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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
November 5, 2024
Milky Way over Easter Island
Why were the statues on Easter Island built? No one is sure. What is sure is that over 900 large stone statues called moais exist there. The Rapa Nui (Easter Island) moais stand, on average, over twice as tall as a person and have over 200 times as much mass. It is thought that the unusual statues were created about 600 years ago in the images of local leaders of a vibrant and ancient civilization. Rapa Nui has been declared by UNESCO to a World Heritage Site. Pictured here, some of the stone giants were imaged last month under the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Previously unknown moais are still being discovered.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
NASA’s NEOWISE Spacecraft Re-Enters Atmosphere, But More Discoveries Await!
Nov 04, 2024
NASA’s NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) spacecraft re-entered and burned up in Earth’s atmosphere on Friday night, as expected.
Launched in 2009 as the WISE mission, the spacecraft has been mapping the entire sky at infrared wavelengths over and over for nearly fifteen years.
During that time, more than one hundred thousand amateur scientists have used these data in citizen science projects like the Milky Way Project, Disk Detective, Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, Backyard Worlds: Cool Neighbors, and Exoasteroids.
This citizen science work has led to more than 55 scientific publications. Highlights include:
The discovery of Yellowballs, a kind of compact star-forming region.
The discovery of Peter Pan Disks, long lived accretion disks around low-mass stars.
The discovery of the first extreme T subdwarfs.
The likely discovery of an aurora on a brown dwarf.
Measurement of the field substellar mass function down to effective temperature ~400 K.
The discovery of the oldest known white dwarf with a disk.
Detection of a possible collision between planets.
The discovery of the lowest-mass hypervelocity star.
Although the spacecraft is no longer in orbit, there is plenty of work to do.
The WISE/NEOWISE data contain trillions of detections of astronomical sources – enough to keep projects like Disk Detective, Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, Backyard Worlds:
Cool Neighbors, and Exoasteroids busy making new discoveries for years to come. Join one of these projects today to help unravel the mysteries of the infrared universe!
https://science.nasa.gov/get-involved/citizen-science/nasas-neowise-spacecraft-re-enters-atmosphere-but-more-discoveries-await/
Final Venus Flyby for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Queues Closest Sun Pass
Nov 04, 2024
On Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will complete its final Venus gravity assist maneuver, passing within 233 miles (376 km) of Venus’ surface.
The flyby will adjust Parker’s trajectory into its final orbital configuration, bringing the spacecraft to within an unprecedented 3.86 million miles of the solar surface on Dec. 24, 2024.
It will be the closest any human made object has been to the Sun.
Parker’s Venus flybys have become boons for new Venus science thanks to a chance discovery from its Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, or WISPR.
The instrument peers out from Parker and away from the Sun to see fine details in the solar wind. But on July 11, 2020, during Parker’s third Venus flyby, scientists turned WISPR toward Venus in hopes of tracking changes in the planet’s thick cloud cover.
The images revealed a surprise: A portion of WISPR’s data, which captures visible and near infrared light, seemed to see all the way through the clouds to the Venusian surface below.
“The WISPR cameras can see through the clouds to the surface of Venus, which glows in the near-infrared because it’s so hot,” said Noam Izenberg, a space scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
Venus, sizzling at approximately 869 degrees Fahrenheit (about 465 C), was radiating through the clouds.
The WISPR images from the 2020 flyby, as well as the next flyby in 2021, revealed Venus’ surface in a new light.
But they also raised puzzling questions, and scientists have devised the Nov. 6 flyby to help answer them.
The Venus images correspond well with data from the Magellan spacecraft, showing dark and light patterns that line up with surface regions Magellan captured when it mapped Venus’ surface using radar from 1990 to 1994.
Yet some parts of the WISPR images appear brighter than expected, hinting at extra information captured by WISPR’s data.
Is WISPR picking up on chemical differences on the surface, where the ground is made of different material? Perhaps it’s seeing variations in age, where more recent lava flows added a fresh coat to the Venusian surface.
“Because it flies over a number of similar and different landforms than the previous Venus flybys, the Nov. 6 flyby will give us more context to evaluate whether WISPR can help us distinguish physical or even chemical properties of Venus’ surface,” Izenberg said.
After the Nov. 6 flyby, Parker will be on course to swoop within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface, the final objective of the historic mission first conceived over 65 years ago.
No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker’s data will be charting as-yet uncharted territory.
In this hyper-close regime, Parker will cut through plumes of plasma still connected to the Sun. It is close enough to pass inside a solar eruption, like a surfer diving under a crashing ocean wave.
“This is a major engineering accomplishment,” said Adam Szabo, project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The closest approach to the Sun, or perihelion, will occur on Dec. 24, 2024, during which mission control will be out of contact with the spacecraft.
Parker will send a beacon tone on Dec. 27, 2024, to confirm its success and the spacecraft’s health. Parker will remain in this orbit for the remainder of its mission, completing two more perihelia at the same distance.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/final-venus-flyby-for-nasas-parker-solar-probe-queues-closest-sun-pass/
NASA Science, Cargo Launch on 31st SpaceX Resupply Mission to Station
Nov 04, 2024
Following a successful launch of NASA’s SpaceX 31st commercial resupply mission, new scientific experiments and cargo for the agency are bound for the International Space Station.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, carrying more than 6,000 pounds of supplies to the orbiting laboratory, lifted off at 9:29 p.m. EST Monday, on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Live coverage of the spacecraft’s arrival will begin at 8:45 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 5, on NASA+ and the agency’s website. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
The spacecraft is scheduled to autonomously dock at approximately 10:15 a.m. to the forward port of the space station’s Harmony module. The resupply mission will support dozens of research experiments conducted during Expedition 72.
In addition to food, supplies, and equipment for the crew, Dragon will deliver several new experiments, including the Coronal Diagnostic Experiment, to examine solar wind and how it forms.
Dragon also delivers Antarctic moss to observe the combined effects of cosmic radiation and microgravity on plants.
Other investigations aboard include a device to test cold welding of metals in microgravity and an investigation that studies how space impacts different materials.
These are just a sample of the hundreds of investigations conducted aboard the orbiting laboratory in the areas of biology and biotechnology, physical sciences, and Earth and space science.
Such research benefits humanity and lays the groundwork for future human exploration through the agency’s Artemis campaign, which will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future expeditions to Mars.
The Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to remain at the space station until December when it will depart the orbiting laboratory and return to Earth with research and cargo, splashing down off the coast of Florida.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-science-cargo-launch-on-31st-spacex-resupply-mission-to-station/
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/nasas-spacex-31st-resupply-mission-to-launch-experiments-to-station/
https://phys.org/news/2024-11-world-wooden-satellite-space.html
Iran achieves historic milestone with launch of 2 satellites into space
5th November 2024 4:52 pm IST
The Islamic Republic of Iran successfully launched two domestically manufactured satellites named Kowsar and Hodhod early morning on Tuesday, November 5, marking a milestone for the country’s private sector in the space industry.
According to the Iranian news agency Press TV reports, The satellites were launched from the Vostochny spaceport in eastern Russia in the far east of Russia and employed by the Russian Soyuz satellite launch vehicle.
This success is particularly noteworthy because it was the first attempt by the Iranian private sector to design as well as launch satellites into orbit.
Soyuz rocket blasted off on time and put the satellites into orbit, which is quite a record at the time of takeoff mere nine minutes.
In addition to Iranian satellites, the mission was accompanied by two Russian Ionosfera-M Earth-observing satellites and other minisatellites altogether 53.
Kowsar: This satellite serves the remote sensing purpose and is able to capture images that are helpful in numerous fields such as agriculture, management of natural resources, environment, and crisis management.
Hodhod: This satellite is an operational classified compact communication satellite designed to supplement the services provided by the Kowsar satellite.
This launch is crucial in Iran’s space program which has encountered several challenges in the recent past, particularly after five failed attempts in the Simorgh satellite-launching program.
The launching of Kowsar and Hodhod not only demonstrates the progress Iran has made in the technology sector but also raises the Iran-Russian partnership to space.
The successful launch occurs as Moscow and Tehran ramp up cooperation across different fields.
According to the Press, both countries are working towards formalising a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” which is expected to be discussed during an upcoming visit by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to Russia.
https://www.siasat.com/iran-achieves-historic-milestone-with-launch-of-2-satellites-into-space-3126167/
Asteroid-mining company AstroForge gets 1st-ever FCC license for commercial deep-space mission
November 5, 2024
Asteroid prospecting company AstroForge has been awarded the first-ever commercial license for operating and communicating with a spacecraft in deep space, ahead of its Odin mission that's set to launch and rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid in early 2025.
The license, granted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Oct. 18, pertains specifically to setting up a communication network with radio ground stations on Earth, to enable commands to be sent up to Odin and data to be transmitted back to Earth.
In this case, deep space is defined by the International Telecommunications Union as being farther than 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Earth.
AstroForge's ultimate aim is to send a spacecraft to an asteroid, land on it and use an onboard refinery to mine the asteroid for precious metals.
But the technology is still very much at the proof-of-concept stage.
The company's first space mission, Brokkr-1, was a cubesat that launched in April 2023 and successfully reached Earth orbit.
However, AstroForge mission control was unable to successfully activate the prototype refinery technology on board to demonstrate that it works in microgravity.
Despite this mishap, AstroForge said on its website that the Brokkr-1 mission had been "invaluable … identifying weaknesses to resolve for our upcoming Mission 2 and providing our team with the experience of a flight campaign from concept design to on-orbit operations and all the steps in between to build, qualify and certify a vehicle for space."
Odin is the company's second space mission. Despite winning the commercial license, it hasn't all been plain sailing for the new effort.
In March, the original Odin spacecraft failed a vibration test, meaning that it would be vulnerable to damage during launch.
The problem, said AstroForge, was that the spacecraft's baseplate, to which propulsion tanks and thrusters are attached, contained cracks resulting from its manufacture by a third party.
This forced AstroForge to make the difficult decision to dump the original Odin spacecraft and accelerate in-house development on the spacecraft for its third mission, Vestri, to be used for Odin instead.
The new Odin spacecraft is a bigger beast than Brokkr-1.
Odin weighs 100 kilograms (220 pounds) and will launch as a secondary payload on Intuitive Machines' IM-2 moon mission, currently slated for blastoff in January 2025.
AstroForge has not yet said which asteroid Odin will be heading to, but the plan is for the probe to orbit the asteroid and image its surface, ahead of Vestri, for which a new spacecraft is currently being built, which will land on the asteroid.
AstroForge's timeline had Vestri slated for launch in 2025 on board IM-3, but given the need to build a new spacecraft and any uncertainties in Intuitive Machines' launch date, that timeline could change.
Neither Odin nor Vestri will conduct any actual asteroid mining, but should they succeed, they will have demonstrated the key stages of reaching an asteroid and getting in position to begin mining.
The actual mining and refining technology would then be demonstrated on subsequent missions.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/tech/asteroid-mining-company-astroforge-gets-1st-ever-fcc-license-for-commercial-deep-space-mission
https://www.astroforge.io/updates/an-update-on-mission-1-mission-2-same-name-new-vehicle-new-standard-for-space-exploration
Found her. Vanessa Horabuena.
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