A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images from space-related science news items (find previous roundups here):
Mars
** Launch of the UAE Hope Mars mission on a Japanese H-IIA rocket on July 19th was a success. The spacecraft is on course to reach Mars and go into orbit in February. It’s primary mission is to study the Martian atmosphere and weather.
Here is the first image taken from the Hope spacecraft: HH Sheikh Mohammed shares first image of Mars taken by Hope Probe – SatellitePro ME
We received the Hope probe’s first sighting of its destination, Mars, after the spacecraft travelled one million km into space. Beyond the sky is where our dreams start. pic.twitter.com/jN7MBxKa7U
— HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) July 22, 2020
See also
- Emiratis over the moon about launch of Hope Probe to Mars – GulfToday
- How a small Arab nation built a Mars mission from scratch in six year – Nature
- Emirates launches first Mars probe with help from UC Berkeley – Berkeley News
** Long March 5 launched China’s Tianwen 1 mission to Mars on July 23rd from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on the southern coast of Hainan province.
- Tianwen-1: China successfully launches probe in first Mars mission – CGTN
- Tianwen-1 launches for Mars, marking dawn of Chinese interplanetary exploration – SpaceNews
- China Launches Tianwen 1 Mars Mission – Sky & Telescope
- Tianwen-1 – Wikipedia
The payload includes an orbiter, lander, and rover.
Here are previews of the mission:
- China’s first mission to Mars | Nature Astronomy
- Chinese Spacecraft Poised for First Mars Mission – Scientific American
- China’s Tianwen-1 Mars rover mission gets a boost from international partners | Space.com
** Perseverance rover set to launch on July 30th on ULA Atlas V rocket. The rover will then land on the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021. The final launch preparations and reviews are underway: NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover Passes Flight Readiness Review – NASA
Everyone is invited to participant in some way with the mission liftoff: NASA Invites Public to Share Excitement of Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Launch – NASA
Here is a set of hands-on activities for young people such as making a Mars helicopter out of paper: Learning Space With NASA at Home – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
** An overview of Perseverance from the Everyday Astronaut:
** A true microphone is included on the Perseverance: Perseverance Microphones Fulfill Long Planetary Society Campaign to Hear Sounds from Mars | The Planetary Society
If you could stand on the surface of Mars, what would you hear? While 8 missions have returned stunning views from the surface of the Red Planet, none have returned any sound.
That’s about to change. NASA’s Perseverance rover, which is days away from blasting off on a mission to search for signs of past life and collect samples for future return to Earth, will have not one, but two microphones aboard. One will listen as the rover plummets through the Martian atmosphere for landing, and another will record sounds as the rover does its scientific work in Jezero Crater—an ancient river delta where life may have flourished.
If all goes well, Perseverance’s microphones will fulfill the wishes of Planetary Society co-founder Carl Sagan, who wrote a letter to NASA in 1996 urging the space agency to send a microphone to Mars.
“Even if only a few minutes of Martian sounds are recorded from this first experiment, the public interest will be high and the opportunity for scientific exploration real,” Sagan wrote.
More about the Perseverance rover:
** Update on InSight Mars lander’s Mole digger: NASA’s InSight Flexes Its Arm While Its ‘Mole’ Hits Pause – NASA’s InSight Mars Lander – July.7.2020
NASA’s InSight lander has been using its robotic arm to help the heat probe known as the “mole” burrow into Mars. The mission is providing the first look at the Red Planet’s deep interior to reveal details about the formation of Mars and, ultimately, all rocky planets, including Earth.
Akin to a 16-inch-long (40-centimeter-long) pile driver, the self-hammering mole has experienced difficulty getting into the Martian soil since February 2019. It’s mostly buried now, thanks to recent efforts to push down on the mole with the scoop on the end of the robotic arm. But whether it will be able to dig deep enough – at least 10 feet (3 meters) – to get an accurate temperature reading of the planet remains to be seen. Images taken by InSight during a Saturday, June 20, hammering session show bits of soil jostling within the scoop – possible evidence that the mole had begun bouncing in place, knocking the bottom of the scoop.
NASA InSight’s ‘Mole’ Taps the Bottom of the Lander’s Scoop – NASA’s InSight Mars Lander: After the scoop on the end of NASA’s Mars InSight lander was used to push down on the top of the spacecraft’s “mole,” or self-hammering heat probe, it was held in place to essentially block the mole from popping out of the soil. The movement of sand grains in the scoop, seen here, suggested that the mole had began bumping up against the bottom of the scoop while hammering on June 20, 2020. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
** Dust up on Mars: I Can See Clearly Now: Dust-up on Mars! – Leonard David
Comparative images from NASA’s InSight Mars lander from Sol 10 to Sol 578 show that the spacecraft is quite dusty.
Robotic arm-mounted, Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) images taken on December 7, 2018, Sol 10 and recent July 12, 2020, Sol 578 photos reveal the coating of Mars dust.
InSight landed on the Red Planet on November 26, 2018.
** The latest on Curiosity rover’s activities and plans:
- Curiosity Mars Rover’s Summer Road Trip Has Begun – NASA JPL – July.7.2020
- Rover update: Curiosity’s future journey | Behind The Black – July.7.2020
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has started a road trip that will continue through the summer across roughly a mile (1.6 kilometers) of terrain. By trip’s end, the rover will be able to ascend to the next section of the 3-mile-tall Martian (5-kilometer-tall) mountain it’s been exploring since 2014, searching for conditions that may have supported ancient microbial life.
Located on the floor of Gale Crater, Mount Sharp is composed of sedimentary layers that built up over time. Each layer helps tell the story about how Mars changed from being more Earth-like – with lakes, streams and a thicker atmosphere – to the nearly-airless, freezing desert it is today.
Once they complete this week’s drilling effort, expect the rover to quickly head east again, aiming for the gap between the very rough Greenheugh Piedmont and the first steep cliffs of Mt. Sharp. They hope to reach this point in the fall, when the rover will finally leave the foothills of Mt Sharp and begin climbing the mountain. Their goal is the dark canyon in the first image above, uphill from where Curiosity sits now.
** Leonard David also gives frequent updates on Curiosity’s roving:
- Curiosity Mars Rover: Expected New Drill Spot
- Curiosity Mars Rover: Next Drill Location
- Curiosity Mars Rover: Cross-country Trek, New Road Map
- Curiosity Mars Rover: Six Wheels Keep on Turning
- Curiosity Mars Rover: New Images, Road Map
- Curiosity Mars Rover: Going Downhill
- Curiosity Mars Rover: Turn to the North
- Curiosity Mars Rover: New Drive, New Road Map
- Curiosity Mars Rover: Bouldery Landscapes
- Curiosity Mars Rover: Challenge at BloodStone Hill
** Tour more sites on the marvelous Martian surface with Bob Zimmerman
- Slip-sliding away – on Mars
- Utopia Planitia, the prime landing site for China’s Tienwen-1 Mars rover
- More polygons on Mars!
- Martian acne?
- Monument Valley on Mars
- Martian swirls and curlicues
- A great hike to do on Mars!
- Spring at the Martian South Pole – Extended discussion of the ice (CO2 and water) caps at the poles.
- A hanging crater on Mars
- Two wedding cakes on Mars
- More strange terrain in the Martian “Death Valley”
Solar system
** A review of missions that return samples of celestial bodies to Earth: Sample Return Roundup | The Planetary Society
It’s a banner year for sample return missions. Not since the 1970s has there been so much invested in returning rocks to Earth from space. This year, China, Japan, and the United States will all have sample return missions in flight, seeking to retrieve material from near-Earth asteroids, the Moon, and eventually Mars.
** The latest on the Saturn moon Titan. Dr. Linda Spilker of NASA JPL talks about the latest findings with John Batchelor and Dr. David Livingston on the Hotel Mars radio program:
** Illustrating the scale of planets and Earth-Moon separation: Fun Fact: All the Planets in the Solar System Could Fit Between Earth and the Moon – Lights in the Dark
It might seem a bit far-fetched but yes, it’s true: if you could line up all of the other planets in our Solar System in a row edge-to-edge (or more geometrically accurately, limb-to-limb) and for good measure even include Pluto, the entire queue would easily fit within the space between Earth and the Moon.
** The first view of Ganymede’s north pole: NASA Juno Takes First Images of Jovian Moon Ganymede’s North Pole | NASA
On its way inbound for a Dec. 26, 2019, flyby of Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew in the proximity of the north pole of the ninth-largest object in the solar system, the moon Ganymede. The infrared imagery collected by the spacecraft’s Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument provides the first infrared mapping of the massive moon’s northern frontier.
Larger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede consists primarily of water ice. Its composition contains fundamental clues for understanding the evolution of the 79 Jovian moons from the time of their formation to today.
Ganymede is also the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetic field. On Earth, the magnetic field provides a pathway for plasma (charged particles from the Sun) to enter our atmosphere and create aurora. As Ganymede has no atmosphere to impede their progress, the surface at its poles is constantly being bombarded by plasma from Jupiter’s gigantic magnetosphere. The bombardment has a dramatic effect on Ganymede’s ice.
“The JIRAM data show the ice at and surrounding Ganymede’s north pole has been modified by the precipitation of plasma,” said Alessandro Mura, a Juno co-investigator at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome. “It is a phenomenon that we have been able to learn about for the first time with Juno because we are able to see the north pole in its entirety.”
See also: First Images of Jovian Moon Ganymede’s North Pole | Mission Juno.
Astronomy
** A big list of the most exotic objects detected in the universe is being maintained by the Berkeley SETI program:
- Breakthrough Listen releases list of “Exotica” – one of almost every kind of observable object or phenomenon in the Universe – Breakthrough Initiatives – “Hundreds of astronomical objects could be targets for the search for intelligent life and investigations of new astrophysics.“
- Breakthrough Listen: Exotic Target Catalog
San Francisco, CA – June 22, 2020 – Breakthrough Listen, the initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the Universe, today released an innovative catalog of “Exotica” – a diverse list of objects of potential interest to astronomers searching for technosignatures (indicators of technology developed by extraterrestrial intelligence). The catalog is a collection of over 700 distinct targets intended to include “one of everything” in the observed Universe – ranging from comets to galaxies, from mundane objects to the most rare and violent celestial phenomena.
The comprehensive new catalog is the first in recent times that aims to span the entire breadth of astrophysical phenomena, from distant galaxies, to objects in our own Solar System. The Listen team developed it conceptually, compiled it, and shared it with the astronomical community in the hope that it can guide future surveys – studying life beyond Earth and/or natural astrophysics – and serve as a general reference guide for the field.
“Many discoveries in astronomy were not planned,” remarked the lead author of the new catalog, Dr. Brian Lacki. “Sometimes a major new discovery was missed when nobody was looking in the right place, because they believed nothing could be found there. This happened with exoplanets, which might have been detected before the 1990s if astronomers looked for solar systems very different than ours. Are we looking in the wrong places for technosignatures? The Exotica catalog will help us answer that question.”
“The catalog is not just limited to SETI, though,” noted Lacki. “My hope is that any program with a new capability may use the Exotica catalog as a shakedown cruise around the Universe.”
Sun
** First images from ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter released.
- Solar Orbiter’s first images reveal ‘campfires’ on the Sun – ESA
- Solar Orbiter Returns First Data, Snaps Closest Pictures of the Sun | NASA
- Solar Orbiter reveals closest pictures, new science of the Sun – NASASpaceFlight.com
Find more images in the ESA Solar Orbiter gallery.
** The solar cycle appears to be turning slowly towards next maximum according to June sunspot activity: Sunspot update: More evidence of an upcoming weak maximum | Behind The Black
The ratio of next cycle sunspots vs sunspots from the past maximum has also been shifting. More and more, the new sunspots belong to the next cycle and less to the last. The ramp up to the next maximum is definitely beginning, though to call it a “ramp up” at this point is a big exaggeration. Sunspot activity remains low, though the last few months have seen some activity, unlike the seven months of nothing seen during the second half of last year.
The upcoming prediction for the next maximum calls for it to be very weak. Interestingly, the activity in June surpassed that prediction. This does not mean that the prediction will be wrong, only that June was more active when compared to the smooth prediction curve. As the cycle unfolds the monthly numbers will fluctuate up and down, as they did last cycle. The question will be whether their overall numbers will match closely with the prediction. In the past cycle actual sunspot activity was consistently below all predictions. It is too soon to say how well the new prediction is doing.
Moon
** The Chinese Yutu-2 rover will soon be ending another active lunar day and preparing to sleep through the two earth-week long lunar night. The rover should be approaching a half kilometer on the odometer from its travels since the Chang’e 4 mission landed on the Moon’s far side on January 3, 2019: China’s lunar rover travels about 463 meters on moon’s far side – Xinhua – June.28.2020.
Here is a report on some unusual looking material that Yutu-2 spotted a year or so ago: Study Reveals Composition of “Gel-like” Substance Discovered by Chang’e-4 Rover on Moon’s Far Side—-Chinese Academy of Sciences
The unusual dark greenish and glistening “gel-like” substance in a crater on the far side of the moon has attracted widespread interest following its discovery by the Chang’e-4 rover in July 2019.
A research team led by Prof. DI Kaichang from the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators analyzed the substance in detail by using multiple datasets from the rover’s panoramic camera (Pancam), hazard avoidance camera (Hazcam), and the visible and near-infrared spectrometer (VNIS).
The researchers found that the unusual substance is actually an impact melt breccia, and the provenance of the rover measured surrounding regolith might originate from a differentiated melt pool or from a suite of igneous rocks. Their findings were published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
** The Moon is more metal heavy than previously thought: Radar Points to Moon Being More Metallic Than Researchers Thought | NASA
What started out as a hunt for ice lurking in polar lunar craters turned into an unexpected finding that could help clear some muddy history about the Moon’s formation.
Team members of the Miniature Radio Frequency (Mini-RF) instrument on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft found new evidence that the Moon’s subsurface might be richer in metals, like iron and titanium, than researchers thought. That finding, published July 1 in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, could aid in drawing a clearer connection between Earth and the Moon.
“The LRO mission and its radar instrument continue to surprise us with new insights about the origins and complexity of our nearest neighbor,” said Wes Patterson, Mini-RF principal investigator from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and a study coauthor.
** Investigating ancient volcanism on the Moon with images and altimetry data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO):
- A minor rill on the Moon | Behind The Black
- Apennine Bench Formation: A Window into Ancient Volcanism – LRO/ASU
From Bob Zimmerman at Behind The Black:
The image above, reduced to post here, is a colorized digital terrain model produced from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) data. On top of the original mosaic of photos the LRO science team has overlaid the elevation data obtained by LRO’s laser altimeter. It shows a tadpole shaped pit dubbed Kathleen, with its tail trailing off to the southeast. As they note:
Kathleen is a pyroclastic vent with a sinuous rille (colloquially known as Rima Mozart [Not IAU confirmed]) that extends from the southeast end of the vent. Rilles are large channels formed by sustained channelized lava flows. This vent is a great location to investigate ancient volcanism on the Moon.
The elevation data reveals one interesting feature: The lowest part of the vent pit is not at its western end, where one would think at first glance, based on the general dip that produced the rill flowing to the east. That the lowest point is at the widest section of the pit instead suggests that this pit no longer looks as it did when it was venting. In the almost four billion years since it is thought all volcanic activity here ceased, there has been plenty of time for the slow erosion processes on the Moon, caused by radiation, micrometeorites, and the solar wind, to partly fill this pit and round out its cliff walls.
Asteroids and Comets
** The small companion to the Didymos asteroid christened Dimorphos. The pair are the target destination for the ESA’s Hera and NASA’s DART missions. Name given to asteroid target of ESA’s planetary defence mission – ESA
A near-Earth binary asteroid system, named after the Greek word for ‘twin’, Didymos’s main body measures about 780 m across, with its previously nameless moonlet about 160 m in diameter, approximately the size of Egypt’s Great Pyramid.
In 2022, this moonlet will be the target of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the first full-scale demonstration of an asteroid deflection technology for planetary defence. ESA’s Hera mission will be launched two years later, to perform a close-up survey of Dimorphos, along with its parent asteroid, following DART’s impact.
“Dimorphos is Greek for ‘having two forms’,” says Kleomenis Tsiganis, a planetary scientist at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and member of both the DART and Hera teams, who suggested the name.
“It has been chosen in anticipation of its future status as the first celestial body to have its ‘physique’ intentionally altered by human intervention, the kinetic impact of DART. Hence, it will be known to us by two, very different forms, the one seen by DART before impact and the other seen by Hera, a few years later.”
DART’s kinetic impact into Dimorphos is expected to alter its orbit around Didymos as well as create a substantial crater, which will be studied by the Hera spacecraft when it arrives several years later. The DART impact itself will be recorded by the Italian-made LICIACube CubeSat, deployed from DART several days earlier, with longer-term effects studied by telescopes on Earth’s surface and in space.
See also Hera and its asteroid target – ESA.
** Haybabusa2 will drop off a capsule of material from asteroid Ryugu this December:
- Re-entry capsule will return to Earth on December 6, 2020 | TOPICS | JAXA Hayabusa2 Project
- Japan Prepares for Hayabusa2’s Daring Return to Earth – Scientific American
Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is nearly home. Having collected samples from the asteroid Ryugu last year, the spacecraft is just months away from returning them to Earth. The samples contain material that likely dates back to the dawn of the solar system, 4.6 billion years ago. They could provide fresh insights into how celestial bodies came to be and even how life on Earth began. But before all that, there is the small matter of getting Hayabusa2’s precious cargo down from the harsh vacuum of space and safely into scientists’ hands.
On July 14 the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in partnership with the Australian Space Agency, announced the landing date for the samples: December 6, 2020. JAXA’s landing site for the mission is a 122,000-square-kilometer region of South Australian outback known as the Woomera Range Complex. “Woomera is a very remote area,” says Karl Rodrigues, acting deputy director of the Australian Space Agency. “It makes it ideal for the safe management and landing of this particular craft and capsule.”
** Watch Comet Neowise from the ISS to the accompaniment of a nice soundtrack:
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