TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
May 30, 2024
A Lunar Corona over Paris
Why does a cloudy moon sometimes appear colorful? The effect, called a lunar corona, is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently. Lunar coronae are one of the few quantum mechanical color effects that can be easily seen with the unaided eye. Solar coronae are also sometimes evident. The featured image was taken last month from Paris, France. The blue beacon emanating from the Eiffel Tower did not affect the colorful lunar corona.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
The Marshall Star for May 29, 2024
CONTENTS
More to Marshall: Center Leadership Provides Updates During Spring All-Hands Meeting
Les Johnson Named Center Chief Technologist at Marshall
Take 5 with Jose Matienzo
Marshall Team Supports Safe Travels for Space Station Science
Spotted: ‘Death Star’ Black Holes in Action
NASA, IBM Research to Release New AI Model for Weather, Climate
Psyche Fires Up Its Sci-Fi-Worthy Thrusters
NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX Unscathed After Searing Pass of Sun
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/the-marshall-star-for-may-29-2024/
NASA Lucy Images Reveal Asteroid Dinkinesh to be Surprisingly Complex
MAY 29, 2024
Images from the November 2023 flyby of asteroid Dinkinesh by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft show a trough on Dinkinesh where a large piece — about a quarter of the asteroid — suddenly shifted, a ridge, and a separate contact binary satellite (now known as Selam).
Scientists say this complicated structure shows that Dinkinesh and Selam have significant internal strength and a complex, dynamic history.
“We want to understand the strengths of small bodies in our solar system because that’s critical for understanding how planets like Earth got here,” said Hal Levison, Lucy principal investigator at the Boulder, Colorado, branch of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
“Basically, the planets formed when zillions of smaller objects orbiting the Sun, like asteroids, ran into each other.
How objects behave when they hit each other, whether they break apart or stick together, has a lot to do with their strength and internal structure.” Levison is lead author of a paper on these observations published May 29 in Nature.
Researchers think that Dinkinesh is revealing its internal structure by how it has responded to stress. Over millions of years rotating in the sunlight, the tiny forces coming from the thermal radiation emitted from the asteroid’s warm surface generated a small torque that caused Dinkinesh to gradually rotate faster, building up centrifugal stresses until part of the asteroid shifted into a more elongated shape.
This event likely caused debris to enter into a close orbit, which became the raw material that produced the ridge and satellite.
If Dinkinesh were much weaker, more like a fluid pile of sand, its particles would have gradually moved toward the equator and flown off into orbit as it spun faster. However, the images suggest that it was able to hold together longer, more like a rock, with more strength than a fluid, eventually giving way under stress and fragmenting into large pieces. (Although the amount of strength needed to fragment a small asteroid like Dinkinesh is miniscule compared to most rocks on Earth.)
“The trough suggests an abrupt failure, more an earthquake with a gradual buildup of stress and then a sudden release, instead of a slow process like a sand dune forming,” said Keith Noll of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, project scientist for Lucy and a co-author of the paper.
“These features tell us that Dinkinesh has some strength, and they let us do a little historical reconstruction to see how this asteroid evolved,” said Levison. “It broke, things moved apart and formed a disk of material during that failure, some of which rained back onto the surface to make the ridge.”
The researchers think some of the material in the disk formed the moon Selam, which is actually two objects touching each other, a configuration called a contact binary. Details of how this unusual moon formed remain mysterious.
Dinkinesh and its satellite are the first two of 11 asteroids that Lucy’s team plans to explore over its 12-year journey. After skimming the inner edge of the main asteroid belt, Lucy is now heading back toward Earth for a gravity assist in December 2024. That close flyby will propel the spacecraft back through the main asteroid belt, where it will observe asteroid Donaldjohanson in 2025, and then on to the first of the encounters with the Trojan asteroids that lead and trail Jupiter in its orbit of the Sun beginning in 2027.
Lucy’s principal investigator is based out of the Boulder, Colorado, branch of Southwest Research Institute, headquartered in San Antonio.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance.
Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built and operates the spacecraft. Lucy is the 13th mission in NASA’s Discovery Program.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/asteroids/nasa-lucy-images-reveal-asteroid-dinkinesh-to-be-surprisingly-complex/
https://amac.us/newsline/society/did-this-nasa-scientist-just-break-the-laws-of-physics/
https://www.exoduspropulsion.space/#0
Did This NASA Scientist Just Break The Laws Of Physics?
May 30, 2024
A new startup co-founded by former NASA engineer Charles Buhler believes that it is on the verge of developing a new type of engine that can produce forward motion without releasing propellant – a discovery which, if true, would rewrite physics textbooks and change the world overnight.
Buhler’s company, Exodus Propulsion Technologies, says it has created a drive powered by a “New Force” which exists outside the established laws of physics.
Specifically, Buhler says, the New Force proves “that electric fields alone can generate a sustainable force onto an object and allow center-of-mass translation of said object without expelling mass.”
Using this discovery, Exodus says it can overcome earth’s gravity without any traditional propellants.
Translation? Exodus claims it can shoot a spaceship into orbit without any sort of fuel or combustion just by harnessing and directing the energy from electric fields.
On the company’s website, they liken a traditional spacecraft engine to a fire extinguisher. They explain that a spacecraft moves through space by using a chemical reaction “to force mass at high velocity out through a nozzle, making the rocket move in the opposite direction.”
But rocket engines and fire extinguishers both have a major limitation – a finite amount of propellant.
Exodus’s new drive is described as a rocket motor that works “more like a light bulb than a fire extinguisher.”
Using electrical charges and microwaves, the drive would take in energy and create forward momentum without any discernible exhaust.
If this were possible, the application would be far greater than just space travel. If it could create a virtually limitless amount of propulsion without traditional fuel, then this would be equivalent to pulling energy “out of empty space itself.”
Everything from cars to entire cities could be powered by the invisible electric fields that exist all around us.
All of this might sound like something straight out of a science fiction movie – and there remains good reason to be skeptical.
Scientists and engineers have for decades claimed to have discovered the same type of “impossible” drive system as the one Exodus now also says it has produced, only to be disproven.
British Electrical Engineer Roger Shawyer pioneered the concept of a propellant-free drive system in 2001, dubbing it the “EmDrive.”
His team also claimed to have created a working prototype much like the one Buhler now describes. But after two decades of scientific scrutiny, Shawyer’s EmDrive was exposed as bunk in 2021.
The major reason many scientists don’t believe a propellant-free drive system is possible is that it appears to violate long-established laws of physics.
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Specifically, Newton’s Third Law asserts that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” – the basic idea which underpins all existing propulsion technology.
From this law, Newton also derived the Law of Conservation of Momentum, which states that momentum in a closed system can neither be created nor destroyed.
That law is fundamental to how all engines work. As NASA explains, “a jet engine produces thrust and hot exhaust gases flow out the back of the engine, and a thrusting force is produced in the opposite direction.”
These laws are considered immutable and critical to our understanding of the universe.
Importantly, Newton’s Third Law is the only of his three famous principles that still holds up with no exceptions following Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the revolution in quantum mechanics.
If Buhler’s team really has created a drive that is truly reactionless yet produces momentum, it means that Newton, Einstein, Maxwell Planck, and every other great physicist throughout history were all fundamentally wrong about physics and the nature of the universe.
Both Newtonian physics and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity rest on the principle of translational symmetry, or the idea that the laws of physics are the same no matter where you are in space.
But a successful EmDrive would mean that a closed system’s momentum and overall energy can change – and change by different amounts depending on where that system exists in space.
As astrophysicist Ethan Siegel explained in a piece for Forbes, “The most sacred law of particle physics – one that has been observed to apply to every system and every interaction set in history – would be busted.”
Siegel and other experts in the field remain doubtful that Buhler’s “New Force” is what he claims it to be. The momentum which Shawyer’s team supposedly created in their EmDrive tests was ultimately shown to be from poor experiment design and faulty measuring devices.
However, it should not be forgotten that Einstein’s breakthroughs once represented a similar earthquake in physics, and that he too faced intense skepticism from the scientific establishment.
It may well be that mankind is on the precipice of a new breakthrough that changes our understanding of the universe and could reshape our lives forever.
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Vertical Flight Society’s Hirschberg receives NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal
May 30, 2024
The Vertical Flight Society (VFS) has announced that VFS director of strategy Mike Hirschberg has received the Exceptional Public Service Medal (EPSM) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The prestigious EPSM recognition “Is awarded to any individual who was not a government employee during the period in which the service was performed. This award is granted for exceptional contributions to NASA’s mission.”
During the NASA Ames Research Center’s “2023 Presidential Rank & NASA Honors Awards” ceremony, held on May 22, 2024, some 73 individual and 27 group awards were given to NASA employees, contractors and groups, including many NASA employees and teams working on advancing vertical flight, advanced air mobility and planetary exploration rotorcraft. Of the 100 awards, Hirschberg was the only individual award recipient who was neither a NASA employee nor contractor.
“Receiving the EPSM award was the most humbling honor in my 33-year career,” Hirschberg said.
“The incredible achievements of the other 99 recipients — including many by VFS members — was a tour de force of scientific breakthroughs, advancements and career accomplishments by the nation’s aerospace science and technology research leaders.”
Hirschberg was nominated last year by Dr. Bill Warmbrodt, chief of the Aeromechanics Branch at NASA Ames in Mountain View, California.
The citation read: “For exceptional international leadership and advocacy of vertical lift technologies and aggressive support of advanced air mobility development and workplace diversity.” Warmbrodt, who was the first recipient of a VFS Vertical Flight Foundation (VFF) scholarship in 1977, was also recognized for his 45 years of service to NASA at the ceremony.
Hirschberg served as the executive director of the society for 12 years, beginning in 2011, when it was then known as the American Helicopter Society (AHS); Hirschberg stepped down from the executive role last year to better use his talents in the pursuit of the society’s goal of advancing vertical flight.
The NASA nomination read in part, “For exceptional leadership during his tenure as the executive director [where he] transitioned the organization to the more properly named Vertical Flight Society (VFS).”
In addition, VFS “began supporting and organizing the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) revolution in 2013. The VFS continues to be the leading international organization for the eVTOL sector engaging industry, academia, and government.”
The nomination continued, “Hirschberg has been an international leader and advocate for vertical lift technologies, writing many articles and commentaries on the promise of advanced aerial mobility (AAM) and building industry-wide support for NASA’s AAM initiatives.”
The NASA write-up also noted the society’s workforce initiatives, as “a leader in this transitional period of vertical flight to address the future vertical lift workforce to be inclusive and diverse.
Mr. Hirschberg has written a series of articles and commentaries on workforce and diversity, and has been a vocal advocate for more inclusive and accessible work environments.
Mr. Hirschberg has quantified the huge gap in women and minority vertical flight engineers in the vertical lift community.
Through the student chapters of the Vertical Flight Society, NASA’s Aeromechanics Branch in particular have been successful in addressing this gap with early diverse career hires.”
The nomination concluded, “Mr. Hirschberg has demonstrated excellence in leading both the technical revolution in vertical lift, and transforming its workforce for the better.”
Founded as the American Helicopter Society in 1943, the Vertical Flight Society is the global non-profit society for engineers, scientists and others working on vertical flight technology.
For more than 80 years, the society has led technical, safety, advocacy and other important initiatives, and has been the primary forum for interchange of information on vertical flight technology.
https://verticalmag.com/press-releases/vertical-flight-societys-hirschberg-receives-nasa-exceptional-public-service-medal/
Happy Birthday Tom
Starliner capsule's 1st astronaut mission cleared for June 1 liftoff
May 29, 2024
Boeing's new Starliner capsule has been cleared, again, for its first-ever astronaut launch.
After a flight readiness review today (May 29), teams from Boeing, NASA and United Launch Alliance (ULA) polled "go" to proceed toward the Saturday (June 1) launch of the highly anticipated Starliner mission, which is known as Crew Flight Test (CFT).
Team leaders "verified launch readiness, including all systems, facilities and teams supporting the test flight," NASA officials wrote in an update this afternoon.
CFT will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) for a roughly week-long stay.
The mission is set to launch atop a ULA Atlas V rocket on Saturday at 12:25 p.m. EDT (1625 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, on Florida's Space Coast.
That's nearly four weeks later than previously planned. Starliner was first cleared for a targeted May 6 liftoff, but that try was scrubbed about two hours before launch when teams noticed a misbehaving valve in the Atlas V's upper stage.
The Starliner-Atlas V stack was rolled off the launch pad to a processing building, where the valve was replaced. That work delayed the planned liftoff. And then a new issue cropped up: a slight helium leak associated with a reaction-control thruster in Starliner's service module.
Mission teams took some time to assess the leak, pushing the target launch date further to the right. They ultimately determined that the leak was stable and did not pose an appreciable threat to CFT mission success, as the results of today's review show.
Wilmore and Williams are ready to go as well: The duo arrived on the Space Coast yesterday (May 28), jetting in from Houston, where they'd been training and quarantining at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
CFT will be Starliner's third flight overall. The capsule first lifted off in December 2019, on an uncrewed test mission to the ISS that fell short of its main goal when Starliner suffered a number of glitches shortly after launch and failed to meet up with the orbiting lab.
The capsule succeeded on its second ISS mission, an uncrewed test flight that launched and landed in May 2022. If CFT goes well, Starliner will be certified to carry NASA astronauts to and from the station on long-duration missions.
Boeing holds a contract with the agency to do just that, as does SpaceX. Elon Musk's company is in the middle of its eighth contracted astronaut mission to the ISS for NASA, known, appropriately enough, as Crew-8.
https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-go-june-1-astronaut-launch