Space Exploration – Spacecraft
NASA’s InSight Detects First Likely ‘Quake’ on Mars
Dwayne Brown / Alana Johnson
Headquarters, Washington
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
NASA’s Mars InSight lander has measured and recorded for the first time ever a likely “marsquake.”
The faint seismic signal, detected by the lander’s Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, was recorded on April 6, the lander’s 128th Martian day, or sol. This is the first recorded trembling that appears to have come from inside the planet, as opposed to being caused by forces above the surface, such as wind. Scientists still are examining the data to determine the exact cause of the signal.
NASA Selects New Mission to Explore Origins of Universe
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Steve Cole
NASA Headquarters, Washington
NASA has selected a new space mission that will help astronomers understand both how our universe evolved and how common are the ingredients for life in our galaxy’s planetary systems.
The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission is a planned two-year mission funded at $242 million (not including launch costs) and targeted to launch in 2023.
NASA’s Voyager 2 Probe Enters Interstellar Space
Dwayne Brown / Karen Fox
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars. NASA’s Voyager 2 probe now has exited the heliosphere – the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun.
Members of NASA’s Voyager team will discuss the findings at a news conference at 11 a.m. EST (8 a.m. PST) today at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington. The news conference will stream live on the agency’s website.
Comparing data from different instruments aboard the trailblazing spacecraft, mission scientists determined the probe crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere on Nov. 5. This boundary, called the heliopause, is where the tenuous, hot solar wind meets the cold, dense interstellar medium. Its twin, Voyager 1, crossed this boundary in 2012, but Voyager 2 carries a working instrument that will provide first-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway into interstellar space.
What Uranus Cloud Tops Have in Common With Rotten Eggs
Even after decades of observations and a visit by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, Uranus held on to one critical secret — the composition of its clouds. Now, one of the key components of the planet’s clouds has finally been verified.
A global research team that includes Glenn Orton of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has spectroscopically dissected the infrared light from Uranus captured by the 26.25-foot (8-meter) Gemini North telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea. They found hydrogen sulfide, the odiferous gas that most people avoid, in Uranus’ cloud tops. The long-sought evidence was published in the April 23rd issue of the journal Nature Astronomy.
The detection of hydrogen sulfide high in Uranus’ cloud deck (and presumably Neptune’s) is a striking difference from the gas giant planets located closer to the Sun — Jupiter and Saturn — where ammonia is observed above the clouds, but no hydrogen sulfide. These differences in atmospheric composition shed light on questions about the planets’ formation and history.
The Many Faces of Rosetta’s Comet 67P
Markus Bauer
European Space Agency, Noordwijk, Netherlands
M. Ramy El-Maarry
University of Colorado
Matt Taylor
ESA Rosetta project scientist
NOTE: Make sure you check 0ut the accompanying Space Photo Exploration page for Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Images returned from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission indicate that during its most recent trip through the inner solar system, the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was a very active place – full of growing fractures, collapsing cliffs and massive rolling boulders. Moving material buried some features on the comet’s surface while exhuming others. A study on 67P’s changing surface was released Tuesday, March 21, in the journal Science.
“As comets approach the sun, they go into overdrive and exhibit spectacular changes on their surface,” said Ramy El-Maarry, study leader and a member of the U.S. Rosetta science team from the University of Colorado, Boulder. “This is something we were not able to really appreciate before the Rosetta mission, which gave us the chance to look at a comet in ultra-high resolution for more than two years.”
Ultracool Dwarf and the Seven Planets
Dr. Paola Rebusco
MIT – Experimental Study Group
ESON USA
eson-usa@eso.org
Astronomers using the TRAPPIST–South telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal and the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, as well as other telescopes around the world [1], have now confirmed the existence of at least seven small planets orbiting the cool red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 [2]. All the planets, labelled TRAPPIST-1b, c, d, e, f, g and h in order of increasing distance from their parent star, have sizes similar to Earth [3].
Hubble Finds Big Brother of Halley’s Comet – Ripped Apart By White Dwarf
February 9, 2017
European Space Agency News Release
Siyi Xu
European Southern Observatory
Garching bei München, Germany
Mathias Jäger
ESA/Hubble, Public Information Officer
Garching, Germany
The international team of astronomers observed the white dwarf WD 1425+540, about 170 light-years from Earth in the constellation Boötes (the Herdsman) [1]. While studying the white dwarf’s atmosphere using both the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory the team found evidence that an object rather like a massive comet was falling onto the star, getting tidally disrupted while doing so.
The team determined that the object had a chemical composition similar to the famous Halley’s Comet in our own Solar System, but it was 100,000 times more massive and had twice the proportion of water as its local counterpart. Spectral analysis showed that the destroyed object was rich in the elements essential for life, including carbon, oxygen, sulphur and even nitrogen [2].
Uranus May Have Two Undiscovered Moons
Written by Tara Roberts
University of Idaho Communications
For NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
October 21, 2016 at 1:04 p.m. EDT
NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus 30 years ago, but researchers are still making discoveries from the data it gathered then. A new study led by University of Idaho researchers suggests there could be two tiny, previously undiscovered moonlets orbiting near two of the planet’s rings.
Rob Chancia, a University of Idaho doctoral student, spotted key patterns in the rings while examining decades-old images of Uranus’ icy rings taken by Voyager 2 in 1986. He noticed the amount of ring material on the edge of the alpha ring — one of the brightest of Uranus’ multiple rings — varied periodically. A similar, even more promising pattern occurred in the same part of the neighboring beta ring.
“When you look at this pattern in different places around the ring, the wavelength is different — that points to something changing as you go around the ring. There’s something breaking the symmetry,” said Matt Hedman, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Idaho, who worked with Chancia to investigate the finding.
Their results will be published in The Astronomical Journal and have been posted to the pre-press site arXiv.
NASA Television to Provide Coverage of European – Mission Comet Touchdown
NASA New Media Releaase
September 28, 2016
MEDIA ADVISORY M16-113
NASA Television and the agency’s website will air the conclusion of ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Rosetta mission from 6:15 to 8 a.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 30, with NASA commentary, interviews and analysis of the successful mission. The Rosetta mission will end with the controlled decent of the spacecraft onto the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at around 7:20 a.m.
From 8:15 to 10:15 a.m., NASA scientists and engineers involved in ESA’s Rosetta mission will be available for live broadcast interviews from the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany.
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Water Vapor Plumes Discovered on Jupiter’s Moon Europa
Written by George McGinn
Cosmology and Space Research
September 27, 2016 at 4:32pm EST
In one of the most promising places in the Solar System where life may exist, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have photographed what appears to be water vapor plumes escaping Jupiter’s moon Europa.
The team from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore saw finger-like projections when viewing Europa as it past in front of Jupiter, according to team leader William Sparks.
The discovery occurred by accident as the team’s original proposal was to observe Europa to determine if it had an atmosphere or exosphere.
An exosphere of neon was detected on Earth’s Moon on August 17, 2015 based on study the data from the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft.
