Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 137

The Hubble Space Telescope has peered out into the void and snapped an image of a celestial prawn drifting throughout deep space.

Located around 6,000 light-years away, the Prawn Nebula (IC 4628) is a massive stellar nursery that's located within the constellation Scorpius. A stellar nursery is a molecular cloud that houses all the ingredients that will eventually form into stars. The Prawn Nebula is 250 light-years across and doesn't emit light in wavelengths the human eye can detect, but Hubble can see it quite clearly.

The pristine image snapped by Hubble showcases the nebulas structure of energized, or ionized gas caused by the radiation of a nearby star. The radiation from the nearby star strips the hydrogen atoms located within the nebula, energizing the electrons and changing them from a higher-energy state to a lower-energy state. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out NASA's blog post on the Prawn Nebula here.

NASA's Perseverance rover is asking the public to take a second to marvel at its first-ever Martian sunset viewing.

NASA has posted the image of the Mars sunset on the Perseverance Twitter account while also detailing the observation on its website. Perseverance snapped the image of the Martian sunset using its Mastcam-Z camera system on November 9, 2021, and according to the blog post, Mars sunsets are usually blue due to the fine dust throughout the atmosphere allowing blue light to penetrate it more effectively than other wavelengths of light.

However, the sunset seen above is different, and NASA explains, "less dust in the atmosphere resulted in a more muted color than average. The color has been calibrated and white-balanced to remove camera artifacts." Perseverance will continue its search for signs of microbial life on the Red Planet, and throughout its journey, it will collect rock samples that will eventually be transported back to Earth for researchers to analyze. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

The LightSail 2, a small CubeSat fitted with a solar sail spanning 32 square meters (433 square feet), is still sailing through Earth's orbit two and a half years after launch.

LightSail 2 is a crowdfunded project which amassed $7 million and is run by The Planetary Society, a U.S.-based space education and outreach non-profit organization. Much like sails on a boat catch the wind to move them forward, the solar sails are used to catch photons from the sun in space to propel the LightSail 2 forward and demonstrate their viability for space travel.

NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory (IDL) are collaborating to create a power source on the moon that doesn't rely on the Sun.

The duo have issued a request for proposals regarding a nuclear fission power plant, something Rolls Royce is also working on in collaboration with the UK Space Agency.

Northrop Grumman's unmanned Cygnus spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on August 12th, 2021, and after more than three months, it is scheduled for departure on November 20th, 2021.

Upon arrival, it delivered nearly 8,000 pounds of supplies, research, hardware, commercial products, and an assortment of other cargo to the station. The mission was Northrop Grumman's 16th commercial resupply for NASA.

Cygnus' departure is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. EST (15:45 UTC), and a livestream of the event will be available on NASA television, NASA's website, and the NASA app.

In 2020, SpaceX set its record for the most Falcon 9 flights in a calendar year at 26. In the first half of 2021, SpaceX was on track to outpace this record significantly with 20 Falcon 9 launches, averaging a launch every nine days.

However, the launch rate has slowed to only five launches so far in the second half of 2021, as SpaceX focuses on its new generation of Starlink satellites. As their production finalizes at the SpaceX factory in Redmond, Washington, the Falcon 9 launch schedule has picked up to accommodate at least five missions before the year's end.

The first of these, scheduled for November 24th in California, will tie the company's record, and the subsequent launch planned for December 1st will break it. Another three launches have confirmed December dates, with additional launches for Starlink possible at some point.

A new study has been published where for the first time, water has been turned into a new phase of matter referred to as superionic ice or superionic water, long enough to be studied.

Also known as ice XVIII, superionic ice is one of the nineteen known crystalline phases of ice. By compacting a water droplet between two diamonds and hitting it with a powerful laser, scientists subjected the droplet to such extreme temperatures and pressures. The water molecules then break apart, allowing the oxygen ions to crystallize and form an evenly spaced lattice through which the hydrogen ions may then float freely. As a result, superionic ice can conduct electricity, with hydrogen ions and electrons migrating towards anodes and cathodes, respectively.

After years of waiting due to technical and funding issues, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled for launch on December 18th, 2021, aboard Ariane flight VA256.

Set to survey worlds in our solar system and the greater universe, the James Webb Space Telescope will succeed NASA's esteemed Hubble Space Telescope. It is destined for the Lagrange point, a gravitationally stable area roughly a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth. After a month-long journey to arrive, the observatory will require another six months before it becomes fully operational. Onboard systems must find all instruments in working order, especially the giant folded mirror that must unfold and arrange itself.

Following the events of Russia testing an anti-satellite weapon on one of its satellites, and causing a swath of space debris that resulted in the ISS crew scrambling, a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces has committed $1.5 million towards cleaning up space.

A report from Wired states that the U.S. Space Force is prepared to give out contracts to companies that are devising methods of removing space debris or space junk. The U.S. Department of Defense's Space Surveillance Network (SSN) is currently tracking more than 22,000 pieces of space debris in Earth's orbit, and as humans continue to expand off-planet with continued launches, that number is expected only to increase exponentially. That is without taking into consideration the possibility of Kessler syndrome.

The U.S. State Department has called "upon all responsible spacefaring nations to join us in efforts to develop norms of responsible behavior." Additionally, the U.S. Space Force's arm, SpaceWERX, will award $250,000 contracts to companies that are presenting ideas to develop technologies that will assist in the removal of space debris in a cost-effective manner. These awards are a part of the Orbital Prime program, the first phase being the $250,000 contract award and the second phase award being a $1.5 million contract to the most promising ideas.

We caught wind that Elon Musk is scheduled to give an interview at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and during it, the SpaceX CEO gave an update on Starship.

Starship is SpaceX's next-generation launch vehicle that is designed to be able to launch a large amount of mass anywhere in the solar system while also taking into account key features such as re-usability, rapid use. Musk gives a brief overview of all of Starships features and goes on to mention that SpaceX is currently preparing for the rocket's first orbital test.

Musk says that the upcoming orbital test has significant risks, saying, "There's a lot of risk associated with this first launch. So, I would not say that it is likely to be successful, but we'll make a lot of progress." However, the SpaceX CEO says that in theory, the designs should work, all of the calculations have been done, and they have "closed" for having a "fully reusable hundred ton to low Earth orbit capability". Musk says that SpaceX is hoping to conduct the first orbital flight for Starship in January, which coincides with the completion of the FAA environmental assessment of the Starbase launch site. He also mentions, "It's the biggest rocket ever, ever designed."

Forecasters are predicting that a storm may provide early Thanksgiving travels some problems as it rolls inland across several U.S. states.

AccuWeather meteorologists predict that an arctic blast is moving its way into the northern plains and will move across Minneapolis, Chicago, and Kansas City as it continues through the Midwest. Experts believe that the storm will eventually move eastward over the weekend and develop into a winter storm. Cities from Washington, D.C., to New York City may experience rainfall that is expected to cause travel delays on Monday, as well as high winds that may cause airline travel delays.

Reports indicate that the biggest concern of this storm is the winds causing massive travel delays for Thanksgiving travelers, as many people will be hitting the road or the airport at the start of the week. On Monday, 35-50 mph wind speeds are expected in Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cincinnati. Wind gusts of up to 70 mph are expected on the shores of the southern and eastern Great Lakes. If you are interested in more information about the storm, check out this link this link below.

Newly released court documents between NASA, Blue Origin and SpaceX have revealed some stark details about how the court viewed Blue Origin's lawsuit.

The documents come from the US Court of Federal Claims and details the government body's decision to deny Blue Origin's lawsuit against NASA over Blue Origin losing the competition set out by NASA for a $2.9 Human Landing Systems contract. The competition involved companies presenting NASA with a design, to which NASA chose SpaceX over Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. This sparked time consuming litigation and halted all construction of lunar lander, which caused a delay to be announced for the entire timeline of humans getting back onto the Moon.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin argued that NASA didn't give Blue Origin a fair chance because NASA waived some of the required safety reviews before each Starship is launched. SpaceX's proposal includes more than a dozen launches, which includes launching a propellant docking port, while Blue Origin's requires just three launches. Blue Origin's argument was that it would have designed an alternative lander if they were giving the same flexibility. This was then rebutted by Blue Origin being required to prove it would have had a chance of winning the contract if NASA offered them the same safety waivers.

It seems that Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), or more commonly referred to as UFOs, are bringing the two US government parties together in an agreement.

Congress is moving towards creating a specific program that focuses on studying UFOs. According to the proposal, the program will create a "UFO Office", or "Anomaly Surveillance and Resolution Office". The proposal reads that the program would be designed to "gain as much knowledge as possible" into UFOs and develop technology capable of studying them.

The program isn't assuming that the UFOs seen by US military personnel are of extraterrestrial origin, or if they are from another country with unknown advanced technology, but they aren't ruling out either. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who is leading the push on this program, told Politico, "If it is technology possessed by adversaries or any other entity, we need to know. Burying our heads in the sand is neither a strategy nor an acceptable approach."

NASA's Perseverance rover has captured the most detailed look of the helicopter named Ingenuity flying across the surface of Mars.

The footage has been posted on the NASA JPL Raw YouTube channel and showcases Ingenuity taking its 13th flight on September 4. This flight for Ingenuity is certainly one of its hardest yet as the scout helicopter was scheduled to take images of a region of land from multiple angles, which would then be relayed back to the research team that decides what location is of most value to move Perseverance to. Ingenuity snapped these images from a height of 26 feet.

As for the flight video, Perseverance's two-camera Mastcam-Z captured the footage, which was a part of research into measuring the amount of dust clouds created by Ingenuity taking off and landing. Justin Maki, the deputy principal investigator for the Mastcam-Z instrument at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, "The value of Mastcam-Z really shines through with these video clips. Even at 300 meters [328 yards] away, we get a magnificent closeup of takeoff and landing through Mastcam-Z's 'right eye." And while the helicopter is little more than a speck in the wide view taken through the 'left eye," it gives viewers a good feel for the size of the environment that Ingenuity is exploring."

Tonight an astronomy event will take place that hasn't happened for hundreds of years. The Moon will pass through Earth's shadow to create the longest partial lunar eclipse since 1440.

AccuWeather reports that an astronomical event will happen on the night of Thursday, November 18, into the morning of November 19. Many countries around the world will be able to take part in the event, including North America, Australia, New Zealand, eastern Asia, and parts of South America. It should be noted that this is the longest partial lunar eclipse since 1440 and not the longest total lunar eclipse as that title is held by the total lunar eclipse that occurred in July 2018, which was about 12 minutes longer than the one that will happen tonight.

Most of the United States is expected to have quite good viewing conditions, as AccuWeather meteorologists predict that parts of southern Plains and the lower Midwest will have "excellent viewing conditions" across the Southeast. If you are unable to enjoy the eclipse in person, but would still like to see what it looks like, there is the timeanddate livestream that can be found above. If you are interested in learning more about the coming partial lunar eclipse, check out this link here.

Roughly 500 light-years away in the Chamaeleon constellation, within its star-forming region is a reflection nebula designated IC 2631.

IC 2631 is the brightest nebula in the Chamaeleon Complex, where numerous protostars form and grow. Amongst the clouds of gas and dust, stars are born as clouds collapse under their gravity. The Hubble telescope can detect infrared emissions from the heat energy released from clouds contracting around a protostar. Once enough material gathers, and the protostar's core becomes dense and hot enough, it completes its transformation into a star.

Rocket Lab successfully launched its two-stage Electron rocket, carrying two BlackSky Global Earth observation satellites for its planned constellation.

The launch took place from Rocket Lab's launch pad on the Mahia Peninsula of New Zealand's North Island. Lift-off occurred at 2:38 p.m. (1:38 a.m. UTC) local time on November 18th. The first stage of the Electron rocket was scheduled to parachute safely into the ocean, splashing a few hundred miles off the coast where it was to be retrieved by a Rocket Lab boat, with a helicopter flying in the area to help locate it.

Fifty-five minutes after lift-off, the rocket's upper stage deployed the two BlackSky satellites it was carrying at an altitude of 270 miles (430 kilometers). Rocket Lab plans to help launch four additional BlackSky satellites across two more Electron launches as per the deal signed between the two companies.

The OPTIMISM rover, shorthand for "Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars," is a full-scale engineering model of the Perseverance rover currently trawling the surface of Mars, searching for signs of ancient microbial life.

In Southern California, at the Mars Yard of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a boulder-laden landscape simulates Mars's terrain that has been a testing site for many a rover twins, beginning with the first Sojourner rover that landed on Mars in 1997. The rover is about the size of a car, and the Mars Yard is roughly as long as a doubles tennis court and twice as wide.

OPTIMISM will be carrying out tasks expected of its twin on Mars to ensure that Perseverance will safely do the same in its mission and identify any potential bugs or issues that would disrupt its regular operation. These tasks include navigating complex terrain, drilling samples from boulders, and storing them in metal tubes, as Perseverance will be doing on Mars.

NASA has awarded the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), a sole source contract extension to continue science operations support for the Hubble Telescope.

Headquartered in Washington, AURA provides this support based out of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore. Hubble's mission has now been extended through to June 3rd, 2026, with the value of the existing contract increasing by ~$215 million, bringing the total to ~$2.4 billion.

The contract extension will fund ongoing support for Hubble out of the STScI, including science operations, engineering of science systems, awarding science research, data archival, and public outreach.

Researchers have warned that an "alien invasion" is a warranted concern, but the invaders won't arrive in spaceships.

A new study published in the journal Bioscience explores the effects of human expansion beyond Earth's atmosphere and the dangers of micro-bacterial contamination. The researchers looked at the risks of obtaining micro-bacteria and bringing it back to Earth. Additionally, the study looked at humans bringing bacteria to new worlds, such as Mars, and found measures to reduce the risk of contamination. Researchers have already discovered strains of bacteria that have evolved from Earth bacteria on the International Space Station.

Additionally, NASA has found in its clean rooms that are used to assemble spacecrafts, "bacterial strains exhibiting extreme resistance to ionizing radiation, desiccation, and disinfectants." The authors note that bacteria from Earth shouldn't be brought to new planets such as Mars, and that an event such as this can is comparable to an extreme natural disaster such a major earthquake or even a nuclear meltdown. The study authors suggested the following measures should be taken to prevent contamination from extraterrestrials.