Space news topic and space related news

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MIT astronomers discover new galaxy clusters hiding in plain sight
https://news.mit.edu/2021/mit-astronomers-discover-new-galaxy-clusters-hiding-plain-sight-0326

MIT astronomers have discovered new and unusual galactic neighborhoods that previous studies overlooked. Their results, published today, suggest that roughly 1 percent of galaxy clusters look atypical and can be easily misidentified as a single bright galaxy. As researchers launch new cluster-hunting telescopes, they must heed these findings or risk having an incomplete picture of the universe.

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Radioactive Molecules May Help Solve Mystery of Missing Antimatter
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/radioactive-molecules-may-help-solve-mystery-of-missing-antimatter

Stars, galaxies, and everything in the universe, including our own bodies, are comprised of so-called regular matter. Regular matter includes atoms and molecules, which are made up of tiny particles, such as electrons, protons, and neutrons. These particles dominate our universe, vastly outnumbering their lesser-known counterparts: antimatter particles. First experimentally discovered in 1932 by the late Nobel laureate and longtime Caltech professor Carl Anderson (BS '27, PhD '30), antimatter particles have the opposite charges to their matter counterparts. The antimatter particle to the negatively charged electron, for example, is the positively charged positron.

How did matter come to overshadow antimatter? Scientists believe that something happened early in the history of our cosmos to tip the balance of particles to matter, causing antimatter to largely disappear. How this occurred is still a mystery.

In a new study in the journal Physical Review Letters, Nick Hutzler (BS '07), assistant professor of physics at Caltech, and his graduate student Phelan Yu, propose a new tabletop-based tool to search for answers to the antimatter riddle. Like other physicists studying the problem, the researchers' main idea is to look for asymmetries in how regular matter interacts with electromagnetic fields. This is related to a type of symmetry commonly seen in particles called charge parity, or CP. Any deviations from the expected CP symmetry might explain how matter ultimately edged out antimatter in our universe.

Hutzler and his colleagues theoretically worked out a new way to probe these symmetry violations using a radioactive molecule called a radium monomethoxide ion, or RaOCH3+. Their partners at UC Santa Barbara, led by Andrew Jayich, then created these molecules for the first time and published the results in a companion article in Physical Review Letters.

The joint studies demonstrate that radioactive molecules have the potential to be even more sensitive probes of fundamental particle symmetries than the non-radioactive atoms commonly used today.

"The state-of-the-art method for this type of study uses atoms," explains Hutzler. "But molecules can be even better probes because they have baked-in asymmetry. They are lumpy and lopsided to begin with. The radium nucleus is even lumpier since it has a very uneven charge distribution, and this also helps. The result is a 100,000 to 1,000,000 larger amplification of symmetry violations, if any are present, compared to what has been state of the art."

To look for symmetry violations in particles, researchers generally observe how particles behave in electric fields. They search for abnormal behaviors that break the known symmetry rules; for instance, physicists have predicted that symmetry violations might cause an electron to precess, or wobble around like a spinning top, in an electric field. Molecules have electromagnetic fields inside them, due to their asymmetrical nature, so they make ideal targets for this kind of work.

Hutzler says he had thought about using radium-based molecules for this purpose before, even calling himself a "radium fanboy," but explained that the isotope they need is extremely radioactive with a half-life of two weeks (half of a lump of radium will decay into other nuclei in just two weeks).

"This radium isotope is very radioactive and very scarce, which makes working with it difficult," explains Hutzler. "But the unique properties of the RaOCH3+ molecule overcome many of these challenges, and, when combined with the experimental technique demonstrated at UC Santa Barbara, will enable modern, quantum, highly sensitive methods to search for these symmetry violations."

The new tabletop method is complementary to other techniques that search for clues to the antimatter mystery, including related experiments performed in the Hutzler lab as well as the neutron Electric Dipole Moment, or nEDM experiment, which is being built in part at Caltech by Brad Filippone, the Francis L. Moseley Professor of Physics, and his team. In fact, Hutzler worked with Filippone on this experiment as an undergraduate at Caltech. The nEDM experiment, which will ultimately take place at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in about five years, will look for CP symmetry violations specifically in neutrons.

"This new approach is not as clean and direct as nEDM, but by using a whole molecule, we have the advantage of being able to sense symmetry violations in a range of particles," says Hutzler.

The radioactive-molecule approach may take years more to fully develop but Hutzler says that he has been enjoying focusing on the theoretical aspect of the work.

"We've been starting to dabble more in theory partly due to the pandemic and having more time at home," he says. "We probably would not have done this theory work otherwise."

The study, titled "Probing Fundamental Symmetries of Deformed Nuclei in Symmetric Top Molecules," was funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

A more in-depth summary of the research can be found at the American Physical Society's website.

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NASA Begins Final Assembly of Spacecraft Destined for Asteroid Psyche
https://www.technology.org/2021/03/30/nasa-begins-final-assembly-of-spacecraft-destined-for-asteroid-psyche/

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NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Takes Selfie With 'Mont Mercou'
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-curiosity-mars-rover-takes-selfie-with-mont-mercou

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First interstellar comet may be the most pristine ever found
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2106/

New observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) indicate that the rogue comet 2I/Borisov, which is only the second and most recently detected interstellar visitor to our Solar System, is one of the most pristine ever observed. Astronomers suspect that the comet most likely never passed close to a star, making it an undisturbed relic of the cloud of gas and dust it formed from.

2I/Borisov was discovered by amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov in August 2019 and was confirmed to have come from beyond the Solar System a few weeks later. "2I/Borisov could represent the first truly pristine comet ever observed," says Stefano Bagnulo of the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, Northern Ireland, UK, who led the new study published today in Nature Communications. The team believes that the comet had never passed close to any star before it flew by the Sun in 2019.

Bagnulo and his colleagues used the FORS2 instrument on ESO's VLT, located in northern Chile, to study 2I/Borisov in detail using a technique called polarimetry [1]. Since this technique is regularly used to study comets and other small bodies of our Solar System, this allowed the team to compare the interstellar visitor with our local comets.

The team found that 2I/Borisov has polarimetric properties distinct from those of Solar System comets, with the exception of Hale–Bopp. Comet Hale–Bopp received much public interest in the late 1990s as a result of being easily visible to the naked eye, and also because it was one of the most pristine comets astronomers had ever seen. Prior to its most recent passage, Hale–Bopp is thought to have passed by our Sun only once and had therefore barely been affected by solar wind and radiation. This means it was pristine, having a composition very similar to that of the cloud of gas and dust it — and the rest of the Solar System — formed from some 4.5 billion years ago.

By analysing the polarisation together with the colour of the comet to gather clues on its composition, the team concluded that 2I/Borisov is in fact even more pristine than Hale–Bopp. This means it carries untarnished signatures of the cloud of gas and dust it formed from.

"The fact that the two comets are remarkably similar suggests that the environment in which 2I/Borisov originated is not so different in composition from the environment in the early Solar System," says Alberto Cellino, a co-author of the study, from the Astrophysical Observatory of Torino, National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), Italy.

Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer at ESO in Germany who studies comets and other near-Earth objects but was not involved in this new study, agrees. "The main result — that 2I/Borisov is not like any other comet except Hale–Bopp — is very strong," he says, adding that "it is very plausible they formed in very similar conditions."

"The arrival of 2I/Borisov from interstellar space represented the first opportunity to study the composition of a comet from another planetary system and check if the material that comes from this comet is somehow different from our native variety," explains Ludmilla Kolokolova, of the University of Maryland in the US, who was involved in the Nature Communications research.

Bagnulo hopes astronomers will have another, even better, opportunity to study a rogue comet in detail before the end of the decade. "ESA is planning to launch Comet Interceptor in 2029, which will have the capability of reaching another visiting interstellar object, if one on a suitable trajectory is discovered," he says, referring to an upcoming mission by the European Space Agency.

An origin story hidden in the dust
Even without a space mission, astronomers can use Earth's many telescopes to gain insight into the different properties of rogue comets like 2I/Borisov. "Imagine how lucky we were that a comet from a system light-years away simply took a trip to our doorstep by chance," says Bin Yang, an astronomer at ESO in Chile, who also took advantage of 2I/Borisov's passage through our Solar System to study this mysterious comet. Her team's results are published in Nature Astronomy.

Yang and her team used data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner, as well as from ESO's VLT, to study 2I/Borisov's dust grains to gather clues about the comet's birth and conditions in its home system.

They discovered that 2I/Borisov's coma — an envelope of dust surrounding the main body of the comet — contains compact pebbles, grains about one millimetre in size or larger. In addition, they found that the relative amounts of carbon monoxide and water in the comet changed drastically as it neared the Sun. The team, which also includes Olivier Hainaut, says this indicates that the comet is made up of materials that formed in different places in its planetary system.

The observations by Yang and her team suggest that matter in 2I/Borisov's planetary home was mixed from near its star to further out, perhaps because of the existence of giant planets, whose strong gravity stirs material in the system. Astronomers believe that a similar process occurred early in the life of our Solar System.

While 2I/Borisov was the first rogue comet to pass by the Sun, it was not the first interstellar visitor. The first interstellar object to have been observed passing by our Solar System was ?Oumuamua, another object studied with ESO's VLT back in 2017. Originally classified as a comet, ?Oumuamua was later reclassified as an asteroid as it lacked a coma.

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First X-rays from Uranus Discovered
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/images/first-x-rays-from-uranus-discovered.html

Astronomers have detected X-rays from Uranus for the first time, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This result may help scientists learn more about this enigmatic ice giant planet in our solar system.

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and has two sets of rings around its equator. The planet, which has four times the diameter of Earth, rotates on its side, making it different from all other planets in the solar system. Since Voyager 2 was the only spacecraft to ever fly by Uranus, astronomers currently rely on telescopes much closer to Earth, like Chandra and the Hubble Space Telescope, to learn about this distant and cold planet that is made up almost entirely of hydrogen and helium.

In the new study, researchers used Chandra observations taken in Uranus in 2002 and then again in 2017. They saw a clear detection of X-rays from the first observation, just analyzed recently, and a possible flare of X-rays in those obtained fifteen years later. The main graphic shows a Chandra X-ray image of Uranus from 2002 (in pink) superimposed on an optical image from the Keck-I Telescope obtained in a separate study in 2004. The latter shows the planet at approximately the same orientation as it was during the 2002 Chandra observations.

What could cause Uranus to emit X-rays? The answer: mainly the Sun. Astronomers have observed that both Jupiter and Saturn scatter X-ray light given off by the Sun, similar to how Earth's atmosphere scatters the Sun's light. While the authors of the new Uranus study initially expected that most of the X-rays detected would also be from scattering, there are tantalizing hints that at least one other source of X-rays is present. If further observations confirm this, it could have intriguing implications for understanding Uranus.

One possibility is that the rings of Uranus are producing X-rays themselves, which is the case for Saturn's rings. Uranus is surrounded by charged particles such as electrons and protons in its nearby space environment. If these energetic particles collide with the rings, they could cause the rings to glow in X-rays. Another possibility is that at least some of the X-rays come from auroras on Uranus, a phenomenon that has previously been observed on this planet at other wavelengths.

On Earth, we can see colorful light shows in the sky called auroras, which happen when high-energy particles interact with the atmosphere. X-rays are emitted in Earth's auroras, produced by energetic electrons after they travel down the planet's magnetic field lines to its poles and are slowed down by the atmosphere. Jupiter has auroras, too. The X-rays from auroras on Jupiter come from two sources: electrons traveling down magnetic field lines, as on Earth, and positively charged atoms and molecules raining down at Jupiter's polar regions. However, scientists are less certain about what causes auroras on Uranus. Chandra's observations may help figure out this mystery.

Uranus is an especially interesting target for X-ray observations because of the unusual orientations of its spin axis and its magnetic field. While the rotation and magnetic field axes of the other planets of the solar system are almost perpendicular to the plane of their orbit, the rotation axis of Uranus is nearly parallel to its path around the Sun. Furthermore, while Uranus is tilted on its side, its magnetic field is tilted by a different amount, and offset from the planet's center. This may cause its auroras to be unusually complex and variable. Determining the sources of the X-rays from Uranus could help astronomers better understand how more exotic objects in space, such as growing black holes and neutron stars, emit X-rays

A paper describing these results appears in the most recent issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research and is available online. The authors are William Dunn (University College London, United Kingdom), Jan-Uwe Ness (University of Marseille, France), Laurent Lamy (Paris Observatory, France), Grant Tremblay (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian), Graziella Branduardi-Raymont (University College London), Bradford Snios (CfA), Ralph Kraft (CfA), Z. Yao (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing), Affelia Wibisono (University College London).

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

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Distant stars spiralling towards a collision give clues to the forces that bind sub-atomic particles
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/distant-stars-spiralling-towards-a-collision-give-clues-to-the-forces-that-bind-sub-atomic-particles/

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NASA's Mars Helicopter Survives First Cold Martian Night on Its Own
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s-mars-helicopter-survives-first-cold-martian-night-on-its-own

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NASA's First Weather Report from Jezero Crater on Mars
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-first-weather-report-from-jezero-crater-on-mars

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Trio of Fast-Spinning Brown Dwarfs May Reveal a Rotational Speed Limit
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/trio-of-fast-spinning-brown-dwarfs-may-reveal-a-rotational-speed-limit

SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE CELEBRATES ITS 40TH ANNIVERSARY
https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2021/news-2021-11

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tellar Eggs near Galactic Center Hatching into Baby Stars
https://www.almaobservatory.org/en/press-releases/stellar-eggs-near-galactic-center-hatching-into-baby-stars/

Astronomers found a number of baby stars hiding around the center of the Milky Way using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Previous studies had suggested that the environment there is too harsh to form stars because of the strong tidal forces, strong magnetic fields, high energy particles, and frequent supernova explosions. These findings indicate that star formation is more resilient than researchers thought. These observations suggest there is ubiquitous star formation activity hidden deep in dense molecular gas, which may allow for the possibility of a future burst of star formation around the Galactic Center.

"It is like hearing babies' cries in a place we expected to be barren," says Xing Lu, an astronomer at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. "It is very difficult for babies to be born and grow up healthily in an environment that is too noisy and unstable. However, our observations prove that even in the strongly disturbed areas around the Galactic Center, baby stars still form."

Stars are formed in cosmic clouds gathered by gravity. If something interferes with the gravity driven processes, star formation will be suppressed. There are many potential sources of interference in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) of the Milky Way, located within a radius of 1000 light-years from the Galactic Center. Examples include strong turbulence which stirs up the clouds and prevents them from contracting, or strong magnetic fields can support the gas against self-gravitational collapse. In fact, previous observations indicated that star formation here is much less efficient; with the exception of one active star forming region called Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2).

Lu and his colleagues used ALMA to tackle the mystery of suppressed star formation in most of the CMZ. The target regions contain an ample amount of gas, but no star formation has been expected. Contrary to the traditional picture, the team discovered more than 800 dense cores of gas and dust particles in the CMZ. "The discovery leads to the question of whether they are actually 'stellar eggs' or not," says Lu. To look for telltale signs of star formation indicative of stellar eggs, the team again used ALMA to search for energetic gas outflows, which are like the birth cries of baby stars. Thanks to ALMA's high sensitivity and high spatial resolution, for the first time, they detected 43 small and faint outflows in the clouds. This is unambiguous evidence of ongoing star formation. It turned out that many baby stars were hiding in the regions that were thought to be unsuitable for stellar growth.

The small number of detected outflows is another mystery. Considering the fact that more than 800 "stellar eggs" have been found, the small number of "stellar babies" might indicate that the star formation activity in the CMZ is in the very early phase. "Although a large number of outflows might be still hidden in the regions, our results may suggest we are seeing the beginning of the next wave of active star formation," says Lu.

"Although previous observations have suggested that overall star formation rates are suppressed to about 10% in the giant molecular clouds in the Galactic Center, this observation shows that the star formation processes hidden in dense molecular gas clouds are not very different from those of the Solar neighborhood," explains Shu-ichiro Inutsuka, a professor at Nagoya University and a co-author of the research paper. "The ratio of the number of star-forming cores to star-less cores seems to be only a few times smaller than that in the Solar neighborhood. This can be regarded as the ratio of their respective lifetimes. We think that the average duration of the star-less core stage in the Galactic Center might be somewhat longer than in the Solar neighborhood. More research is needed to explain why it is so."

The research team is now analyzing ALMA's higher resolution observation data for the CMZ and aims to study the properties of the accretion disks around the baby stars which drive the gas outflows. By comparing with other star forming regions, they hope to better understand star formation in the CMZ, from clouds to protostars, and from chemistry to magnetic fields.

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NASA's NICER Finds X-ray Boosts in the Crab Pulsar's Radio Bursts
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-s-nicer-finds-x-ray-boosts-in-the-crab-pulsar-s-radio-bursts

A global science collaboration using data from NASA's Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope on the International Space Station has discovered X-ray surges accompanying radio bursts from the pulsar in the Crab Nebula. The finding shows that these bursts, called giant radio pulses, release far more energy than previously suspected.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9GT0IAcjCk

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Jupiter Could Make an Ideal Dark Matter Detector
https://www.universetoday.com/150824/jupiter-could-make-an-ideal-dark-matter-detector/

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Primordial Asteroids That Never Suffered Massive Collisions all Seem to be Larger Than 100 km. Why?
https://www.universetoday.com/150832/primordial-asteroids-that-never-suffered-massive-collisions-all-seem-to-be-larger-than-100-km-why/

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How NASA's Roman Space Telescope Will Uncover Lonesome Black Holes
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/how-nasa-s-roman-space-telescope-will-uncover-lonesome-black-holes

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Telescopes Unite in Unprecedented Observations of Famous Black Hole
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/telescopes-unite-in-unprecedented-observations-of-famous-black-hole.html

In April 2019, scientists released the first image of a black hole in the galaxy M87 using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). However, that remarkable achievement was just the beginning of the science story to be told.

Data from 19 observatories are being released that promise to give unparalleled insight into this black hole and the system it powers, and to improve tests of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.

"We knew that the first direct image of a black hole would be groundbreaking," said Kazuhiro Hada of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, a co-author of a new study being published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters to describe the large set of data. "But to get the most out of this remarkable image, we need to know everything we can about the black hole's behavior at that time by observing over the entire electromagnetic spectrum."

The immense gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole can power jets of particles that travel at almost the speed of light across vast distances. M87's jets produce light spanning the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to visible light to gamma rays. The intensity of light across this spectrum gives a different pattern for each black hole. Identifying this pattern gives crucial insight into a black hole's properties (for example, its spin and energy output), but this is a challenge because the pattern changes with time.

Scientists compensated for this variability by coordinating observations with many of the world's most powerful telescopes on the ground and in space, collecting light from across the spectrum. This is the largest simultaneous observing campaign ever undertaken on a supermassive black hole with jets.

The NASA telescopes involved in this observing campaign included the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

Beginning with the EHT's now iconic image of M87, a new video takes viewers on a journey through the data from each telescope. The video shows data across many factors of ten in scale, both of wavelengths of light and physical size. The sequence begins with the EHT image of the black hole in M87 released in April 2019 (the data was obtained in April 2017). It then moves through images from other radio telescope arrays from around the globe, moving outward in the field of view during each step. (The scale for the width of squares is given in light years in the bottom right hand corner). Next, the view changes to telescopes that detect visible light (Hubble and Swift), ultraviolet light (Swift), and X-rays (Chandra and NuSTAR). The screen splits to show how these images, which cover the same amount of the sky at the same time, compare to one another. The sequence finishes by showing what gamma ray telescopes on the ground, and Fermi in space, detect from this black hole and its jet.

Each telescope delivers different information about the behavior and impact of the 6.5-billion-solar-mass black hole at the center of M87, which is located about 55 million light-years from Earth.

"There are multiple groups revving up to see if their models are a match for these rich observations, and we're excited to see the whole community use this public data set to help us better understand the deep links between black holes and their jets," said co-author Daryl Haggard of McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

The data were collected by a team of 760 scientists and engineers from nearly 200 institutions, 32 countries or regions, using observatories funded by agencies and institutions around the globe. The observations were concentrated from the end of March to the middle of April 2017

"This incredible set of observations includes many of the world's best telescopes," said co-author Juan Carlos Algaba of the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "This is a wonderful example of astronomers around the world working together in the pursuit of science."

The first results show that the intensity of electromagnetic radiation produced by material around M87's supermassive black hole was the lowest that had ever been seen. This produced ideal conditions for studying the black hole, from regions close to the event horizon out to tens of thousands of light-years.

The combination of data from these telescopes, and current (and future) EHT observations, will allow scientists to conduct important lines of investigation into some of astrophysics' most significant and challenging fields of study. For example, scientists plan to use these data to improve tests of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Currently, the main hurdles for these tests are uncertainties about the material rotating around the black hole and being blasted away in jets, in particular the properties that determine the emitted light.

A related question that is addressed by today's study concerns the origin of energetic particles called "cosmic rays," which continually bombard the Earth from outer space. Their energies can be a million times higher than what can be produced in the most powerful accelerator on Earth, the Large Hadron Collider. The huge jets launched from black holes, like the ones shown in today's images, are thought to be the most likely source of the highest energy cosmic rays, but there are many questions about the details, including the precise locations where the particles get accelerated. Because cosmic rays produce light via their collisions, the highest-energy gamma rays can pinpoint this location, and the new study indicates that these gamma-rays are likely not produced near the event horizon—at least not in 2017. A key to settling this debate will be comparison to the observations from 2018, and the new data being collected this week.

"Understanding the particle acceleration is really central to our understanding of both the EHT image as well as the jets, in all their 'colors'," said co-author Sera Markoff, from the University of Amsterdam. "These jets manage to transport energy released by the black hole out to scales larger than the host galaxy, like a huge power cord. Our results will help us calculate the amount of power carried, and the effect the black hole's jets have on its environment."

The release of this new treasure trove of data coincides with the EHT's 2021 observing run, which leverages a worldwide array of radio dishes, the first since 2018. Last year's campaign was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the previous year was suspended because of unforeseen technical problems. This very week, EHT astronomers are targeting the supermassive black hole in M87 again, the one in our Galaxy (called Sagittarius A*), together with several more distant black holes for six nights. Compared to 2017 the array has been improved by adding three more radio telescopes: the Greenland Telescope, the Kitt Peak 12-meter Telescope in Arizona, and the NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) in France.

"With the release of these data, combined with the resumption of observing and an improved EHT, we know many exciting new results are on the horizon," said co-author Mislav Balokovi? of Yale University.

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Ground-Based Lasers Could Push Space Debris off Collision-Course Orbits
https://www.universetoday.com/150896/ground-based-lasers-could-push-space-debris-off-collision-course-orbits/

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As Artemis Moves Forward, NASA Picks SpaceX to Land Next Americans on Moon
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/as-artemis-moves-forward-nasa-picks-spacex-to-land-next-americans-on-moon

NASA is getting ready to send astronauts to explore more of the Moon as part of the Artemis program, and the agency has selected SpaceX to continue development of the first commercial human lander that will safely carry the next two American astronauts to the lunar surface. At least one of those astronauts will make history as the first woman on the Moon. Another goal of the Artemis program includes landing the first person of color on the lunar surface.

The agency's powerful Space Launch System rocket will launch four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft for their multi-day journey to lunar orbit. There, two crew members will transfer to the SpaceX human landing system (HLS) for the final leg of their journey to the surface of the Moon. After approximately a week exploring the surface, they will board the lander for their short trip back to orbit where they will return to Orion and their colleagues before heading back to Earth.

The firm-fixed price, milestone-based contract total award value is $2.89 billion.

"With this award, NASA and our partners will complete the first crewed demonstration mission to the surface of the Moon in the 21st century as the agency takes a step forward for women's equality and long-term deep space exploration," said Kathy Lueders, NASA's associate administrator for Human Explorations and Operations Mission Directorate. "This critical step puts humanity on a path to sustainable lunar exploration and keeps our eyes on missions farther into the solar system, including Mars."

SpaceX has been working closely with NASA experts during the HLS base period of performance to inform its lander design and ensure it meets NASA's performance requirements and human spaceflight standards. A key tenet for safe systems, these agreed-upon standards range from areas of engineering, safety, health, and medical technical areas.

"This is an exciting time for NASA and especially the Artemis team," said Lisa Watson-Morgan, program manager for HLS at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. "During the Apollo program, we proved that it is possible to do the seemingly impossible: land humans on the Moon. By taking a collaborative approach in working with industry while leveraging NASA's proven technical expertise and capabilities, we will return American astronauts to the Moon's surface once again, this time to explore new areas for longer periods of time."

SpaceX's HLS Starship, designed to land on the Moon, leans on the company's tested Raptor engines and flight heritage of the Falcon and Dragon vehicles. Starship includes a spacious cabin and two airlocks for astronaut moonwalks. The Starship architecture is intended to evolve to a fully reusable launch and landing system designed for travel to the Moon, Mars, and other destinations.

The HLS award is made under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP-2) Appendix H Broad Agency Announcement (BAA).

In parallel with executing the Appendix H award, NASA intends to implement a competitive procurement for sustainable crewed lunar surface transportation services that will provide human access to the lunar surface using the Gateway on a regularly recurring basis beyond the initial crewed demonstration mission.

With NASA's Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, HLS, and the Gateway lunar outpost, NASA and its commercial and international partners are returning to the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and inspiration for a new generation. Working with its partners throughout the Artemis program, the agency will fine-tune precision landing technologies and develop new mobility capabilities to enable exploration of new regions of the Moon. On the surface, the agency has proposed building a new habitat and rovers, testing new power systems and more. These and other innovations and advancements made under the Artemis program will ensure that NASA and its partners are ready for human exploration's next big step—the exploration of Mars.

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NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-succeeds-in-historic-first-flight

Monday, NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter became the first aircraft in history to make a powered, controlled flight on another planet. The Ingenuity team at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed the flight succeeded after receiving data from the helicopter via NASA's Perseverance Mars rover at 6:46 a.m. EDT (3:46 a.m. PDT).

"Ingenuity is the latest in a long and storied tradition of NASA projects achieving a space exploration goal once thought impossible," said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk. "The X-15 was a pathfinder for the space shuttle. Mars Pathfinder and its Sojourner rover did the same for three generations of Mars rovers. We don't know exactly where Ingenuity will lead us, but today's results indicate the sky – at least on Mars – may not be the limit."

The solar-powered helicopter first became airborne at 3:34 a.m. EDT (12:34 a.m. PDT) – 12:33 Local Mean Solar Time (Mars time) – a time the Ingenuity team determined would have optimal energy and flight conditions. Altimeter data indicate Ingenuity climbed to its prescribed maximum altitude of 10 feet (3 meters) and maintained a stable hover for 30 seconds. It then descended, touching back down on the surface of Mars after logging a total of 39.1 seconds of flight. Additional details on the test are expected in upcoming downlinks.

Ingenuity's initial flight demonstration was autonomous – piloted by onboard guidance, navigation, and control systems running algorithms developed by the team at JPL. Because data must be sent to and returned from the Red Planet over hundreds of millions of miles using orbiting satellites and NASA's Deep Space Network, Ingenuity cannot be flown with a joystick, and its flight was not observable from Earth in real time.

NASA Associate Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen announced the name for the Martian airfield on which the flight took place.

"Now, 117 years after the Wright brothers succeeded in making the first flight on our planet, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter has succeeded in performing this amazing feat on another world," Zurbuchen said. "While these two iconic moments in aviation history may be separated by time and 173 million miles of space, they now will forever be linked. As an homage to the two innovative bicycle makers from Dayton, this first of many airfields on other worlds will now be known as Wright Brothers Field, in recognition of the ingenuity and innovation that continue to propel exploration."

Ingenuity's chief pilot, Håvard Grip, announced that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) – the United Nations' civil aviation agency – presented NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration with official ICAO designator IGY, call-sign INGENUITY.

These details will be included officially in the next edition of ICAO's publication Designators for Aircraft Operating Agencies, Aeronautical Authorities and Services. The location of the flight has also been given the ceremonial location designation JZRO for Jezero Crater.

As one of NASA's technology demonstration projects, the 19.3-inch-tall (49-centimeter-tall) Ingenuity Mars Helicopter contains no science instruments inside its tissue-box-size fuselage. Instead, the 4-pound (1.8-kg) rotorcraft is intended to demonstrate whether future exploration of the Red Planet could include an aerial perspective.

This first flight was full of unknowns. The Red Planet has a significantly lower gravity – one-third that of Earth's – and an extremely thin atmosphere with only 1% the pressure at the surface compared to our planet. This means there are relatively few air molecules with which Ingenuity's two 4-foot-wide (1.2-meter-wide) rotor blades can interact to achieve flight. The helicopter contains unique components, as well as off-the-shelf-commercial parts – many from the smartphone industry – that were tested in deep space for the first time with this mission.

"The Mars Helicopter project has gone from 'blue sky' feasibility study to workable engineering concept to achieving the first flight on another world in a little over six years," said Michael Watkins, director of JPL. "That this project has achieved such a historic first is testimony to the innovation and doggedness of our team here at JPL, as well as at NASA's Langley and Ames Research Centers, and our industry partners. It's a shining example of the kind of technology push that thrives at JPL and fits well with NASA's exploration goals."

Parked about 211 feet (64.3 meters) away at Van Zyl Overlook during Ingenuity's historic first flight, the Perseverance rover not only acted as a communications relay between the helicopter and Earth, but also chronicled the flight operations with its cameras. The pictures from the rover's Mastcam-Z and Navcam imagers will provide additional data on the helicopter's flight.   

"We have been thinking for so long about having our Wright brothers moment on Mars, and here it is," said MiMi Aung, project manager of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter at JPL. "We will take a moment to celebrate our success and then take a cue from Orville and Wilbur regarding what to do next. History shows they got back to work – to learn as much as they could about their new aircraft – and so will we."

Perseverance touched down with Ingenuity attached to its belly on Feb. 18. Deployed to the surface of Jezero Crater on April 3, Ingenuity is currently on the 16th sol, or Martian day, of its 30-sol (31-Earth day) flight test window. Over the next three sols, the helicopter team will receive and analyze all data and imagery from the test and formulate a plan for the second experimental test flight, scheduled for no earlier than April 22. If the helicopter survives the second flight test, the Ingenuity team will consider how best to expand the flight profile.



NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured this shot as it hovered over the Martian surface on April 19, 2021, during the first instance of powered, controlled flight on another planet. It used its navigation camera, which autonomously tracks the ground during flight.

[Toliman]

NASA's New Horizons Reaches a Rare Space Milestone
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-reaches-a-rare-space-milestone

In the weeks following its launch in early 2006, when NASA's New Horizons was still close to home, it took just minutes to transmit a command to the spacecraft, and hear back that the onboard computer received and was ready to carry out the instructions.

As New Horizons crossed the solar system, and its distance from Earth jumped from millions to billions of miles, that time between contacts grew from a few minutes to several hours. And on April 17 at 12:42 UTC (or April 17 at 8:42 a.m. EDT), New Horizons will reach a rare deep-space milepost -- 50 astronomical units from the Sun, or 50 times farther from the Sun than Earth is.

New Horizons is just the fifth spacecraft to reach this great distance, following the legendary Voyagers 1 and 2 and their predecessors, Pioneers 10 and 11. It's almost 5 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) away; a remote region where one of those radioed commands, even traveling at the speed of light, needs seven hours to reach the far flung spacecraft. Then add seven more hours before its control team on Earth finds out if the message was received.   

"It's hard to imagine something so far away," said Alice Bowman, the New Horizons mission operations manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. "One thing that makes this distance tangible is how long it takes for us on Earth to confirm that the spacecraft received our instructions. This went from almost instantaneous to now being on the order of 14 hours. It makes the extreme distance real."

To mark the occasion, New Horizons recently photographed the star field where one of its long-distance cousins, Voyager 1, appears from New Horizons' unique perch in the Kuiper Belt. Never before has a spacecraft in the Kuiper Belt photographed the location of an even more distant spacecraft, now in interstellar space. Although Voyager 1 is far too faint to be seen directly in the image, its location is known precisely due to NASA's radio tracking.



Hello, Voyager! From the distant Kuiper Belt at the solar system's frontier, on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2020, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft pointed its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager in the direction of the Voyager 1 spacecraft, whose location is marked with the yellow circle. Voyager 1, the farthest human-made object and first spacecraft to actually leave the solar system, is more than 152 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun—about 14.1 billion miles or 22.9 billion kilometers—and was 11.2 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from New Horizons when this image was taken. Voyager 1 itself is about 1 trillion times too faint to be visible in this image. Most of the objects in the image are stars, but several of them, with a fuzzy appearance, are distant galaxies. New Horizons reaches the 50 AU mark on April 18, 2021, and will join Voyagers 1 and 2 in interstellar space in the 2040s.