Good morning E to the lon
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
November 21, 2024
The Elephant's Trunk in Cepheus
Like an illustration in a galactic Just So Story, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula winds through the emission region and young star cluster complex IC 1396, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus. Also known as vdB 142, this cosmic elephant's trunk is over 20 light-years long. The detailed telescopic view features the bright swept-back ridges and pockets of cool interstellar dust and gas that abound in the region. But the dark, tendril-shaped clouds contain the raw material for star formation and hide protostars within. Nearly 3,000 light-years distant, the relatively faint IC 1396 complex covers a large region on the sky, spanning over 5 degrees. This rendition spans a 1 degree wide field of view though, about the angular size of 2 full moons.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
Progress Cargo Spacecraft Launches; Headed for a Saturday Docking
November 21, 2024
The unpiloted Roscosmos Progress 90 spacecraft is safely in orbit headed for the International Space Station following a launch at 7:22 a.m. EST (5:22 p.m. Baikonur time) Thursday, Nov. 21, on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
After a two-day in-orbit journey to the station, the spacecraft will automatically dock to the space-facing port of the orbiting laboratory’s Poisk module at 9:36 a.m., Saturday, Nov. 23.
NASA’s coverage of rendezvous and docking will begin at 8:45 a.m. on NASA+ and the agency’s website.
Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
The spacecraft will deliver about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies to the space station.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2024/11/21/progress-cargo-spacecraft-launches-headed-for-a-saturday-docking/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBBxcCzLXB8
NASA prepares swimming robots to search for extra-terrestrial life
21 Nov 2024
The US space agency’s Swim (Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers) project hopes to one day explore beneath the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon using ‘swarms’ of small robots.
Delivered to the subsurface ocean by an ice-melting ‘cryobot’, dozens of mobile-phone sized bots would zoom off, searching for chemical and temperature signals that could indicate life.
“People might ask, why is NASA developing an underwater robot for space exploration? It’s because there are places we want to go in the solar system to look for life, and we think life needs water.
So we need robots that can explore those environments – autonomously, hundreds of millions of miles from home,” said Ethan Schaler, principal investigator for Swim at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
NASA has now tested prototype machines that could provide vital engineering knowledge for the ambitious future expedition, it announced yesterday (20 November), with “encouraging” results.
Relying on low-cost, commercially-made motors and electronics, the 3D-printed prototypes were tested in a 23m swimming pool at Caltech in Pasadena.
Pushed along by two propellers and with four flaps for steering, the prototypes demonstrated controlled manoeuvring, the ability to stay on and correct course, and a back-and-forth ‘lawnmower’ exploration pattern.
Working completely autonomously during more than 20 rounds of testing, they also spelled out ‘JPL’ with their movements.
“It’s awesome to build a robot from scratch and see it successfully operate in a relevant environment,” Schaler said.
“Underwater robots in general are very hard, and this is just the first in a series of designs we’d have to work through to prepare for a trip to an ocean world.
But it’s proof that we can build these robots with the necessary capabilities and begin to understand what challenges they would face on a subsurface mission.”
The wedge-shaped prototype used in most of the pool tests was 42cm-long and weighed 2.3kg.
With mass extremely limited on any spaceflight, NASA envisions any deployed robots would be about three-times smaller, with miniaturised, purpose-built parts.
The swimmers would also use a novel acoustic communication system to transmit data and triangulate positions.
Digital versions of the miniature robots were also tested in computer simulations, which replicated the same pressure and gravity they would likely encounter on Europa.
A virtual swarm of 12cm-long robots was sent on repeated missions to look for signs of life, helping determine the limits of their abilities to collect science data in unknown environments.
The work also led to the development of algorithms that would enable the swarm to explore more efficiently, and helped the team understand how to maximise useful findings with predicted battery life of up to two hours.
Collaborators at Georgia Tech in Atlanta also built and tested an ocean composition sensor, which would enable each robot to simultaneously measure temperature, pressure, acidity or alkalinity, conductivity, and chemical makeup.
The tiny millimetre-scale chip is the first to combine all those sensors into one, NASA said.
The agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will reach the moon in 2030, and will use 49 ‘flybys’ to scan for signs of life below.
The Swim project will continue developing its robots for possible future missions in the meantime.
Schaler also suggested that the robots could be used for oceanographic research on Earth, including under polar ice.
https://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/nasa-prepares-swimming-robots-to-search-for-extra-terrestrial-life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz0SWy7bCzU
NASA’s Chandra, Hubble Tune Into ‘Flame-Throwing’ Guitar Nebula
Nov 20, 2024
Normally found only in heavy metal bands or certain post-apocalyptic films, a “flame-throwing guitar” has now been spotted moving through space.
Astronomers have captured movies of this extreme cosmic object using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope.
The new movie of Chandra (red) and Palomar (blue) data helps break down what is playing out in the Guitar Nebula.
X-rays from Chandra show a filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles, about two light-years or 12 trillion miles long, blasting away from the pulsar (seen as the bright white dot connected to the filament).
Astronomers have nicknamed the structure connected to the pulsar PSR B2224+65 as the “Guitar Nebula” because of its distinct resemblance to the instrument in glowing hydrogen light.
The guitar shape comes from bubbles blown by particles ejected from the pulsar through a steady wind. Because the pulsar is moving from the lower right to the upper left, most of the bubbles were created in the past as the pulsar moved through a medium with variations in density.
At the tip of the guitar is the pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star left behind after the collapse of a massive star.
As it hurtles through space it is pumping out a flame-like filament of particles and X-ray light that astronomers have captured with Chandra. How does space produce something so bizarre?
The combination of two extremes — fast rotation and high magnetic fields of pulsars — leads to particle acceleration and high-energy radiation that creates matter and antimatter particles, as electron and positron pairs.
In this situation, the usual process of converting mass into energy, famously determined by Albert Einstein’s E = mc2 equation, is reversed. Here, energy is being converted into mass to produce the particles.
Particles spiraling along magnetic field lines around the pulsar create the X-rays that Chandra detects.
As the pulsar and its surrounding nebula of energetic particles have flown through space, they have collided with denser regions of gas.
This allows the most energetic particles to escape the confines of the Guitar Nebula and fly to the right of the pulsar, creating the filament of X-rays.
When those particles escape, they spiral around and flow along magnetic field lines in the interstellar medium, that is, the space in between stars.
The new movie shows the pulsar and the filament flying towards the upper left of the image through Chandra data taken in 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2021.
The movie has the same optical image in each frame, so it does not show changes in parts of the “guitar.”
A separate movie obtained with data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (obtained in 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2021) shows the motion of the pulsar and the smaller structures around it.
A study of this data has concluded that the variations that drive the formation of bubbles in the hydrogen nebula, which forms the outline of the guitar, also control changes in how many particles escape to the right of the pulsar, causing subtle brightening and fading of the X-ray filament, like a cosmic blow torch shooting from the tip of the guitar.
The structure of the filament teaches astronomers about how electrons and positrons travel through the interstellar medium.
It also provides an example of how this process is injecting electrons and positrons into the interstellar medium.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/chandra/nasas-chandra-hubble-tune-into-flame-throwing-guitar-nebula/
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022ApJ…939…70D/abstract
GE Aerospace, Boeing, and NASA to use DOE supercomputer to integrate Open Fan jet engine design
Nov. 21, 2024
GE Aerospace in Cincinnati, in partnership with Boeing in Arlington County, Va., the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will use advanced supercomputers to explore how Open Fan jet engine technology can be integrated with aircraft designs.
The project aims to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions in line with the aviation industry's push for more sustainable technologies.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has allocated 840,000 hours of supercomputing time for the project through its Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program. The program supports research requiring substantial computational resources.
Open Fan engines feature a novel architecture that replaces traditional engine casings with larger, exposed fans, reducing drag and boosting efficiency.
GE Aerospace engineers have previously used high-performance computing to evaluate these engine components' performance and noise levels.
The new project will expand on that work by simulating how an Open Fan engine performs when integrated with an aircraft wing under realistic flight conditions.
GE Aerospace says that replicating the aerodynamics of a full-size engine and aircraft in such detail would not be feasible without cutting-edge computational resources.
The team will leverage the DOE’s Aurora supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory and the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the second- and third-fastest machines in the world, respectively.
These systems can perform more than a quintillion calculations per second.
“Advanced supercomputing capability is a key breakthrough enabling the revolutionary Open Fan engine design. Airplane integration is critical.
Today’s announcement with Boeing, NASA, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to simulate the latest airplane and engine designs continues a longstanding legacy of world-leading innovation in the aviation industry,” said Arjan Hegeman, GE Aerospace’s general manager for future flight technology.
The Open Fan engine is one of several technologies under development through CFM International’s Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines (RISE) program, an initiative to enhance aviation sustainability.
The RISE program, launched in 2021, aims to achieve more than 20% fuel efficiency improvement and a corresponding 20% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to the most efficient engines currently in use.
Through this program, engineers are advancing designs like Open Fan engines, compact engine cores, and hybrid-electric systems, all intended to work with 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).
To date, more than 250 tests have been conducted under the RISE program.
https://www.militaryaerospace.com/home/article/55244422/ge-aerospace-boeing-and-nasa-to-use-doe-supercomputer-to-integrate-open-fan-jet-engine-design
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/5-surprising-nasa-heliophysics-discoveries-not-related-to-the-sun/
5 Surprising NASA Heliophysics Discoveries Not Related to the Sun
Nov 20, 2024
With NASA’s fleet of heliophysics spacecraft, scientists monitor our Sun and investigate its influences throughout the solar system.
However, the fleet’s constant watch and often-unique perspectives sometimes create opportunities to make discoveries that no one expected, helping us to solve mysteries about of the solar system and beyond.
Here are five examples of breakthroughs made by NASA heliophysics missions in other fields of science.
Thousands and Thousands of Comets
The SOHO mission — short for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, which is a joint mission between ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA — has a coronagraph that blocks out the Sun in order to see the Sun’s faint outer atmosphere, or corona.
It turns out SOHO’s coronagraph also makes it easy to spot sungrazing comets, those that pass so close to the Sun that other observatories can’t see them against the brightness of our star.
Before SOHO was launched in December 1995, fewer than 20 sungrazing comets were known. Since then, SOHO has discovered more than 5,000.
The vast number of comets discovered using SOHO has allowed scientists to learn more about sungrazing comets and identify comet families, descended from ancestor comets that broke up long ago.
Dimming of a Supergiant
In late 2019, the supergiant star Betelgeuse began dimming unexpectedly.
Telescopes all over the world — and around it — tracked these changes until a few months later when Betelgeuse appeared too close to the Sun to observe.
That’s when NASA’s STEREO (Sun-watching Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) came to the rescue.
For several weeks in the middle of 2020, STEREO was the only observatory able to see Betelgeuse.
At the time, the STEREO-A spacecraft was trailing behind Earth, at a vantage point where Betelgeuse was still far enough away from the Sun to be seen.
This allowed astronomers to keep tabs on the star while it was out of view from Earth.
STEREO’s observations revealed another unexpected dimming between June and August of 2020, when ground-based telescopes couldn’t view the star.
Astronomers later concluded that these dimming episodes were caused by an ejection of mass from Betelgeuse — like a coronal mass ejection from our Sun but with about 400 times more mass — which obscured part of the star’s bright surface.
The Glowing Surface of Venus
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe studies the Sun’s corona up close — by flying through it.
To dive into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the spacecraft has flown past Venus several times, using the planet’s gravity to fling itself closer and closer to the Sun.
On July 11, 2020, during Parker’s third Venus flyby, scientists used Parker’s wide-field imager, called WISPR, to try to measure the speed of the clouds that obscure Venus’ surface.
Surprisingly, WISPR not only observed the clouds, it also saw through them to the surface below.
The images from that flyby and the next (in 2021) revealed a faint glow from Venus’ hot surface in near-infrared light and long wavelengths of red (visible) light that maps distinctive features like mountainous regions, plains, and plateaus.
Scientists aimed WISPR at Venus again on Nov. 6, 2024, during Parker’s seventh flyby, observing a different part of the planet than previous flybys.
With these images, they’re hoping to learn more about Venus’ surface geology, mineralogy, and evolution.
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The Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst
You’ve heard of the GOAT. But have you heard of the BOAT?
It stands for the “brightest of all time”, a gamma-ray burst discovered on Oct. 9, 2022.
A gamma-ray burst is a brief but intense eruption of gamma rays in space, lasting from seconds to hours.
This one, named GRB 221009A, glowed brilliantly for about 10 minutes in the constellation Sagitta before slowly fading.
The burst was detected by dozens of spacecraft, including NASA’s Wind, which studies the perpetual flow of particles from the Sun, called the solar wind, just before it reaches Earth.
Wind and NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope measured the brightness of GRB 221009A, showing that it was 70 times brighter than any other gamma-ray burst ever recorded by humans — solidifying its status as the BOAT.
A Volcano Blasts Its Way to Space
NASA’s ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) launched in 2019 to study how Earth’s weather interacts with weather from space.
When the underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, 2022, ICON helped show that the volcano produced more than ash and tsunami waves — its effects reached the edge of space.
In the hours after the eruption, ICON detected hurricane-speed winds in the ionosphere — Earth’s electrified upper atmospheric layer at the edge of space.
ICON clocked the wind speeds at up to 450 miles per hour, making them the strongest winds the mission had ever measured below 120 miles altitude.
The ESA Swarm mission revealed that these extreme winds altered an electric current in the ionosphere called the equatorial electrojet. After the eruption, the equatorial electrojet surged to five times its normal peak power and dramatically flipped direction.
Scientists were surprised that a volcano could affect the electrojet so severely — something they’d only seen during a strong geomagnetic storm caused by an eruption from the Sun.
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NASA Showcases AI-Powered Computational Tools to Advance Scientific Research at SC24 Event
Updated: 20 November 2024 23:54 IST
At the Supercomputing Conference or SC2024, NASA's Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Nicola Fox, detailed new computational tools intended to advance space science.
NASA plans to employ a large language model across its science divisions, bolstered by foundation models tailored to Earth science, heliophysics, astrophysics, planetary science, and biological and physical sciences.
This strategy was illustrated through a heliophysics foundation model, which applies extensive data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory to forecast solar wind events and track sunspot activity.
Evolution of Space Computing and the Voyager Missions
Fox recounted how NASA's Voyager missions, launched in the 1970s, served as milestones in computing for space exploration.
Operating with early semiconductor memory, these spacecraft provided unique insights, including discoveries of Jupiter's faint ring and Saturn's additional moons.
Although far surpassed by modern technology, the Voyager missions revealed the possibilities for future computational breakthroughs in space science.
Since then, NASA's computational requirements have expanded, with over 140 petabytes of data now stored and shared under open science policies, allowing global scientists to access and benefit from NASA's research.
Real-Time Data and Earth Observation Advances
NASA's Earth Information Center was presented as a prime example of federal collaboration.
It integrated data on environmental changes with insights from agencies such as NOAA and the EPA.
Using data from satellite missions, Fox showcased NASA's ability to observe natural events like wildfires in near real-time.
She also noted advancements in wildfire detection from polar-orbiting satellites, allowing precise tracking of hot spots.
She said that data-driven efforts like these are critical as NASA continues to enhance the monitoring of natural phenomena on Earth.
Searching for Life Beyond Earth
Towards the end, she addressed NASA's ongoing investigations into extraterrestrial life. Recent studies of exoplanets, such as LP 791-18d, underscore this pursuit.
NASA's observatories, including the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). It has facilitated the detection of thousands of exoplanets, aiding in the search for conditions that might support life beyond Earth.
Fox concluded by highlighting the powerful role that AI and computing now play in analysing the massive datasets produced by NASA's missions, making it possible to explore questions that were previously out of reach.
https://www.gadgets360.com/science/news/nasa-ai-tools-scientific-research-advancement-supercomputing-conference-2024-sc24-nicky-fox-7064194
https://sc24.supercomputing.org/program/keynote/