. One result is that Moon Sniper's solar panels are not in the expected orientation, so that powering the lander had to be curtailed and adapted. SLIM's lander has already succeeded as a technology demonstration, its main mission, but was not designed to withstand the lunar night – which starts tomorrow.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
Station Science 101: Epigenetics Research in Space
JAN 30, 2024
A growing body of research suggests a link between epigenetic mechanisms and a wide variety of illnesses and behaviors, including cancer, cardiovascular and autoimmune illnesses, and cognitive dysfunction. Epigenetics also plays a role in the changes humans and other living things experience in space.
This phenomenon has become part of studies in a wide variety of fields, including microgravity research conducted aboard the International Space Station.
So just what is epigenetics? According to a paper from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, it includes any process that alters gene activity without changing the actual DNA sequence and that leads to modifications that can pass to offspring. Essentially, it involves information added to the DNA sequence of four bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T).
The sequence of these bases forms the genetic code for development and functioning – essentially the blueprint for every living thing. Epigenetics changes an organism by changing which genes are expressed – essentially turned on or off – without changing that basic blueprint. In other words, epigenetics results in a change through modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself.
Epigenetic changes can be caused by many outside stimuli, from chemicals to trauma to exercise. And unlike a genetic change or mutation, an epigenetic change can reverse if the stimulus is removed. Many epigenetic changes are positive, or even essential, but some cause serious adverse health and behavioral effects.
Years of analysis have shown that the spaceflight environment changes gene expression in every organism and cell type. Epigenetics could help scientists figure out how that happens and why. Studying epigenetics could reveal the pathway that cells use to adapt and survive in microgravity and reveal ways to control positive changes or prevent negative ones.
The Epigenetics investigation from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) looked at whether the round worm C. elegans experienced epigenetic changes and if those changes transmitted from one generation to another. Researchers did observe epigenetic changes and concluded that the expression of certain genes, including negative regulators of growth and development, is epigenetically fine-tuned to adapt to microgravity
JAXA’s Mouse Epigenetics studied altered gene expression patterns in mice and DNA changes in their offspring. The investigation identified genetic alterations that happen after exposure to the microgravity environment of space.
An Italian Space Agency study of the bone loss experienced by astronauts on extended missions is associated with epigenetic alterations. Role of the Endocannabinoid System in Pluripotent Human Stem Cell Reprogramming under Microgravity Conditions (SERISM) evaluated the formation of bone cells in microgravity using human blood-derived stem cells as a model. Researchers reported specific epigenetic changes that occurred in the cells in space.
One epigenetic process that researchers can detect is methylation, the addition or removal of a methyl group (CH3) into DNA bases, predominantly where cytosine or C bases occur consecutively. The APEX-03-1 and APEX-03-2 experiments examined DNA methylation and gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana plants grown from seeds aboard the space station and found widespread changes in patterns of gene expression.3 They also observed epigenetic changes, indicating that they play a role in a plant’s physiological adaptation to spaceflight.4
APEX-04 confirmed this finding. When investigators disrupted the ability of a plant to make those epigenetic changes, that plant struggled more in space.5 Plant Habitat-03 then examined whether these epigenetic changes pass to subsequent generations.
In general, this work showed that plants change gene expression patterns when they experience strange environments and use epigenetic processes to mark genes that help prepare the next generation for the same environment. Those markers show which genes are important for the plant to live in space. Researchers can use that information to breed plants better adapted to space and to harsh environments on Earth.
Expect to see more research on epigenetics on orbit now that more tools are available to provide the ability to immediately sequence DNA at the level that reveals epigenetic changes such as methylation. Traditional DNA sequencers do not provide that level of information without prior processing of the sample, but the space station’s MinION can. Scientists can use these tools to get real-time snapshots of changes as they are happening and potentially how they are passed to subsequent generations.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/station-science-101-epigenetics-research-in-space/
NASA’s Webb Depicts Staggering Structure in 19 Nearby Spiral Galaxies
JAN 29, 2024
It’s oh-so-easy to be absolutely mesmerized by these spiral galaxies. Follow their clearly defined arms, which are brimming with stars, to their centers, where there may be old star clusters and – sometimes – active supermassive black holes. Only NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope can deliver highly detailed scenes of nearby galaxies in a combination of near- and mid-infrared light – and a set of these images was publicly released today.
These Webb images are part of a large, long-standing project, the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program, which is supported by more than 150 astronomers worldwide. Before Webb took these images, PHANGS was already brimming with data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the Very Large Telescope’s Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, including observations in ultraviolet, visible, and radio light. Webb’s near- and mid-infrared contributions have provided several new puzzle pieces.
“Webb’s new images are extraordinary,” said Janice Lee, a project scientist for strategic initiatives at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “They’re mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”
Excitement rapidly spread throughout the team as the Webb images flooded in. “I feel like our team lives in a constant state of being overwhelmed – in a positive way – by the amount of detail in these images,” added Thomas Williams, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured millions of stars in these images, which sparkle in blue tones. Some stars are spread throughout the spiral arms, but others are clumped tightly together in star clusters.
The telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) data highlights glowing dust, showing us where it exists around and between stars. It also spotlights stars that haven’t yet fully formed – they are still encased in the gas and dust that feed their growth, like bright red seeds at the tips of dusty peaks. “These are where we can find the newest, most massive stars in the galaxies,” said Erik Rosolowsky, a professor of physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
Something else that amazed astronomers? Webb’s images show large, spherical shells in the gas and dust. “These holes may have been created by one or more stars that exploded, carving out giant holes in the interstellar material,” explained Adam Leroy, a professor of astronomy at the Ohio State University in Columbus.
Now, trace the spiral arms to find extended regions of gas that appear red and orange. “These structures tend to follow the same pattern in certain parts of the galaxies,” Rosolowsky added. “We think of these like waves, and their spacing tells us a lot about how a galaxy distributes its gas and dust.” Study of these structures will provide key insights about how galaxies build, maintain, and shut off star formation.
Evidence shows that galaxies grow from inside out – star formation begins at galaxies’ cores and spreads along their arms, spiraling away from the center. The farther a star is from the galaxy’s core, the more likely it is to be younger. In contrast, the areas near the cores that look lit by a blue spotlight are populations of older stars.
What about galaxy cores that are awash in pink-and-red diffraction spikes? “That’s a clear sign that there may be an active supermassive black hole,” said Eva Schinnerer, a staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. “Or, the star clusters toward the center are so bright that they have saturated that area of the image.”
There are many avenues of research that scientists can begin to pursue with the combined PHANGS data, but the unprecedented number of stars Webb resolved are a great place to begin. “Stars can live for billions or trillions of years,” Leroy said. “By precisely cataloging all types of stars, we can build a more reliable, holistic view of their life cycles.”
In addition to immediately releasing these images, the PHANGS team has also released the largest catalog to date of roughly 100,000 star clusters. “The amount of analysis that can be done with these images is vastly larger than anything our team could possibly handle,” Rosolowsky emphasized. “We’re excited to support the community so all researchers can contribute.”
https://science.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/nasas-webb-depicts-staggering-structure-in-19-nearby-spiral-galaxies/#hds-sidebar-nav-8
SpaceX NG-20 MISSION
SpaceX is targeting Tuesday, January 30 for Falcon 9’s launch of Northrop Grumman’s 20th Commercial Resupply Services mission (NG-20) to the International Space Station from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The instantaneous launch window is at 12:07 p.m. ET, with a backup launch opportunity available on Thursday, February 1 at 11:18 a.m. ET.
A live webcast of this mission will begin on X @SpaceX about 15 minutes prior to liftoff. Watch live.
This is the tenth flight of the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Crew-5, GPS III Space Vehicle 06, Inmarsat I6-F2, CRS-28, Intelsat G-37, and four Starlink missions. Following stage separation, Falcon 9 will land at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1).
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=ng-20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fkwl1Cy-Vs
Thank You, Jovian Vortex Hunters! The Hunt Is Over…for Now.
JAN 29, 2024
We did it! The Jovian Vortex Hunter project, launched on Zooniverse in June 2022, is out of data as of December 23, 2023.
Over 6,000 registered volunteers joined the project to view images from NASA’s JunoCam instrument of the swirling clouds in Jupiter’s atmosphere and draw on them using a computer mouse. Together, they contributed over a million marked-up images indicating exciting features such as vortices, where winds move in circular patterns. If you’re one of these volunteers, thank you!
The newly marked-up data from the Jovian Vortex Hunters project revealed more than 7,000 vortexes, a much bigger collection than earlier studies contained. The hard work of our volunteers resulted in trends nobody had seen before! For example, the new data shows that white and dark ovals are more prominent in the higher latitudes, while the brown vortices are in the mid-latitudes.
Want to see those trends (and others) for yourself? Read the Jovian Vortex Hunters Blog! And stay tuned… The science team is hard at work analyzing the data and writing up papers on the results. They hope to launch another round of the Jovian Vortex Hunters project soon.
https://science.nasa.gov/get-involved/citizen-science/thank-you-jovian-vortex-hunters-the-hunt-is-overfor-now/
HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 Returns to the International Space Station
January 30, 2024 12:26 PM
(NYSE: HPE) announced it has sent a third iteration of the HPE Spaceborne Computer, built from commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers, to the International Space Station (ISS) via a Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services mission, contracted by NASA, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The goal of HPE Spaceborne Computer-2’s latest trip is to build upon the system’s previous success while expanding the scope and complexity of data center-level processing and high performance computing (HPC) that can be done in space, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) workloads. This configuration of the award-winningi HPE Spaceborne Computer, based on HPE Edgeline and ProLiant servers, has been updated with over 130 TB of flash-based storage from KIOXIA, the most storage to ever travel to the space station on a single mission. This includes four KIOXIA 960 GB RM Series Value SAS, eight 1,024 GB XG Series NVMe and four 30.72 TB PM6 Enterprise SAS SSDs. The additional flash memory storage will make it possible to run new types of applications and conduct research using larger data setsii through the ISS National Laboratory.
Improvements to HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 also include an updated operating system, NASA space flight support software and new system security. Once on board the space station, the health and status of these technologies will be monitored daily to assess the performance in the harsh conditions of space.
After installation of HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 is completed on the space station, the system will be used by researchers to advance innovation and save time. Traditionally, data gathered in space was collected aboard the research outpost and sent to Earth for processing. An onboard supercomputer enables data to be evaluated in low Earth orbit in near-real time, making it possible to achieve a 30,000 times reduction in download sizeiii by only transmitting the data output, or insight, to Earth instead, therefore drastically reducing download times.
Research slated for HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 includes a federated learning (FL) experiment that will independently train ML models and inference engines that were originally created on the Cloud. The experiment will be collaborated on and operated by cloud service providers with the dual-intent to contribute to ML training models used on Earth and maintain an up-to-date AI inference engine in space.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240129331403/en/HPE-Spaceborne-Computer-2-Returns-to-the-International-Space-Station
Officials provide Haleakalā cleanup project update
Jan. 29, 2024
A year ago this month nearly 700 gallons of diesel fuel spilled at the Maui Space Surveillance Complex at Haleakalā’s summit, and since then Air Force officials have worked closely with the Maui community and Native Hawaiian organizations to remediate the site.
“We want to assure our community partners that we continue to be actively engaged in the recovery efforts,” said Lt. Col. Phillip Wagenbach, 15th Space Surveillance Squadron commander. “We are taking deliberate actions to safely restore the sacred grounds at Haleakalā, while accounting for regulatory and cultural needs and our responsibility to protect the land.”
The Air Force Civil Engineer Center is leading the spill response efforts, in conjunction with Native Hawaiian organizations and various governmental agencies including Hawaii’s Department of Health and Department of Land and Natural Resources, the University of Hawaii, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Immediately following the fuel spill, which was caused by a lightning strike, a rapid response was initiated to remove contaminated surface soils, install a barrier to limit water infiltration through remaining contaminated soils, and provide an initial assessment of the extent and magnitude of the fuel contamination.
GSI Pacific, a Native Hawaiian-owned company, was contracted to identify contamination in the subsurface. Soil samples were collected from eight bore holes at depths of up to 80 feet and analyzed by a laboratory. The data collected was included in a site characterization and alternatives evaluation report. The report, currently being reviewed by the Hawaii DOH, indicates the contamination is present above the site-specific cleanup levels to 20 feet below ground surface but poses a very low threat to the drinking water.
Cultural advisors and archaeological monitors, both from Maui, were on site throughout, in the event human remains or other cultural deposits were encountered during ground disturbing activities. No cultural deposits or features were observed during site work. Additionally, no Haleakalā Silversword, a rare plant species that only grows on the slope of Haleakalā, were impacted by the fuel spill.
The next step in the process is to present recommended remedial technologies to the public. This information will be shared with the community to solicit inputs before a final remediation method is selected. Community inputs will be gathered in person and online during a community forum to be held in the coming months.
“We continue to meet with concerned members of the community,” Wagenbach said. “We endeavor to get the community’s viewpoint and do our level best to incorporate their concerns and suggestions in the process. We share their frustrations as we work through this complicated, but deliberate, process.
“We recognize the cultural importance of the site and have accelerated the process whenever it was safe to do so,” he said.
In the wake of the spill, the Air Force has transformed its spill response plan, rewriting the plan and establishing future spill response exercises. A new generator for the site, with improved containment methods, will be installed. Until that generator is installed refuel procedures on the current generator were updated to prevent any future fuel spills.
The Maui-based 15th Space Surveillance Squadron is part of Space Delta 2’s mission of providing space domain awareness. Space domain awareness is a vital part of space flight safety, making GPS, internet banking, satellite TV and myriad other aspects of everyday life possible. At more than 10,000 feet elevation, the space surveillance location at the summit of Haleakalā contributes to that mission with some of the best astronomical viewing conditions on Earth.
https://www.spoc.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3660525/officials-provide-haleakal-cleanup-project-update