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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

July 5, 2024

Mount Etna Milky Way

A glow from the summit of Mount Etna, famous active stratovolcano of planet Earth, stands out along the horizon in this mountain and night skyscape. Bands of diffuse light from congeries of innumerable stars along the Milky Way galaxy stretch across the sky above. In silhouette, the Milky Way's massive dust clouds are clumped along the galactic plane. But also familiar to northern skygazers are bright stars Deneb, Vega, and Altair, the Summer Triangle straddling dark nebulae and luminous star clouds poised over the volcanic peak. The deep combined exposures also reveal the light of active star forming regions along the Milky Way, echoing Etna's ruddy hue in the northern hemisphere summer's night.

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

Polish rocket first to reach space on new more eco-friendly fuel

JUL 5, 2024

A Polish rocket that uses a pioneering type of more environmentally friendly fuel has reached space for the first time.

Taking off from the Andoya base in Norway on Wednesday 3 July and travelling at a speed of up to 1.4 km per second, the ILR-33 Ambert 2K rocket passed an altitude of 100km, which marks the boundary of space.

It is the world’s first rocket to use 98% hydrogen peroxide as an oxidizer.

That substance is “one of the most ecological propellants” available, says Paweł Stężycki, director of the Institute of Aviation in Warsaw that is behind the Amber rocket project.

The institute believes that hydrogen peroxide – which has previously been used in rocket propulsion at lower than 98% concentrations – can replace the hydrazine currently used in the space industry, which has a very high toxicity.

“With this project and the technologies used in it, we want to prove to the world that elements of sustainable, ecological transport are possible in space,” added Stężycki.

Having achieved their breakthrough first space flight, the institute now plans to carry out further work on the project with the ultimate aim of being able to use the rocket to carry payloads into space.

Among the potential uses for the rocket is facilitating scientific experiments in space. Thorium Space Technologies, a Polish firm, is planning to use the rocket over the coming years.

More broadly, the Institute of Aviation and the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), which co-funded the project, see it as a means of developing and demonstrating Poland’s expertise in space technology.

This can serve domestic economic and military purposes, as well as allow Polish engineers to play a greater role in international projects.

“The competences and experience of Polish engineers in rocket design are currently the starting point allowing not only for participation in programmes for the development of large space rockets, but also for involvement in the implementation of projects for the needs of the Polish armed forces,” said POLSA vice president Michał Wierciński.

The Institute of Aviation says that its work on the Amber project has already “enabled the involvement of Polish consortiums in a number of international rocket projects of the European Space Agency, the European Defence Agency and the European Defence Fund”.

Poland’s ministry of science and higher education also celebrated Wednesday’s successful launch as “an important moment for the Polish space industry and the entire sector related to the use of space”.

https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/07/05/polish-rocket-first-to-reach-space-on-new-eco-friendly-fuel/

Russian space agency head says Moscow has proof America really DID go to the moon

July 5, 2024

American astronauts did really visit the Moon in 1969, the head of Roscosmos, the Russian space corporation, has confirmed.

Speaking to the State Duma, Yuri Borisov publicly revealed that Roscosmos has confirmed proof that the US sent humans to the Moon.

"As for whether the Americans were on the Moon or not, I have one fact to share,” he said. “I was personally interested in this matter.

At one time, they provided us with a portion of the lunar soil that the astronauts brought back during their expedition.”

According to Borisov, the lunar soil provided by the United States underwent thorough examination by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The analysis confirmed that the sample was indeed from the Moon.

This scientific validation supports the historical record of the Apollo missions, particularly the landmark Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, when Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon, collecting samples of lunar rocks.

Scepticism about the American moon landings has long persisted among the Russian public.

A 2020 poll conducted by WCIOM revealed that less than a third of Russians believe that Americans reached the Moon.

The survey indicated that 49% of the population doubts the authenticity of the six manned Moon landings between 1969 and 1972.

The fluctuation in belief highlights a generational divide, with scepticism being highest among those aged 45 and over, and lowest among young people aged 18-24.

https://www.intellinews.com/russian-space-agency-head-says-moscow-has-proof-america-really-did-go-to-the-moon-332353/

Engineers send 3D printer into space

JULY 4, 2024

Imagine a crew of astronauts headed to Mars. About 140 million miles away from Earth, they discover their spacecraft has a cracked O-ring. But instead of relying on a dwindling cache of spare parts, what if they could simply fabricate any part they needed on demand?

A team of Berkeley researchers, led by Ph.D. student Taylor Waddell, may have taken a giant leap toward making this option a reality. On June 8, they sent their 3D printing technology to space for the first time as part of the Virgin Galactic 07 mission.

Their next-generation microgravity printer—dubbed SpaceCAL—spent 140 seconds in suborbital space while aboard the VSS Unity space plane.

In that short time span, it autonomously printed and post-processed a total of four test parts, including space shuttles and benchy figurines from a liquid plastic called PEGDA.

"SpaceCAL performed well under microgravity conditions in past tests aboard parabolic flights, but it still had something to prove," said Waddell. "This latest mission … allowed us to validate the readiness of this 3D printing technology for space travel."

He added, "We hope that someday it may be used to manufacture everything from parts and tools for spacecraft to new contact lenses and dental crowns for crew members."

3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, has evolved considerably since it was first patented in the 1980s.

Hayden Taylor, associate professor of mechanical engineering, led a team of UC Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers that invented Computed Axial Lithography (CAL) technology in 2017.

This new type of additive manufacturing, which uses light to shape solid objects out of a viscous liquid, expanded the range of printable geometries and significantly increased the speed at which 3D parts could be printed.

And it functioned well in microgravity conditions, opening the door to applications related to space exploration. CAL technology is also what brought Waddell to Berkeley to pursue his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering.

As an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a Pathways Engineer at NASA, Waddell became captivated by 3D printing—from its seemingly magical ability to transform an idea into a physical form, to its affordability and accessibility.

Upon learning about CAL, he reached out to Taylor and soon found himself at Berkeley. There, he spent countless hours in Taylor's lab, working with other student researchers on new ways to leverage this technology for the greater good.

CAL stands apart from other 3D printing technologies because of its incredible speed—creating parts in as little as 20 seconds—and efficiency.

By enabling astronauts to print parts quickly in an emergency and on demand, CAL potentially eliminates the need to bring thousands of spare parts on long-duration space missions.

"You can reduce that upmass, make these missions go faster and reduce risk by bringing manufacturing technologies with you," said Waddell.

In addition, CAL's unique ability to print well in microgravity conditions allows engineers to explore the limits of 3D printing from space.

"With CAL, we were able to demonstrate—first on those zero-G[ravity] missions and now on this spaceflight—that we can print parts in microgravity that are not possible on Earth," said Waddell.

To date, CAL has shown that it can successfully print with more than 60 different materials on Earth, such as silicons, glass composites and biomaterials.

According to Waddell, this versatility could come in handy for both the cabin and the crew. "So, with the cabin, if your spacecraft is breaking down, you can print O-rings or mechanical mounts or even tools," he said.

"But CAL is also capable of repairing the crew. We can print dental replacements, skin grafts or lenses, or things personalized in emergency medicine for astronauts, which is very important in these missions, too."

Someday, CAL may be used to print even more sophisticated parts, such as human organs. LLNL has received a grant from NASA to test this technology on the International Space Station.

"They're going to basically do bioprinting on the Space Station," said Waddell. "And the long, long-term goal is to print organs up in space with CAL, then bring them back down to Earth."

Next, Waddell and his colleagues hope to begin work with NASA on developing and validating a single object that could support crew health and wellness, like a dental crown for an astronaut or a surgical wound closure tool.

"These experiments are really focused on pushing technology for the betterment of everyone," said Waddell. "Even though it's for space, there are always tons of ways it can benefit people back here on Earth."

https://phys.org/news/2024-07-3d-printer-space.html

China fortifies Tiangong space station after Russian satellite explosion

7:00pm, 4 Jul 2024

Two Shenzhou-18 astronauts completed a spacewalk on Wednesday night to fortify China’s space station with extra armour following the explosion of a Russian satellite that generated a burst of space debris last week.

“The spacewalk primarily focused on installing protective devices on external cables and pipelines to mitigate risks posed by potential space debris collisions, enhancing the long-term safety and stability of the space station,” said Liu Ming, of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, in an interview with state broadcaster CCTV.

A defunct Resurs-P1 Russian Earth observation satellite exploded in orbit on June 26, generating more than 100 pieces of trackable debris, according to US Space Command.

The incident prompted Nasa mission control in Houston to direct six US astronauts on the International Space Station to execute “safe haven” procedures to mitigate debris risk, although it is not clear if this influenced China’s protective measures for its Tiangong space station.

For the spacewalk just before 11pm Hong Kong time on Wednesday, a robotic arm moved astronaut Li Cong to the station’s external equipment site. Fellow astronaut Ye Guangfu followed, handing over necessary equipment and devices to Li.

Ye then climbed along the station’s exterior to the work site, where he helped Li to install the protective devices. Meanwhile, another astronaut, Li Guangsu, monitored the robotic arm from the Tianhe core module and provided support.

After completing the installation, Li Cong used the robotic arm to move to an inspection point where he used his helmet camera to survey and photograph the payload adaptor’s surface condition.

The two spacewalking astronauts, Ye Guangfu and Li Cong, subsequently returned to the Wentian lab module after the 6½-hour mission.

A dialogue broadcast by CCTV shows Li and Ye seeming relaxed, even apparently competing to see who could reach a designated spot first. They also appeared to joke about striking poses for the camera during the installation.

Wu Dawei, of the China Astronaut Research and Training Centre, applauded the operation, noting that “more protective devices were installed this time, requiring longer time to travel from the airlock to the designated points.

However, their operation was smooth and effortless.” Li Cong remarked on the beauty of the Tiangong while communicating with Chinese ground control.

“Whenever the robotic arm sent me to high points, despite the glaring sunlight, I [could not] help but want to take a closer look,” he said, applauding the efforts of all involved.

“It’s truly moving to witness the grandeur of this project. “We will continue our diligent and efficient work to complete future missions smoothly.”

The Shenzhou-18 crew first entered the space station on April 26. During their initial spacewalk on May 28, they installed protective devices on the Mengtian lab module external cables, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

Wednesday’s mission focused on providing similar protection for the Wentian lab module and the Tianhe core.

The latest mission marked the three-man crew’s second extravehicular activity and the 16th for the Chinese space station.

On June 24, two US astronauts had to end a planned spacewalk early because of a water leak in their spacesuits.

The mission, which was to involve retrieving a malfunctioning part from a communications antenna and collecting microbial samples, was cut short, lasting only about half an hour carrying out the task which had been allotted nearly seven hours.

In keeping with its schedule, the Shenzhou-18 crew has completed one-third of their mission in orbit and will soon welcome the Tianzhou-8 cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou-19 crewed spacecraft.

The Shenzhou-18 crew is slated to return to the Dongfeng landing site in northern China in late October.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3269186/china-fortifies-tiangong-space-station-after-russian-satellite-explosion

https://metro.co.uk/2024/07/05/a-manhole-cover-really-launched-space-21154249/

Was a manhole cover really launched into space?

Jul 5, 2024, 9:06am

Launched by Russia on October 4, 1957, it was just 58cm wide, about the size of a beach ball.

In escaping Earth, this little metal sphere kicked off the epic space race between Russia and the US, which would culminate with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landing on the Moon.

But unofficially, legend has it that before Sputnik, something else was accidentally blasted into space. A manhole cover.

Right now, it could still be soaring through the solar system, millions of miles from its humble beginnings plugging a hole in the ground.

Fortunately for Sputnik, in the almost 70 years since, scientists have been unable to say for certain whether or not the unbelievable feat happened.

Why was a manhole cover shot into space?

Between May and October 1957, a series of 29 nuclear tests, dubbed Operation Plumbbob, were conducted at a test site in Nevada, US.

However, as the summer progressed, nuclear scientists became concerned about the amount of radiation from tests carried out above ground.

In July of that year, the team conducted an experiment code named Pascal A, led by nuclear weapons scientist Dr Robert Brownlee.

For this experiment, the team drilled a borehole 500ft deep for what was to become the world’s first underground nuclear test.

However, the bomb was much more powerful than expected – around 50,000 times more powerful.

In a blog post, Dr Brownlee wrote that Pascal A was the ‘world’s finest Roman candle, because at night it was all visible.’

‘Blue fire shot hundreds of feet in the air. Everybody was down in the area, and they all jumped in their cars and drove like crazy, not even counting who was there and who came out of the area.’

But the team was undeterred, and set up the experiment again, with a slight modification.

On August 27, in a test called Pascal B, the team placed a four-inch iron concrete cap that weighed at least half a ton over another 500ft-deep borehole, with the bomb installed below. The lid was then welded shut to seal in the equipment.

Dr Brownlee had calculated that force would be exerted on the cap, and knew that it would pop off from the pressure of the detonation, so the team installed a high-speed camera to see what happened to it.

Dr Brownlee recalled: ‘In the event, the cap appeared above the hole in one frame only, so there was no direct velocity measurement.

‘A lower limit could be calculated by considering the time between frames [and I don’t remember what that was], but my summary of the situation was that when last seen, it was “going like a bat!!”.’

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However, he later calculated the manhole cover to have been travelling around 125,000 miles an hour, about five times Earth’s escape velocity. If true, the manhole cover is one of the fastest human-made objects ever built.

Dr Brownlee added: ‘As usual, the facts never can catch up with the legend, so I am occasionally credited with launching a “manhole cover” into space, and I am also vilified for being so stupid as not to understand masses and aerodynamics, etc, etc, and border on being a criminal for making such a claim.’

Nuclear scientist Dr Tim Gregory tells Metro.co.uk that is not outlandish to believe that a manhole cover can be shot into space.

‘You can launch anything into space if you give it enough of a push!’ he says. ‘It’s difficult, though, because Earth is the biggest rock in the solar system.

‘There’s a lot of gravity to fight against on the way up. The Earth’s atmosphere adds another difficulty, because air resistance tries to drag objects to a standstill.’

But on the question of whether he believes a manhole cover is actually travelling through space at the moment, he says: ‘I’m on the fence – I could believe it either way.

‘It was definitely travelling fast enough to escape Earth’s gravity. ‘But on the other hand, it might have burned up on its way out of the atmosphere like a meteorite falling in reverse.

‘Speaking with my scientist hat on – or should I say lab coat? – I’d have to see physical proof before I made up my mind. I’ll keep an eye out next time I’m looking through my telescope at the stars!’

In 1992, the February/March issue of Air & Space magazine revisited the moment.

‘Dr Brownlee… knew the lid would be blown off, he didn’t know exactly how fast,’ it said. ‘High-speed cameras caught the giant manhole cover as it began its unscheduled flight into history.

‘Based upon his calculations and the evidence from the cameras, Brownlee estimated that the steel plate was travelling at a velocity six times that needed to escape Earth’s gravity when it soared into the flawless blue Nevada sky.

‘”We never found it. It was gone,” Brownlee says, a touch of awe in his voice almost 35 years later.

‘The following October the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, billed as the first man-made object in Earth orbit. Dr Brownlee has never publicly challenged the Soviet’s claim. But he has his doubts.’

Sadly, like many legends, whether a manhole cover actually went to space cannot be confirmed as it was never seen again, either on Earth or out in space. It could have been vaporised.

But as far as legends go, it is out of this world.

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Earth from Space: Madeira

05/07/2024

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captured a rare, cloud-free image over the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Zoom in to explore this image at its full 10 m resolution or click on the circles to learn more.

Lying off the northwest coast of Africa, the archipelago is an autonomous region of Portugal and comprises two inhabited islands, Madeira, the largest, and Porto Santo (top right), and two uninhabited groups, the Desertas (partially visible at the bottom) and the Selvagens (not pictured).

The islands of Madeira are volcanic in origin: they are the tops of mountains that rise from the ocean floor deep below. The Portuguese explorers named them Madeira, which is Portuguese for wood, inspired by the dense forests that covered the islands when they arrived.

The lush main island of Madeira is famous for its rugged, green landscape and is home to unique endemic flora and fauna.

To protect this natural environment, two thirds of the island are designated as national park. The Madeira Natural Park includes the Laurisilva of Madeira, a Unesco World Heritage site and the largest surviving area of primary laurel forest.

This type of vegetation is now confined to the Macaronesian Islands the islands of Madeira, the Azores, the Canary Islands and Cabo Verde.

Funchal, Madeira’s capital, can be seen as a large, light-brown area on the island’s southeast coast, on the lower slopes of mountains that reach 1200 m. The runway of Madeira’s airport is visible on the east coast.

The narrow Desertas Islands at the bottom are also designated as a natural reserve. Uninhabited by humans due to scarce and poor-quality water, Desertas are home to numerous species of birds, as well as the protected Mediterranean monk seal.

The islands are relatively barren with their reddish and brown ground, a reminder of their volcanic origin.

Porto Santo, at the top, features white, sandy beaches along its south coast. Here, the island’s main town, Vila de Porto Santo, can also be spotted, with its airport visible just to the north.

At each end of the island are hills. At 515 m, Facho Peak, on the east, is the highest.

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/07/Earth_from_Space_Madeira

Rapidly spinning 'extreme' neutron star discovered by US Navy research intern

July 5, 2024

A rapidly spinning neutron star that sweeps beams of radiation across the universe like a cosmic lighthouse has been discovered by U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Remote Sensing Division intern Amaris McCarver and a team of astronomers.

The rapidly spinning neutron star, or "pulsar," is located within the dense star cluster Glimpse-CO1, which sits in the galactic plane of the Milky Way around 10.7 light-years from Earth.

This millisecond pulsar, which spins hundreds of times per second, is the first of its kind found in the Glimpse-CO1 star cluster.

The Very Large Array (VLA) spotted the pulsar, which is designated GLIMPSE-C01A, on Feb. 27, 2021, but it remained buried in a vast amount of data until McCarver and colleagues found it in the summer of 2023.

Not only do the extreme conditions of these neutron stars make them the ideal laboratories to study physics in conditions found nowhere else in the universe, but their ultraprecise timing also means arrays of pulsars can be used as cosmic timepieces.

These arrays are so precise that they can be used to measure the infinitesimally small squashing and squeezing caused as ripples in space and time called gravitational waves pass by.

One possible practical application of this is the foundation of a "celestial GPS" that can be used for space navigation.

McCarver and her team found the object while investigating images from the VLA's Low-band Ionosphere and Transient Experiment (VLITE) to hunt for new pulsars in 97 star clusters.

"It was exciting so early in my career to see a speculative project work out so successfully," McCarver, one of 16 interns in the Radio, Infrared, Optical Sensors Branch at NRL DC, said in a statement.

Like all neutron stars, millisecond pulsars are born when stars with masses greater than around eight times that of the sun reach the end of their lives.

Once their fuel supplies needed for nuclear fusion has been exhausted, the outward energy that supports these stars against the inward push of their own gravitational pulls ceases.

This causes the cores of these stars to collapse and trigger shockwaves in the stars' outer layers, resulting in most of their masses being shed in massive supernova explosions.

The compressing stellar core crushes electrons and protons together, creating a sea of neutrons, which are neutral particles usually found locked in atomic nuclei alongside positively charged protons.

This neutron-rich soup is so dense that if a tablespoon of it were brought to Earth, it would weigh over 1 billion tons. That's heavier than the largest mountain on our planet, Mount Everest (ironic, seeing as this pulsar was found under a mountain of data).

The creation of a neutron star with the mass of the sun crammed into a width of about 12 miles (20 kilometers) has other extreme consequences, too.

Thanks to the conservation of angular momentum, the rapid reduction in the radius of a dead stellar core speeds up its rotation.

This is the cosmic equivalent of an ice skater drawing in their arms to increase the speed of their spin, but on a whole different level that allows some neutron stars to reach rotational speeds as great as 700 turns per second.

Millisecond pulsars can also get a speed boost by stripping matter from a companion star close to it — like a cosmic vampire. This matter carries with it angular momentum as well.

The birth of a neutron star also forces magnetic field lines together, generating what are some of the most powerful magnetic fields in the universe.

These field lines channel charged particles to the poles of rapidly spinning pulsars, from where they are blasted out as jets.

These jets are accompanied by beams of electromagnetic radiation that can periodically point at Earth as they sweep around with a pulsar's rotation. This is responsible for how the pulsar appears to brighten periodically.

The name "pulsar" actually refers to the fact that, upon their initial discovery by Jocelyn Bell Burnell on Nov. 28, 1967, scientists thought these extreme dead stars were literally stars that pulsate.

After finding GLIMPSE-C01A in vast amounts of data from the VLA, the team confirmed its existence by reprocessing archival sky-survey data from the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope.

"This research highlights how we can use measures of radio brightness at different frequencies to find new pulsars efficiently, and that available sky surveys combined with the mountain of VLITE data mean those measurements are essentially always available," Tracy E. Clarke, an astronomer with the NRL Remote Sensing Division, said in the statement.

"This opens the door to a new era of searches for highly dispersed and highly accelerated pulsars."

https://www.space.com/pulsar-us-navy-intern-discovery

https://www.space.com/rare-smooth-aurora-north-pole-explained

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn5276

Rare 'polar rain' aurora seen from Earth for the first time

July 5, 2024

A remarkably smooth and puzzling Christmas Day aurora observed over the Arctic in 2022 was the result of a 'rainstorm' of electrons direct from the sun, says Japanese and US-based researchers.

It is the first time that a rare aurora of this kind has been seen from the ground, and it came at a time when the gusts of the solar wind had almost completely dropped off, leaving a region of calm around the Earth.

Normally the aurora displays, like the ones seen around the world in May, move and pulsate, with clearly discernible shapes in the sky.

These auroral displays are powered by electrons from the solar wind — a stream of charged particles that flow from the sun — that become trapped in an extension of Earth's magnetic field called the magnetotail.

When space weather becomes extreme, such as when a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a large ejection of plasma and magnetic field from the sun— is released, the magnetotail can be pinched off (don't worry, it regrows).

The electrons trapped there flow down Earth's magnetic field lines to the poles. As they do so, they encounter molecules in Earth's atmosphere, colliding with them and prompting them to glow in the colors of the aurora (blue for nitrogen emission, green or red for oxygen depending on its altitude).

However, the smooth aurora of 25–26 December 2022 was very different. Imaged by an All-Sky Electron Multiplying Charge-Coupled Device (EMCCD) camera in Longyearbyen in Norway, the aurora was a faint, featureless glow that spanned 2,485 miles (4,000 kilometers) in extent.

It had no structure, no pulsing or varying brightness. No type of aurora like it had ever been seen from Earth before.

To solve the mystery a team led by Keisuke Hosokawa, of the Center for Space Science and Radio Engineering at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, compared this bland aurora with what the Special Sensor Ultraviolet Scanning Imager (SSUSI) on the polar-orbiting satellites of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) saw. The DMSP is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Space Force on behalf of the US Department of Defense.

The satellites saw the aurora from above, finding that it had all the hallmarks of a rare type of aurora called polar rain aurora, which had only ever been seen from space before.

The regular solar wind travels about 250 miles (400 km) per second. However, the sun's hot corona is full of holes, particularly at higher solar latitudes from which an exceptionally 'fast' solar wind moving up to 500 miles (800 km) per second streams out.

Sometimes these coronal holes can appear at lower latitudes, and that is what happened over Christmas of 2022 while coinciding with a cessation of the regular solar wind.

At the location of coronal holes, the sun's magnetic field lines are open — they don't loop back onto the sun's surface, the photosphere. As the open magnetic field lines extend out into space the coronal hole forms the base of a magnetic funnel out of which stream high-energy electrons.

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In the case of the polar rain aurora, these electrons traveled across space, and the open magnetic field lines connected with Earth's magnetic field above the north pole, allowing the electrons to rain directly onto the poles rather than getting trapped inside the magnetotail.

Normally we don't notice this happening, because the regular polar wind particles scatter the fast-wind electrons emanating from the coronal hole.

On this occasion, however, the pressure of the solar wind had decreased to the extent it was negligible, and the fast-wind electrons could reach Earth unhindered.

Furthermore, the diameter of this magnetic funnel opening is about 4,600 miles (7,500 km) when projected at Earth's distance from the sun.

That's why the aurora seemed so smooth; the open magnetic flux tubes emanating from the sun covered a wider area than Earth's north polar cap.

Because the electrons were high energy, the auroral emission was purely green rather than red because it takes more energy to ionize oxygen deeper in the atmosphere.

The clinching evidence was that the DMSP satellites only saw the polar rain aurora over Earth's north magnetic pole, which is tilted towards the sun during Northern Hemisphere winter.

"When the solar wind disappeared, an intense flux of electrons with an energy of >1keV was observed by the DMSP, which made the polar rain aurora visible even from the ground as bright greenish emissions," said Hosokawa's team in their published research paper.

The polar rain itself has previously been studied in-depth by particle detectors on satellites in orbit, but such studies are few and far between. These smooth auroras are not normally visible to the naked eye on the ground.

As such, nobody knew what the smooth, featureless aurora that turned the sky green over Christmas of 2022 was, until now.

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Kazakhstan joins China’s ILRS moon base program

July 5, 2024

Kazakhstan has signed a memorandum on cooperation on the China-led ILRS and will also explore commercial use of each other’s spaceports.

The agreement was signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Kazakhstan July 3, which saw the signing of 30 documents between the two sides. The development further bolsters China’s lunar exploration plans.

A joint statement issued by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the “two sides support exchanges and cooperation between the two countries’ aerospace agencies and enterprises in the peaceful use of outer space, promote mutually beneficial cooperation in the moon and deep space, and reception and exchange of remote sensing data.”

A memorandum on cooperation as part of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) was one of the 30 signed documents, according to the Interfax news agency.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has not issued its own statement on the development. It did not issue a statement following a similar development when Serbia signed up to the ILRS.

Notably, China’s MFA also stated that China and Kazakhstan would, “explore the possibility of commercial use of the two sides’ space launch sites.”

China is currently working to boost pad access for emerging commercial launch service providers. The Baikonur cosmodrome was set up by the Soviet Union in Kazakhstan. It is leased to Russia until 2050.

The country also hosts the Sary Shagan Test Site. Kazakhstan shares a border with Xinjiang, in China’s west.

“Kazakhstan will need to diversify away from Russia if it wants to have a big future in space,” Bleddyn Bowen, an associate professor specializing in space policy and military uses of outer space at the University of Leicester, told SpaceNews.

Xi also gave a speech to a Shanghai Cooperation Organization+ Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, July 4. “China welcomes all parties to use the Beidou satellite navigation system and participate in the construction of the International Lunar Research Station,” Xi said.

China’s ILRS plans

The China-led ILRS envisions constructing a permanent lunar base in the 2030s. This will be constructed using a super heavy-lift launcher.

The ambitious project seeks to advance lunar exploration and the utilization of lunar resources. China also aims to send astronauts to the moon before 2030.

The plan is a parallel yet separate program to NASA’s Artemis Program, for which the U.S. is building partnerships.

Both the U.S. and China are engaged in diplomatic efforts to attract countries, with the former attracting 42 other countries to sign the Artemis Accords, which set out principles to guide the exploration and use of outer space. The most recent was Armenia in June.

China has also stated it will establish the International Lunar Research Station Cooperation Organization (ILRSCO).

The organization will coordinate and manage the construction of the ILRS moon base. In late May, China signed an agreement with Bahrain covering lunar and deep space exploration.

The ILRS was not explicitly mentioned. It will however collaborate with Egypt to jointly develop a hyperspectral imager for lunar surface material identification payload for Chang’e-7, a Chinese ILRS precursor mission. Notably, Bahrain signed up to the Artemis Accords in 2022.

Chang'e-7: Egyptian Space Agency and the Bahrain National Space Science Agency will jointly develop a hyperspectral imager for lunar surface material identification payload for the Chang'e-7 mission orbiter https://t.co/iIbfp3LbHN pic.twitter.com/eMarJdmk1G — Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) June 11, 2024

Peru, another Artemis Accords signatory, is involved in the ILRS via its participation in the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO). The inter-governmental organization is headquartered in Beijing and has signed an MoU regarding ILRS.

A Russian space official stated in April that Turkey had applied to join ILRS. China, which leads the moon project’s diplomatic efforts, has yet to comment officially on this.

Local reports from June state that China’s Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL) under CNSA signed an ILRS agreement with Supreme Deep Space (Pvt) Ltd. of Sri Lanka.

Kazakhstan becomes the 12th country to join the ILRS, following Serbia in May, and Nicaragua and Thailand in April. This list does not include Turkey.

China and Russia formally announced the joint ILRS project in St. Petersburg, Russia, in June 2021. Venezuela, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, South Africa and Egypt signed up during 2023.China will launch precursor ILRS missions in the 2020s.

These include Chang’e-7 around 2026 and the later Chang’e-8 in-situ resource utilization technology test mission. Both multi-spacecraft missions will target the lunar south pole.

https://spacenews.com/kazakhstan-joins-chinas-ilrs-moon-base-program/