NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

September 10, 2024

Horsehead and Orion Nebulas

The dark Horsehead Nebula and the glowing Orion Nebula are contrasting cosmic vistas. Adrift 1,500 light-years away in one of the night sky's most recognizable constellations, they appear in opposite corners of the above stunning mosaic. The familiar Horsehead nebula appears as a dark cloud, a small silhouette notched against the long glow of hydrogen here shown in gold at the lower left. Alnitak is the easternmost star in Orion's belt and is seen as the bright star to the left of the Horsehead. Just below Alnitak is the Flame Nebula, with clouds of bright emission and dramatic dark dust lanes. The magnificent emission region, the Orion Nebula (aka M42), lies at the upper right. Immediately to its left is a prominent reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man. Pervasive tendrils of glowing hydrogen gas are easily traced throughout the region.

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

>>21562340

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000469/

NASA Astronauts to Discuss Mission from Space Station

Sep 09, 2024

Media are invited to hear from NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams during an Earth to space call at 2:15 p.m. EDT, Friday, Sept. 13.

The pair will participate in a news conference aboard the International Space Station in low Earth orbit.

Coverage of the event will stream on NASA+, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

Media interested in participating must contact the newsroom at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston no later than 5 p.m.,

Thursday, Sept. 12, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov.

To ask questions, media must dial into the news conference no later than 10 minutes prior to the start of the call. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is online.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 5 for its first crewed flight, arriving at the space station on June 6.

Following the agency’s decision to return Starliner uncrewed, the duo will remain on the space station as part of the Expedition 71/72 crew and return home in February 2025 aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with two other crew members on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-astronauts-to-discuss-mission-from-space-station/

Find Me on the Moon: NASA Lunar Navigation Challenge

Sep 9, 2024

NASA’s Artemis campaign is a series of lunar missions to further explore the lunar landscape to prepare for future missions to Mars.

The Artemis missions will send humans to land on the moon and explore the lunar south pole. This will be NASA’s first human lunar landing since the Apollo missions over 50 years ago.

The Artemis missions will be landing at the lunar south pole; this area is of interest because the permanently shadowed regions that exist there may be traps for water ice which could be accessed to support future missions to Mars.

One area of interest is Shackleton Crater, measuring 13 miles (21 km) in diameter and 2.6 miles (4.2 km) deep.

The crater has steep sides and continuous shadows cause the floor of the crater to be below 90 K and may have water ice trapped beneath the surface.

To support these missions, NASA is seeking two solutions: one low-tech and one high-tech. While both solutions are related to navigation, they are independent challenges and solutions.

For Challenge 1, NASA is seeking an orienteering aid that will help the astronauts navigate on traverses away from the lunar lander and return back.

While there were similar devices available to the Apollo astronauts, NASA is looking for new and unique solutions.

Among other considerations, devices must be accurate, easy to use, able to be used on the moon’s surface by an astronaut wearing pressurized gloves.

If your solution is one of the best, you could be eligible for a share of the $15,000 prize purse.

For Challenge 2, NASA is looking for assistance in getting to and mapping the bottom of Shackleton Crater.

The design must work in the extreme conditions of the lunar south pole and Shackleton Crater, map the crater, characterize and quantify what is in the crater, and send the data back to be used for future missions.

If you can solve this challenge by describing your design concept in detail, you could be eligible for a share of the $30,000 prize purse.

In addition, there is $5,000 in prize money to be distributed among solutions from both challenges that show exceptional achievement.

Award: $50,000 in total prizes

Open Date: September 4, 2024

Close Date: November 25, 2024

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/prizes-challenges-crowdsourcing-program/center-of-excellence-for-collaborative-innovation-coeci/find-me-on-the-moon-nasa-lunar-navigation-challenge/

Celebrate International Observe the Moon Night at NASA Goddard

Sep 09, 2024

The public is invited to celebrate International Observe the Moon Night on Saturday, Sept. 14, from 6 to 9 p.m. EDT at NASA Goddard’s Visitor Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

International Observe the Moon Night is a time to come together with fellow Moon enthusiasts and curious people around the world.

The public is invited to learn about lunar science and exploration, take part in celestial observations, and honor cultural and personal connections to the Moon.

During the Goddard event, attendees will be able to participate in a variety of interactive hands-on activities.

There will also be a photo booth, Moon-themed presentations, and lunar and astronomical observing with telescopes.

This free event is open to the public and will occur rain or shine.

International Observe the Moon Night occurs annually in September or October, when the Moon is around first quarter – a great phase for evening observing.

Last year, almost a million people participated in 123 countries and all 7 continents. This year, NASA is celebrating 15 years of the program!

International Observe the Moon Night is sponsored by NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) mission and the Solar System Exploration Division of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with support from many partners.

LRO is managed by Goddard for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

No registration is needed.

To participate in International Observe the Moon Night from wherever you may be, tune into our NASA broadcast or watch live streams of the Moon from telescopes around the world on our Live Streams page on Sept. 14: https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night/participate/live-streams/.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/celebrate-international-observe-the-moon-night-at-nasa-goddard-3/

https://phys.org/news/2024-09-pluto-mission-south-african-astronomers.html

Pluto mission: South African astronomers join forces with NASA to learn more about the dwarf planet

September 9, 2024

When the International Astronomical Union announced in 2006 that Pluto was being demoted from its status as the sun's ninth planet, many astronomers and non-experts alike were shocked.

Pluto remains an important object for study, though. Today it is considered one of many dwarf planets beyond Neptune, in a doughnut-shaped region of mostly icy debris orbiting the sun called the Kuiper Belt.

These outskirts of the solar system remain largely unexplored. They were first reached by US space agency NASA's New Horizons spacecraft; it flew close to Pluto in 2015, revealing spectacular images of the dwarf planet's surface and atmosphere.

But there's still plenty to learn.

That's why my colleagues and I at South Africa's University of the Western Cape (UWC) were over the moon when we were invited to participate in an international mission funded by Nasa.

We are a group of experienced nuclear physicists with groundbreaking research that spans astronomy and stellar explosions.

Pluto reached its closest point to our sun in 1989.

As it moves away from the sun along its 248-year-long oval-shaped orbit, its atmosphere will likely collapse and freeze onto its surface in the next few years.

We were asked to observe a rare event that would provide insights into the dwarf planet's atmosphere and particularly this likely freezing scenario.

The event is called occultation, and occurs when any celestial object passes in front of a distant star, temporarily blocking or dimming the star's light.

This allows the object's atmosphere to—just for a second or so—act as a lens that amplifies the starlight. In this case, the occultation was a chance to capture information about Pluto's atmosphere, as explained below.

We used a single state-of-the-art 0.5-meter Newtonian telescope that was generously donated to UWC by the University of Virginia.

When scientists are trying to capture an occultation, they might use a single telescope that tracks the shadow of the object's passage, or up to 100 telescopes strategically distributed to map out the shape of an object and discover or characterize satellites and asteroids.

These telescopes need to be smaller and more mobile than their more static, larger equivalents used for other research.

Setting up the telescope and commissioning it was a major operation that required state-of-the-art facilities and human power.

Students and staff from UWC's Physics & Astronomy department worked hard to prepare for the observation, learning about telescope operations and the required software.

Some modification was also required. The telescope arrived from the factory with a faulty GPS that was replaced and a little too short for our purposes.

We used 3D printing technology in the university's Modern African Nuclear Detector Laboratory to rectify the length and match the telescope focal point.

1/2

>>21562818

Then it was time for the main event.

On 4 August 2024, my UWC colleague Siyambonga Matshawule, together with two of my postdocs, Cebo Ngwetsheni and Craig Mehl, and my Ph.D. student Elijah Akakpo traveled to the viewing spot.

They joined professors Michael Skrutskie and Anne Verbiscer from the University of Virginia and Nasa, both principal investigators of Pluto's occultation and other Nasa missions such as New Horizons.

The viewing spot was in a remote area in South Africa's Northern Cape province, about 40km north from the town of Upington.

This was precisely the central point or dead center of Pluto's shadow on Earth, extending 2,377km in diameter, passing across South Africa and Namibia at 85,000 km/h.

Considering that, at the same time, our Earth is also moving at an orbital velocity of 107,000 km/h, nailing just the right timing and position for our telescope was crucial.

The temperature reached 0°C and the sky above our viewing point was partially cloudy. But the clouds opened up at just the right time and place—and, while the occultation lasted only a few seconds, it may have been enough to get crucial information about Pluto's atmosphere.

The problem was that a sudden and unexpected wind surge briefly shook the telescope (and our hearts) during the occultation. We're doing further processing to remove the resulting noise.

During the occultation, the star light starts dimming as it gets absorbed by Pluto's atmosphere.

Shortly after, a central flash occurs right at the dead center of Pluto's shadow, where Pluto's atmosphere acts as a magnifying glass and the star looks brighter than before or after the occultation.

After the central flash, the star starts dimming again and eventually returns to its usual brightness. It is that central flash that shows how the star light refracts through Pluto's atmosphere and provides crucial information on its temperature and chemical composition.

This information is input to atmospheric models that tells us if the atmosphere is finally contracting.

It's still too soon to unpack any findings about Pluto's atmosphere from our observation, and it may well be that we can't see anything quantitative in the data during our first attempt.

If not, around the same time next year we'll get another opportunity. And this time we'll be well prepared for sudden wind surges. We'll also bring hot water bottles. Adventure is out there!

2/2

Our Solar System Might Be More Crowded Than Once Believed

September 9, 2024

Researchers in Japan have found evidence for an abundance of novel celestial bodies at the outskirts of the Kuiper Belt.

Using two complementary pieces of space imaging equipment, they've confirmed the existence of two dozen "new" objects and developed a strategy for locating and investigating even more.

Their work could change the way we view and study the elusive outer solar system.

The Kuiper Belt is an icy, ring-shaped region just beyond Neptune's orbit that contains Pluto and several other dwarf planets.

Because of its distance from Earth, this cosmic donut is mysterious.

Observing Kuiper objects from the ground severely limits how much of a comet or dwarf planet astronomers can see, but observing them from space is a tall order: Spacecraft must be capable of traveling roughly 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) to the Kuiper Belt and then capturing data to send back home.

Only NASA's New Horizons spacecraft—one of five spacecraft that have reached the outer solar system—has managed to fly through the Kuiper Belt and observe the objects that exist there.

But even New Horizons has its shortcomings. The probe's camera has a long focal length, and while that's fantastic for capturing objects in detail, it comes at the cost of field-of-view.

This means New Horizons needs a target object—it can't be used to discover objects on its own.

Researchers at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) bridged this gap using the Subaru Telescope, a large, ground-based optical and infrared telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea.

Though Subaru can't see distant objects in New Horizons' level of detail, its wide-field imager allows it to survey vast expanses of space at a given time.

This means the team at NAOJ could use Subaru to identify potential objects of interest and determine whether those objects are eligible for further study by New Horizons.

In a pair of preprint papers shared via the arXiv and slated for publication in the Planetary Science Journal, researchers at NAOJ, Arizona's Planetary Science Institute, Colorado's Southwest Research Institute, Harvard University, and a handful of other scholarly institutions write that they've used the Subaru Telescope to confirm the presence of 24 previously unknown objects in the Kuiper Belt.

Though these objects are too distant for New Horizons to visit without exhausting its fuel supply, the team has found leads for 239 other objects sprinkled beyond Neptune's orbit; some might be eligible for New Horizons investigation.

Of their two dozen confirmed discoveries, 11 objects were spotted at distances "beyond the known Kuiper Belt," according to NAOJ planetary scientist and astronomer Dr. Fumi Yoshida.

Some objects appear to cluster approximately 20 astronomical units (au) beyond where Kuiper objects are typically seen.

"This may have implications for studying the planet formation process in our solar system," Dr. Yoshida said.

https://www.extremetech.com/science/our-solar-system-might-be-more-crowded-than-once-believed

https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.04927

SpaceX Polaris Dawn

On Tuesday, September 10 at 5:23 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched Polaris Dawn to low-Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

MISSION OBJECTIVES

During their multi-day mission to orbit, Dragon and the crew will endeavor to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown since the Apollo program and participate in the first-ever extravehicular activity (EVA) by commercial astronauts wearing SpaceX-developed EVA suits.

They will also conduct 36 research studies and experiments from 31 partner institutions designed to advance both human health on Earth and during long-duration spaceflight, and test Starlink laser-based communications in space.

The Polaris Dawn crew will attempt the EVA from Dragon on Thursday, September 12 at 2:23 a.m. ET.

If needed, a backup opportunity is available on Friday, September 13 at the same time.

A live webcast will begin about one hour prior to the beginning of the spacewalk, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX.

You can also watch the webcast on the new X TV app.

THE CREW

The Polaris Dawn crew will combine their expertise, knowledge, and passion for spaceflight to further human space exploration.

This will be the first human spaceflight for Mission Pilot Kidd Poteet, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis, and Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna Menon.

Mission Commander Jared Isaacman previously flew to space as commander of Inspiration4.

This will also be the first time two SpaceX employees will be part of a human spaceflight crew, providing valuable insight to future missions on the road to making life multiplanetary.

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=polarisdawn