TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
February 4, 2025
Anticrepuscular Rays: A Rainbow Fan over Spain
Yes, but can your rainbow do this? Late in the day, the Sun set as usual toward the west. However, on this day, the more interesting display was 180 degrees around toward the east. There, not only was a rainbow visible, but an impressive display of anticrepuscular rays from the rainbow's center. In the featured image from Lekeitio in northern Spain, the Sun is behind the camera. The rainbow resulted from sunlight reflecting back from falling rain. Anticrepuscular rays result from sunlight, blocked by some clouds, going all the way around the sky, overhead, and appearing to converge on the opposite horizon an optical illusion. Rainbows by themselves can be exciting to see, and anticrepuscular rays a rare treat, but capturing them both together is even more unusual – and can look both serene and surreal.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
NASA’s InSight Finds Marsquakes From Meteoroids Go Deeper Than Expected
Feb 03, 2025
With help from AI, scientists discovered a fresh crater made by an impact that shook material as deep as the Red Planet’s mantle.
Meteoroids striking Mars produce seismic signals that can reach deeper into the planet than previously known.
That’s the finding of a pair of new papers comparing marsquake data collected by NASA’s InSight lander with impact craters spotted by the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The papers, published on Monday, Feb. 3, in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), highlight how scientists continue to learn from InSight, which NASA retired in 2022 after a successful extended mission.
InSight set the first seismometer on Mars, detecting more than 1,300 marsquakes, which are produced by shaking deep inside the planet (caused by rocks cracking under heat and pressure) and by space rocks striking the surface.
By observing how seismic waves from those quakes change as they travel through the planet’s crust, mantle, and core, scientists get a glimpse into Mars’ interior, as well as a better understanding of how all rocky worlds form, including Earth and its Moon.
Researchers have in the past taken images of new impact craters and found seismic data that matches the date and location of the craters’ formation.
But the two new studies represent the first time a fresh impact has been correlated with shaking detected in Cerberus Fossae, an especially quake-prone region of Mars that is 1,019 miles (1,640 kilometers) from InSight.
The impact crater is 71 feet (21.5 meters) in diameter and much farther from InSight than scientists expected, based on the quake’s seismic energy.
The Martian crust has unique properties thought to dampen seismic waves produced by impacts, and researchers’ analysis of the Cerberus Fossae impact led them to conclude that the waves it produced took a more direct route through the planet’s mantle.
InSight’s team will now have to reassess their models of the composition and structure of Mars’ interior to explain how impact-generated seismic signals can go that deep.
“We used to think the energy detected from the vast majority of seismic events was stuck traveling within the Martian crust,” said InSight team member Constantinos Charalambous of Imperial College London.
“This finding shows a deeper, faster path — call it a seismic highway — through the mantle, allowing quakes to reach more distant regions of the planet.”
A machine learning algorithm developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to detect meteoroid impacts on Mars played a key role in discovering the Cerberus Fossae crater.
In a matter of hours, the artificial intelligence tool can sift through tens of thousands of black-and-white images captured by MRO’s Context Camera, detecting the blast zones around craters.
The tool selects candidate images for examination by scientists practiced at telling which subtle colorations on Mars deserve more detailed imaging by MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.
“Done manually, this would be years of work,” said InSight team member Valentin Bickel of the University of Bern in Switzerland.
“Using this tool, we went from tens of thousands of images to just a handful in a matter of days. It’s not quite as good as a human, but it’s super fast.”
Bickel and his colleagues searched for craters within roughly 1,864 miles (3,000 kilometers) of InSight’s location, hoping to find some that formed while the lander’s seismometer was recording.
By comparing before-and-after images from the Context Camera over a range of time, they found 123 fresh craters to cross-reference with InSight’s data; 49 of those were potential matches with quakes detected by the lander’s seismometer.
Charalambous and other seismologists filtered that pool further to identify the 71-foot Cerberus Fossae impact crater.
The more scientists study InSight’s data, the better they become at distinguishing signals originating inside the planet from those caused by meteoroid strikes.
The impact found in Cerberus Fossae will help them further refine how they tell these signals apart.
“We thought Cerberus Fossae produced lots of high-frequency seismic signals associated with internally generated quakes, but this suggests some of the activity does not originate there and could actually be from impacts instead,” Charalambous said.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/nasas-insight-finds-marsquakes-from-meteoroids-go-deeper-than-expected/
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL110159
Persevering Through Science
Feb 04, 2025
The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover continues to live up to its name, pushing forward in search of ancient Martian secrets.
Following a brief period of system verification and remote testing, our operations team is back at full strength, and Perseverance has been hard at work uncovering new geological insights.
We began our latest campaign at “Mill Brook,” a site surrounded by dusty, fine-grained paver stones.
Here, we conducted an abrasion experiment at “Steve’s Trail,” allowing our remote sensing instruments to capture a before-and-after analysis of the rock surface.
SuperCam (SCAM) used its LIBS and VISIR systems to investigate “Bad Weather Pond,” while Mastcam-Z (ZCAM) imaged the entire workspace.
These observations provide invaluable data on the composition, texture, and potential alteration of these rocks.
After wrapping up at Mill Brook — including a ZCAM multispectral scan of “Berry Hill” — Perseverance took a 140-meter drive (about 459 feet) to “Blue Hill” at “Shallow Bay,” a site of immense scientific interest.
The rocks here are rich in low-calcium pyroxene (LCP), making them one of the most intriguing sample targets of the mission so far.
The significance of Blue Hill extends beyond just this one location. The pyroxene-rich nature of the site suggests a potential link to a much larger rock unit visible in orbital HiRISE images.
Given that this may be the only exposure of these materials within our planned traverse, our science team prioritized sampling this Noachian-aged outcrop, a rare window into Mars’ deep past.
And now, we are thrilled to announce:
Perseverance has successfully cored and sealed a 2.9-centimeter (1.1-inch) rock sample from Blue Hill, officially named “Silver Mountain.”
This marks our first Noachian-aged outcrop sample, an important milestone in our mission to uncover the geological history of Jezero Crater.
Since Shallow Bay-Shoal Brook is the only location along our planned route where this regional low-calcium pyroxene unit was identified from orbit, this sample is a one-of-a-kind treasure for future Mars Sample Return analyses.
As we enter the Year of the Snake, it seems fitting that serpentine-bearing rocks have slithered into our focus! While Blue Hill remains a top priority, the tactical team has been highly responsive to the science team’s overwhelming interest in the nearby serpentine-bearing outcrops.
These rocks, which may reveal critical clues about past water activity and potential habitability, are now part of our exploration strategy.
Between our Noachian-aged pyroxene sample and the newfound focus on serpentine-bearing rocks, our journey through Jezero Crater has never been more exciting.
Each step — each scan, each drive, each core sample — brings us closer to understanding Mars’ complex past.
As Perseverance continues to, well, persevere, and as we embrace the Year of the Snake, we can’t help but marvel at the poetic alignment of science and tradition.
Here’s to a year of wisdom, resilience, and groundbreaking discoveries — both on Earth and 225 million kilometers (140 million miles) away!
Stay tuned as we unravel the next chapter in Mars exploration!
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/persevering-through-science/
Sols 4441-4442: Winter is Coming
Feb 04, 2025
Earth planning date: Friday, Jan. 31, 2025
Here in Earth’s northern hemisphere, the days are slowly getting longer, bringing with them the promise of an end to winter.
While we are anticipating the return of warmer temperatures, just over 100 million kilometers (more than 62 million miles) away, Curiosity is starting to feel the bite of the colder season.
One of the quirks of Mars’ orbital configuration is that aphelion (when Mars is farthest from the Sun) occurs about a month and a half before the southern winter solstice.
This means that winters in the southern hemisphere (where Curiosity is located) are both longer and colder than those in the northern hemisphere.
Consequently, we need to spend more of our power on keeping the rover warm, limiting the time that can be spent doing science.
Today’s plan was fairly constrained by the available power, so our various instrument and science teams had to carefully coordinate their requests to ensure that we stay within the power limits that have been budgeted out over the next several plans.
Our team is never one to back down from a challenge, so this plan squeezes as much science as possible out of every watt-hour of power we were given.
Our drive from Wednesday’s plan completed successfully (quite an accomplishment in the current terrain!).
One of our wheels ended up perched a few centimetres up on a rock, so we aren’t able to use APXS or DRT today, but we were still able to unstow the arm to take some MAHLI images.
This plan kicks off with a pair of ChemCam and Mastcam coordinated activities. The first of these two focuses on some interesting polygonal fractures that we ended up parked in front of (see the image above).
ChemCam will use its LIBS laser on these fractures before they are imaged by Mastcam. ChemCam will then use its RMI camera to take a mosaic of some features on the crater floor way off in the distance, which Mastcam will also image.
Mastcam then goes it alone, with images of “Vivian Creek” (some sedimentary layers in today’s contact science target), “Dawn Mine” (a potential meteorite), and a trough off of the rover’s right side.
The Environmental Science (ENV) team will continue their monitoring of the environment with a Mastcam tau to measure dust in the atmosphere as well as Navcam cloud and dust devil movies.
After a short nap, the arm is unstopped to take a number of MAHLI images of “Coldwater Canyon,” over a range of distances between 5 and 25 centimeters away (about 2-10 inches).
The second sol of this plan is largely consumed by ENV activities, including another tau and a Navcam line-of-sight observation to monitor dust.
A big chunk of this sol’s plan is taken up by ChemCam passive observations (not using the LIBS laser) of the atmosphere.
This “passive sky” observation allows us to measure atmospheric aerosol properties and the amount of oxygen and water in the air.
Of course, ENV couldn’t have all the fun, so this sol also contains a typical ChemCam LIBS observation of “Big Dalton” with a Mastcam image afterward. After stowing the arm, we will drive off from our current location.
Right before handing off to Monday’s plan, we wrap up with our typical early-morning ENV weekend science time, which includes more tau and line-of-sight dust observations and several Navcam cloud movies.
RAD, REMS, and DAN also continue their monitoring of the environment throughout this plan.
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4441-4442-winter-is-coming/
NASA Astronaut Shares Magical Picture Of Burj Khalifa From Space
Feb 04, 2025 14:02 pm IST
NASA astronaut Donald Roy Pettit has shared a breathtaking picture of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world, from space.
Captured from the International Space Station (ISS), the photograph featured the Burj Khalifa shining brightly against Dubai's well-lit skyline.
Donald shared the picture on X (formerly Twitter) and wrote, "Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building from space."
Mr Pettit's photograph of Burj Khalifa went viral in no time, with people marvelling at the beauty of the structure.
"An incredible photo!" said a person.
Another added, "An iconic view! Burj Khalifa truly stands out, even from space."
"What a view! Thank you for sharing," read a comment.
Don Pettit's space shot of the Burj Khalifa came days after NASA's space photograph of Dubai's dazzling city lights was made public by the Dubai Government Media Office.
The image showed Dubai's dazzling network of connectivity including major roads and highways.
It also highlighted the city's strategically located coastline and artificial islands.
Mr Pettit is a 70-year-old chemical engineer and an experienced American astronaut known for his work in orbital astrophotography.
Since being chosen by NASA in 1996, he has completed more than 13 hours of spacewalks and over 500 days in space on several ISS missions.
In addition to his scientific work, Mr Pettit is passionate about space photography and often shares stunning photos of the Earth's landscapes, city lights, and auroras on social media.
He is currently serving as a flight engineer and member of the Expedition 72 crew aboard the orbiting laboratory, where he will spend approximately 6 months conducting science experiments and maintaining the space station.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/nasa-astronaut-donald-roy-pettit-shares-magical-picture-of-burj-khalifa-from-space-7630846
https://twitter.com/astro_Pettit/status/1886058900505387038
NASA Advised by Safety Panel to Reevaluate Artemis Missions
February 3, 2025
The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, or ASAP, has called on NASA to reevaluate its plans for the Artemis missions.
Members of the safety panel voiced concerns about the multiple first-time goals for Artemis 3 during a meeting held on Jan. 30, Space News reported Saturday.
ASAP stressed that each achievement NASA plans to attain during Artemis 3, the campaign’s first crewed lunar landing mission, comes with risks.
With the number of first-time goals the agency plans to accomplish with the mission, the risks are multiplied and may become more complicated.
The safety panel has already discussed in its 2024 report the potential challenges that multiple firsts may bring.
In the annual report, ASAP mentioned 13 first-time objectives involving the Starship lunar lander and new Axiom Space spacesuits. The number has since multiplied, coinciding with plans to reformulate Orion’s Avcoat heat shield.
“Each first milestone carries its own individual risk and, as these risks are compounded and aggregated, it only increases the overall risk posture for any individual flight mission,” said Bill Bray, an ASAP member.
Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator of the Moon to Mars Program, has already been briefed about the panel’s concerns.
During the SpaceCom conference, Deep Space Logistics Program Manager Mark Wiese mentioned that SpaceX’s approach to delivering cargo has to be modified to meet evolving logistic needs.
SpaceX initially received a contract from NASA in 2020 to proceed with the first gateway Logistics Services program mission using the Dragon XL cargo spacecraft.
Kent Chojnacki, deputy manager of the human landing system program, noted that like SpaceX, Blue Origin continues to progress with its crewed lunar lander project.
Blue Origin has already launched its New Glenn rocket and tested the legs of its lander.
https://executivegov.com/2025/02/nasa-safety-panel-reevaluate-artemis-missiions/
https://www.nasa.gov/asap/
Meanwhile, sick vets at the VA denied, denied, denied!
Announcement for the Lunar Volatiles Science Partnership with NASA’s VIPER Rover
February 4, 2025
NASA has published an Announcement for Partnership Proposals (AFPP) inviting proposals from parties interested in partnering with NASA to obtain science data with NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Explorer Rover (VIPER) by landing it on the Moon, operating it, and sharing the science results.
The formal release of the AFPP can be found on sam.gov at this link. It can also be found by searching for solicitation number NNH25ZDA010L.
A selected partnership proposal would culminate in a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) for a Lunar Volatiles Science Partnership (LVSP).
A copy of the AFPP is linked here for convenience.
The AFPP refers to this website as NASA’s Volatiles Partnership website, and NASA will post additional information here as it is available.
It is the responsibility of interested parties and proposers to stay up to date with this website and ensure that they have the latest information available.
The results of any Q&A discussions or other future briefings will be posted at this website and not necessarily updated on sam.gov.
Questions about this solicitation can be sent to HQ-volatilespartnership@mail.nasa.gov.
For more information on NASA’s Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program, click here.
NASA Science Mission Directorate’s Exploration Science Strategy Integration Office will have a kickoff meeting February 10th, 2025, 2pm EST to highlight the content of the AFPP and the overall LVSP approach.
NASA will host a technical question and answer meeting (date and time TBD) to discuss recent updates on VIPER project analysis of test campaigns and ground system development.
This will be an update on information previously provided as part of the VIPER Rover Partnership RFI site, which has other relevant technical information.
NASA will announce this meeting time on this website as well as the approach for submitting questions.
https://science.nasa.gov/lunar-science/volatiles-partnership/
https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/psd/lunar-science/documents/LVSP%20AFPP.pdf
Blue Origin New Shepard Mission NS-29
February 4, 2025
New Shepard’s updated target launch date is Tuesday, February 4.
The NS-29 launch window opens at 10:00 AM CST / 16:00 UTC from Launch Site One.
Webcast begins 15 minutes prior to launch.
https://www.blueorigin.com/missions/ns-29
https://www.blueorigin.com/news/new-shepard-ns-29-mission
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5ozKoAipnM
chekkum
Station Crew Cleans Up After Spacewalk, Studies Space Agriculture and Physics
February 3, 2025
The Expedition 72 crew kicked off the first week in February cleaning up after last week’s spacewalk and continuing its space agriculture and microgravity physics experiments.
Other International Space Station science objectives planned on Monday included human research while the orbital residents kept up the maintenance of the orbital outpost.
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, station Commander and Flight Engineer respectively, are cleaning up following the Jan. 30 spacewalk to remove radio communications hardware and search for microorganisms outside the space station.
Williams worked in the Harmony module disassembling the radio frequency group antenna assembly that she removed during the five-hour and 26-minute spacewalk.
Wilmore serviced the spacesuits that he and Williams wore last week cleaning and reconfiguring suit cooling loops as well as checking the suits’ electrical components.
NASA Flight Engineer Nick Hague began his day assisting Williams with the radio hardware teardown work in Harmony and packing the gear for stowage.
Afterward, Hague moved to the Kibo laboratory module refilling water inside the JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Plant Experiment Unit.
The small botany research facility, located in Kibo’s Cell Biology Experiment Facility, is supporting an investigation exploring how ultraviolet radiation and weightlessness affect plant growth to learn how to grow food and sustain crews on long-term mission to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit focused on space physics inside Kibo’s Multi-Purpose Small Payload Rack (MSPR) during the first half of his shift.
He opened up the MSPR and swapped samples inside its Electrostatic Levitation Furnace that can safely heat materials above 2,000 degrees Celsius to measure their thermophysical properties, as well as synthesize new materials in microgravity.
Pettit then joined after the crew’s lunchtime and trained to use ultrasonic inspection hardware.
Roscosmos Flight Engineers Ivan Vagner and Alexey Ovchinin participated in a test to understand how and improve the way international crews communicate with mission controllers from around the world.
Ovchinin then spent the last half of his shift practicing on a computer futuristic spacecraft and robotic piloting techniques crews may use on potential planetary missions.
Flight Engineer Aleksandr Gorbunov spent his day inspecting and photographing cargo stowage areas in the Zvezda service module and testing Roscosmos life support gear.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2025/02/03/station-crew-cleans-up-after-spacewalk-studies-space-agriculture-and-physics/
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia/Wobbling_stars_reveal_hidden_companions_in_Gaia_data
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ada9e1
Wobbling stars reveal hidden companions in Gaia data
04/02/2025
Gaia reveals two new mysterious celestial objects
New research, published today, uses data collected by ESA’s Gaia spacecraft to confirm the existence of two mysterious celestial objects.
Gaia-4b is a ‘Super-Jupiter’ exoplanet, and Gaia-5b a brown dwarf. These massive objects are unexpectedly orbiting low-mass stars.
Gaia-4b is a planet orbiting the previously unremarkable star Gaia-4 around 244 light-years away. Gaia-5b orbits the Gaia-5 star, around 134 light-years away from Earth.
These two newly discovered objects are nearby, in our own galactic neighbourhood.
Their existence challenges current theories of planet formation, and Gaia's ongoing mission will provide valuable data to help us understand these intriguing objects.
“Gaia-4b is about twelve times more massive than Jupiter. With an orbital period of 570 days, it is a relatively cold gas giant planet,” explains first author Guðmundur Stefánsson of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and first author of the new study.
“With a mass of around 21 Jupiters, Gaia-5b is a brown dwarf, more massive than a planet but too light to sustain nuclear fusion to be a star,” Guðmundur adds.
Since its launch in 2013, ESA’s Gaia spacecraft has been building the largest, most precise three-dimensional map of our galaxy.
Spinning slowly, it scanned the sky with two optical telescopes, repeatedly pinpointing the positions of two billion objects with unprecedented precision, until its end of science observations on 15 January 2025.
Because Gaia precisely tracked the motion of stars – a technique known as astrometry – thousands of new objects are expected to be discovered in its data.
A planet in orbit around a star creates a tiny gravitational ‘tug’ that makes the star ‘wobble’ around its centre of mass and travel in a corkscrew-like motion across the sky.
The easiest objects to discover using astrometry are massive and in distant orbits around their parent star.
Previously, a few massive brown dwarfs were confirmed to exist by other telescopes who observed their faint glow next to bright stars for which Gaia had detected such a wobble.
That’s in contrast to the transit method, which detects planets as they pass in front of their star and is most likely to find planets in a close orbit.
And although detecting a wobble suggests a star might have a planet, there are other potential causes (such as binary star systems), so astrometric discoveries must be confirmed using other methods.
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“Gaia was repeatedly scanning these stars, building up an increasingly detailed picture over time,” Guðmundur says.
“In 2022, Gaia Data Release 3 included a list of stars that appear to be moving as though pulled by an exoplanet.
Using ground-based spectroscopic data and the radial velocity technique to investigate these stars, we confirmed our first planet and our first brown dwarf.”
Combining astrometric and radial velocity data allows astronomers to find all the orbital details and the mass of the orbiting object, offering a unique opportunity to create three-dimensional visualisations.
“About 75% of the stars in the Milky Way are low-mass stars, with masses between about 10% and 60-65% of the mass of the Sun.
Because they're so numerous, they're also our nearest neighbour stars,” explains Guðmundur.
“Massive planets around low-mass stars are known to be relatively rare, but when they occur, they cause a larger wobble, and therefore a stronger astrometric signature that is easier to detect.”
Treasure trove for planet hunters
Whereas a previous exoplanet was found by the Gaia and Hipparcos missions in tandem, the presence of Gaia-4b was revealed by Gaia data alone.
When the next batch of Gaia data is released in 2026, it will contain 5.5 years of mission data that could uncover hundreds – if not thousands – of planets and brown dwarfs around nearby stars.
That will give us new insights into how these different objects form, and Gaia is paving the way for a new era of astrometric discovery, leading to a deeper understanding of the diverse planetary systems that populate our galaxy.
ESA Research Fellow Matthew Standing is an exoplanet expert. “This discovery is an exciting tip-of-the-iceberg for the exoplanet discoveries we can expect from Gaia in the future,” he explains.
“The discovery of Gaia-4b is an important breakthrough in the use of Gaia astrometry for exoplanet detection, complimenting the other exoplanet detection methods used by ESA’s Cheops and the upcoming Plato mission.”
"Gaia has seen the telltale signs of known exoplanets before, but this time Gaia revealed an entirely new extrasolar world,” says Johannes Sahlmann, Gaia Project Scientist at ESA.
“The discovery of Gaia-4b shows how Gaia’s detailed measurements complement established exoplanet discovery techniques and offer new opportunities for exoplanet research.
The upcoming fourth Gaia data release will be a treasure trove for planet hunters.”
>*TRUMP IS EXPECTED TO GO TO SUPER BOWL THIS WEEKEND