TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
May 3, 2024
Temperatures on Exoplanet WASP-43b
A mere 280 light-years from Earth, tidally locked, Jupiter-sized exoplanet WASP-43b orbits its parent star once every 0.8 Earth days. That puts it about 2 million kilometers (less than 1/25th the orbital distance of Mercury) from a small, cool sun. Still, on a dayside always facing its parent star, temperatures approach a torrid 2,500 degrees F as measured at infrared wavelengths by the MIRI instrument on board the James Webb Space Telescope. In this illustration of the hot exoplanet's orbit, Webb measurements also show nightside temperatures remain above 1,000 degrees F. That suggests that strong equatorial winds circulate the dayside atmospheric gases to the nightside before they can completely cool off. Exoplanet WASP-43b is now formally known as Astrolábos, and its K-type parent star has been christened Gnomon. Webb's infrared spectra indicate water vapor is present on the nightside as well as the dayside of the planet, providing information about cloud cover on Astrolábos.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
By Their Powers Combined
MAY 01, 2024
This April 20, 2024, image shows a first: all six radio frequency antennas at the Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex, part of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), carried out a test to receive data from the agency’s Voyager 1 spacecraft at the same time.
Combining the antennas’ receiving power, or arraying, lets the DSN collect the very faint signals from faraway spacecraft. Voyager 1 is over 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, so its signal on Earth is far fainter than any other spacecraft with which the DSN communicates. It currently takes Voyager 1’s signal over 22 ½ hours to travel from the spacecraft to Earth. To better receive Voyager 1’s radio communications, a large antenna – or an array of multiple smaller antennas – can be used. A five-antenna array is currently needed to downlink science data from the spacecraft’s Plasma Wave System (PWS) instrument. As Voyager gets further way, six antennas will be needed.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/by-their-powers-combined/
Hi-C Rocket Experiment Achieves Never-Before-Seen Look at Solar Flares
MAY 02, 2024
After months of preparation and years since its last flight, the upgraded High Resolution Coronal Imager Flare mission – Hi-C Flare, for short – took to the skies for a never-before-seen view of a solar flare.
The low-noise cameras – built at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama – are part of a suite of state-of-the-art instruments on board the Black Brant IX sounding rocket that launched April 17 from Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska. Using the new technology, investigators hoped to study the extreme energies involved with solar flares. The Hi-C Flare experiment mission was led by Marshall.
“This is a pioneering campaign,” said Sabrina Savage, principal investigator at Marshall for Hi-C Flare. “Launching sounding rockets to observe the Sun to test new technologies optimized for flare observations has not even been an option until now.”
It was the third iteration of the Hi-C instrument to take flight, but its first flight with ride along instruments, including the COOL-AID (Coronal OverLapagram – Ancillary Imaging Diagnostics), CAPRI-SUN (high-CAdence low-energy Passband x-Ray detector with Integrated full-SUN field of view), and SSAXI (Swift Solar Activity X-ray Imager). Following a month of payload integration and testing in White Sands, New Mexico, investigators completed final launch site integration at the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska.
Each morning of the two-week launch campaign window, the team spent about five hours preparing the experiment for launch, followed by up to four hours of monitoring solar data for a flare that registers as C5-class or higher with duration longer than the rocket flight. The launch finally occurred on the penultimate day of the campaign window.
“The Sun was unusually quiet throughout the campaign despite numerous active regions,” said Savage. “Both teams were getting nervous that we would not launch, but we finally got a nice long-duration M-class flare right before the window closed.”
The Hi-C Flare mission launched at 2:14 p.m. AKDT, just one minute after the FOXSI-4 (Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager) mission led by the University of Minnesota. Once in air, sensors on the Hi-C Flare rocket pointed cameras toward the Sun and stabilized instrumentation. Then, a shutter door opened to allow the cameras to gather about five minutes of data before the door closed and the rocket fell back to Earth.
The rocket landed in the Alaskan tundra, where it remained until conditions were safe enough for the team to retrieve it and begin processing the collected data.
“For launches into the tundra, we have to wait a few days for the instrument to get back to us and then to be dried out enough to turn on,” said Savage. “It was an anxious few days, but the data are beautiful and were worth the wait.”
Investigators weren’t just testing new technology, either. They also used a new algorithm to predict the behavior of a solar flare, allowing them to launch the rocket at the ideal time.
“To catch a flare in action is really hard, because you can’t predict them,” said Genevieve Vigil, technical and camera lead for Hi-C 3 and COOL-AID at Marshall. “We had to wait around for a solar flare to start going, then launch as it’s happening. No one has tried to do that before.”
Fortunately, their method was a success.
“We are still processing the data from all four instruments, but the data from Hi-C 3 and COOL-AID already look fantastic,” said Savage.
“The COOL-AID data is the first spectrally pure image in a hot spectral line that we know of,” said Amy Winebarger, project scientist at Marshall for Hi-C Flare.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/hi-c-rocket-experiment-achieves-never-before-seen-look-at-solar-flares/
NASA Partner Zooniverse Receives White House Open Science Award
MAY 02, 2024
Congrats to NASA partner Zooniverse for being named winners in the White House’s Year of Open Science Recognition Challenge!
The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) designated 2023 as the year of Open Science, and invited innovators to submit stories of how they’ve advanced equitable open science. OSTP and its federal partners selected five challenge project submissions as “Champions of Open Science” including Zooniverse.
Since 2007, Zooniverse has become the largest online open data platform for people-powered research, engaging more than 2.7 million people. NASA Citizen Science projects hosted on the Zooniverse platform include Cloudspotting on Mars, Dark Energy Explorers, Floating Forests, Are We Alone In the Universe?, Disk Detective, Solar Active Region Spotter, Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors, Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, Active Asteroids, Daily Minor Planet, Solar Jet Hunter, Jovian Vortex Hunter, Redshift Wrangler, Burst Chaser and Planet Hunters TESS.
“With Zooniverse we have classified more galaxies than we ever thought possible!” said Lindsay House, scientist on the Dark Energy Explorers project. “Zooniverse participants have been vital in helping us map the universe.”
https://science.nasa.gov/get-involved/citizen-science/nasa-partner-zooniverse-receives-white-house-open-science-award/
NASA Is Helping Protect Tigers, Jaguars, and Elephants
MAY 02, 2024
As human populations grow, habitat loss threatens many creatures. Mapping wildlife habitat using satellites is a rapidly expanding area of ecology, and NASA satellites play a crucial role in these efforts. Tigers, jaguars, and elephants are a few of the vulnerable animals whose habitats NASA is helping track from space.
“Satellites observe vast areas of Earth's surface on daily to weekly schedules,” said Keith Gaddis, ecological conservation program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “That helps scientists monitor habitats that would be logistically challenging and time-consuming to survey from the ground — crucial for animals like tigers that roam large territories.”
Here’s how NASA and its partners help protect three of Earth’s most iconic species:
Trouble (and Hope) for Tigers
Tigers have lost at least 93% of their historical range, which once spanned Eurasia. Roughly 3,700 to 5,500 wild tigers remain, up from an estimated low of 3,200 in 2010.
In a recent study, researchers reviewed over 500 studies that contained data on tigers and their habitat across Asia. The team found that the area where the big cats are known to live declined 11%, from about 396,000 square miles in 2001 to about 352,000 square miles in 2020.
Led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and funded by NASA’s Ecological Conservation program, the team developed a tool that uses Google Earth Engine and NASA Earth observations to monitor changes in tiger habitat. The goal: aid conservation efforts in near-real time, using data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagers, and Landsat satellites.
The researchers mapped large stretches of “empty forests” without recent tiger presence. Because these areas were suitable habitat and are still big enough to support tigers, they are potential landscapes for restoration, assuming there is enough food. If tigers could reach those areas, either through natural dispersal or active reintroduction, it could “increase the land base for tigers by 50%,” the scientists reported.
“There’s still a lot more room for tigers in the world than even tiger experts thought,” said lead author Eric Sanderson, formerly a senior conservation ecologist at WCS and now vice president of urban conservation at the New York Botanical Garden. “We were only able to figure that out because we brought together all of this data from NASA and integrated it with information from the field.”
Where the Jaguars Are
Jaguars once roamed from the U.S. Southwest to Argentina. But in the past century, they have lost about 50% of their range, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Like tigers, jaguars must contend with poaching and the loss of food sources. Wild jaguars number between 64,000 and 173,000 individuals, and IUCN classifies them as near-threatened.
In Gran Chaco, South America’s second largest woodland, jaguars and other animals live in an especially threatened ecosystem.
The dry lowland forest stretches from northern Argentina into Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil, and has experienced severe deforestation.
Jaguars in Argentina’s Chaco may number in the hundreds. Using data on land use and infrastructure, plus Earth observations from MODIS and Landsat, NASA-funded researchers mapped priority conservation areas for jaguars and other important animals. About 36% of the priority areas in Argentina’s Chaco are currently “low-protection” zones, where deforestation is allowed.
“Managers and conservationists could use the new spatial information to see where current forest zoning is protecting key animals, and where it may need re-evaluation,” said lead author Sebastian Martinuzzi of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Elephants Seek Out Forest Havens
African savanna elephants now occupy an estimated 15% of their historical range, and their numbers have declined. One study surveyed about 90% of the elephants’ range and estimated that their numbers dropped by 144,000 elephants from 2007 to 2014, leaving approximately 352,000 individuals. In 2021, the IUCN updated the elephants’ status to endangered.
A recent study used NASA satellite-derived vegetation indices and other data to study elephants in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve, and in nearby semi-protected and unprotected zones.
cont.
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/nasa-is-helping-protect-tigers-jaguars-and-elephants-heres-how/
2 colossal solar flares explode from the sun and Earth is in the firing line
May 3, 2024
Newly emerged sunspot region AR3663 is already making a name for itself, firing off not one but two powerful solar flares within just six hours of each other.
The first eruption occurred last night (May 2) when the sun released the most powerful category flare, an X-class solar flare, causing shortwave radio blackouts across Australia, Japan and much of China. The flare peaked at 10:22 p.m. EDT (0222 GMT) and ended shortly after at 10:27 p.m. EDT (0227 GMT). The next eruption came this morning (May 3) when the second most powerful category flare, an M-class solar flare, peaked around 4:00 a.m. EDT (0800 GMT).
The explosive sunspot was facing Earth at the time of both eruptions and it is possible that a coronal mass ejection (CME), a large expulsion of plasma and magnetic field, accompanied at least one of these solar flares.
Shortly after the X-flare, the U.S. Air Force reported a Type II solar radio burst "a type of natural radio signal emitted by shocked gas at the leading edge of a CME," Spaceweather.com reported.
If a CME is Earth-directed it can wreak havoc with power grids, telecommunication networks and orbiting satellites, as well as expose astronauts to dangerous doses of radiation. But they are a welcomed visitor for skywatchers as they can trigger geomagnetic storms which in turn spark dynamic aurora displays visible at latitudes beyond their 'normal' polar range.
You can stay tuned with the latest details concerning any Earth-directed components of the recent eruptions on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center's forecast discussion.
According to solar physicist Keith Strong, last night's X-flare was the 11th largest flare so far this cycle.
"X FLARE! Sunspot region AR3663 just produced an X1.7 flare, the 11th largest flare so far this cycle. It was an impulsive flare lasting a total of about 25 minutes and peaking at 02:22 U.T," Strong posted on X.
Solar flares, eruptions from the sun's surface, emit intense bursts of electromagnetic radiation. They occur when magnetic energy accumulating in the solar atmosphere is subsequently released.
Solar flares are categorized by size into lettered groups, with X-class being the most powerful. Then there are M-class flares that are 10 times less powerful than X-class flares, followed by C-class flares which are 10 times weaker than M-class flares, B-class are 10 times weaker than C-class flares and finally, A-class flares which are 10 times weaker than B-class flares and have no noticeable consequences on Earth.
Within each class, numbers from 1-10 (and beyond for X-class flares) describe a flare's relative strength. Last night's flare clocked in at X1.69, according to Spaceweatherlive.com, measured by NASA's GOES-16 satellite, and this morning's flare peaked at M4.5.
Shortwave radio blackouts like the one witnessed over Australia, Japan and much of China last night are common shortly after powerful solar flare eruptions due to the strong pulse of X-rays and extreme ultraviolet radiation emitted during these events.
The radiation travels toward Earth at the speed of light and ionizes (gives an electrical charge to) the top of Earth's atmosphere when it reaches us.
This ionization causes a higher-density environment for the high-frequency shortwave radio signals to navigate through in order to support communication over long distances.
The radio waves that interact with electrons in the ionized layers lose energy due to more frequent collisions, and this can lead to radio signals becoming degraded or completely absorbed according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.
Solar activity is ramping up as we approach solar maximum, the peak of solar activity during the sun's approximately 11-year solar cycle, indicated by the frequency of sunspots.
Despite the large number of sunspots currently visible on the sun's surface, our star has been relatively quiet in recent weeks.
But not anymore.
https://www.space.com/two-solar-flares-erupt-within-six-hours-may-2024-video
Citizen scientists find remarkable exoplanet, name it after Harry Potter character
May 3, 2024
Citizen scientists searching through data collected by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered a record-breaking world, and gave it a memorable nickname to match: Percival, after the father of Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books.
In more official terms, however, the extrasolar planet, or "exoplanet," is designated TOI 4633 c.
But there is more to Percival than its association with the Dumbledores. The planet, which is around three times the size of Earth, orbits TOI 4633 A, a sun-sized star in a binary system located around 309 light-years from Earth. The world also happens to sit in that star's habitable zone, a region with temperatures neither too hot nor too cold to allow liquid water to exist, hence its other moniker: The "Goldilocks zone."
That's why Percival is so special. Not only is it serendipitously in the Goldilocks zone, but scientists also believe planets are half as likely to form in systems with more than one star. And that's not all.
Additionally, Percival appears to have the most elongated orbit of its planetary category, namely Neptune-like planets. The exoplanet also has the second-longest orbit found in all TESS data thus far, and is one of just five worlds with orbits longer than 100 days that the NASA exoplanet-hunting spacecraft has spotted since it launched to space in 2018.
"This planet is remarkable in many aspects," Nora Eisner of the Center for Computational Astrophysics and principal investigator of Planet Hunters TESS, said in a statement. "It's remarkable in its orbit, it's remarkable for being in the habitable zone and it's remarkable for orbiting a bright star."
What do we know about this magical star system?
Percival was spotted because it crosses, or transits, the face of the star TOI 4633, causing a tiny dip in light that TESS is sensitive enough to spot. The transit method is usually better at spotting planets that closely orbit their stars. That's because star-hugging planets are more likely to make a transit between Earth and their star while scientists' instruments watch, thus allowing us to detect a light-blocking arrangement more frequently.
Still, Percival is unusually distant from its star for a transit-method detected world, taking around 272 Earth days to orbit its star.
Ironically, scientists think there is another planet in this system, TOI 4633 b, that orbits closer to its parent star and takes just 34 Earth days to complete a revolution. However, this information hasn't been confirmed because, despite its proximity to its star, TOI 4633 b doesn't pass between its star and TESS. Thus, it doesn't transit its star from our vantage point and our instruments have difficulty in analyzing it.
Also part of the binary system is the star TOI 4633 B (notice capital letters denoting stars and lower case letters representing planets), which takes around 203 Earth years to loop around TOI 4633 A and its orbiting planets.
Binary stars form in a star system from the same cloud of gas and dust when cool, overly dense regions "clump" together and gather enough mass to collapse under their own gravity. If there is enough material, then two stars can form. That's a binary system.
Planets are born from material leftover after the creation of a star, explaining why if a cloud of matter has birthed two stars, it is less likely to birth planets, too.
"Finding planets in multi-star systems is crucial for our understanding of how you can make different planets out of the same material," Eisner said. "It's quite exciting that we found this one."
Though Percival is located in the habitable zone of its star, to be clear, it isn't likely to be very friendly to life as we know it. The planet likely lacks a solid surface; instead, it seems to be composed of a thick atmosphere of water vapor, hydrogen and methane, making it more like a solar system gas giant than a rocky Earth-like world.
However, just as Jupiter and Saturn are proposed to have moons of ice and rock like Enceladus that could support life, Percival could be orbited by exomoons that are more favorable to living things.
"If this planet were to have a moon, that moon would likely have a solid surface, which could then be a great place to find water," Eisner said.
There is no sign of these exomoons yet, but the system would be a good choice for future exomoon detection campaigns thanks to the brightness of its stars and the long orbit of Percival, factors thought to be advantageous to exomoon detection.
cont.
https://www.space.com/citizen-scientists-find-exoplanet-harry-potter-inspired
'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' returns to theaters for its 25th anniversary today
May 3, 2024
Check your midichlorian counts, gas up your fastest podracers and prepare for the triumphant theatrical return of "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" beginning on May 3, 2024 in celebration of the polarizing prequel's big 25th anniversary bash.
Written and directed by mastermind George Lucas, "The Phantom Menace" arrived on the big screen on May 19, 1999 with unrivaled hype and a storm of media attention. It was the first journey back to the galaxy far, far away since the conclusion of the original trilogy with 1983’s "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi" sixteen years earlier.
This initial episode entry, in what came to be known as the prequel trilogy, presented characters new an old in the form of Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd), Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson), Queen Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman), the evil Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid), the horned Dathomirian Darth Maul (Ray Park), Jedi Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson), and the goofy lop-eared Gungan called Jar-Jar Binks (Ahmed Best).
"Experience the heroic action and unforgettable adventures of 'Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.' See the first fateful steps in the journey of Anakin Skywalker. Stranded on the desert planet Tatooine after rescuing young Queen Amidala from the impending invasion of Naboo, Jedi apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn discover nine-year-old Anakin, who is unusually strong in the Force.
Anakin wins a thrilling podrace and with it his freedom as he leaves his home to be trained as a Jedi. The heroes return to Naboo where Anakin and the Queen face massive invasion forces while the two Jedi contend with a deadly foe named Darth Maul. Only then do they realize the invasion is merely the first step in a sinister scheme by the re-emergent forces of darkness known as the Sith."
Whether this installment in the "Star Wars" saga is your favorite of all time or one that still feels disjointed and disappointing, there's no denying the dynamic surge of adrenalin felt during the Tatooine podracing sequence and the sonic power of composer John Williams' operatic score, especially his "Duel of the Fates" track for the electrifying Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Maul lightsaber battle.
As an added bonus, fans will also gain an extended look at "Star Wars: The Acolyte," coming to Disney+ June 4, 2024, following the 25th anniversary film presentation.
https://www.space.com/star-wars-phantom-menace-theaters-25th-anniversary