Space: The Final Frontier

[Stan]

Can I stay there for longer than a week?

[Whiskey]

3 minutes ago, Stan said:

Can I stay there for longer than a week?

If it means you fuck off for a bit then hopefully. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

[Bluewolf]

6 minutes ago, Stan said:

Can I stay there for longer than a week?

Hopefully.... 

[nudge+]

Thought we could have a TF365 meetup and go to the Moon at the same time...  

[Stan]

8 minutes ago, Whiskey said:

If it means you fuck off for a bit then hopefully. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

6 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

Hopefully.... 

Precisely why I'm going - get away from the riff-raff you two cause. 

[nudge+]

7 minutes ago, Stan said:

 

Precisely why I'm going - get away from the riff-raff you two cause. 

Think you three should share the crew sleeping quarters on the Starship; do some bonding, heard it's great for camaraderie  

[CaaC (John)+]

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The six numbers that define the entire Universe

In this edited extract from The Little Book of Cosmology, physicist Prof Lyman Page explains how our model of the Universe relies on just six parameters.

How do we study the Universe as a whole?

My work focuses on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the faint energy remnants of the Big Bang – and how measuring it can guide our path to understanding the Universe. But there are many other ways to study the cosmos and the physicists who study it specialise in everything from General Relativity, to thermodynamics, to elementary particle theory.

We make observations in nearly every wavelength regime accessible to measurement and with state-of-the-art particle detectors. The observations come from nearby and from the farthest reaches of space. All of this evidence and theory can be put together into a surprisingly simple standard model of cosmology, which has just six parameters. These are the numbers that define our entire Universe.

FULL REPORT

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Winchcombe meteorite is the first UK find in 30 years

Several rocky fragments have been recovered from the fireball that lit up the sky above southern England just over a week ago.

They came down in the Winchcombe area of Gloucestershire.

A householder first alerted experts after noticing a pile of charred stone on his driveway. Other members of the public have since come forward with their own finds.

It's 30 years since meteorite material was last retrieved in the UK.

FULL REPORT

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Artist’s impression of quasar P172+18, the most distant source of radio emission known to date © ESO/M Kornmesser

Astronomers discover most distant source of radio emission known to date

The source, a quasar, is so far away that its light has taken 13 billion years to reach Earth.

Astronomers have discovered and analysed the most distant source of radio emission known to date. The source is what scientists call a radio-loud quasar – a bright object with powerful jets emitting at radio wavelengths.

According to the study, which was published in The Astrophysical Journal, the newly discovered quasar, nicknamed P172+18, is so distant that light from it has travelled for about 13 billion years to reach Earth.

The quasar is seen as it was when the Universe was a youthful 780 million years old, and researchers say the discovery could help them understand the early Universe.

Quasars are highly luminous objects at the centre of some galaxies and are powered by supermassive black holes. As the black hole consumes its surrounding gas, energy is released, making them visible to astronomers even when they are extremely far away.

This is the first time researchers have been able to identify the telltale signatures of radio jets in a quasar this early on in the history of the Universe. Only about 10 per cent of quasars have jets that shine brightly at radio frequencies. P172+18 is powered by a black hole about 300 million times bigger than the Sun.

Chiara Mazzucchelli, a fellow at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, led the discovery together with Eduardo Bañados of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.

“The black hole is eating up the matter very rapidly, growing in mass at one of the highest rates ever observed,” said Mazzucchelli.

Astronomers think there is a link between the rapid growth of supermassive black holes and the powerful radio jets spotted in quasars such as P172+18. The jets are thought to be capable of disturbing the gas around the black hole, increasing the rate at which gas falls in. Studying radio-loud quasars can provide insights into how black holes in the early Universe grew to their supermassive sizes so quickly after the Big Bang.

 

“As soon as we got the data, we inspected it by eye, and we knew immediately that we had discovered the most distant radio-loud quasar known so far,” said Bañados.

P172+18 was first recognised as a far-away quasar at the Magellan Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, but researchers believe this radio-loud quasar could be the first of many to be found – perhaps at even larger cosmological distances.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/astronomers-discover-most-distant-source-of-radio-emission-known-to-date/

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by CaaC (John)

[CaaC (John)+]

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China and Russia unveil joint plan for lunar space station

FRAMES - 1/4

Russia and China have unveiled plans for a joint lunar space station, with the Russian space agency Roscomos saying it has signed an agreement with China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) to develop a “complex of experimental research facilities created on the surface and/or in the orbit of the moon”.

The CNSA, for its part, said the project was “open to all interested countries and international partners” in what experts said would be China’s biggest international space cooperation project to date.

The Roscosmos chief, Dmitry Rogozin, wrote that he had invited the CNSA chief, Zhang Kejian, to the launch of Russia’s first modern lunar lander, Luna 25, scheduled for 1 October. It is Russia’s first lunar lander since 1976.

Russia sent the first human into space but in the post-Soviet era, it has been eclipsed by China and the US, which have both made strides in space exploration and research.

This year Russia celebrates the 60th anniversary of its first-ever crewed space flight. It sent Yuri Gagarin into space in April 1961, followed by the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, two years later. The US space agency Nasa launched its first crewed space flight a month after Russia, sending Alan Shepard up on Mercury-Redstone 3.

China – which has sought closer partnership with Moscow – in 2020 launched its Tianwen-1 probe which is now orbiting Mars. In December 2020 it brought rock and soil samples from the Moon back to Earth, the first mission of this type in over 40 years.

Chen Lan, an independent analyst specialising in China’s space programme, said the joint lunar space station was “a big deal”.

“This will be the largest international space cooperation project for China, so it’s significant,” Lan said.

Nasa’s Perseverance rover last week conducted its first test drive on the planet. The US intends eventually to conduct a human mission to the planet, though planning is still preliminary.

Moscow and Washington are also collaborating in the space sector; however, Russia did not sign the US-led Artemis Accord for lunar exploration spearheaded by Nasa. Under the Artemis programme announced in 2020 during the tenure of President Donald Trump, Nasa plans to land the first woman and the next man on the moon by 2024.

Roscosmos in 2020 lost its monopoly on crewed flights to the International Space Station (ISS) after the first successful mission of the US company SpaceX. Elon Musks’s SpaceX has become a key player in the modern space race and has announced plans to fly several members of the public to the moon in 2023 on a trip bankrolled by a Japanese billionaire.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/china-and-russia-unveil-joint-plan-for-lunar-space-station/ar-BB1errPx?li=AAnZ9Ug#image=1

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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A shot at the Moon

Australians have a place at the table of future space exploration.

by Tory Shepherd

The idea of shooting for the moon started with US President John F Kennedy, as NASA grew, the Cold War got chillier and the Apollo missions beckoned. 

“We choose to go to the Moon,” JFK said in Houston, Texas, in 1962. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”

Australia played a critical (if bit) role in the 1969 Moon landing and had its own space success around that time through satellite launches from Woomera, South Australia. Now, it has a chance at its own moonshot. Bolstered by the recent creation of the Australian Space Agency, private industry and academic prowess are carving out a niche in the Artemis program, which aims to put the first woman and the next man on the Moon in 2024.

Australians are making gourmet space food and space ibuprofen, helping space clocks synchronise, and working out how to sustainably mine the Moon and Mars and set up human colonies.

The Federal Government has committed $41 million for the Agency, another $260 million for space infrastructure – particularly satellites – and more for the Space Discovery Centre. And there’s billions more for the Australian Defence Force because space is the new frontier for national security.

The new head of the Agency, Enrico Palermo, says while the entity is young, Australia has a long and proud history. “With the rapid transformation of the sector and continued growth in unique capabilities like remote assessment management, robotics and automation, and advanced communications, Australia is well placed to offer significant value to the global space economy and be a trusted partner in future space exploration,” he says.

NASA has budgeted more than $23 billion for this year alone, an amount that dwarfs Australia’s taxpayer expenditure. But that discrepancy doesn’t reflect the significance of Australia’s role. 

Australia signed the Artemis Accords with NASA in 2019. The deal promises “support for NASA’s plans to return to the Moon and onto Mars in areas of mutual agreement, such as robotics, automation, asset management, space life sciences, human health, and remote medicine”.

There’s also plenty of talk about “leapfrog research and development”: the way Australia can be nimble and swift in the ways it takes established space technologies and surges ahead using already established knowledge in earthly domains. The Agency points out that Australia “punches above its weight in technology”, with 0.3 per cent of the world’s population but more than 4 per cent of its scientific publications. 

A moment is beckoning, and some pretty clever people say we’d be crazy to let it slip by.

The Australian Space Agency’s trailing momentum has swept up a swag of locals finding their way into space. One of them is Rowena Christiansen.

Christiansen is a qualified space doctor and founder of the ad astra vita project, a portal for space medicine – remembers looking through her grandfather’s telescope and seeing Jupiter and Saturn. She remembers the Apollo Moon landings, and building and painting her own Apollo model. She was fascinated with Dr Spock – Star Trek’s resident Vulcan – and his problem-solving abilities. 

Rowena Christiansen.

She decided to be an astronaut. It was only when she finished school that she found out women weren’t even allowed to join the Royal Australian Air Force, the first step to becoming a space pilot. Eventually, Christiansen got into medicine and became interested in Australia’s extreme environments: isolated communities, the desert, Antarctica. “I saw them as an analogue to space,” she says. 

She started working towards becoming a space physician. A conversation with her is peppered with talk about rural and remote medicine, about endeavours like the Royal Flying Doctor Service, retrieval of medical support for isolated people. About Antarctica, where isolation and confinement are serious issues, and the psychological and behavioural issues that come with that: sleeping, eating well.

Her catchphrase is that she wants people in space to “thrive, not just survive”.

While there has been plenty of coverage and conversation about the technical side of space travel, there is an increasing focus on the human side. And the human side is what Australians have experience in, through the desert and through Antarctica. “The human side is a lot more complicated,” she says. “Australians have done the hard yards.” 

She points to sleep research done on Australian bases in Antarctica, where the extreme and remote environment, and the absence of “regular” light patterns, can help researchers understand what astronauts need. (Naps help.) 

As an aside, Christiansen says there might also be opportunities for Australian physicians in space tourism – Richard Branson has talked publicly (and controversially) about Woomera as a base for commercial space jaunts. Take people up for a day in low Earth orbit; look at Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef. “They’ll need doctors to do spaceflight medicals, to work out if they’re fit to fly,” Christiansen says. 

“You need to look at people’s ability to tolerate those G-forces, make sure their cardiovascular systems can cope. [And] things like space motion sickness. When people get up to space and start floating around, [vomiting] is a particular issue. All of a sudden to have vomit floating around the cabin…”

Then there are respiratory conditions and the possibility of panic attacks. Spaceflight has a far bigger checklist than that confronting you when you sit in the exit row on a domestic Qantas flight.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/exploration/a-shot-at-the-moon-2/

 

[CaaC (John)+]

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Meant to post this yesterday morning, still, better late than never. 

 

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This year’s largest near-Earth asteroid to pass by on Sunday

During its approach, the asteroid 2001 FO32 will pass by at about 124,000km/h – faster than the speed at which most asteroids encounter Earth.

The largest asteroid predicted to pass by Earth this year will be at its closest to the planet next week before being thrown back out into space, NASA has said.

While the interplanetary interloper will not come closer than 2 million kilometres (1.25 million miles) from Earth, it will present a scientific opportunity for astronomers.

Called 2001 FO32, the near-Earth asteroid will make its closest approach on 21 March at a distance that is equivalent to five-and-a-quarter times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. There is no threat of a collision with our planet now or for centuries to come, NASA said.

“We know the orbital path of 2001 FO32 around the Sun very accurately since it was discovered 20 years ago and has been tracked ever since,” said Paul Chodas, director of the Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), which is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “There is no chance the asteroid will get any closer to Earth than 1.25 million miles.”

However, because the distance is close in astronomical terms, the rock has been designated a “potentially hazardous asteroid”.

During its approach, 2001 FO32 will pass by at about 124,000km/h (77,000mph) – faster than the speed at which most asteroids encounter Earth.

The reason for the asteroid’s unusually fast, close approach is its highly inclined and elongated (or eccentric) orbit around the Sun – an orbit that is tilted 39° to Earth’s orbital plane. This orbit takes the asteroid closer to the Sun than Mercury at its closest point and twice as far from the Sun as Mars at its most distant.

As the asteroid makes its inner Solar System journey, it picks up speed like a skateboarder rolling down a ramp and then slows after being flung back out into deep space and swinging back towards the Sun. It completes one orbit every 810 days.

The asteroid, which analysis suggests is 440 to 680 metres wide, will not come this close to Earth again until 2052.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/this-years-largest-near-earth-asteroid-to-pass-by-on-sunday/

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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The stories behind Aboriginal star names now recognised by the world’s astronomical body

Milky Way star map by Bill Yidumduma Harney, Senior Wardaman Edler. Bill Yidumduma Harney, CC BY

Four stars in the night sky have been formally recognised by their Australian Aboriginal names.

The names include three from the Wardaman people of the Northern Territory and one from the Boorong people of western Victoria. The Wardaman star names are Larawag, Wurren and Ginan in the Western constellations Scorpius, Phoenix and Crux (the Southern Cross). The Boorong star name is Unurgunite in Canis Majoris (the Great Dog).

They are among 86 new star names drawn from Chinese, Coptic, Hindu, Mayan, Polynesian, South African and Aboriginal Australian cultures.

These names represent a step forward by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) – the global network of the world’s roughly 12,000 professional astronomers – in recognising the importance of traditional language and Indigenous starlore.

FULL REPORT

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Our hot new neighbour

A newly discovered exoplanet might be our best chance of studying the atmosphere of rocky worlds, according to an international team of astronomers.

Located 26 light-years away in the constellation of Virgo, Gliese 486b is classified as a super-Earth – bigger than our planet but smaller than the ice giants Neptune and Uranus. Other than its rocky composition, the planet has very little in common with our own; humans would bake on its 430-degree-Celsius surface, which might even have rivers of lava flowing across it.

But astronomers reckon we could still learn a lot about what makes planets habitable by peering into Gliese 486b’s atmosphere, which is handily “puffed up” by its temperature.

“This is the kind of planet we’ve been dreaming about for decades,” says Ben Montet from the University of New South Wales, who co-authored the paper published in Science.

“This finding has the potential to transform our understanding of planetary atmospheres.

“Gliese 486b is the type of planet we’ll be studying for the next 20 years.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/plants/you-may-have-missed-7/

 

[Bluewolf]

[CaaC (John)+]

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Space projects scrubbed in UK overseas aid cut

Space projects are the latest international scientific collaborations to lose funding because of the cut in UK overseas aid.

Ten initiatives that would have used space data to tackle developing-world problems, such as human trafficking and flood vulnerability, have had their support cancelled.

Ministers are dropping the commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on foreign aid.

The result of Covid financial pressure, the move is supposed to be temporary.

But for the affected projects, it has left them scrambling to find alternative financing in an attempt to keep their ideas alive.

The projects all fall under the UK Space Agency's award-winning International Partnership Programme (IPP).

FULL REPORT

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Peering into a Galaxy's Dusty Core to Study an Active Supermassive Black Hole

 

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by CaaC (John)

[CaaC (John)+]

One Step Closer to the Moon with the Artemis Program!

[CaaC (John)+]

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Space debris removal demonstration launches

A Soyuz rocket has launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to put 38 different satellites in orbit.

Among the payloads was a 500kg Earth imager developed by the South Korean space agency; and a pair of spacecraft from the Tokyo-headquartered Astroscale company which will give a demonstration of how to clean up orbital debris.

Astroscale's showcase will be run from an operations centre in the UK.

The Soyuz flight lasted nearly five hours following a 06:07 GMT lift-off.

The long duration was a consequence of having to put so many different satellites in three different orbits roughly 500km to 550km above the Earth.

FULL REPORT

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Ocean worlds in the solar system

Earth isn’t the only planet with liquid oceans – we examine some others.

Once upon a time, the only world known to have an ocean of water was Earth. Now, planetary scientists think there are many ocean worlds – albeit with their oceans covered by deep layers of ice, rather than hanging out on the surface like ours.

Top on the list is Jupiter’s moon Europa, believed to have a 100-kilometre-deep ocean beneath perhaps 10–30 km of ice. But Saturn’s moons Enceladus, Titan, and Dione are also thought to have oceans, as is Pluto.

And those may just be the tip of the iceberg. Other moons in the outer solar system are also believed or suspected to have frozen-over oceans. Still, more aren’t well studied enough for scientists to be sure but could be capable of hosting water.

All of this means that even as two NASA rovers are searching Mars for relics of ancient surface water and possible life, other missions, both from NASA and the European Space Agency, are gearing up to probe the outer Solar System for subsurface oceans that might support life today.

Top of the list is NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, scheduled to lift off for Jupiter sometime in 2024. Once at Jupiter (in 2030) it will go into orbit around the planet and make dozens of flybys of Europa to study it in detail.

One goal, says Paul Schenk, a planetary scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas, will simply be to take better images of Europa’s surface than were provided by the Galileo mission, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. Due to an antenna failure that reduced the amount of data Galileo could send back to Earth, he says, “all of the Galilean satellites are poorly mapped.”

“It’s kind of like trying to understand the geology of the United States when you’ve only mapped six of the 50 states,” he says. “You’ve got some interesting ideas, but you’re missing quite a lot.”

But the big prize is to learn more about Europa’s ocean.

One way Europa Clipper will do this is with a state-of-the-art magnetometer that will measure how that ocean interacts with Jupiter’s magnetic field. This instrument, he says, will not only be able to measure the ocean’s depth, but also determine its salinity, an important variable related to its potential habitability.

Other scientists will probe the ocean by measuring how Europa’s gravity field affects its radio signals, says Erwan Mazarico of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

As Europa orbits Jupiter, he says, the moon flexes in response to Jupiter’s gravity, thereby warping its own gravity field. “An ocean will affect this,” he adds.

With enough flybys, this should allow scientists to map variations in the thickness of the ice shell. They should also be able to spot upwellings from below, such as lakes trapped between layers of ice, and even places where water once erupted onto the surface then froze into layers akin to lava beds.

But Europa isn’t the only world Europa Clipper will visit. It will make flybys of two other Jovian moons suspected of having oceans, Ganymede and Callisto.

“Europa Clipper will spend most of its time at Europa,” Cochrane says, “but to get there it needs to lose energy, and the way it does that is that it cuts close to Ganymede and Callisto.”

Scientists are keen to see Ganymede in particular. Not only is it the largest moon in the Solar System (slightly larger than the planet Mercury), but it also has an atmosphere, and is the only moon known to have its own magnetic field. “We have a pretty good idea that it has a large rocky core and an icy mantle, and is an ocean world,” he says.

Ganymede is interesting enough, in fact, that the European Space Agency’s JUICE mission (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer), scheduled for launch in 2022 (and arrival at Jupiter in 2029) will fly by it, Europa, and Callisto for three years, and then, if all goes well, brake into orbit around Ganymede to study it in detail.

“Ganymede is a prime target of two missions,” Schenk says.

But there are also schemes to visit Neptune and Uranus, which haven’t been seen up close since the Voyager missions of the 1980s.

The most advanced of these is NASA’s Trident Mission, tentatively targeted for launch in 2025 or 2026, when it can take advantage of a Jupiter gravity assist to speed it on its way for a flyby of Neptune’s giant moon Titan. “If we don’t launch then, we can’t get there,” Cochrane says. “If we do, we will get there around 2038.”

It’s an exciting idea, says Noah Hammond of Collage of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, because Triton is high on the list of suspected ocean worlds.

To start with, he says, “it has active geysers.” It also has a young surface, possibly created by water erupting from its interior not all that long ago, geologically speaking.

Theory also suggests it might be an ocean world, because its exotic orbit (tilted and backward from most other orbits in the Solar System) implies that it is wasn’t formed along with the rest of the Neptune system, but is instead an interloper that was gravitationally captured, and quite possibly subjected to prolonged internal heating that might well have left a remnant ocean still beneath its surface.

And with a state-of-the-art magnetometer, Cochrane says, it should be possible to determine if such an ocean still exists, even on a single-pass flyby mission like Trident.

The moons of Uranus are more mysterious.

None of them are large: the two of most interest, Miranda and Ariel, are only 470 and 1120 kilometres in diameter, respectively.

But both, Cochrane says, show surface features a lot like Europa and Enceladus, suggesting that they might also be ocean worlds.

And, he says, it’s possible to visit both with a single spacecraft. “We designed a trajectory a couple of years back [where] we’d orbit Uranus and on each [orbit] make a close pass to one of the moons – I think three for each,” he says.

Not that Miranda and Ariel are the only moons of Uranus that might have oceans. Three others, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon are larger, and might also have oceans. But their oceans would be harder to detect than those at Miranda and Ariel, largely because they are farther from Uranus and therefore less subject to its magnetic field.

Either way, if we could find ocean worlds among the moons of Uranus, that would mean that they are not only common but—in the supposedly cold, dark reaches of the outer Solar System—nearly ubiquitous.

For now, we have a count of at least 14 potential ocean worlds in the Solar System: Earth, Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, Enceladus, Dione, Titan, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Triton, and Pluto. Not to mention the asteroid Ceres, which most likely also once had liquid water.

And if our Solar System has them aplenty, how many others are there, circling other stars?

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astronomy/ocean-worlds-in-the-solar-system/

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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NASA, Industry to Mature Vertical Solar Array Technologies for Lunar Surface

NASA is working with commercial companies to mature vertically deployable solar array systems for the lunar surface.

The Artemis program will return NASA to the Moon and establish a sustainable presence at the lunar South Pole. A reliable, sustainable power source would support lunar habitats, rovers, and even construction systems for future robotic and crewed missions. The agency has selected five companies to design solar array technologies that can autonomously deploy up to 32 feet high and retract for relocation if necessary.

“We are thrilled with the proposals received and even more excited to see the designs that result from the base effort,” said Niki Werkheiser, director of technology maturation in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD). “Having reliable power sources on the Moon is key to almost anything we do on the surface. By working with five different companies to design these prototype systems, we are effectively mitigating the risk that is inherent to developing such cutting-edge technologies.”

NASA selected the following companies for base period contracts to complete their vertical solar array designs and conduct analysis.

• Astrobotic Technology, Pittsburgh
• ATK Space Systems (Northrop Grumman), Goleta, California
• Honeybee Robotics, Brooklyn, New York
• Lockheed Martin, Littleton, Colorado
• Space Systems Loral (Maxar Technologies), Palo Alto, California

In addition to autonomous deployment of 30-foot masts, the designs must remain stable on steep terrain, be resistant to abrasive lunar dust, and minimize both mass and packaged volume to aid in the system’s delivery to the lunar surface.

At the end of the 12-month fixed-price base contracts, valued at up to $700,000 each, the companies will provide NASA with their system designs, analysis, and data. The agency plans to down select up to two companies and provide additional funding, up to $7.5 million each, to build prototypes and perform environmental testing, with the ultimate goal of deploying one of the systems on the Moon’s South Pole near the end of this decade.

Existing space-rated solar array structures and deployment systems are designed for use in microgravity or horizontal surface deployment. The vertical position and height of these new designs will help prevent loss of power at the lunar poles where the Sun does not rise very far above the horizon. When low-angled light hits rocky formations like hills and slopes in these areas, it casts a shadow over the surface. The shadows can block horizontally structured solar arrays from obtaining light. A tall vertical solar power structure would increase the likelihood of getting uninterrupted light.

“These solar power designs could help enable continuous power for Artemis lunar habitats and operations, even in areas that are shaded by rocky features,” said Chuck Taylor, who is leading vertical solar array development at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

According to Taylor, by exploring ways to make solar arrays more efficient when they encounter lunar shading, NASA is driving possible applications on Earth. Home and business owners could benefit from adapted designs that increase the efficiency of rooftop solar arrays that are occasionally shaded due to trees or tall buildings.

The contracts are part of the agency’s Vertical Solar Array Technology (VSAT) project, which aims to support NASA’s long-term lunar surface operations. VSAT is led by STMD’s Game Changing Development program and Langley in collaboration with NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-industry-to-mature-vertical-solar-array-technologies-for-lunar-surface

 

[Stan]

So cool. 

 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Data Turned Into Sounds of Stars, Galaxies, Black Holes

This latest instalment from our data sonification series features three diverse cosmic scenes. In each, astronomical data collected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes are converted into sounds. Data sonification maps the data from these space-based telescopes into a form that users can hear instead of only see, embodying the data in a new form without changing the original content.

Chandra Deep Field

Credits: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

This is the deepest image ever taken in X-rays, representing over seven million seconds of Chandra observing time. For that reason, and because the observed field is in the southern hemisphere, astronomers call this region the "Chandra Deep Field South". At first glance, this image may appear to be a view of stars. Rather, almost all these different coloured dots are black holes or galaxies. Most of the former are supermassive black holes that reside at the centres of galaxies. In this data sonification, the colours dictate the tones as the bar moves from the bottom of the image to the top. More specifically, colours toward the red end of the rainbow are heard as low tones while colours towards purple are assigned to higher ones. A light that appears bright white in the image is heard as white noise. The wide range of musical frequencies represents the full range of X-ray frequencies collected by Chandra of this region. In the visual colour image, this large frequency range in X-rays had to be compressed to be shown as red, green, and blue for low, medium, and high-energy X-rays. Played as sound, however, the full range of data can be experienced. As the piece scans upward, the stereo position of the sounds can help distinguish the position of the sources from left to right.

Cat's Eye Nebula

Credits: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

When a star like the Sun begins to run out of helium to burn, it will blow off huge clouds of gas and dust. These outbursts can form spectacular structures such as the one seen in the Cat's Eye nebula. This image of the Cat's Eye contains both X-rays from Chandra around the centre and visible light data from the Hubble Space Telescope, which show the series of bubbles expelled by the star over time. To listen to these data, there is a radar-like scan that moves clockwise emanating from the centre point to produce pitch. A light that is further from the centre is heard as higher pitches while brighter light is louder. The X-rays are represented by a harsher sound, while the visible light data sound smoother. The circular rings create a constant hum, interrupted by a few sounds from spokes in the data. The rising and falling pitches that can be heard are due to the radar scan passing across the shells and jets in the nebula.

Messier 51

Credits: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)

Messier 51 (M51) is perhaps better known by its nickname of the Whirlpool Galaxy because its face-on orientation to Earth reveals its wound-up spiral arms. This gives telescopes here a view of another spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way, whose structure we cannot observe directly from our position within it. As with the Cat's Eye, the sonification begins at the top and moves radially around the image in a clockwise direction. The radius is mapped to notes of a melodic minor scale. Each wavelength of light in the image obtained from NASA telescopes in space (infrared, optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray) is assigned to a different frequency range. The sequence begins with sounds from all four types of light, but then separately moves through the data from Spitzer, Hubble, GALEX, and Chandra. At wavelengths in which the spiral arms are prominent, the pitches creep upwards as the spiral reaches farther from the core. A constant low hum associated with the bright core can be heard, punctuated by short sounds from compact sources of light within the galaxy.

These sonifications of the Deep Field, Cat's Eye and Whirlpool galaxy were led by the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC). The collaboration was driven by visualization scientist Dr Kimberly Arcand (CXC), astrophysicist Dr Matt Russo and musician Andrew Santaguida (both of the SYSTEM Sound project).

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/data-turned-into-sounds-of-stars-galaxies-black-holes.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 25, 2021 by CaaC (John)

[CaaC (John)+]

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It’s Return Of The Dish

Parkes telescope back with the Moon five decades after relaying “one small step” to the world.

The Parkes radio telescope – made famous by the Australian film about the Apollo Moon landings – will be helping another mission land by the end of the year. 

The CSIRO Observatory in NSW is home to one of the biggest single-dish telescopes in the southern hemisphere. In 2020, local Wiradjuri elders gave the 64-metre-diameter telescope the name Murriyang, meaning skyworld. 

While the Dish hasn’t gone anywhere – it has been working hard surveying the sky to find galaxies and pulsars – this will be the first time since Apollo that it has helped with a lunar landing. 

CSIRO has signed a five-year deal with aerospace company Intuitive Machines to provide ground station support that will mean data can go to the Moon and come back again within four seconds. 

CSIRO chief executive Dr Larry Marshall says the deal heralds a new chapter. 

“It was 50 years ago that Australia played a critical role in the original Moon mission, but innovation never sleeps, so we’re proud to support the latest innovations heading to the Moon’s surface,” he says. 

Acting CSIRO chief scientist Dr Sarah Pearce said the organisation was “proud to support the first companies extending their reach to the Moon’s surface, advancing knowledge that can benefit life both on Earth and, one day, on the Moon”. 

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will take Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C Moon lander into space. Intuitive Machines vice president for control centres Dr Troy LeBlanc said his company needed the technical support and expertise of CSIRO’s team to track the mission and download data to feed into its global Lunar Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network. 

“The CSIRO organisation is well set up to work with radio astronomers around the world, with NASA, so for us to come to them as a commercial lunar opportunity it was a very easy transition for them to have us become a potential user of their resources,” he says.

He says after a year working on the technical requirements, they came to the five-year agreement for Parkes to talk to vehicles on the Moon and return data. 

NASA had requested that the company not rely on their resources, and instead find commercially available telescopes. 

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/exploration/its-return-of-the-dish/