Tag Archives: planets and moons

2 Earth-size worlds revealed beyond our solar system

January 14, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

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There are more than 5,000 known worlds beyond our solar system.

Since the 1990s, astronomers have used ground and space-based telescopes to search for signs of planets beyond our tiny corner of the universe.

Exoplanets are notoriously difficult to directly image because they’re so far away from Earth.

But scientists know the signs, looking for wobbles of stars as orbiting planets use their gravitational pull, or dips in starlight as planets pass in front of their stellar hosts.

It’s highly likely that there are hundreds of billions more exoplanets just waiting to be discovered.

Part of the excitement around the James Webb Space Telescope is its ability to peer inside the atmospheres of potentially habitable planets and discover new worlds. This week, the space observatory certainly delivered.

The Webb telescope confirmed the existence of an exoplanet for the first time since the space observatory launched in December 2021.

The world, known as LHS 475 b, is almost exactly the same size as Earth and located 41 light-years away in the Octans constellation.

Scientists can’t yet determine if the planet has an atmosphere, but the telescope’s sensitive capabilities picked up on a range of molecules. Webb will get another crack this summer at observing the planet to build upon this data.

The exoplanet was just one of Webb’s cosmic discoveries announced this week at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. What’s more, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, mission spied a second Earth-size exoplanet in an intriguing planetary system 100 light-years away — and the world just might be potentially habitable.

A year after the powerful eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, scientists are still learning more surprising aftereffects of the event.

The explosion set off more than 25,500 lightning strikes in just five minutes, according to a new report. The event also triggered nearly 400,000 lightning strikes over six hours and accounted for half of all the lightning in the world during the eruption’s peak.

But even more surprising is that the January 2022 eruption was merely one factor in a year of extremes for lightning across the globe.

Blooming flowers are notoriously ephemeral, but a nearly 40 million-year-old specimen remains trapped in amber and frozen in time.

Researchers have taken another look at the extraordinary amber fossil, which was first documented in 1872. It’s the largest known flower to be fossilized in amber at 1.1 inches (28 millimeters) across.

Scientists were able to extract some of the flower’s pollen and discovered it’s related to a group of modern plants.

Meanwhile, archaeologists uncovered eight prehistoric ostrich eggs near an ancient fire pit in Israel.

Russian space agency Roscosmos will launch an uncrewed replacement spacecraft to the International Space Station as a return vehicle for three crew members after their Soyuz capsule sustained damage in December.

Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio launched to the space station in September.

A commission determined that damage to the Soyuz radiator’s pipeline was caused by a micrometeoroid impact, which created a hole with a diameter less than 1 millimeter, according to Roscosmos.

Crew members remain in good health, but their return to Earth — which has not been determined — will be delayed by at least several months.

Meanwhile, Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket attempted to launch from the United Kingdom, and California-based start-up ABL Space Systems set out to launch its RS1 rocket from Alaska. Both rockets failed, and investigations are underway to determine what went wrong.

The contrails that stream out behind aircraft crisscrossing our skies every day may seem harmless, but these wispy ice clouds are actually bad for the environment.

The condensation trails, which form when ice crystals cluster around small particles emitted by jet engines, trap more heat than carbon dioxide emissions that result from burning fuel. The longevity of the contrails depends on atmospheric conditions.

Researchers believe that slightly shifting the paths of specific flights could help reduce the damage.

Catch up on these stories before you go:

— An unusually brightening star might have been dust-bombed by a mysterious stellar companion for years.

— Europe’s “bog bodies,” the incredibly well-preserved mummies and skeletons discovered mired in peat and wetlands, reveal some of the brutal realities of prehistoric life.

— Astronomers have spotted the closest pair of supermassive black holes ever observed across multiple wavelengths of light. The cosmic bodies were brought together by colliding galaxies.

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James Webb Space Telescope finds its first exoplanet

January 11, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

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The James Webb Space Telescope can add another cosmic accomplishment to its list: The space observatory has been used to confirm the existence of an exoplanet for the first time.

The celestial body, known as LHS 475 b and located outside of our solar system, is almost exactly the same size as Earth. The rocky world is 41 light-years away in the Octans constellation.

Previous data collected by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, had suggested the planet might exist.

A team of researchers, led by staff astronomer Kevin Stevenson and postdoctoral fellow Jacob Lustig-Yaeger at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, observed the target using Webb. They watched for dips in starlight as the planet passed in front of its host star, called a transit, and watched two transits occur.

“There is no question that the planet is there. Webb’s pristine data validate it,” Lustig-Yaeger said in a statement.

The planet’s discovery was announced Wednesday at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle.

“The fact that it is also a small, rocky planet is impressive for the observatory,” Stevenson said.

Webb is the only telescope that has the capability to characterize the atmospheres of exoplanets that are the size of Earth. The research team used Webb to analyze the planet across multiple wavelengths of light to see whether it has an atmosphere. For now, the team hasn’t been able to make any definitive conclusions, but the telescope’s sensitivity picked up on a range of molecules that were present.

“There are some terrestrial-type atmospheres that we can rule out,” Lustig-Yaeger said. “It can’t have a thick methane-dominated atmosphere, similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan.”

The astronomers will have another chance to observe the planet again over the summer and conduct follow-up analysis on the potential presence of an atmosphere.

Webb’s detections also revealed that the planet is a few hundred degrees warmer than our planet. If the researchers detect any clouds on LHS 475 b, it may turn out to be more like Venus — which is considered to be Earth’s hotter twin with a carbon dioxide atmosphere.

“We’re at the forefront of studying small, rocky exoplanets,” Lustig-Yaeger said. “We have barely begun scratching the surface of what their atmospheres might be like.”

The planet completes a single orbit around its red dwarf host star every 2 Earth days. Given that the star is less than half the temperature of our sun, it’s possible that the planet could still maintain an atmosphere despite its close proximity to the star.

The researchers believe their discovery will just be the first of many in Webb’s future.

“These first observational results from an Earth-sized, rocky planet open the door to many future possibilities for studying rocky planet atmospheres with Webb,” said Mark Clampin, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters, in a statement. “Webb is bringing us closer and closer to a new understanding of Earth-like worlds outside the Solar System, and the mission is only just getting started.”

More Webb observations were shared at the meeting on Wednesday, including never-before-seen views of a dusty disk swirling around a nearby red dwarf star.

The telescope’s images mark the first time such a disk has been captured in these infrared wavelegnths of light, which are invisible to the human eye.

The dusty disk around the star, named AU Mic, represents the remnants of planet formation. When small, solid objects called planetesimals — a planet in the making — crashed into each other, they left behind a big, dusty ring around the star and formed a debris disk.

“A debris disk is continuously replenished by collisions of planetesimals. By studying it, we get a unique window into the recent dynamical history of this system,” said lead study author Kellen Lawson, postdoctoral program fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and member of the research team that studied AU Mic.

Webb’s capabilities allowed astronomers to see the region close to the star. Their observations and data could provide insights that aid in the search for giant planets that form wide orbits in planetary systems, not unlike Jupiter and Saturn in our solar system.

The AU Mic disk is located 32 light-years away in the Microscopium constellation. The star is about 23 million years old, so planet formation has already ceased around the star — since that process usually takes less than 10 million years, according to the researchers. Other telescopes have spotted two planets orbiting the star.

“This system is one of the very few examples of a young star, with known exoplanets, and a debris disk that is near enough and bright enough to study holistically using Webb’s uniquely powerful instruments,” said study coauthor Josh Schlieder, principal investigator for the observing program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Webb telescope was also used to peer inside NGC 346, a star-forming region located in a neighboring dwarf galaxy called the Small Magellanic Cloud.

About 2 billion to 3 billion years after the big bang that created the universe, galaxies were filled with fireworks of star formation. This peak of star formation is called “cosmic noon.”

“A galaxy during cosmic noon wouldn’t have one NGC 346, as the Small Magellanic Cloud does; it would have thousands,” said Margaret Meixner, an astronomer at the Universities Space Research Association and principal investigator of the research team, in a statement.

“Even if NGC 346 is now the one and only massive cluster furiously forming stars in its galaxy, it offers us a great opportunity to probe the conditions that were in place at cosmic noon.”

Observing how stars form in this galaxy allows astronomers to compare star formation in our own Milky Way galaxy.

In the new Webb image, forming stars can be seen pulling in ribbon-like gas and dust from a surrounding molecular cloud. This material feeds the formation of stars, and eventually, planets.

“We’re seeing the building blocks, not only of stars, but also potentially of planets,” said co-investigator Guido De Marchi, a space science faculty member of the European Space Agency, in a statement. “And since the Small Magellanic Cloud has a similar environment to that of galaxies during cosmic noon, it’s possible that rocky planets could have formed earlier in the history of the Universe than we might have thought.”

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Second potentially habitable Earth-size planet found orbiting nearby star

January 10, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

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A NASA mission has spotted an Earth-size exoplanet orbiting a small star about 100 light-years away.

The planet, named TOI 700 e, is likely rocky and 95% the size of our world. The celestial body is the fourth planet to be detected orbiting the small, cool M dwarf star TOI 700. All of the exoplanets were found by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS mission.

Another planet in the system, discovered in 2020 and named TOI 700 d, is also the size of Earth. Both of these exoplanets exist in their star’s habitable zone, or just the right distance from the star that liquid water might potentially exist on their surfaces. The potential for liquid water suggests that the planets themselves could be, or might once have been, habitable for life.

The discovery of the fourth planet was announced Tuesday at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, and a study about the exoplanet has been accepted for publication by The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“This is one of only a few systems with multiple, small, habitable-zone planets that we know of,” said lead study author Emily Gilbert, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a statement.

“That makes the TOI 700 system an exciting prospect for additional follow-up. Planet e is about 10% smaller than planet d, so the system also shows how additional TESS observations help us find smaller and smaller worlds.”

Small, cool M dwarf stars like TOI 700 are common in the universe, and many have been found to host exoplanets in recent years, like the TRAPPIST-1 system and its seven exoplanets that the James Webb Space Telescope will observe.

Closest to the star is TOI 700 b, which is 90% of Earth’s size and completes one rapid orbit around the star every 10 Earth days. Then there’s TOI 700 c, which is 2.5 times bigger than our planet and finishes one orbit around the star every 16 days. These planets are both likely tidally locked, meaning they always show the same side to the star — much like how the same side of the moon always faces Earth.

The two exoplanets in the habitable zone of the star, planets d and e, have longer orbits of 37 days and 28 days, respectively, because they’re a little more distant from the star. The newly announced planet e is actually located between planets c and d.

The TESS mission, launched in 2018, monitors large portions of the night sky for 27 days at a time, staring at the brightest stars and tracking their changes in brightness. These dips in luminosity indicate orbiting planets as they pass in front of their stars, called transits. The mission began observing the southern sky in 2018, then turned to the northern sky. In 2020, the mission refocused on the southern sky again for additional observations, revealing the fourth planet in the TOI 700 system.

“If the star was a little closer or the planet a little bigger, we might have been able to spot TOI 700 e in the first year of TESS data,” said study coauthor Ben Hord, a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a graduate researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement. “But the signal was so faint that we needed the additional year of transit observations to identify it.”

While the researchers use other space and ground-based observatories to conduct follow-up observations of the intriguing planetary system, more TESS data is pouring in.

“TESS just completed its second year of northern sky observations,” said Allison Youngblood, a research astrophysicist and the TESS deputy project scientist at Goddard. “We’re looking forward to the other exciting discoveries hidden in the mission’s treasure trove of data.”

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Dead NASA satellite returns to Earth after 38 years

January 9, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

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A defunct NASA satellite has fallen back to Earth after 38 years orbiting the planet.

The Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, known as ERBS, was launched in 1984 aboard space shuttle Challenger.

Until 2005, data from ERBS helped researchers investigate how Earth absorbed and radiated energy from the Sun, and measured ozone, water vapor, nitrogen dioxide and aerosol concentrations in the Earth’s stratosphere.

The US Department of Defense confirmed that ERBS reentered Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday at 11:04 p.m. ET over the Bering Sea, according to a statement from NASA.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether parts of the satellite survived re-entry. Most of the satellite was expected to burn up as it moved through the atmosphere. NASA had calculated that the risk of harm coming to anyone on Earth was very low – approximately 1 in 9,400.

The satellite far exceeded its expected two-year life span, operating for a total of 21 years.

An instrument on board ERBS, the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment II (SAGE II), collected data that confirmed the ozone layer was declining on a global scale, NASA said.

That data helped shape the Montreal Protocol Agreement, an international agreement signed in 1987 by dozens of countries, that resulted in a dramatic decrease around the globe in the use of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – chemicals once commonly used in aerosol sprays, refrigeration and air conditioners.

If the ban on CFCs hadn’t been agreed, the world would be on track for a collapse of the ozone layer and an additional 2.5 degrees Celsius of global warming by the end of the century, a 2021 study found.

Today, SAGE III on the International Space Station collects data on the health of the ozone layer.

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Quadrantid meteor shower: January’s first celestial event

January 3, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

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The new year kicks off with the Quadrantids, one of 12 annual meteor showers.

The celestial event is typically among the strongest meteor showers and is expected to peak overnight January 3 and 4, according to the American Meteor Society. Sky-gazers in the Northern Hemisphere can best view the shower between the late-night hours of Tuesday and dawn on Wednesday.

However, the shower is notoriously hard to observe due to its brief peak of six hours and January’s often inclement weather in the Northern Hemisphere. A bright, nearly full moon will make the Quadrantids even less visible this year.

Moonset will occur just before dawn, providing a very small window to spot the shower against dark skies.

Predictions for the shower’s peak range from 10:40 p.m. to 1:40 a.m. ET (3:40 a.m. to 6:40 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time). The later time favors those in the eastern part of North America and the earlier time is more favorable for observers across Europe. The Quadrantids won’t be visible in the Southern Hemisphere because the shower’s radiant point doesn’t rise that high in its sky before dawn.

Check Time and Date’s site to see what your chances are like to view the event, or step outside to take a look for yourself. The Virtual Telescope Project will also have a live stream of the shower over Rome.

Between 50 and 100 meteors are typically visible per hour, especially in rural areas, although the peak can include up to 120 visible meteors in an hour.

Watch the northeastern sky, and look about halfway up. You may even glimpse some fireballs during the meteor shower. View the skies for at least an hour, the American Meteor Society advises.

If you live in an urban area, you may want to drive to a place that isn’t full of bright city lights. If you’re able to find an area unaffected by light pollution, meteors could be visible every couple of minutes from late evening until dawn.

Find an open area with a wide view of the sky. Make sure you have a chair or blanket so you can look straight up. And give your eyes about 20 to 30 minutes to adjust to the darkness — without looking at your phone — so the meteors will be easier to spot.

If the meteor shower’s name sounds odd, it’s probably because it doesn’t sound like it’s related to a constellation, like other meteor showers. That’s because the Quadrantids’ namesake constellation no longer exists — at least, not as a recognized constellation.

The constellation Quadrans Muralis, first observed and noted in 1795 between Boötes and Draco, is no longer included in the International Astronomical Union’s list of modern constellations because it’s considered obsolete and isn’t used as a landmark for celestial navigation anymore, according to EarthSky.

Like the Geminid meteor shower, the Quadrantid comes from a mysterious asteroid or “rock comet,” rather than an icy comet, which is unusual. This particular asteroid is 2003 EH1, which takes 5.52 years to complete one orbit around the sun. The shower’s peak is short because only a small stream of particles interacts with our atmosphere, and the stream occurs at a perpendicular angle. Each year, Earth passes through this debris trail for a short time.

In addition to the meteor shower, a recently discovered comet will soon make its appearance in January’s night sky.

Discovered in March 2022, the comet will make its closest approach to the sun on January 12, according to NASA. The comet, spotted by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, is named C/2022 E3 (ZTF) and will make its closest pass of Earth on February 2.

The comet should be visible through binoculars in the morning sky for sky-watchers in the Northern Hemisphere during most of January and those in the Southern Hemisphere in early February, according to NASA.

INTERACTIVE: The best space photos of 2022

Here are the rest of 2023’s top sky events, so you can have your binoculars and telescope ready.

Mark your calendar with the peak dates of other showers to watch in 2023:

Lyrids: April 22-23
Eta Aquariids: May 5-6
Southern delta Aquariids: July 30-31
Alpha Capricornids: July 30-31
Perseids: August 12-13
Orionids: October 20-21
Southern Taurids: November 4-5
Northern Taurids: November 11-12
Leonids: November 17-18
Geminids: December 13-14
Ursids: December 21-22

Most years, there are 12 full moons — one for each month. But in 2023, there will be 13 full moons, with two occurring in August.

The second full moon in one month is known as a blue moon, like the phrase “once in a blue moon,” according to NASA. Typically, full moons occur every 29 days, while most months in our calendar last 30 or 31 days, so the months and moon phases don’t always align. This results in a blue moon about every 2.5 years.

The two full moons in August can also be considered supermoons, according to EarthSky. Definitions of a supermoon vary, but the term generally denotes a full moon that is brighter and closer to Earth than normal and thus appears larger in the night sky.

Some astronomers say the phenomenon occurs when the moon is within 90% of perigee — its closest approach to Earth in orbit. By that definition, the full moon for July will also be considered a supermoon event, according to EarthSky.

Here is the list of full moons for 2023, according to the Farmer’s Almanac:

January 6: Wolf moon
February 5: Snow moon
March 7: Worm moon
April 6: Pink moon
May 5: Flower moon
June 3: Strawberry moon
July 3: Buck moon
August 1: Sturgeon moon
August 30: Blue moon
September 29: Harvest moon
October 28: Hunter’s moon
November 27: Beaver moon
December 26: Cold moon

While these are the popularized names associated with the monthly full moon, each one carries its own significance across Native American tribes (with many also referred to by differing names).

There will be two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses in 2023.

A total solar eclipse will occur on April 20, visible to those in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia and Antarctica. This kind of event occurs when the moon moves between the sun and Earth, blocking out the sun.

And for some sky-watchers in Indonesia, parts of Australia and Papua New Guinea, it will actually be a hybrid solar eclipse. The curvature of Earth’s surface can cause some eclipses to shift between total and annular as the moon’s shadow moves across the globe, according to NASA.

Like a total solar eclipse, the moon passes between the sun and the Earth during an annular eclipse — but it occurs when the moon is at or near its farthest point from Earth, according to NASA. This causes the moon to appear smaller than the sun, so it doesn’t completely block out our star and creates a glowing ring around the moon.

A Western Hemisphere-sweeping annular solar eclipse will occur on October 14 and be visible across the Americas.

Be sure to wear proper eclipse glasses to safely view solar eclipses, as the sun’s light can be damaging to the eye.

Meanwhile, a lunar eclipse can occur only during a full moon when the sun, Earth and moon align and the moon passes into Earth’s shadow. When this occurs, Earth casts two shadows on the moon during the eclipse. The partial outer shadow is called the penumbra; the full, dark shadow is the umbra.

When the full moon moves into Earth’s shadow, it darkens, but it won’t disappear. Instead, sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere lights the moon in a dramatic fashion, turning it red — which is why the event is often referred to as a “blood moon.”

Depending on the weather conditions in your area, it may be a rusty or brick-colored red. This happens because blue light undergoes stronger atmospheric scattering, so red light will be the most dominant color highlighted as sunlight passes through the atmosphere and casts it on the moon.

A penumbral lunar eclipse will occur on May 5 for those in Africa, Asia and Australia. This less dramatic version of a lunar eclipse happens when the moon moves through the penumbra, or the faint, outer part of Earth’s shadow.

A partial lunar eclipse of the hunter’s moon on October 28 will be visible to those in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, parts of North America and much of South America. Partial eclipses occur when the sun, Earth and moon don’t completely align, so only part of the moon passes into shadow.

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Watch the night sky for these celestial events in 2023

December 30, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

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Stunning meteor showers, full moons and eclipses will light up the sky in 2023.

The year is sure to be a sky-gazer’s delight with plenty of celestial events on the calendar.

A comet discovered in March 2022 will make its closest approach to the sun on January 12, according to NASA. The comet, spotted by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, is named C/2022 E3 (ZTF) and will make its closest pass of Earth on February 2.

The comet should be visible through binoculars in the morning sky for sky watchers in the Northern Hemisphere during most of January and those in the Southern Hemisphere in early February, according to NASA.

INTERACTIVE: The best space photos of 2022

On any given day, there is always a good chance that the International Space Station is flying overhead. And if you ever want to know what planets are visible in the morning or evening sky, check The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s calculator.

Here are the rest of 2023’s top sky events, so you can have your binoculars and telescope ready.

Most years, there are 12 full moons — one for each month. But in 2023, there will be 13 full moons, with two occurring in August.

The two full moons in August can also be considered supermoons, according to EarthSky. Definitions of a supermoon can vary, but the term generally denotes a full moon that is brighter and closer to Earth than normal and thus appears larger in the night sky.

Here is the list of full moons for 2023, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac:

January 6: Wolf moon
February 5: Snow moon
March 7: Worm moon
April 6: Pink moon
May 5: Flower moon
June 3: Strawberry moon
July 3: Buck moon
August 1: Sturgeon moon
August 30: Blue moon
September 29: Harvest moon
October 28: Hunter’s moon
November 27: Beaver moon
December 26: Cold moon

While these are the popularized names associated with the monthly full moon, each one carries its own significance across Native American tribes (with many also referred to by differing names).

There will be two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses in 2023.

A total solar eclipse will occur on April 20, visible to those in Australia, Southeast Asia and Antarctica. This kind of event occurs when the moon moves between the sun and Earth, blocking out the sun.

And for some skywatchers in Indonesia, parts of Australia and Papua New Guinea, it will actually be a hybrid solar eclipse. The curvature of Earth’s surface can cause some eclipses to shift between total and annular as the moon’s shadow moves across the globe, according to NASA.

A Western Hemisphere-sweeping annular solar eclipse will occur on October 14 and be visible across North, Central and South America.

Be sure to wear proper eclipse glasses to safely view solar eclipses, as the sun’s light can be damaging to the eye.

A partial lunar eclipse on October 28 will be visible to those in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, parts of North America and much of South America. Partial eclipses occur when the sun, Earth and moon don’t completely align, so only part of the moon passes into shadow.

The new year kicks off with the Quadrantid meteor shower, which is expected to peak in the overnight hours between January 3 and 4 for those in North America, according to the American Meteor Society.

It’s the first of 12 meteor showers throughout the year, although the next one, the Lyrid meteor shower, doesn’t peak until April.

Here are peak dates of other showers to watch in 2023:

Lyrids: April 22-23
Eta Aquariids: May 5-6
Southern delta Aquariids: July 30-31
Alpha Capricornids: July 30-31
Perseids: August 12-13
Orionids: October 20-21
Southern Taurids: November 4-5
Northern Taurids: November 11-12
Leonids: November 17-18
Geminids: December 13-14
Ursids: December 21-22

If you live in an urban area, you may want to drive to a place that isn’t littered with city lights. If you’re able to find an area unaffected by light pollution, meteors could be visible every couple of minutes from late evening until dawn.

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NASA images showcase eerie beauty of winter on Mars

December 28, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

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Mars may seem like a dry, desolate place, but the red planet transforms into an otherworldly wonderland in winter, according to a new video shared by NASA.

It’s late winter in Mars’ Northern Hemisphere, where the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter are exploring an ancient river delta that once fed into Jezero Crater billions of years ago.

As the planet’s main feature, dust also drives Martian weather. Dust usually heralds winter’s arrival, but the planet is no stranger to snow, ice and frost. At the Martian poles, the temperature can dip as low as minus 190 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 123 degrees Celsius).

There are two types of snow on Mars. One is the kind we experience on Earth, made of frozen water. The thin Martian air and subzero temperatures mean that traditional snow sublimates, or transitions from a solid directly to a gas, before touching the ground on Mars.

The other type of Martian snow is carbon dioxide-based, or dry ice, and it can land on the surface. A few feet of snow tend to fall on Mars in its flat regions near the poles.

“Enough falls that you could snowshoe across it,” said Sylvain Piqueux, a Mars scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a statement from a NASA release. “If you were looking for skiing, though, you’d have to go into a crater or cliffside, where snow could build up on a sloped surface.”

So far, no orbiters or rovers have been able to see snow fall on the red planet because the weather phenomenon only occurs at the poles beneath cloud cover at night. The cameras on the orbiters can’t peer through the clouds, and no robotic explorers have been developed that could survive the freezing temperatures at the poles.

INTERACTIVE: Mars and other places to search for life in the solar system

However, the Mars Climate Sounder instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can detect light that’s invisible to the human eye. It has made detections of carbon dioxide snow falling at the Martian poles. The Phoenix lander, which arrived on Mars in 2008, also used one of its laser instruments to detect water-ice snow from its spot about 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) away from the Martian north pole.

Thanks to photographers, we know snowflakes on Earth are unique and six-sided. Beneath a microscope, Martian snowflakes would likely look a little different.

“Because carbon dioxide ice has a symmetry of four, we know dry-ice snowflakes would be cube-shaped,” Piqueux said. “Thanks to the Mars Climate Sounder, we can tell these snowflakes would be smaller than the width of a human hair.”

Ice and carbon dioxide-based frosts also form on Mars, and they can occur farther away from the poles. The Odyssey orbiter (which entered Mars’ orbit in 2001) has watched frost forming and turning to a gas in the sunlight, while the Viking landers spotted icy frost on Mars when they arrived in the 1970s.

At the end of winter, the season’s buildup of ice can thaw and turn into gas, creating unique shapes that have reminded NASA scientists of Swiss cheese, Dalmatian spots, fried eggs, spiders and other unusual formations.

During winter in Jezero Crater, recent high temperatures have been about 8 F (minus 13 C), while lows been about minus 120 F (minus 84 C).

Meanwhile, at Gale Crater in the Southern Hemisphere near the Martian equator, the Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, has been experiencing highs of 5 F (minus 15 C) and lows of minus 105 F (minus 76 C).

Seasons on Mars tend to last longer because the planet’s oval-shaped orbit around the sun means that a single Martian year is 687 days, or nearly two Earth years.

NASA scientists celebrated the Mars new year on December 26, which coincided with the arrival of the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.

“Scientists count Mars years starting from the planet’s northern spring equinox that occurred in 1955 — an arbitrary point to begin, but it’s useful to have a system,” according to a post on the NASA Mars Facebook page. “Numbering Mars years helps scientists keep track of long term observations, like weather data collected by NASA spacecraft over the decades.”

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2022’s unforgettable moments in space exploration

December 27, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

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This year, humankind glimpsed the universe in ways that were never before possible, and space missions took unprecedented leaps forward in unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos.

We witnessed the first mission to the International Space Station funded entirely by space tourists. A new space-based internet service played a key role in the war in Ukraine. And there were historic launches of spacecraft and technology by NASA and its international partners that could one day be used to land humans on Mars.

“There is no doubt that 2022 was out of this world,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “2022 will go down in the history books as one of the most accomplished years across all of NASA’s missions.”

Here are some of the unforgettable space discoveries and moments from 2022.

After years of preparation, NASA finally got its latest lunar exploration program off the ground with an uncrewed test flight that carried anastronaut-worthy spacecraft around the moon.

The mission was chock-full of huge moments. The rocket that got the mission off the ground, the Space Launch System or SLS, became the most powerful rocket ever to reach orbit — boasting 15% more thrust than the Saturn V rockets behind the Apollo program.

Upon reaching space, the Orion capsule, which flew empty save for a few test mannequins, captured stunning images of the Earth and moon. And Orion’s orbital path swung farther out beyond the far side of the moon than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has traveled before.

The trial run has paved the way for future Artemis missions, with the aim of returning humans to the lunar surface before mapping out a pathway for the first human spaceflight to Mars.

In partnership with international space agencies, NASA not only made strides in its human exploration program, but it also notched steps forward in scientific endeavors. After decades of anticipation, the James Webb Space Telescope finally began observing the universe in July.

Since then, the world’s most powerful space observatory has turned its gaze on planets, stars and galaxies in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye.

The telescope has spied unseen aspects of the universe and previously hidden features, including the most distant galaxies ever observed. Webb has also shared new perspectives on some of astronomy’s favorite cosmic features and captured them in a new light, such as the Pillars of Creation.

The telescope’s images have already gone beyond what astronomers expected — and the best news: Webb is just getting started.

The Webb telescope, however, wasn’t the only space observatory expanding our understanding of deep space. The Hubble Space Telescope spied the most distant single star ever observed, faintly shining 28 billion light-years away. The star existed just 900 million years after the big bang created the universe, and its light has traveled nearly 13 billion years to reach Earth.

Astronomers nicknamed the star Earendel, derived from an Old English word that means “morning star” or “rising light.”

Meanwhile, astronomers used the Event Horizon Telescope to capture an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy for the first time. This first direct observation confirmed the presence of the black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, as the beating heart of the Milky Way.

While black holes don’t emit light, the shadow of the cosmic object was surrounded by a bright ring — light bent by the gravity of the black hole.

In late September, NASA successfully completed the first test mission for planetary defense. The space agency slammed a spacecraft into Dimorphos, a small asteroid that orbits a larger space rock named Didymos — and yes, the collision was intentional. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, was a full-scale demonstration of deflection technology.

Neither Dimorphos nor Didymos poses a threat to Earth, but the system was a perfect target to test a technique that may one day be used to protect the planet from an asteroid strike.

The DART mission marked the first time humanity intentionally changed the motion of a celestial object in space. The spacecraft altered the moonlet asteroid’s orbit by 32 minutes.

And that’s not all 2022 offered when it came to the study of unusual objects in the skies. In June, NASA announced it would delve into the mysteries surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena, more popularly known as unidentified flying objects or UFOs. The space agency later selected a team of experts across numerous disciplines — including astrobiology, data science, oceanography, genetics, policy and planetary science — for the task.

Officials at NASA aren’t suggesting aliens may be responsible for such phenomena. The goal is merely to take a serious look at the as-yet-unexplained — but much publicly debated — topic of UAPs and how they might be studied through a scientific lens.

“Without access to an extensive set of data, it is nearly impossible to verify or explain any observation, thus the focus of the study is to inform NASA what possible data could be collected in the future to scientifically discern the nature of UAP,” according to a NASA news release.

Meanwhile on the red planet, the InSight lander’s mission came to an end due to a surplus of dust on its solar panels (and no whirlwinds to vacuum them clean), but the stationary spacecraft made history in 2022. InSight detected the largest quake on Mars and captured the sounds of space rocks slamming into the planet — which created craters that revealed treasure troves of subsurface ice.

As InSight winds down, the Perseverance rover’s sidekick has continued to take to the Martian skies, above and beyond its original five-flight mission. The Ingenuity helicopter broke its own altitude record and has aced 37 flights on the red planet since April 2021. The little chopper has acted as an aerial scout for Perseverance, which collected an incredible diversity of Martian rock and sediment samples.

Now, the rover is setting up a depot of samples that will be stored on the Martian surface. The samples will be retrieved and returned to Earth in 2033 via the ambitious Mars Sample Return program, which will send a lander and a duo of retrieval helicopters to the red planet later this decade.

Speaking of space rocks, a rare specimen traveled to Earth in 2014. But scientists just put its puzzle pieces together this year, and the discovery was announced in a US Space Command document.

The first known interstellar meteor to hit Earth crash-landed along the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea in January 2014.

Interstellar meteors are space rocks originating from outside our solar system, such as ʻOumuamua, the first known interstellar object in our solar system that was detected in 2017.

To be sure, NASA has seen many successes this year but also faced reminders of tragedy and disaster. Investigators set off in March to search suspected shipwreck sites in the Bermuda Triangle, a swath of the northern Atlantic Ocean said to be the site of dozens of shipwrecks and plane crashes, for a TV docuseries. But the crew stumbled upon something unexpected at another site off Florida’s east coast: a 20-foot-long (6-meter-long) piece of debris from the Space Shuttle Challenger, which broke apart shortly after takeoff in 1986 and killed all seven crew members aboard.

It was the first debris to be discovered since pieces from the shuttle washed ashore in 1996.

“This discovery gives us an opportunity to pause once again, to uplift the legacies of the seven pioneers we lost, and to reflect on how this tragedy changed us,” Nelson, the NASA administrator, said in a statement. “At NASA, the core value of safety is — and must forever remain — our top priority, especially as our missions explore more of the cosmos than ever before.”

As Russia launched its invasion in February and some areas of Ukraine lost internet access, a space-based internet system that barely existed a few years ago began to provide crucial connectivity.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX designed and launched the system, called Starlink. It makes use of thousands of small satellites orbiting a few hundred miles above Earth. The satellites work in tandem to blanket the globe in internet connectivity, and all that’s needed to get online is an easy-to-use Starlink satellite dish.

Musk and SpaceX sent thousands of those dishes to Ukraine. Though a funding controversy later ensued, the use of Starlink in the Eastern European country was hailed as a game changer in strategic communication for its military, allowing Ukraine to fight effectively, even as the ongoing war disrupted cellular phone and internet networks.

Starlink, however, is one small part of SpaceX’s booming business. The company routinely launches not only satellites but also astronauts into space on NASA’s behalf. And this year, SpaceX even flew a few wealthy thrill-seekers to the International Space Station on a mission brokered by Axiom. The event marked the first space station mission that was fully paid for by paying customers and included only private citizens.

There were four crew members. Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut-turned-Axiom employee, was mission commander. And the three paying customers were Israeli businessman Eytan Stibbe, Canadian investor Mark Pathy and Ohio-based real estate magnate Larry Connor.

The mission, called AX-1, launched on April 8 and was originally billed as a 10-day trip. Delays, however, extended the mission by about a week.

Allowing private missions to the space station is part of NASA’s plan for more commercial activity in low-Earth orbit as it turns its focus to exploring deep space.