TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
May 7, 2024
Black Hole Accreting with Jet
What happens when a black hole devours a star? Many details remain unknown, but observations are providing new clues. In 2014, a powerful explosion was recorded by the ground-based robotic telescopes of the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (Project ASAS-SN), with followed-up observations by instruments including NASA's Earth-orbiting Swift satellite. Computer modeling of these emissions fit a star being ripped apart by a distant supermassive black hole. The results of such a collision are portrayed in the featured artistic illustration. The black hole itself is a depicted as a tiny black dot in the center. As matter falls toward the hole, it collides with other matter and heats up. Surrounding the black hole is an accretion disk of hot matter that used to be the star, with a jet emanating from the black hole's spin axis.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
New NASA Black Hole Visualization Takes Viewers Beyond the Brink
MAY 06, 2024
View the plunge in 360 video
“People often ask about this, and simulating these difficult-to-imagine processes helps me connect the mathematics of relativity to actual consequences in the real universe,” said Jeremy Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who created the visualizations. “So I simulated two different scenarios, one where a camera — a stand-in for a daring astronaut — just misses the event horizon and slingshots back out, and one where it crosses the boundary, sealing its fate.”
The visualizations are available in multiple forms. Explainer videos act as sightseeing guides, illuminating the bizarre effects of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Versions rendered as 360-degree videos let viewers look all around during the trip, while others play as flat all-sky maps.
To create the visualizations, Schnittman teamed up with fellow Goddard scientist Brian Powell and used the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation. The project generated about 10 terabytes of data — equivalent to roughly half of the estimated text content in the Library of Congress — and took about 5 days running on just 0.3% of Discover’s 129,000 processors. The same feat would take more than a decade on a typical laptop.
The destination is a supermassive black hole with 4.3 million times the mass of our Sun, equivalent to the monster located at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
“If you have the choice, you want to fall into a supermassive black hole,” Schnittman explained. “Stellar-mass black holes, which contain up to about 30 solar masses, possess much smaller event horizons and stronger tidal forces, which can rip apart approaching objects before they get to the horizon.”
This occurs because the gravitational pull on the end of an object nearer the black hole is much stronger than that on the other end. Infalling objects stretch out like noodles, a process astrophysicists call spaghettification.
The simulated black hole’s event horizon spans about 16 million miles (25 million kilometers), or about 17% of the distance from Earth to the Sun. A flat, swirling cloud of hot, glowing gas called an accretion disk surrounds it and serves as a visual reference during the fall. So do glowing structures called photon rings, which form closer to the black hole from light that has orbited it one or more times. A backdrop of the starry sky as seen from Earth completes the scene.
As the camera approaches the black hole, reaching speeds ever closer to that of light itself, the glow from the accretion disk and background stars becomes amplified in much the same way as the sound of an oncoming racecar rises in pitch. Their light appears brighter and whiter when looking into the direction of travel.
The movies begin with the camera located nearly 400 million miles (640 million kilometers) away, with the black hole quickly filling the view. Along the way, the black hole’s disk, photon rings, and the night sky become increasingly distorted — and even form multiple images as their light traverses the increasingly warped space-time.
In real time, the camera takes about 3 hours to fall to the event horizon, executing almost two complete 30-minute orbits along the way. But to anyone observing from afar, it would never quite get there. As space-time becomes ever more distorted closer to the horizon, the image of the camera would slow and then seem to freeze just shy of it. This is why astronomers originally referred to black holes as “frozen stars.”
At the event horizon, even space-time itself flows inward at the speed of light, the cosmic speed limit. Once inside it, both the camera and the space-time in which it's moving rush toward the black hole's center — a one-dimensional point called a singularity, where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate.
“Once the camera crosses the horizon, its destruction by spaghettification is just 12.8 seconds away,” Schnittman said. From there, it’s only 79,500 miles (128,000 kilometers) to the singularity. This final leg of the voyage is over in the blink of an eye.
In the alternative scenario, the camera orbits close to the event horizon but it never crosses over and escapes to safety. If an astronaut flew a spacecraft on this 6-hour round trip while her colleagues on a mothership remained far from the black hole, she’d return 36 minutes younger than her colleagues. That’s because time passes more slowly near a strong gravitational source and when moving near the speed of light.
“This situation can be even more extreme,” Schnittman noted. “If the black hole were rapidly rotating, like the one shown in the 2014 movie ‘Interstellar,’ she would return many years younger than her shipmates.”
https://science.nasa.gov/supermassive-black-holes/new-nasa-black-hole-visualization-takes-viewers-beyond-the-brink/
A Different Perspective – Remembering James Dean, Founder of the NASA Art Program
MAY 06, 2024
In March 1962, NASA Administrator James Webb addressed a two-paragraph memorandum to NASA Public Affairs Director Hiden T. Cox about the possibility of bringing in artists to highlight the agency’s achievements in a new way. In it, he wrote, “We should consider in a deliberate way just what NASA should do in the field of fine arts to commemorate the … historic events” of America’s initial steps into space.
Shortly thereafter, NASA employee and artist James Dean was tasked with implementing NASA’s brand-new art program. Working alongside National Art Gallery Curator of Painting H. Lester Cooke, he created a framework to give artists unparalleled access to NASA missions at every step along the way, such as suit-up, launch and landing activities, and meetings with scientists and astronauts.
“It’s amazing just how good a sketch pad is at getting you into places,” Dean said in a 2008 oral history interview. “People shy away from cameras, but sketch pads, pencils, paints, you know … a lot of doors got opened that you could never open by making an official request.”
The NASA Art Program selected an initial group of eight artists – Peter Hurd, George Weymouth, Paul Calle, Robert McCall, Robert Shore, Lamar Dodd, John McCoy, and Mitchell Jamieson – in May 1963 to capture their interpretations of the final flight of the Mercury program, Faith 7. Seven of these men spent their time exploring Cape Canaveral and covering prelaunch activities; Jamieson covered splashdown and landing by being assigned to one of the recovery ships.
Though the grants and honorariums associated with being a NASA Art Program participant were always nominal – $800 in the 1960s and up to $3,000 in the early 2000s – many other well-known artists continued to work with the program through the decades that followed, including Norman Rockwell, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Annie Leibowitz, and Chakaia Booker.
“It wasn’t money they were after,” Dean noted. “They were interested in the experience and being invited back into where history was being made. I mean, artists have been with explorers … [since] the early days of exploration in this country.”
Dean also recognized the importance of having a diverse range of artists present, even if they were all ostensibly there to capture the same historical event. “When you have six artists sitting together painting the same thing,” he explained, “each painting is different. And that’s because … they’re seeing all the same thing, but the image goes through their imagination too and all their experience.”
While there were some initial concerns about the NASA engineers and scientists accepting the artists as a new, prolonged presence in their midst, Dean found that once they “let the artist in and see what they were doing, they really hit it off because the engineers and the scientists and the artists really use a lot of imagination. So they were really connecting on a certain level.” He also observed a unique symbiosis occurring between artist and worker: “When an artist … turns your workplace into a work of art, you know, it validates everything you’ve been doing. It is a real motivating factor to see something like that.”
Dean served as the director of the NASA Art Program from 1962 to 1974, before leaving to become the first art curator for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum from 1974 until his retirement in 1980. He passed away in Washington on March 22, 2024, at the age of 92. But his legacy lives on in the NASA Art Program collection, which currently has some 3,000 works divided between the National Air and Space Museum and NASA. Today, the program is focused on STEM outreach initiatives to inspire youth through creative activity.
https://www.nasa.gov/general/a-different-perspective-remembering-james-dean-founder-of-the-nasa-art-program/
'Buzzing' rocket valve pushes 1st astronaut launch of Boeing's Starliner capsule to May 10
May 7, 2024
The first crewed flight of Boeing's new Starliner capsule has been pushed to the end of the week due to a technical issue.
Starliner was supposed to launch late Monday night (May 6) on Crew Flight Test (CFT), a roughly 10-day mission that will carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and back. But mission teams called the attempt off about two hours before Monday's planned liftoff, after identifying a faulty "oxygen relief valve" on the upper stage of Starliner's rocket ride, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V. The valve was "buzzing," opening and closing rapidly, during the launch countdown, forcing the delay, ULA officials said.
NASA, ULA and Boeing initially expressed optimism that the issue could be resolved quickly, perhaps even in time for another launch attempt on Tuesday night (May 7). But, early Tuesday morning, the teams announced that CFT will lift off no earlier than Friday night (May 10).
"The delay allows teams to complete data analysis on a pressure regulation valve on the liquid oxygen tank of the Atlas V rocket's Centaur upper stage and determine whether it is necessary to replace the valve," NASA officials wrote in an update on Tuesday.
A launch on Friday would occur at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT on May 11). There's an additional backup opportunity on Saturday (May 11), NASA officials said. Whenever CFT launches, you can watch the action here at Space.com.
It's too soon to know if Starliner and the Atas V will be ready to fly on Friday or Saturday, however. That depends on whether ULA decides to replace the valve, which would require rolling the rocket off the launch pad and back to its assembly facility.
Teams would then apply "tooling to support the Centaur, and the Starliner on top, and then we'd take off all the pressure and simply remove and replace the valve, pressurize it, remove the tooling, and then we'd be ready to roll back," ULA CEO Tory Bruno said in a post-scrub press conference on Monday night.
"That procedure takes several days," he added. So, if valve replacement turns out to be necessary, "it's unlikely we would be prepared to make another attempt before Sunday."
CFT's two crewmembers are NASA's Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. After the scrub was announced, both astronauts disembarked from Starliner and headed back to the crew quarters at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which is next door to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, agency officials said.
In 2014, NASA awarded both Boeing and SpaceX multibillion-dollar contracts to fly astronauts to and from the ISS.
SpaceX has been doing so since 2020 with its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket; Elon Musk's company has already completed seven such operational crewed flights for NASA and is in the middle of mission number eight. Boeing, however, has experienced numerous delays in Starliner's development and has yet to launch a crew.
https://www.space.com/starliner-crew-flight-test-launch-delay-may-10
China launches first Long March 6C rocket
May 7, 2024
HELSINKI — The new Long March 6C rocket successfully inserted four satellites into orbit late Monday on its debut flight.
The first Long March 6C rocket lifted off from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, north China, at 11:21 Eastern, May 6 (0321 UTC on May 7). The Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), the rocket’s manufacturer, confirmed launch success within an hour of liftoff.
Four satellites were aboard the launch. The main payload was Haiwangxing-1, or Neptune-1, an experimental, 239-kilogram X-band synthetic aperture radar satellite. Neptune-1 was manufactured by SAST for Zhihui Space Tech. The latter firm aims to launch 12 operational satellites for the Neptune constellation.
The other satellites included Zhixing 1C, another SAR satellite, this time for Beijing-based Smart Satellite. The other two are described as wide-view optical and high-resolution video satellites. The mission was a SAST rideshare launch.
The new, 43-meter-tall rocket is the latest in a line of new-generation rockets developed by SAST designated in the Long March 6 series.
The Long March 6C appears as a shorter variant of the 50-meter-tall Long March 6A without the latter’s four solid rocket boosters. The rocket is capable of lifting about 2,400 kgs to a 500-kilometer Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). The 6A can carry 4,500 kg to a 700-km SSO. The variants provide greater launch options and flexibility.
The launch was China’s 20th of 2024 and follows the May 3 launch of the Chang’e-6 sample return mission. China aims to launch around 100 times this year.
SAST’s new rockets
The Long March 6C is not the only new SAST rocket expected to fly this year. The academy is also planning to debut its 3.8m-diameter Long March 12 later this year from a new commercial launch site at Wenchang. It will be capable of lifting 10 tons to low Earth orbit or 6 tons to a 700-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit.
The rockets are part of a new generation of Chinese rockets that use kerosene and liquid oxygen instead of toxic, hypergolic propellant. However, access to spaceports capable of facilitating these launches has slowed the rate at which the older Long March rockets can be replaced.
There are greater, yet more nebulous plans beyond the above. The academy aims to debut a 4.0-meter-diameter rocket in the next couple of years. It could use methane-liquid oxygen engines developed by a commercial entity.
A SAST promotional video released with today’s launch shows the Long March 6A and 6C next to two further rocket models. Both future models appear to have landing legs for recovery and reuse. It is unclear which rockets these are.
SAST is a major institute under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s state-owned main space contractor.
Beijing-based China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) is CASC’s other rocket design and manufacturing arm. CALT is developing the new Long March 10 reusable rocket for human spaceflight. One variant of which will be designed to send astronauts and a landing stack to the moon. The Long March 10 will be slowed by retropropulsion and caught by tight wires when in recoverable mode.
Commercial reusability in China
China’s efforts to develop reusable rockets do not stop there. The country’s commercial launch service providers are also working on reusable launchers. These notably include Space Pioneer’s Tianlong-3, which will be comparable in capacity to the Falcon 9 and due to launch later in the summer. Landspace is working on its Zhuque-3 stainless steel rocket at Jiuquan, while iSpace is also developing a methane-liquid oxygen Hyperbola-3 rocket. A number of these companies have also conducted hop tests, along with SAST and CASC’s sister entity CASIC.
The first orbital launch and landing attempt may however come from Deep Blue Aerospace. The firm plans to launch its light-lift Nebula-1 rocket in the second half of the year. Galactic Energy is also working towards the first launch of the Pallas-1 kerosene-liquid oxygen rocket. The first flight, expected later this year, is likely to be expendable.
https://spacenews.com/china-launches-first-long-march-6c-rocket/
Search engine focused on Earth data gets new investors
May 6, 2024
KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Danti, an AI startup that developed a search engine for Earth data, is gaining users within the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, said the company’s founder and CEO Jesse Kallman.
Danti, based in Atlanta, announced last week it secured $5 million in seed funding, an investment led by venture capital firm Shield Capital, which focuses on artificial intelligence and defense technologies. This is Shield Capital’s first investment in Danti.
The company’s search engine leverages artificial intelligence to unlock insights from a vast array of Earth observation data. This includes satellite imagery, drone footage, social media information, and government databases.
Users can ask questions in plain English and receive comprehensive answers that combine data points from all sources. This can be helpful for a wide range of users, from insurance underwriters assessing risk to military analysts tracking troop movements
“There is a massive data overload, distribution, and knowledge gap problem that companies and governments alike are facing,” said Kallman.
By leveraging AI and natural language processing, users of any skill level can get answers in a matter of seconds, he said.
David Rothzeid, vice president of Shield Capital, said harnessing data across multiple sources is a challenge for most industries. “Danti’s large language models enable a new kind of search engine that has the potential to democratize the world’s massive amounts of data.”
Defense and intelligence analysts are using Danti’s engine to “connect large, very distributed datasets that live across government servers, commercial servers, the open Internet, and allow users to use all of that information as if it were all in the same place, all structured the same way. And they can interact with it, conversationally,” Kallman said.
“You can’t do this with ChatGPT,” Kallman said of the popular chatbot. “We’ve adapted language model infrastructure that’s been specifically tuned and trained for this kind of information,” he said. “The U.S. government has already procured quite a lot of this geospatial intelligence content for their benefit. The question is, do they have access to it? Do they know about it?”
https://spacenews.com/search-engine-focused-on-earth-data-gets-new-investors/