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Science

Webb telescope shares its first observations of Mars

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CNN
 — 

The James Webb Space Telescope’s main goal is to detect faint light from distant galaxies, but it recently observed one of the brightest objects in the night sky: Mars.

The space observatory captured its first images and data of the red planet on September 5.

Multiple orbiters above Mars, and the land-bound rovers Curiosity and Perseverance, roam the surface, regularly send back insights. Webb’s infrared capabilities contribute another perspective that could reveal details about the Martian surface and atmosphere.

Webb, located a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, can spot the sunlit side of Mars that faces the space telescope, which puts the observatory in the perfect position to spy the planet’s seasonal changes, dust storms and weather all at once.

The telescope is so sensitive that astronomers had to make adjustments to prevent the blinding infrared light of Mars from saturating Webb’s detectors. Instead, Webb observed Mars using very short exposures.

The new images depict Mars’ eastern hemisphere in different wavelengths of infrared light. To the left is a reference map of the hemisphere captured by the Mars Global Surveyor mission, which ended in 2006.

The top-right image from Webb shows reflected sunlight on the Martian surface, showcasing Martian features like the Huygens Crater, dark volcanic rock and the Hellas Planitia, a massive impact crater on the red planet that stretches for more than 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers).

The lower-right image shows the thermal emission of Mars, or the light emitted by the planet as it loses heat. The brightest areas indicate the warmest spots. Additionally, astronomers spotted something else in the thermal emission image.

When this thermal light passes through the Martian atmosphere, some of it is absorbed by carbon dioxide molecules. This phenomenon has caused the Hellas Planitia to appear darker.

“This is actually not a thermal effect at Hellas,” said Geronimo Villanueva, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement.

“The Hellas Basin is a lower altitude, and thus experiences higher air pressure,” said Villanueva, who is also the principal investigator of Mars and Ocean Worlds studies for Webb. “That higher pressure leads to a suppression of the thermal emission at this particular wavelength range due to an effect called pressure broadening. It will be very interesting to tease apart these competing effects in these data.”

With Webb’s powerful capabilities, Villanueva and his team also captured the first near-infrared spectrum of Mars.

The spectrum indicates more subtle differences in brightness across the planet, which could highlight aspects of the Martian surface and atmosphere. An initial analysis has revealed information about icy clouds, dust, rock types on the surface and the composition of the atmosphere contained in the spectrum. There are also signatures of water, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

The NASA research team will share more about Webb’s observations of Mars in a study that will be submitted for peer review and publication in the future. And the Mars team is looking forward to using Webb’s capabilities to pick out the differences between regions on the red planet and search for gases like methane and hydrogen chloride in the atmosphere.

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New images show intriguing Perseverance discovery on Mars

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CNN
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If you love space and exploring the cosmos, there is no shortage of wonder right now.

Scientists identified mysterious diamonds that likely originated from a dwarf planet that once existed in our solar system – until it collided with a large asteroid 4.5 billion years ago.

The rare space diamonds aren’t the only find mesmerizing researchers. A “breathtaking” image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope is revealing the secrets of star birth in the Orion Nebula. Expect to see more unprecedented Webb images in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the Artemis I mission has a new launch date scheduled for September 27, with a 70-minute window that opens at 11:37 a.m. ET.

And on Mars, inspiring discoveries are afoot as the Perseverance rover investigates an intriguing site.

The Perseverance rover has made its most exciting find on the red planet to date.

Perseverance has finally collected samples from the site of an ancient river delta, which is full of rock layers that serve as a geological record of the Martian past. Some of the rocks include the highest concentration of organic matter found by the rover to date, according to NASA scientists.

Among the organic matter are minerals that correlate with sulfates, which could preserve evidence of once potentially habitable sites on Mars and the microbial life that may have existed there.

New photos show the promising rocks amid the delta’s alien landscape. These important samples could answer the ultimate cosmic question: Are we alone in the universe?

Modern humans and Neanderthals lived in tandem until our ancient relatives went extinct about 40,000 years ago. Now, researchers think they may have pinpointed something that gave Homo sapiens a cognitive edge over the Stone Age hominins.

Scientists discovered a genetic mutation that may have allowed neurons to form faster in the modern human brain.

“We’ve identified a gene that contributes to making us human,” said study author Wieland Huttner, professor and director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.

But some experts think more research is needed to ascertain the gene’s true impact.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander – and these golden geese have provided some pretty significant benefits.

Three teams of scientists won the 2022 Golden Goose Awards, prizes organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for pioneering breakthroughs.

One of those includes the Foldscope, a microscope made from paper that costs $1.75 to make. Stanford University bioengineer Manu Prakash came up with the idea on a research trip in the Thai jungle more than a decade ago.

The scientific instrument has traveled around the world, and researchers have even used it to identify a new type of cyanobacteria.

Mark your calendars: A NASA spacecraft will intentionally crash into a tiny asteroid on September 26.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, launched in November and is on its way to a rendezvous with Dimorphos, a small moon orbiting an asteroid called Didymos.

The mission will nudge the asteroid, which poses no threat to Earth, to change its speed and path in a first-of-its-kind test of kinetic impact. If DART is successful, the mission could demonstrate future ways to protect Earth from space debris.

The spacecraft recently got its first glimpse of Didymos from about 20 million miles (32.2 million kilometers) away. On the day of the encounter, we’ll see Dimorphos for the first time before DART collides with the space rock.

The Xerces blue butterfly, Floreana giant tortoise and Tasmanian tiger are just some of the species that the world has lost due to human-driven threats.

Environmental and travel photographer Marc Schlossman has spent 15 years documenting extinct and endangered animal specimens in Chicago’s Field Museum collection for his new book, “Extinction: Our Fragile Relationship With Life on Earth.”

Schlossman provides a glimmer of hope at a time when biodiversity loss is accelerating. Of the 82 species photographed for the book, 23 are extinct, he said.

Thanks to conservation efforts, the rest have been brought back from the brink of disappearing or – as in the case of the New Zealand kākāpo – can recover with “robust” conservation work.

Take a closer look:

– One of Saturn’s moons grazed the gas giant 160 million years ago and smashed apart – and this chaotic encounter could explain the origins of the planet’s signature rings.

– Food DNA from 6,000-year-old pottery found on the Isle of Lewis reveals that ancient Scots enjoyed a breakfast that may sound familiar to us.

– Spectators spied an unusually slow-moving fireball in the night sky over Scotland. The mystery object could be a space rock or space debris.

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Science

Long-lost moon explains the origin of Saturn’s rings

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CNN
 — 

With its striking rings and tilted axis, Saturn is the showiest planet in the solar system. Now, scientists say they have a new theory as to how the gas giant got its signature look.

The planet’s rings could be from an ancient, missing moon, according to space scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley.

Today, Saturn has 82 moons, according to NASA. The research team proposed that the ringed planet may once have had another one that orbited the planet for a few billion years.

But around 160 million years ago, this moon became unstable and swung too close to Saturn in what the researchers described as a “grazing encounter” that smashed the moon apart.

While the gas giant likely swallowed 99% of the moon, the remainder became suspended in orbit, breaking into small icy chunks that ultimately formed the planet’s rings, the scientists suggested.

Previous research had estimated that Saturn’s rings were 100 million years old – much younger than the planet itself – although their age is a hotly debated topic. This latest study provides a potential explanation for their later origin.

“A variety of explanations have been offered, but none is totally convincing. The cool thing is that the previously unexplained young age of the rings is naturally explained in our scenario,” said study author Jack Wisdom, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in a news release.

The new research, published in the journal Science on Thursday, is based on computer modeling using measurements made in 2017 at the very end of NASA’s Cassini mission, which spent 13 years exploring Saturn and its moons.

The study also sheds light on two other puzzling features of Saturn.

Previously, astronomers suspected that the planet’s 26.7-degree tilt came from gravitational interactions with its neighbor Neptune, but according to the study, the lost moon theory may provide a better explanation. The two planets may once have been in sync, and the loss of a moon could have been enough to dislodge Saturn from Neptune’s pull and leave it with the present-day tilt.

“The tilt is too large to be a result of known formation processes in a protoplanetary disk or from later, large collisions,” Wisdom said.

The scientists believe the same event may have caused Saturn’s moon Titan – which is the second-largest moon in the solar system and bigger than the planet Mercury – to embark on its curious orbit. The moon is migrating rapidly outward from Saturn at some 11 centimeters (4.3 inches) per year, the study noted.

The researchers named the lost moon Chrysalis, because of the way they think it transformed the planet.

“Just like a butterfly’s chrysalis, this satellite was long dormant and suddenly became active, and the rings emerged,” Wisdom said.

He added that the research told “a pretty good story,” but would have to be tested and examined by other astronomers.

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Science

Artemis I’s next launch attempt may not happen until later this year

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Kennedy Space Center, Florida
CNN
 — 

NASA will not pursue a launch of Artemis I for the remainder of the launch period, which ends on Tuesday, according to an update from the agency after a second scrubbed launch attempt Saturday.

Future launch periods, including those in September and October, depend on what the team decides early next week, but this results in a minimum of delays consisting of at least several weeks.

“We will not be launching in this launch period,” said Jim Free, associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. “We are not where we wanted to be.”

Free said the stack, including the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, has to roll back into the Vehicle Assembly Building, unless they get a waiver from the range, which is run by the US Space Force.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson reminded that the shuttle was sent back to the Vehicle Assembly Building 20 times before it launched – and noted that the cost of two scrubs is a lot less than a failure.

“We do not launch until we think it’s right,” Nelson said. “These teams have labored over that and that is the conclusion they came to. I look at this as part of our space program, in which safety is the top of the list.”

The scrub was called at 11:17 a.m. ET, three hours before the beginning of the launch window.

Artemis I had been slated to take off Saturday afternoon, but those plans were scrubbed after team members discovered a liquid hydrogen leak that they spent the better part of the morning trying to resolve. Liquid hydrogen is one of the propellants used in the rocket’s large core stage. The leak prevented the launch team from being able to fill the liquid hydrogen tank despite trying various troubleshooting procedures.

Previously, a small leak had been seen in this area, but it became a much larger leak on Saturday. The team believes an overpressurization event might have damaged the soft seal on the liquid hydrogen connection, but they will need to take a closer look.

“This was not a manageable leak,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager.

It’s the second time in a week that the space agency has been forced to halt the launch countdown in the face of technical issues. The first launch attempt, on Monday, was called off after several issues arose, including with a system meant to cool the rocket’s engines ahead of liftoff and various leaks that sprung up as the rocket was being fueled.

The liquid hydrogen leak was detected Saturday at 7:15 a.m. ET in the quick disconnect cavity that feeds the rocket with hydrogen in the engine section of the core stage. It was a different leak than one that occurred ahead of the scrubbed launch on Monday.

The launch controllers warmed up the line in an attempt to get a tight seal and the flow of liquid hydrogen resumed before a leak reoccurred. They stopped the flow of liquid hydrogen and proceeded to “close the valve used to fill and drain it, then increase pressure on a ground transfer line using helium to try to reseal it,” according to NASA.

That troubleshooting plan was not successful. The team attempted the first plan again to warm up the line, but the leak reoccurred after they manually restarted the flow of liquid hydrogen.

There was a 60% chance of favorable weather conditions for the launch, according to weather officer Melody Lovin.

The Artemis I stack, which includes the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, continues to sit on Launchpad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The Artemis I mission is just the beginning of a program that will aim to return humans to the moon and eventually land crewed missions on Mars. Nelson said that the issues during the first two scrubs have not caused any delays to future Artemis program missions.

Here’s how NASA wants to send humans back to the moon

In the last few days, the launch team has taken time to address issues, like hydrogen leaks, that cropped up ahead of Monday’s planned launch before it was scrubbed. The team has also completed a risk assessment of an engine conditioning issue and a foam crack that also cropped up, according to NASA officials.

Both were considered to be acceptable risks heading into the launch countdown, according to Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager.

On Monday, a sensor on one of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines, identified as engine #3, reflected that the engine could not reach the proper temperature range required for the engine to start at liftoff.

The engines need to be thermally conditioned before super-cold propellant flows through them prior to liftoff. To prevent the engines from experiencing any temperature shocks, launch controllers gradually increase the pressure of the core stage liquid hydrogen tank in the hours before launch to send a small amount of liquid hydrogen to the engines. This is known as a “bleed.”

The team has since determined it was a bad sensor providing the reading – they plan to ignore the faulty sensor moving forward, according to John Blevins, Space Launch Systems chief engineer.

Once Artemis I launches, Orion’s journey will last 37 days as it travels to the moon, loops around it and returns to Earth – traveling a total of 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers).

While the passenger list doesn’t include any humans, it does have passengers: three mannequins and a plush Snoopy toy will ride in Orion.

The crew aboard Artemis I may sound a little unusual, but they each serve a purpose. Snoopy will serve as the zero gravity indicator – meaning that he will begin to float inside the capsule once it reaches the space environment.

The mannequins, named Commander Moonikin Campos, Helga and Zohar, will measure the deep space radiation future crews could experience and test out new suit and shielding technology. A biology experiment carrying seeds, algae, fungi and yeast is also tucked inside Orion to measure how life reacts to this radiation as well.

Additional science experiments and technology demonstrations are also riding in a ring on the rocket. From there, 10 small satellites, called CubeSats, will detach and go their separate ways to collect information on the moon and the deep space environment.

Cameras inside and outside of Orion will share images and video throughout the mission, including live views from the Callisto experiment, which will capture a stream of Commander Moonikin Campos sitting in the commander’s seat. And if you have an Amazon Alexa-enabled device, you can ask it about the mission’s location each day.

Expect to see views of Earthrise similar to what was shared for the first time during the Apollo 8 mission back in 1968, but with much better cameras and technology.

The inaugural mission of the Artemis program will kick off a phase of NASA space exploration that intends to land diverse astronaut crews at previously unexplored regions of the moon – on the Artemis II and Artemis III missions, slated for 2024 and 2025 respectively – and eventually delivers crewed missions to Mars.

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Science

Did life ever exist on Mars? This rover is on the hunt for evidence

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CNN
—  

Have you ever spotted another planet in the sky? It’s a celestial thrill without compare.

The first time I spied Mars, it appeared like a red star among a sea of glittering white ones. It was a mind-blowing moment, as I thought about the many spacecraft that humans have sent across millions of miles to visit our planetary neighbor.

The red planet is currently visible in the evening sky through August, so don’t forget to look up.

And this week, the fleet of robots currently exploring Mars revealed more of its secrets.

Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

InSight has been able to unlock some of the secrets of the Martian interior, which sheds light on how all rocky planets form.

Mars may not be the kind of place to raise your kids, but it’s a veritable playground for NASA’s Perseverance rover, Ingenuity helicopter and InSight lander.

Ingenuity recently dipped down in craters and flew over rough terrain for its longest, speediest flight yet as an aerial scout – and it captured images of geological features so intriguing that they are changing the course of the Perseverance rover’s scientific quest.

The Perseverance team shared some of the first key observations made by the rover this week as well – including wonderfully weird rocks that could contain evidence of ancient microbial life, if it ever existed on Mars. Percy will collect its first Martian sample within the next two weeks, and it will be one of dozens returned to Earth by future missions.

And in an exciting first, the stationary InSight lander has revealed the mysterious interior of Mars, thanks to its detection of Marsquakes that helped scientists peer inside the planet.

Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci is remembered for and connected with many things – now including 14 living descendants, according to new research.

This is a curious finding, as Leonardo was not known to have fathered any children. But researchers traced his lineage in other ways.

The historians hope to use this information to understand more about Leonardo’s genius and gain insights about his health, including if he had a rare eye condition or not.

Courtesy Field Museum

This Xerces blue butterfly specimen is 93 years old.

The last of the Xerces blue butterflies fluttered through the air in the early 1940s. As the first North American insect to go extinct due to humans, it has become an icon for insect conservation.

These periwinkle pearly-winged insects lived in the coastal sand dunes along San Francisco and were first characterized by scientists in 1852. But humans destroyed their habitat.

It’s a harsh reminder amid what many scientists call an “insect apocalypse,” as species decline around the globe. While all of them may not be as pretty as the Xerces blue butterfly, insects are more crucial to our lives than most people realize.

Raging wildfires in the western US are so bad that the fires are actually creating their own weather and smoke that’s visible from space.

These fires aren’t just a concern in the West; haze from the smoke is reaching across the US, causing bad air quality on the East Coast.

Rare mushroom cloud-like formations have been seen over the fires. These pyrocumulus clouds tower above the ash and smoke from raging wildfires and can be seen for miles.

And it’s not just the US that’s facing the brunt of destructive fires fueled by the climate crisis. Wildfires are sparking globally, even in the world’s coldest city.

ALMA/ESO/NAOJ/NRAO/Benisty et al.

This image shows a planetary system 400 light-years away that is still forming.

It may look like a burning ring of fire, but this is an actual image of a planetary system that’s still cooking 400 light-years away, taken by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array of telescopes in Chile.

Two Jupiter-like planets orbit a star, but astronomers spied a moon-forming disk around one of the planets – and it’s the first time they have seen anything like this.

The disk around the planet is 500 times larger than the massive rings around Saturn.

Scientists plan to keep an eye on this system to watch as planets, and maybe even moons, form and grow.

A little more intrigue before you go:

– Unknown viruses dating back 15,000 years have been found in ice samples taken from a glacier in the Tibetan plateau – and they are unlike anything scientists have ever seen before.

– Meet octogenarian Wally Funk, who trained for NASA’s Women in Space Program but was denied the opportunity to fly – until now. And this is what’s next after two billionaires took quick trips to the stars.

– For wild cockatoos, opening trash cans isn’t easy. But in Australia, members of one particular species have taught each other how to do it. Leftovers, anyone?

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