Has a YT channel too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vncUXiuS3bs
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
October 18, 2024
Most of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS
On October 14 it was hard to capture a full view of Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. Taken after the comet's closest approach to our fair planet, this evening skyview almost does though. With two telephoto frames combined, the image stretches about 26 degrees across the sky from top to bottom, looking west from Gates Pass, Tucson, Arizona. Comet watchers that night could even identify globular star cluster M5 and the faint apparition of periodic comet 13P Olbers near the long the path of Tsuchinshan-ATLAS's whitish dust tail above the bright comet's coma. Due to perspective as the Earth is crossing the comet's orbital plane, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS also has a pronounced antitail. The antitail is composed of dust previously released and fanning out away from the Sun along the comet's orbit, visible as a needle-like extension below the bright coma toward the rugged western horizon.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Houston We Have a Podcast - Our Orbiting Lab's Benefits for Humanity
Oct 18, 2024
Season 1 Episode 358
From Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars, explore the world of human spaceflight with NASA each week on the official podcast of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Listen to in-depth conversations with the astronauts, scientists and engineers who make it possible.
On episode 358, the Deputy Chief Scientist for the International Space Station dives into the different ways the orbiting laboratory provides benefits to humanity. This episode was recorded on Sept. 26, 2024.
https://www.nasa.gov/podcasts/houston-we-have-a-podcast/our-orbiting-labs-benefits-for-humanity/
Hubble Captures a New View of Galaxy M90
Oct 18, 2024
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the striking spiral galaxy Messier 90 (M90, also NGC 4569), located in the constellation Virgo. In 2019, Hubble released an image of M90 created with Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) data taken in 1994, soon after its installation. That WFPC2 image has a distinctive stair-step pattern due to the layout of its sensors. Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) replaced WFPC2 in 2009 and Hubble used WFC3 when it turned its aperture to Messier 90 again in 2019 and 2023. That data resulted in this stunning new image, providing a much fuller view of the galaxy’s dusty disk, its gaseous halo, and its bright core.
The inner regions of M90’s disk are sites of star formation, seen here in red H-alpha light from nebulae. M90 sits among the galaxies of the relatively nearby Virgo Cluster, and its orbit took M90 on a path near the cluster’s center about three hundred million years ago. The density of gas in the inner cluster weighed on M90 like a strong headwind, stripping enormous quantities of gas from the galaxy and creating the diffuse halo we see around it. This gas is no longer available to form new stars in M90, with the spiral galaxy eventually fading as a result.
M90 is located 55 million light-years from Earth, but it’s one of the very few galaxies getting closer to us. Its orbit through the Virgo cluster has accelerated so much that M90 is in the process of escaping the cluster entirely. By happenstance, it’s moving in our direction. Astronomers have measured other galaxies in the Virgo cluster at similar speeds, but in the opposite direction. As M90 continues to move toward us over billions of years, it will also be evolving into a lenticular galaxy.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-captures-a-new-view-of-galaxy-m90/
What is Air Quality?
Oct 18, 2024
Clean air is essential for healthy living, but according to the World Health Organization (WHO), almost 99% of the global population breathes air exceeding their guideline limits of air pollution.
“Air quality is a measure of how much stuff is in the air, which includes particulates and gaseous pollutants,” said Kristina Pistone, a research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center.
Pistone’s research covers both atmospheric and climate areas, with a focus on the effect of atmospheric particles on climate and clouds.
“It’s important to understand air quality because it affects your health and how well you can live your life and go about your day,” Pistone said.
We sat down with Pistone to learn more about air quality and how it can have a noticeable impact on human health and the environment.
What makes up air quality?
There are six main air pollutants regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States: particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides, ozone, sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, and lead.
These pollutants come from from natural sources, such as the particulate matter that rises into the atmosphere from fires and desert dust, or from human activity, such as the ozone generated from sunlight reacting to vehicle emissions.
What is the importance of air quality?
Air quality influences health and quality of life. “Just like we need to ingest water, we need to breathe air,” Pistone said.
“We have come to expect clean water because we understand that we need it to live and be healthy, and we should expect the same from our air.”
Poor air quality has been tied to cardiovascular and respiratory effects in humans.
Short-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), for example, can cause respiratory symptoms like coughing and wheezing, and long-term exposure increases the risk of developing respiratory diseases such as asthma or respiratory infections.
Exposure to ozone can aggravate the lungs and damage the airways. Exposure to PM2.5 (particulates 2.5 micrometers or smaller) causes lung irritation and has been linked to heart and lung diseases.
In addition to its impacts on human health, poor air quality can damage the environment, polluting bodies of water through acidification and eutrophication. These processes kill plants, deplete soil nutrients, and harm animals.
Measuring Air Quality: the Air Quality Index (AQI)
Air quality is similar to the weather; it can change quickly, even within a matter of hours.
To measure and report on air quality, the EPA uses the United States Air Quality Index (AQI).
The AQI is calculated by measuring each of the six primary air pollutants on a scale from “Good” to “Hazardous,” to produce a combined AQI numeric value 0-500.
“Usually when we’re talking about air quality, we’re saying that there are things in the atmosphere that we know are not good for humans to be breathing all the time,” Pistone said.
“So to have good air quality, you need to be below a certain threshold of pollution.” Localities around the world use different thresholds for “good” air quality, which is often dependent on which pollutants their system measures.
In the EPA’s system, an AQI value of 50 or lower is considered good, while 51-100 is considered moderate.
An AQI value between 100 and 150 is considered unhealthy for sensitive groups, and higher values are unhealthy to everyone; a health alert is issued when the AQI reaches 200.
Any value over 300 is considered hazardous, and is frequently associated with particulate pollution from wildfires.
NASA Air Quality Research and Data Products
Air quality sensors are a valuable resource for capturing air quality data on a local level.
In 2022, the Trace Gas GRoup (TGGR) at NASA Ames Research Center deployed Inexpensive Network Sensor Technology for Exploring Pollution, or INSTEP: a new network of low-cost air quality sensors that measures a variety of pollutants.
These sensors are capturing air quality data in certain areas in California, Colorado, and Mongolia, and have proven advantageous for monitoring air quality during California’s fire season.
The 2024 Airborne and Satellite Investigation of Asian Air Quality (ASIA-AQ) mission integrated sensor data from aircraft, satellites, and ground-based platforms to evaluate air quality over several countries in Asia.
The data captured from multiple instruments on these flights, such as the Meteorological Measurement System (MMS) from NASA Ames Atmospheric Science Branch, are used to refine air quality models to forecast and assess air quality conditions.
cont.
https://www.nasa.gov/general/what-is-air-quality/
NASA’s C-130 Aircraft En Route to India in Support of NISAR Mission
Oct 17, 2024
NASA’s globetrotting C-130 Hercules team is carrying out a cargo transport mission to Bengaluru, India, in support of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission.
The C-130 departed from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Tuesday, Oct. 15, to embark on the multi-leg, multi-day journey.
The flight path will take the aircraft coast to coast within the United States, across the Pacific Ocean with planned island stops, and finally to its destination in India.
The goal: safely deliver NISAR’s radar antennae reflector, one of NASA’s contributions to the mission, for integration on the spacecraft.
NISAR is a joint mission between NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation).
The cargo transport mission will encompass approximately 24,500 nautical miles and nearly 80 hours of flight time for the C-130 and crew.
The flight plan includes strategic stops and rest days to service the aircraft and reduce crew fatigue from long-haul segments of the flight and multiple time zone changes.
The first stop for the C-130 was March Air Reserve Base located in Riverside County, California, to retrieve the radar antennae reflector from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Additional stops during the mission include Hickman Air Force Base, Hawaii; Andersen Air Force Base, Guam; Clark Air Base, Philippines; and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Airport in Bengaluru, India.
This is the C-130 and crew’s third cargo transport to India in support of the NISAR mission, with prior flights in July 2023 and March 2024.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-c-130-aircraft-en-route-to-india-in-support-of-nisar-mission/
NASA’s IXPE Helps Researchers Determine Shape of Black Hole Corona
Oct 17, 2024
New findings using data from NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) mission offer unprecedented insight into the shape and nature of a structure important to black holes called a corona.
A corona is a shifting plasma region that is part of the flow of matter onto a black hole, about which scientists have only a theoretical understanding.
The new results reveal the corona’s shape for the first time, and may aid scientists’ understanding of the corona’s role in feeding and sustaining black holes.
Many black holes, so named because not even light can escape their titanic gravity, are surrounded by accretion disks, debris-cluttered whirlpools of gas.
Some black holes also have relativistic jets – ultra-powerful outbursts of matter hurled into space at high speed by black holes that are actively eating material in their surroundings.
Less well known, perhaps, is that snacking black holes, much like Earth’s Sun and other stars, also possess a superheated corona.
While the Sun’s corona, which is the star’s outermost atmosphere, burns at roughly 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of a black hole corona is estimated at billions of degrees.
Astrophysicists previously identified coronae among stellar-mass black holes – those formed by a star’s collapse – and supermassive black holes such as the one at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy.
“Scientists have long speculated on the makeup and geometry of the corona,” said Lynne Saade, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and lead author of the new findings.
“Is it a sphere above and below the black hole, or an atmosphere generated by the accretion disk, or perhaps plasma located at the base of the jets?”
Enter IXPE, which specializes in X-ray polarization, the characteristic of light that helps map the shape and structure of even the most powerful energy sources, illuminating their inner workings even when the objects are too small, bright, or distant to see directly.
Just as we can safely observe the Sun’s corona during a total solar eclipse, IXPE provides the means to clearly study the black hole’s accretion geometry, or the shape and structure of its accretion disk and related structures, including the corona.
“X-ray polarization provides a new way to examine black hole accretion geometry,” Saade said.
“If the accretion geometry of black holes is similar regardless of mass, we expect the same to be true of their polarization properties.”
IXPE demonstrated that, among all black holes for which coronal properties could be directly measured via polarization, the corona was found to be extended in the same direction as the accretion disk – providing, for the first time, clues to the corona’s shape and clear evidence of its relationship to the accretion disk.
The results rule out the possibility that the corona is shaped like a lamppost hovering over the disk.
The research team studied data from IXPE’s observations of 12 black holes, among them Cygnus X-1 and Cygnus X-3, stellar-mass binary black hole systems about 7,000 and 37,000 light-years from Earth, respectively, and LMC X-1 and LMC X-3, stellar-mass black holes in the Large Magellanic Cloud more than 165,000 light-years away.
IXPE also observed a number of supermassive black holes, including the one at the center of the Circinus galaxy, 13 million light-years from Earth, and those in galaxies NGC 1068 and NGC 4151, 47 million light-years away and nearly 62 million light-years away, respectively.
Stellar mass black holes typically have a mass roughly 10 to 30 times that of Earth’s Sun, whereas supermassive black holes may have a mass that is millions to tens of billions of times larger.
Despite these vast differences in scale, IXPE data suggests both types of black holes create accretion disks of similar geometry.
That’s surprising, said Marshall astrophysicist Philip Kaaret, principal investigator for the IXPE mission, because the way the two types are fed is completely different.
“Stellar-mass black holes rip mass from their companion stars, whereas supermassive black holes devour everything around them,” he said. “Yet the accretion mechanism functions much the same way.”
That’s an exciting prospect, Saade said, because it suggests that studies of stellar-mass black holes – typically much closer to Earth than their much more massive cousins – can help shed new light on properties of supermassive black holes as well.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ixpe/nasas-ixpe-helps-researchers-determine-shape-of-black-hole-corona/
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad73a3
Just Keep Roving
Oct 17, 2024
Throughout the past week, Perseverance has continued marching up the Jezero crater rim. This steep ascent through the Martian regolith (soil) can prove to be slow driving for the rover, as the wheels can slip on the steepest areas. This is like trying to run up a hill of sand on a beach – with every step forward, you also slip back a little way down the hill! This just means the Science and Engineering teams work together closely to plan slow and steady drives through this tricky terrain.
Driving through the Mount Ranier quadrangle, the team identified a relatively obstacle-free path to reach the crater rim which they designated Summerland Trail, aptly named from a very popular hiking trail that ascends Mount Ranier. Perseverance is trekking to the next waypoint near an outcrop of rocks called Pico Turquino, where the science team hopes to perform its next proximity science investigations with its instruments PIXL and back-online SHERLOC.
While roving along Summerland Trail, Perseverance is constantly observing the surrounding terrain. SuperCam and Mastcam-Z have been observing rocks on the ground and on a distant hill, called Crystal Creek. In addition, during this time Perseverance can put its eyes to the sky to make observations of the sun and atmosphere. Last week, the Mastcam-Z camera captured images of Phobos (one of Mars’ two moons) transiting in front of the sun!
While the Mars2020 team is itching to reach the ancient stratigraphy exposed in the crater rim, for now, the focus is on documenting our surroundings while navigating the ascent.
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/just-keep-roving/
Space to Ground: Celestial Visitor: Oct. 18, 2024
NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.
Got a question or comment? Use #AskNASA to talk to us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8e3983ebqY
Richard Branson to take balloon ride to edge of space
Fri 18 Oct 2024 // 12:00 UTC
Richard Branson is taking to the skies again, this time hitching a ride to the top of the Earth's atmosphere in a Space Perspective balloon.
The mission, planned for 2025, was announced in the wake of a successful development flight in September when an uncrewed test capsule was taken 100,000 feet up and back during a six-hour trip.
Further uncrewed tests are scheduled before Space Perspective founders Jane Poynter and CTO Taber MacCallum board the capsule for the first crewed test flight.
Branson, an investor in the company, will join the founders, according to an announcement on X. He said: "Some of the most magnificent experiences of my life have happened on ballooning expeditions and I'm excited to support Space Perspective in its journey.
"I'm passionate about adventure and helping fellow entrepreneurs reach their business dreams.
I look forward to dusting off my old ballooning license ahead of some magnificent test flights."
Branson's Virgin brand has been associated with several space-related ventures.
Virgin Orbit, which aimed to launch rockets from beneath the wing of a Boeing 747, shut down in 2023.
Virgin Galactic, which sends passengers on a sub-orbital lob in a spaceplane, is still operational and rocketed Branson to 85 km (53 miles) in 2021.
Virgin Galactic flights are on pause while the company works on the successor to the spaceplane that carried Branson.
The Space Perspective flight will be a more civilized affair. For one, the capsule will carry restroom facilities and fully stocked bar.
The mission will also take six hours from launch to landing – two hours up, two hours looking at the Earth, and two hours back down again.
The capsule, Neptune, will carry eight "Explorers" and a captain, and has a pressurized volume of more than 60 cubic meters (2,000 cubic feet).
The nature of the flight – a gentle 12 mph (19 kph) rather than the parabolic arc flown by Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity – means there won't be any weightless shenanigans.
However, the views are sure to be impressive.
Branson is famously no stranger to balloons with cabins hanging beneath, although the Neptune is much more advanced than those used in the Bearded One's adventures over the years. In the 1980s and 1990s, he crossed the Atlantic and Pacific by balloon.
Space Perspective's balloon is the same type as that used by NASA and other agencies to fly payloads to a high altitude.
Should something go wrong, the Neptune is also equipped with parachutes. According to the company, the capsule's windows are the largest ever flown to space.
We're certain the "space" part of that claim will be hotly debated since, at an altitude of 100,000 feet, the balloon will not cross the Kármán line, which lies at 330,000 feet or 100 km (62 miles).
Once operational, Space Perspective will charge $125,000 per seat on a flight.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/18/branson_space_perspective_balloon/
https://x.com/SpacePerspectiv/status/1846979141284855852
ESA moves forward with Apophis mission preparations
17/10/2024
On 13 April 2029, the 375 m asteroid Apophis will pass within 32 000 km of Earth’s surface – less than one tenth of the distance from Earth to the Moon.
This extremely rare natural phenomenon will draw the attention of the entire world and offer a unique opportunity for scientific and planetary defence research.
During the flyby, strong tidal forces will strain the asteroid and likely reveal new material from beneath the surface.
A spacecraft at Apophis could observe these changes and teach scientists a lot about the asteroid’s composition and structure, as well as how an asteroid responds to external forces.
We must understand these properties if we ever hope to be capable of knocking a hazardous asteroid off a collision course with Earth.
ESA will propose such a mission for approval and funding at its next Ministerial Council Meeting in 2025 as the next Planetary Defence mission in its Space Safety Programme.
The spacecraft will be based on an adaptation of Hera, ESA’s first asteroid mission, which successfully launched on 7 October 2024.
However, the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses) would need to launch in early 2028 in order to arrive at Apophis in time to study it as it passes Earth.
Therefore, in July 2024, ESA’s Member States approved the use of existing Agency funds to begin preparatory work on the mission’s Consolidation / Early Implementation phase.
This work will ensure that, if the Ramses mission receives full support in 2025, its implementation is feasible within this very strict timeline.
The funds were made available via ESA’s General Support Technology Programme and Space Safety Programme, and ESA, industry and all relevant stakeholders have worked together tirelessly to minimise the time required to convert the funds into a contract.
On Thursday 17 October, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and OHB Italia Managing Director Roberto Aceti signed a contract worth €63 million at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Milan that will enable the work to begin.
The funds will be used to begin the procurement process for certain time-critical or long-lead equipment, as well as to finalise the overall design of the spacecraft while considering the opportunities for international cooperation currently under discussion.
“By developing and launching the Hera mission on time and under budget, we have demonstrated that ESA and its industrial and scientific partners can meet the challenging deadlines required by asteroid missions,” says ESA’s Paolo Martino, who is overseeing the work.
“With Ramses we are raising the bar even further, so we need to act now to ensure that, if our Member States decide to support the mission in 2025, we can hit the ground running and reach Apophis in time.”
https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Planetary_Defence/ESA_moves_forward_with_Apophis_mission_preparations
How we protected the UK and space in September 2024
updated 18 October 2024
This report was issued in October 2024 and covers the time period 1 September 2024 to 30 September 2024 inclusive.
Summary
September saw a higher number of general collision risks than the usual monthly average, the vast majority of which were very low probability.
We saw a reduced number of re-entry and space weather events and we expect these re-entry numbers to continue to reduce from the high we saw in August.
All NSpOC warning and protection services functioned as expected throughout the period.
Uncontrolled Re-Entry Early Warning
This month saw 50 re-entering objects; a reduction in the number of objects re-entering Earth’s atmosphere compared to August, when the numbers were particularly high due to planned re-entry campaigns.
Re-entered objects of note included the Polaris Dawn trunk re-entry on 29 September which re-entered over the Atlantic Ocean.
This trunk was from the crewed Polaris Dawn mission launched earlier in the month taking 4 astronauts to complete the first private spacewalk.
In-Space Collision Avoidance
We warned UK-licensed satellite operators of 3,041 potential collision risks in September representing a 42% increase on August.
Heightened solar activity and multiple operators in similar orbits might have contributed to the increase in risks. Our warnings allow operators to take critical collision avoidance decisions.
Fragmentation incidents
NSpOC has been monitoring the Atlas 5 Centaur rocket body break-up.
Objects are still being analysed but we expect the debris count to be over 20 objects.
Space weather
Below is a summary of the key space weather events during this reporting period.
September – A moderate radiation storm occurred on 9 September where satellites may have experienced a modest increase in single event upsets to electronic systems.
12 September – Two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) arrived on 12 September, leading to a moderate geomagnetic storm with possible impacts to satellites.
14-16 September – A Strong wide-area blackout affected the sunlit side of Earth on 14 September, with the subsequent CME arriving at Earth late on 16 September producing a strong geomagnetic storm and an associated moderate radiation storm.
Satellites may have again experienced a modest increase in single event upsets to electronic systems.
30 September – A moderate solar flare occurred which may have slightly impacted satellite communications on the sunlit side.
Number of Objects in Space
There was a total increase of 571 registered space objects during September which was slightly lower than in August.
Just over 300 of these objects were additional debris pieces catalogued from the LM-6A (CZ-6A) fragmentation which occurred at the beginning of August.
Additionally, SpaceX deployed a further 82 Starlink satellites during September.
Note that numbers in the registered space objects catalogue can fluctuate over time as data is continually verified.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/how-we-protected-the-uk-and-space-in-september-2024