NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

September 22, 2024

Chicagohenge: Equinox in an Aligned City

Chicago, in a way, is like a modern Stonehenge. The way is east to west, and the time is today. Today, and every equinox, the Sun will set exactly to the west, everywhere on Earth. Therefore, today in Chicago, the Sun will set directly down the long equatorially-aligned grid of streets and buildings, an event dubbed #chicagohenge. Featured here is a Chicago Henge picture taken during the equinox in mid-September of 2017 looking along part of Upper Wacker Drive. Many cities, though, have streets or other features that are well-aligned to Earth's spin axis. Therefore, quite possibly, your favorite street may also run east - west. Tonight at sunset, with a quick glance, you can actually find out.

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

'Lowest Note Ever': NASA Reveals Sound Vibration Near A Black Hole 250 Million Light Years Away

Updated: September 21, 2024 12:52 pm IST

US space agency NASA has recorded an eerie audio clip that captures sound waves coming from near a supermassive black hole situated 250 million light years away.

The acoustic waves, coming from near the black hole located at the heart of the Perseus cluster of galaxies, were transposed up 57 and 58 octaves to make them audible for human ears.

The audio was released in 2022 and it was the first time when the sound waves were extracted and made audible.

Sound vibrations (waves) do exist in space, even though we might not be able to hear them naturally.

In a surprising discovery in 2003, astronomers detected acoustic waves rippling out through the huge amounts of gas surrounding the supermassive black hole at the Perseus galaxy cluster, which is now popular for its eerie humming sound.

It is difficult to hear them at their current pitch as it includes the lowest note ever detected in the universe by humans – much below the limits of human hearing.

NASA's recent sonification has majorly amplified these sound waves, in order to get a sense of how they would sound like while ringing through the intergalactic space.

The lowest note, which was identified in 2003, is a B-flat and is located over 57 octaves below middle C, the report said, adding that its frequency is 10 million years at that pitch.

It is to be noted that the lowest note that can be detected by human ears has a frequency of one-twentieth of a second.

After being extracted radically from the supermassive black hole, these sound waves were played in an anti-clockwise direction from the center.

This was done to make them audible in all directions from around the supermassive black hole at the enhanced pitches of 144 quadrillion and 288 quadrillion higher then their original frequency.

Like several other waves recorded from space, the result for this one was eerie too.

The tenuous gas and plasma, which drifts between the galaxies, in clusters known as the 'intracluster medium' is denser and much hotter than the intergalactic medium outside it.

As the temperatures help to regulate star formation, hence sound waves could play a pivotal role in galaxy clusters' evolution over longer periods.

https://www.ndtv.com/science/lowest-note-ever-nasa-reveals-sound-vibration-near-a-black-hole-250-million-light-years-away-6614997

Watch NASA astronaut, 2 record-breaking cosmonauts head home to Earth on Sept. 23

September 22, 2024

A NASA astronaut and two record-setting Russian cosmonauts are set to head back to Earth on Monday (Sept. 23), and you can watch their homecoming live.

Russia's Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, with Tracy C. Dyson, Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub aboard, is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday at 4:37 a.m. EDT (0837 GMT) and land on the steppe of Kazakhstan about 3.5 hours later.

You can watch all the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency.

NASA's coverage will begin today (Sept. 22) at 10:15 a.m. EDT (1415 GMT), to show the change-of-command ceremony marking the end of the orbiting lab's Expedition 71 and the beginning of Expedition 72.

Kononenko, who commands Expedition 71, will hand the keys of the ISS over to NASA astronaut Suni Williams.

She and fellow NASA spaceflyer Butch Wilmore arrived on Boeing's Starliner capsule in June for a supposed week-long stay but will continue living on the ISS until February 2025, after Starliner developed problems and returned to Earth uncrewed.

NASa's coverage will resume Monday at 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT) to show the closing of the hatches between MS-25 and the ISS, which is expected to occur at 1:05 a.m. EDT (0505 GMT).

The show will pick up again at 4 a.m. EDT (0800 GMT) for undocking, then again at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 GMT) for the Soyuz's deorbit burn, entry and landing.

If all goes according to plan, touchdown will occur at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), southeast of the Kazakh town of Dzhezkazgan, according to NASA officials.

Dyson arrived at the station aboard Soyuz MS-25 in March, along with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus.

Dyson's current mission aboard the orbiting lab will end up lasting 184 days, according to NASA officials.

Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya stayed in orbit for just 12 days, coming home in April aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft with NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara.

Soyuz MS-24 launched in September 2023, carrying O'Hara, Kononenko and Chub to the ISS.

Kononenko and Chub will end up spending 374 days on the station — a new record for a single mission, according to officials with Roscosmos, Russia's space agency.

The old record, nearly 371 days, was held by cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA's Frank Rubio, who lived on the ISS from September 2022 to September 2023.

Kononenko already holds the all-time record for most total time spent in space. When his current mission ends, he will have accrued 1,111 days in orbit, according to NASA.

https://www.space.com/soyuz-ms-25-return-earth-from-iss

https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-video/soyuz-ms-25-space-station-farewells-and-hatch-closing/

https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-video/soyuz-ms-25-space-station-undocking/

How Canada is preserving what remains of its iconic supersonic Avro Arrow jet

September 22, 2024

Six decades after the supersonic Avro Arrow suddenly stopped flying, Canada is working hard to preserve what few pieces of it are left.

The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow (known as the Arrow among its fans) was one of the most advanced supersonic jets of its era in the 1950s.

It even has a link with NASA across the border, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. But the Arrow program's funding was nixed in 1959 in a still-controversial decision by the Canadian government of the day, led by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.

There was a silver lining for NASA, as a few of Avro's employees eventually were hired by the agency and participated in the early U.S. space program, according to Ingenium.

Some even worked on the Apollo moon landings.

The Arrow's legacy was recently celebrated at a Canadian museum trying to keep safe the few parts that remain from the program, as the airplanes, plans and most other artifacts were destroyed in the aftermath of the cancellation decision.

Luckily, there's an Arrow nose section on display in Ottawa that represents the largest surviving piece of any of the airplanes; it's in the Cold War section of the Canada Aviation and Space Museum (CASM). Ingenium, which is the organization made up of CASM and two other Ottawa museums, recently took a look at the nose piece to see how it was doing.

After museum officials noticed flaking paint, they called in representatives from the government's Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI), as the institute works with government heritage collections.

At CASM, the institute told the public on Sept. 5 how they feel the artifact is holding up after decades in storage or on display.

To be clear, there are other pieces of the Arrow still preserved, but only a few; most of the airplane pieces were cut up for scrap while "blueprints, models, designs and machines used to make the planes were destroyed," the Canadian Encyclopedia wrote.

This situation makes the nose cone all the more precious, as there are scarce remnants of the Arrow's existence still with us six decades on.

CCI representatives did non-invasive examinations with techniques such as X-rays, and took a few tiny samples, to check on the nose cone's health.

The analysis uncovered new clues about how the airplane was made. For example, at least one part of the plane's exterior was made of an aluminum alloy, likely including elements such as copper, iron and manganese.

The hatch door of the nose piece had some bare metal and yellow-brown "material" that also underwent scrutiny.

The analysis showed the Arrow was treated with zinc chromium before flying, to prevent corrosion when flying through the air.

"These materials are known to actually 'brown' as they discolor or degrade," Kathleen Sullivan, CCI conservator of archaeological materials, told the audience during the Sept. 5 event.

Degrading, cream-colored paint on the aircraft as well as a greasy-looking substance on the radar dome also were scrutinized.

The radar dome is made from chloroprene rubber, similar to what wetsuits require; that rubber is "becoming almost spongy" with age, CCI conservation scientist Jennifer Poulin said.

The grease is also due to age; it's from non-toxic silicone "migrating out from inside the rubber to the surface."

The new analysis will allow conservators to better implement strategies in the coming years to keep the Arrow pieces, which also include ejection seats and flight models, preserved in the coming decades.

The Arrow is a popular exhibit at the museum, as its loss remains a sore point in the Canadian aviation community.

Debate continues about whether the government made the right choice given the high cost and quickly changing technology of the era.

"Some think that the Arrow’s high costs contributed to its downfall," the Canadian Encyclopedia stated; the program was estimated at $1.1 billion CDN in 1959, which translates to roughly $11.65 billion CDN today, or $8.57 billion USD at current exchange rates.

(For perspective, Canada's 2024 federal budget anticipated $449.2 billion CDN in spending.)

"The Arrow program was very expensive for a country of Canada's size," the encyclopedia added. "But its technology was another concern.

The [Canadian] Army's chief of the general staff, Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds, was among those who thought that it was already outdated."

Other countries, including the United States, were catching up and surpassing the Arrow's supersonic technology, the encyclopedia noted.

Also, satellites were starting to enter orbit as of 1957, throwing into doubt the Arrow's primary role in defense, as it was designed to deal with intercontinental ballistic missiles originating from Earth.

https://www.space.com/canada-supersonic-avro-arrow-jet-preservation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opD86VZSWpo

Autumnal equinox 2024 brings fall to the Northern Hemisphere today

September 22, 2024

When is the first day of fall in 2024?

A carefully worded answer is that on Sunday, Sept. 22, at 8:44 a.m. Eastern daylight time (5:44 a.m. Pacific daylight time) autumn begins astronomically in the Northern Hemisphere, and spring in the Southern.

At that moment, the sun would be shining directly overhead as seen from a point in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, 461 miles (743 km) south-southwest of Monrovia, Liberia.

This date (like last March 20) is called an equinox, from the Latin for "equal night," alluding to the fact that day and night are then of equal length worldwide. But this is not necessarily so.

The definition of the equinox as being a time of equal day and night is a convenient oversimplification. For one thing, it treats night as simply the time the sun is beneath the horizon, and completely ignores twilight.

If the sun were nothing more than a point of light in the sky and if the Earth lacked an atmosphere, then at the time of an equinox the sun would indeed spend one half of its path above the horizon and one half below.

But in reality, atmospheric refraction raises the sun's disk by more than its own apparent diameter while it is rising or setting.

Thus, when we see the sun as a reddish-orange ball just sitting on the horizon, we're looking at an optical illusion. It is actually completely below the horizon.

In addition to refraction hastening sunrise and delaying sunset, there is another factor that makes daylight longer than night at an equinox: sunrise and sunset are defined as the times when the first or last speck of the sun's upper limb is visible above the horizon — not the center of the disk.

And this is why if you check your newspaper's almanac or weather page on Wednesday and look up the times of local sunrise and sunset, you'll notice that the duration of daylight, or the amount of time from sunrise to sunset, still lasts a bit more than 12 hours, and not exactly 12 as the term "equinox" suggests.

In Indianapolis, for instance, sunrise is at 7:32 a.m. and sunset comes at 7:40 p.m.

So, the amount of daylight is not 12 hours, but rather 12 hours and 8 minutes. Not until Sept. 25, are days and nights truly equal (sunrise is at 7:35 a.m., sunset coming 12 hours later).

And at the North Pole, the sun currently is tracing out a 360-degree circle around the entire sky, appearing to skim just above the edge of the horizon.

At the moment of this year's Autumnal Equinox, it should theoretically disappear completely from view, and yet its disk will still be hovering just above the horizon.

Not until nearly 51 hours later will the last speck of the sun's upper limb finally drop completely out of sight.

This strong refraction effect also causes the sun's disk to appear oval when it is near the horizon.

The amount of refraction increases so rapidly as the sun approaches the horizon, that its lower limb is lifted more than the upper, distorting the sun's disk noticeably.

Certain astronomical myths die hard. One of these is that the entire arctic region experiences six months of daylight and six months of darkness.

Often, "night" is simply considered to be when the sun is beneath the horizon, as if twilight didn't exist. This fallacy is repeated in innumerable geography textbooks, as well as travel articles and guides.

But twilight illuminates the sky to some extent whenever the sun's upper rim is less than 18-degrees below the horizon.

This marks the limit of astronomical twilight, when the sky is indeed totally dark from horizon to horizon.

There are two other types of twilight. Civil (bright) twilight exists when the sun is less than 6-degrees beneath the horizon. It is loosely defined as when most outdoor daytime activities can be continued.

Some daily newspapers provide a time when you should turn on your car's headlights. That time usually corresponds to the end of civil twilight.

So even at the North Pole, while the sun disappears from view for six months beginning on Sept. 24, to state that "total darkness" immediately sets in is hardly the case! Civil twilight does not end there until Oct. 8.

When the sun drops down to 12-degrees below the horizon it marks the end of nautical twilight, when a sea horizon becomes difficult to discern.

In fact, at the end of nautical twilight most people will regard night as having begun. At the North Pole we have to wait until Oct. 24 for nautical twilight to end. Finally, astronomical twilight — when the sky indeed becomes completely dark — ends on Nov. 13.

It then remains perpetually dark until Jan. 28 when the twilight cycles begin anew. So, at the North Pole the duration of 24-hour darkness lasts almost 11-weeks, not six months.

https://www.space.com/autumn-equinox-2024

>>21639024

If I may

Boeing Space & Defense chief Ted Colbert is leaving: reports

September 20, 2024

Boeing is getting a new space chief.

Ted Colbert will no longer be CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, one of the aerospace giant's subdivisions, according to media reports.

Those reports cite a staff memo circulated today (Sept. 20) by Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took the top job in August.

"At this critical juncture, our priority is to restore the trust of our customers and meet the high standards they expect of us to enable their critical missions around the world," Ortberg said in the memo, according to CNBC.

"Working together we can and will improve our performance and ensure we deliver on our commitments." The change is effective immediately.

Steve Parker, the chief operating officer of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, will take over as the unit's acting CEO until a long-term replacement is named, CNBC reported.

The news comes less than two weeks after Boeing's Starliner capsule returned to Earth uncrewed, wrapping up a troubled test flight to the International Space Station (ISS).

Starliner launched June 5 on its first-ever crewed mission, a test flight that carried NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS.

That mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), was supposed to last just 10 days or so.

But Starliner suffered thruster issues shortly after reaching space, and, after more than two months of study and debate, NASA decided to bring the capsule back to Earth uncrewed.

That landing, which occurred on Sept. 7, was successful, and NASA officials said that Wilmore and Williams would have been fine had they been aboard the capsule.

The duo remain aboard the ISS, however, and they won't come down until February 2025 — aboard a Crew Dragon capsule, built by Boeing rival SpaceX.

Both Boeing and SpaceX received multibillion-dollar NASA contracts in 2014 to carry astronauts to and from the ISS.

SpaceX is getting ready to launch its ninth operational crewed mission for the agency, whereas Starliner has yet to be certified for such flights.

https://www.space.com/boeing-space-ceo-ted-colbert-leaving

Innovative Transformer UFO LED High Bay Light Promises Efficiency and Cost Savings

September 20, 2024

In a significant development for the lighting industry, a new high-performance LED lighting solution has been introduced to the market.

The Transformer UFO LED High Bay, launched on September 20, 2024, in Anaheim, CA, is set to redefine standards in industrial and commercial lighting with its exceptional efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

This innovative lighting fixture is designed to replace traditional 400W HID fixtures while offering superior illumination and substantial energy savings.

The Transformer UFO LED High Bay boasts an impressive efficiency of 150 lumens per watt, which translates to energy savings of up to 80% compared to conventional HID fixtures.

Moreover, its lifespan is three times longer than metal halide or high-pressure sodium lamps, significantly reducing replacement costs and maintenance requirements.

The Transformer UFO LED High Bay’s design prioritizes durability and reliability. Its solid-state construction, free from fans or moving parts, ensures long-lasting and stable performance.

The fixture incorporates a four-way protection system, including varistor protection, lamp body protection, and safeguards against over-temperature and over-voltage conditions.

This comprehensive protection system contributes to the product’s safe and dependable operation.

One of the standout features of this LED high bay is its smart interface, which supports plug-and-play sensors such as microwave sensors, passive infrared sensors, and WiFi sensors.

This capability facilitates easy integration with intelligent control systems, making it an ideal choice for modern, smart building environments.

The product’s unique design has garnered international recognition, including patents in the U.S., China, and Europe, as well as the prestigious Red Dot Award.

A notable feature is the 7% upper light design, which enhances overall lighting performance and makes the fixture suitable for use in totally enclosed settings.

The Transformer UFO LED High Bay is certified by CE/UL/CUL/DLC 5.1, ensuring compliance with global safety and quality standards.

Versatility is a key attribute of the Transformer UFO LED High Bay. It is adaptable for various applications, including use in lanterns, post tops, shoebox fixtures, and low bay installations.

The fixture’s adjustable angle design, compliant with Dark Sky standards, helps reduce light pollution. Additionally, its 350° rotatable E base allows users to easily adjust the light direction for optimal performance.

Available in power options of 50W, 70W, and 100W, with a color temperature of 4500K, the Transformer UFO LED High Bay is suitable for a wide range of industrial and commercial settings.

The IP40-rated housing provides robust protection against environmental factors, and an optional PIR sensor is available to enhance its adaptability to different environments.

The introduction of the Transformer UFO LED High Bay represents a significant step forward in lighting technology.

Its combination of high efficiency, low energy consumption, and intelligent design positions it as a competitive solution in the market.

As businesses and industries increasingly prioritize energy efficiency and smart technology integration, this innovative lighting solution is poised to make a substantial impact on the lighting industry and contribute to more sustainable and cost-effective lighting practices.

With a 5-year warranty, the Transformer UFO LED High Bay offers customers long-term peace of mind, further underscoring its value proposition in the competitive lighting market.

As energy costs continue to be a concern for businesses, and environmental considerations become increasingly important, innovative solutions like the Transformer UFO LED High Bay are likely to play a crucial role in shaping the future of industrial and commercial lighting.

https://www.citybuzz.co/2024/09/20/innovative-transformer-ufo-led-high-bay-light-promises-efficiency-and-cost-savings/

NASA creates space sustainability division to consolidate orbital debris activities

September 21, 2024

NASA has established a space sustainability division that will consolidate much of the work the agency is doing on orbital debris and related issues.

Speaking at the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies (AMOS) Conference Sept. 19, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said the agency received the required approvals from congressional appropriations committees the previous day for the reorganization required to create the division.

The division will be a “unified organization that will integrate our operational, research and policy functions,” she said.

Those functions had been spread out among several offices spread out among different NASA mission directorates and centers.

She noted eight different entities within NASA have some role in orbital debris, including the Orbital Debris Program Office, Meteoroid Environments Office and Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis program.

Other parts of NASA’s science and space technology directorates also play roles in space sustainability, along with offices involved in policy.

“We can’t move every organization under this one umbrella,” she said, such as the trajectory operations officer, or TOPO, at the Johnson Space Center, who has responsibilities beyond orbital debris conjunction assessments for the International Space Station.

“But what we can do is move the organizations that can be moved together and then take action going forward to have a coordination function.”

The Space Sustainability Division will be part of the Space Operations Mission Directorate, which includes the ISS.

“If you have an operational mission, having it under operational control is really helpful,” she said. “That’s the day-to-day urgent mission. We’re keeping astronauts and our spacecraft safe.”

The division will be led by Alvin Drew, a former astronaut that the agency recently named the first director of space sustainability.

NASA created that position as part of the space sustainability strategy it unveiled in April.

That strategy also included the creation by the agency of “an empowered organizational entity to focus on day-to-day coordination and accountability of NASA’s space sustainability efforts.”

Melroy said the new division will have access to about $40 million “sprinkled across the agency” that she said should be better coordinated now.

“It’s so important for us to be on the same page so that we can make effective use of that money.”

That includes tackling challenges in orbital debris research.

The strategy calls for developing a framework for space sustainability as well as improved metrics and modeling to address “serious uncertainties” about debris models.

“I can tell you it has not escaped senior leaders’ notice that we don’t even have common numbers of debris posted on various websites for how much is out there,” she said, which she argued was one reason why there has been little progress on solutions to the debris problem.

“There are sometimes orders of magnitude difference in how much orbital debris of what site exists out there. People notice that.”

“Don’t even get me started on how we can remediate debris when we can’t even track it,” she added.

She called on debris researchers to work on ways to reduce uncertainty in those models, saying it can lead to “more consensus around projects that we can do together” in the field.

“You’ve got to tell this story better to leaders, and I’m here to help.”

https://spacenews.com/nasa-creates-space-sustainability-division-to-consolidate-orbital-debris-activities/

'Time traveller' claims to know exact date aliens will make contact

12:29, 20 SEP 2024

A self-proclaimed 'time traveller from the year 2671' has claimed to know the exact date aliens will make contact with humans — but it apparently won't end well.

Eno Alaric, who is known under the username @radianttimetraveller, has amassed over 900,000 followers by sharing claims about future events.

He has previously warned of twin planets colliding with Earth and even the onset of World War 3.

But in his most recent post, the bloke warned that aliens will make contact with humans within a matter of days.

In a video, which has gained more than 4,000 views, the alleged time-warper wrote: "September 23: The first confirmed alien signal arrives from a distant solar system."

However, it doesn't appear to be peaceful as he claimed: "They plan to soon visit Earth and try and take it over, they attempt to conquer and end humanity."

He continued: "October 23: The sun lets out a rare energy that lets people see how they pass, it happens everyday for 3 months.

"November 12: An alien artifact is found buried in Antarctica, it contains a mysterious disease. This disease is very contagious and quickly spreads throughout the world, it has no cure.

"November 17: A meteor shower appears out of no where, they leave a glowing pattern in the sky. Later it creates new types of animals, essentially giving Earth an animal update.

"December 17: A new storm forms, it is known as an Electric Tornado, it happens when lightning and a tornado mix. It is much larger than the average tornado, some being 20 miles wide and traveling 600-800MPH."

TikTok users were left divided over whether they believed the claims - with viewers having a debate in the comments. One user said: "Let the aliens come then and see the next."

Another argued: "I highly doubt any of that is true because I’ve seen a bunch of other ones and they’ve never happened," while a third suggested:

"Give it a rest." Someone else joked: "Finally I am tired of paying bills, all my loans will be free."

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/time-traveller-claims-know-exact-33713219

https://www.tiktok.com/@radianttimetraveler/video/7416491794432609567