NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Mar 15, 2024

Portrait of NGC 1055

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But the telltale pinkish star forming regions are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy's thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago.

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

Hubble Views a Galaxy Under Pressure

MAR 15, 2024

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows LEDA 42160, a galaxy about 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The dwarf galaxy is one of many forcing its way through the comparatively dense gas in the massive Virgo cluster of galaxies. The pressure exerted by this intergalactic gas, known as ram pressure, has dramatic effects on star formation in LEDA 42160.

The gas and dust that permeates space exerts pressure on a galaxy as it moves. This resistance, called ram pressure, can strip a galaxy of its star-forming gas and dust, reducing or even stopping the creation of new stars. However, ram pressure can also compress gas in the galaxy, which can boost star formation.

The Hubble data used to create this image of LEDA 42160 is part of a project that studied dwarf galaxies undergoing ram pressure stripping that are part of large galaxy clusters, like the Virgo cluster. Studies show that ram pressure stripping can initially cause new stars to form in larger galaxies. The researchers wanted to see if the same holds true for smaller galaxies, like LEDA 42160. The bright patches on LEDA 42160’s lower-right flank may be star-forming regions spurred on by ram pressure stripping. Hubble’s observations of LEDA 42160 will help astronomers determine the processes that created the features we see in this small galaxy.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-views-a-galaxy-under-pressure/

NASA Lights ‘Beacon’ on Moon With Autonomous Navigation System Test

MAR 14, 2024

For 30 total minutes in February, NASA lit a beacon on the Moon – successfully testing a sophisticated positioning system that will make it safer for Artemis-era explorers to visit and establish a permanent human presence on the lunar surface.

The Lunar Node 1 demonstrator, or LN-1, is an autonomous navigation system intended to provide a real-time, point-to-point communications network on the Moon. The system – tested during Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative – could link orbiters, landers, and even individual astronauts on the surface, digitally verifying each explorer’s position relative to other networked spacecraft, ground stations, or rovers on the move.

That system would be a marked improvement over conventional, Earth-based radio data relays, NASA researchers said – even more so compared to Apollo-era astronauts trying to “eyeball” distance and direction on the vast, mostly grey lunar surface.

“We’ve lit a temporary beacon on the lunar shore,” said Evan Anzalone, LN-1 principal investigator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Now, we seek to deliver a sustainable local network – a series of lighthouses that point the way for spacecraft and ground crews to safely, confidently spread out and explore.”

The experiment was launched Feb. 15 as a payload on the IM-1 mission. The Nova-C lander, named Odysseus, successfully touched down Feb. 22 near Malapert A, a lunar impact crater near the Moon’s South Pole region, executing the first American commercial uncrewed landing on the Moon. The lander spent its subsequent days on the surface conducting six science and technology demonstrations, among them LN-1, before it officially powered down on Feb. 29.

“This feat from Intuitive Machines, SpaceX, and NASA demonstrates the promise of American leadership in space and the power of commercial partnerships under NASA’s CLPS initiative,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement after the landing. “Further, this success opens the door for new voyages under Artemis to send astronauts to the Moon, then on to Mars.”

During IM-1’s translunar journey, the Marshall team conducted daily tests of the LN-1 beacon. The original plan was for the payload to transmit its beacon around the clock upon landing. NASA’s Deep Space Network, the international giant radio antenna array, would have received that signal for, on average, 10 hours daily.

Instead, due to the lander’s touchdown orientation, LN-1 conducted two 15-minute transmissions from the surface. DSN assets successfully locked on the signal, feeding telemetry, navigation measurements, and other data to researchers at Marshall, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky. The team continues to evaluate the data.

LN-1 even provided critical backup to IM-1’s onboard navigation system, noted Dr. Susan Lederer, CLPS project scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The LN-1 team “really stepped up to the task,” she said, by relaying spacecraft positioning data during translunar flight to NASA’s Deep Space Network satellites at the Goldstone and Madrid Deep Space Communications Complexes in Fort Irwin, California, and Robledo de Chavela, Spain, respectively.

In time, navigation aids such as Lunar Node-1 could be used to augment navigation and communication relays and surface nodes, providing increased robustness and capability to a variety of users in orbit and on the surface.

As the lunar infrastructure expands, Anzalone envisions LN-1 evolving into something akin to a network that monitors and maintains a busy metropolitan subway system, tracking every “train” in real time, and operating as one part of a larger, LunaNet-compatible architecture, augmenting other NASA and international investments, including the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Lunar Navigation Satellite System.

And the technology promises even greater value to NASA’s Moon to Mars efforts, he said. LN-1 may improve data delivery to lunar explorers by just a matter of seconds over conventional relays – but real-time navigation and positioning becomes much more vital on Mars, where transmission delays from Earth can take up to 20 minutes.

“That’s a very long time to wait for a spacecraft pilot making a precision orbital adjustment, or humans traversing uncharted Martian landscapes,” Anzalone said. “LN-1 can make lighthouse beacons of every explorer, vehicle, temporary or long-term camp, and site of interest we send to the Moon and to Mars.”

https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/nasa-lights-beacon-on-moon-with-autonomous-navigation-system-test/

Hubble Tracks Jupiter’s Stormy Weather

MAR 14, 2024

The giant planet Jupiter, in all its banded glory, is revisited by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in these latest images, taken on January 5-6, 2024, capturing both sides of the planet. Hubble monitors Jupiter and the other outer solar system planets every year under the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program (OPAL). This is because these large worlds are shrouded in clouds and hazes stirred up by violent winds, causing a kaleidoscope of ever-changing weather patterns.

[left image] – Big enough to swallow Earth, the classic Great Red Spot stands out prominently in Jupiter's atmosphere. To its lower right, at a more southerly latitude, is a feature sometimes dubbed Red Spot Jr. This anticyclone was the result of storms merging in 1998 and 2000, and it first appeared red in 2006 before returning to a pale beige in subsequent years. This year it is somewhat redder again. The source of the red coloration is unknown but may involve a range of chemical compounds: sulfur, phosphorus, or organic material. Staying in their lanes, but moving in opposite directions, Red Spot Jr. passes the Great Red Spot about every two years. Another small red anticyclone appears in the far north.

[right image] – Storm activity also appears in the opposite hemisphere. A pair of storms, a deep red cyclone and a reddish anticyclone, appear next to each other at right of center. They look so red that at first glance, it looks like Jupiter skinned a knee. These storms are rotating in opposite directions, indicating an alternating pattern of high- and low-pressure systems. For the cyclone, there's an upwelling on the edges with clouds descending in the middle, causing a clearing in the atmospheric haze.

The storms are expected to bounce past each other because their opposing clockwise and counterclockwise rotation makes them repel each other. "The many large storms and small white clouds are a hallmark of a lot of activity going on in Jupiter's atmosphere right now," said OPAL project lead Amy Simon of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Toward the left edge of the image is the innermost Galilean moon, Io – the most volcanically active body in the Solar System, despite its small size (only slightly larger than Earth's moon). Hubble resolves volcanic outflow deposits on the surface. Hubble's sensitivity to blue and violet wavelengths clearly reveals interesting surface features. In 1979 NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft discovered Io's pizza-like appearance and volcanism, to the surprise of planetary scientists because it is such a small moon. Hubble picked up where Voyager left off by keeping an eye on restless Io year by year.

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-tracks-jupiters-stormy-weather/

NASA Armstrong updates 1960s concept to study giant planets

Fri 15 Mar 2024 // 01:00 UTC

NASA researchers are looking at the possibility of using a wingless, unpowered aircraft design from the 1960s to gather atmospheric data on other planets—doing the same work as small satellites but potentially better and more economically.

John Bodylski, a principal investigator at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, hypothesized a lifting body aircraft design NASA tested decades ago could meet the requirements for an atmospheric probe that can collect measurements of giant planets, like Uranus. The design relies on the aircraft's shape for lift, rather than wings.

Bodylski submitted his idea and earned a NASA Armstrong Center Innovation Fund award to write a technical paper explaining the concept and design. The award also supports construction of models to help people conceptualize his atmospheric probe. Enter the NASA Armstrong Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory.

Robert "Red" Jensen and Justin Hall, two of the lab's designers, technicians, and pilots, brought Bodylski's designs to life. Jensen and Hall created a mold, then layered in carbon-fiber and foam that cured for eight hours under vacuum. The parts were removed from the molds, refined, and later joined together.

The first of the two lifting body aircraft, both of which are 27.5 inches long, and 24 inches wide, is complete and offers a first look at the concept. The second aircraft is almost ready and includes hinged flight control surfaces. Flight controls systems connected to those surfaces will be mounted inside the structure before the model's final assembly.

Together, the two models can test Bodylski's ideas and provide flight data for creating better computer models. In the future, those computer models could help researchers built atmospheric probes based on those designs. Bodylski's concept called for sending the aircraft on missions attached to satellites. Once in the orbit of a planet, the probe aircraft—about the same size as the models—would separate from the satellite through pyrotechnic bolts, deploying in the atmosphere to collect data for study.

Current atmospheric probes, small satellites known as CubeSats, gather and transmit data for about 40 minutes and can take in approximately 10 data points before their parent satellite is out of range. Bodylski's design could descend more rapidly and at a steeper angle, collecting the same information in 10 minutes, plus additional data for another 30 minutes from much deeper in a thick atmosphere.

Following a series of technical briefings and flight readiness reviews, the aircraft is expected to fly in March 2024. It will fly as a glider air-launched from a cradle attached to rotorcraft often used by the lab. Future tests could include powered flight depending on what data researchers determine they need.

"We are looking to take an idea to flight and show that a lifting body aircraft can fly as a probe at this scale—that it can be stable, that components can be integrated into the probe, and that the aircraft can achieve some amount of lift," Bodylski said.

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-nasa-armstrong-1960s-concept-giant.html

NASA missions are being delayed by oversubscribed, overburdened, and out-of-date supercomputers

Fri 15 Mar 2024 // 01:00 UTC

NASA's supercomputing capabilities are not keeping pace with the latest technology developments, and are "oversubscribed and overburdened," causing delays to missions that are sometimes addressed by teams acquiring their own infrastructure.

The above are some of the findings of an assessment [PDF] of the aerospace agency's high-end compute capabilities, conducted by NASA's internal auditor, the Office of Inspector General.

Published on Thursday, the audit opens by declaring "NASA needs a renewed commitment and sustained leadership attention to reinvigorate its [high-end computing] HEC efforts. Without key changes, the Agency's HEC is likely to constrain future mission priorities and goals."

Those changes are needed because NASA's HEC ops – a term the audit uses interchangeably with supercomputing – are managed by its Earth Science Research Program within the Science Mission Directorate, rather than as a central function.

NASA's CIO has some oversight of HEC, but it is not directly engaged in HEC activities or governance.

Because the agency's supers are oversubscribed, missions buy their own kit. The audit suggests almost every NASA location – other than Goddard Space Flight Center and Stennis Space Center – have their own independent infrastructure. The Space Launch System team alone spends $250,000 a year rather than waiting for access to existing HEC resource availability.

Confusion around NASA's cloud capacity and policy is another reason for the purchase of on-prem kit.

"NASA also lacks a comprehensive strategy for when to use HEC assets on the premises versus when to utilize cloud computing options – or a widespread understanding of the cost implications for each choice," the audit states. "Stakeholders told us that while they know NASA has HEC cloud computing options, they were hesitant to use them due to unknown scheduling practices or assumed higher costs."

The disparate fleet of HEC deployed across NASA also lacks strong security, the audit found. Some aren't regularly monitored – a big problem, because some are accessible by foreign nationals with whom NASA collaborates.

"Security controls are often bypassed or not implemented, increasing the risk of cyber attacks," the report warns.

Another issue the audit points out is that NASA is not keeping pace with modern supercomputing tech.

NASA's Advanced Supercomputing facility, for example, has just 48 GPUs alongside its 18,000 CPUs.

"HEC officials raised multiple concerns regarding this observation, stating that the inability to modernize NASA's systems can be attributed to various factors such as supply chain concerns, modern computing language (coding) requirements, and the scarcity of qualified personnel needed to implement the new technologies," according to the report.

The audit therefore makes ten recommendations, the first of which is for senior leadership to reform how supercomputing is administered and implanted at NASA.

The other nine recommendations are actions the auditor thinks should be performed by a "tiger team" dedicated to fixing known problems across NASA's HEC estate. Among the jobs that team needs to tackle are:

Identify technology gaps, such as GPU transition and code modernization, essential for meeting current and future needs and strategic technological and scientific requirements;

Develop a strategy to improve HEC asset allocations and prioritization for usage, including the appropriate use of on-premises versus cloud resources;

Evaluate cyber risks associated with HEC assets to determine oversight and monitoring requirements, establish risk appetite, and address control deficiencies. Consider using NASA's Splunk enterprise platform as a shared resource;

Develop an inventory of enterprise-wide HEC assets and formalize procedures for hardware and software life-cycle management.

Sorting out security is another item on the tiger team's to-do list.

NASA management agreed to implement the tiger team and concurred with the recommendation to reform its entire supercomputing management apparatus.

Which is welcome, because the audit document repeatedly observes that the current state of NASA's supercomputing estate hampers its efforts to do science and plan new missions, increases its costs, and increasingly threatens its ability to do all the stuff that Register readers find inspiring ®

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/15/nasa_oig_supercomputing_audit/

https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-24-009.pdf

NASA Invites Media to Meet Space Station Astronauts at Headquarters

MAR 14, 2024

NASA will host a media availability with four astronauts at 9:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday, March 19, at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The crew, including record-breaking NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, will discuss their recent mission aboard the International Space Station where they conducted a broad range of science experiments to benefit life on Earth and human space exploration.

Rubio, as well as fellow NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, and UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, served as part of space station Expedition 69 and will participate in the media opportunity.

During his first spaceflight mission, Rubio completed approximately 5,936 orbits and a journey of more than 157 million miles, roughly the equivalent of 328 trips to the Moon and back. Rubio’s extended mission provided researchers the opportunity to observe the effects of long-duration spaceflight on humans as the agency plans to return to the Moon through the Artemis campaign and prepare for exploration of Mars. He returned to Earth in September 2023 aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz spacecraft after spending an American record-breaking 371 days in space.

As part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission, Bowen, Hoburg, and Alneyadi returned to Earth in September 2023 aboard a Dragon spacecraft after spending 186 days aboard the microgravity laboratory. During the mission, Bowen and Hoburg completed two spacewalks, and Alneyadi became the first UAE astronaut to conduct a spacewalk. With 10 spacewalks throughout his missions, Bowen ties the record for most excursions by a U.S. astronaut, also held by four others. He ranks third on the all-time list for cumulative hours of spacewalking.

In addition to their research, crew members also conducted technology demonstrations, and space station maintenance activities. Bowen, Hoburg, and Alneyadi traveled 78,875,292 miles during their mission and completed 2,976 orbits around Earth. The Crew-6 mission was the first spaceflight for Hoburg, Alneyadi, and Fedyaev. Bowen has logged 227 days in space over four flights.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-invites-media-to-meet-space-station-astronauts-at-headquarters/