US Space Program - a thread

[Fenrir]

Pluto's Tiny Moons Are Coming Into Colorful Focus

Last week, Nix and Hydra transformed before our eyes from specks of light to bonafide moons. Today, NASA released a new set of images, bringing Pluto’s oblong satellites into even better focus. The latest astonishing finds? Nix has a rosy glow and Hydra has craters.

The image on the left, captured by the New Horizons Ralph instrument from a distance of 102,000 miles, is our very first color shot of Nix. Colors have been enhanced, revealing a surprisingly reddish region on the rocky satellite that measures a mere 26 miles long and 22 across. According to NASA:

Although the overall surface color of Nix is neutral grey in the image, the newfound region has a distinct red tint. Hints of a bull’s-eye pattern lead scientists to speculate that the reddish region is a crater. “Additional compositional data has already been taken of Nix, but is not yet downlinked. It will tell us why this region is redder than its surroundings,” said mission scientist Carly Howett, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. She added, “This observation is so tantalizing, I’m finding it hard to be patient for more Nix data to be downlinked.”

Meanwhile, the new image of Hydra, captured from a distance of 143,000 miles, also offers tantalizing hints of complexity. There appear to be at least two large craters on Hydra’s surface, and the moon’s upper portion seems slightly darker than its lower half, perhaps suggesting a transition from a rockier to a more ice-rich composition.

“Before last week, Hydra was just a faint point of light, so it’s a surreal experience to see it become an actual place, as we see its shape and spot recognizable features on its surface for the first time,” mission science collaborator Ted Stryk said.

Remember, folks: This is just the beginning. We’ve downlinked a mere 2 percent of the New Horizons data at this point, and it’ll take us another 16-months to gather the rest. I’m also finding it hard to be patient, but such is the nature of doing science over the solar system’s worst dial-up connection.

 

[Fenrir]

NASA’s New Horizons Finds Second Mountain Range in Pluto’s ‘Heart’

NASA’s New Horizons Finds Second Mountain Range in Pluto’s ‘Heart’ | NASA

A newly discovered mountain range lies near the southwestern margin of Pluto’s Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region), situated between bright, icy plains and dark, heavily-cratered terrain. This image was acquired by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14, 2015 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) and sent back to Earth on July 20. Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible.

Pluto’s icy mountains have company. NASA’s New Horizons mission has discovered a new, apparently less lofty mountain range on the lower-left edge of Pluto’s best known feature, the bright, heart-shaped region named Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region).

These newly-discovered frozen peaks are estimated to be one-half mile to one mile (1-1.5 kilometers) high, about the same height as the United States’ Appalachian Mountains. The Norgay Montes (Norgay Mountains) discovered by New Horizons on July 15 more closely approximate the height of the taller Rocky Mountains.

The new range is just west of the region within Pluto’s heart called Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain). The peaks lie some 68 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of Norgay Montes.

This newest image further illustrates the remarkably well-defined topography along the western edge of Tombaugh Regio.

“There is a pronounced difference in texture between the younger, frozen plains to the east and the dark, heavily-cratered terrain to the west,” said Jeff Moore, leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “There’s a complex interaction going on between the bright and the dark materials that we’re still trying to understand.”

While Sputnik Planum is believed to be relatively young in geological terms – perhaps less than 100 million years old - the darker region probably dates back billions of years. Moore notes that the bright, sediment-like material appears to be filling in old craters (for example, the bright circular feature to the lower left of center).

This image was acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) and sent back to Earth on July 20. Features as small as a half-mile (1 kilometer) across are visible. The names of features on Pluto have all been given on an informal basis by the New Horizons team.






Curiosity Finds First Evidence For Possible 'Continental Crust' on Mars

Curiosity Finds First Evidence For Possible ‘Continental Crust’ on Mars

View of an igneous clast named Harrison, which is embedded in a conglomerate rock in Gale crater, and features elongated light-toned feldspar crystals. This mosaic is a combination of an image from Mastcam with higher-resolution images from ChemCam’s Remote Micro-Imager. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/IRAP/U. Nantes/IAS/MSSS

The Curiosity rover, still roaming in Gale crater, has discovered the first evidence for a potential ancient “continental crust” on Mars, which would be a very significant finding regarding Mars’ early history and to what degree it may have paralleled Earth’s.

The new results, announced July 13, come from the ChemCam instrument on the rover, which uses its laser to identify the mineralogical and chemical makeup of rocks, and they are similar to what is found in granitic continental crust rocks on Earth.

According to Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead scientist on the ChemCam instrument: “Along the rover’s path we have seen some beautiful rocks with large, bright crystals, quite unexpected on Mars. As a general rule, light-colored crystals are lower density, and these are abundant in igneous rocks that make up the Earth’s continents.”

Close-up image of some of the granite-like rock found in Gale crater by the Curiosity rover. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The findings are in contrast to what has usually been seen elsewhere on the planet before, which is mainly a basaltic composition of rocks. Gale crater, however, still contains pieces of igneous rocks, which were analyzed by ChemCam. Twenty-two such rock fragments were studied via Curiosity by U.S. and French scientists, led by Violaine Sautter of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, who determined that the pale-colored rocks are rich in feldspar, along with some possible quartz. They are surprisingly similar to rocks in Earth’s granitic continental crust. In particular, they strongly resemble a terrestrial a rock type known as TTG (Tonalite-Trondhjemite-Granodiorite), which are rocks that predominated in the terrestrial continental crust in the Archean era more than 2.5 billion years ago. Some of the rocks contain silicon oxides and alkalis with fine-grained to crystalline textures, while others are coarser-grained, like quartz diorite and granodiorite.

In general, there are three rock types found; some had large crystals in them, others had microscopic crystals, and still others with both large and microscopic crystals, which may indicate magma which cooled slowly before erupting. The ones with the large crystals closely resemble the granodiorite type of granite.

The new results were just published in Nature Geoscience.

Most of Mars’ rocks have been produced through volcanism, so the discovery is a surprising and exciting one, and suggests that Mars’ early history was more similar to Earth’s than previously thought. These granite-like rocks are similar to ones in Earth’s ancient continental crust, quite different from the basalt which composes the seafloor. As also noted by the researchers, the rocks “challenge the simple idea of continuous cooling of the Martian mantle over geologic time, pointing to more complex global or local variation in mantle temperature.”

The walls of Gale crater provide a natural geological cut-away view 1-2 miles down into the crust, ideally suited for a rover to study; some of the rocks found would not be easily visible to orbiting satellites.

It is still unclear whether Mars ever had plate tectonics like Earth, but new evidence suggests it at least had the precursors to them. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It was previously thought that the Earth was the only planet in our Solar System with a continental crust, since it typically takes a long time for lighter rocks to rise to the surface and become the continental crust. Earth’s crust is divided into tectonic plates, which move over the softer mantle below. The plates which make up the oceanic crust are thinner, darker, and heavier, while the continental crust plates are thicker, lighter-colored, and lighter in weight.

As noted by the researchers in the paper, “We conclude that silica-rich magmatic rocks may constitute a significant fraction of ancient Martian crust and may be analogous to the earliest continental crust on Earth.”

“This tells us that Mars is more Earth-like than we ever thought,” added Wiens. “These are rocks with large feldspar crystals and potentially excess silica, so Mars does not just consist of dense dark looking rocks, but also has rocks that really look like they could be on any continent on Earth, and that’s a first on Mars.”

“The conventional wisdom from previous Mars missions has been that Mars is all basaltic like the oceanic crust on Earth, fairly high density, dark-colored, with a lot of mineral called olivine, and that’s what previous rovers found,” said Wiens.

While this isn’t direct evidence for actual plate tectonics on ancient Mars, it does provide evidence for at least the precursors to them.

“There’s a bit of evidence for the precursor to tectonics, because there are magnetic domains that were found in parts of the southern hemisphere on the surface of Mars,” said Wiens. “The planet doesn’t have a magnetic field now, but it suggests that it did have one in the past.”

The findings, combined with many others regarding Mars’ geological history, are helping scientists to better understand the complex history of this fascinating world, and whether it could have supported life.

“So we’re coming a long way in several different areas in piecing together what several billion years ago was a world probably much more like Earth than we ever imagined,” said Wiens. “And that’s pretty exciting because Earth is this oasis of life now, and we wonder what Mars was like at one point in time.”

Curiosity is continuing to explore its environs in Gale crater, after having just passed through the period of solar conjunction when communications were necessarily halted for a couple of weeks. It will now continue to move through the valleys ahead and into the foothills of Mount Sharp, which will provide even greater geological context for new discoveries and learning about Mars’ ancient history in this region.

 

[Fenrir]

Something to look forward to in 2016

NASA Preparing for Juno's Historic Arrival at Jupiter, One Year Out

NASA Preparing for Juno’s Historic Arrival at Jupiter, One Year Out « AmericaSpace

Artist’s concept of the Juno spacecraft approaching Jupiter in 2016. Image Credit: NASA / JPL

“Jupiter’s welcome to more from his Juno if he can get it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

While NASA and space enthusiasts the world over are waiting for New Horizons’ unprecedented Pluto flyby, the space agency is gearing up for another planetary encounter to be made in July 2016. Juno, the second New Frontiers mission (the first being New Horizons), is scheduled to arrive at our Solar System’s largest world on July 4 next year. But before the solar-winged spacecraft makes its initial Jovian encounter, engineers and controllers have made some modifications to Juno’s flight plan in order to optimize mapping and science operations.

According to NASA, Juno’s mission objectives include extensively mapping the planet in order to better understand its gravity and magnetic characteristics, which may provide clues into its atmosphere’s water vapor content. In addition, Juno will give scientists their first glances at Jupiter’s polar regions, as the spacecraft will make a series of highly elliptical orbits around the planet. The spacecraft will come within a few thousand miles of the planet’s cloud tops, which will give scientists a look into Jupiter’s atmosphere, as well as what may lurk within it (namely the planet’s core, which is hypothesized to consist of metallic hydrogen).

The launch of NASA’s JUNO to Jupiter. Photo Credit: Alan Walters / AmericaSpace

However, before Juno gets to Jupiter, NASA has divulged some changes made to the spacecraft’s flight plan. Juno will make a shorter engine burn to lengthen its Jovian orbit to 14 days, as opposed to the previous 11 days. NASA stated this change was made to allow the spacecraft to take a “global look” at Jupiter earlier in its mission: “Over successive orbits, Juno will build a virtual web around Jupiter, making its gravity and magnetic field maps as it passes over different longitudes from north to south. The original plan would have required 15 orbits to map these forces globally, with 15 more orbits filling in gaps to make the map complete. In the revised plan, Juno will get very basic mapping coverage in just eight orbits. A new level of detail will be added with each successive doubling of the number, at 16 and 32 orbits.”

The space agency added that these particular changes also were made to give Juno’s team some time to determine how the spacecraft reacts to its close encounter with Jupiter—at the very least, Juno will encounter a strong magnetic field and huge doses of radiation. The orbital change will lengthen Juno’s mission to 20 months, by two orbits (32 versus 30). At the end of Juno’s mission, it will make a “death plunge” into the hostile Jovian atmosphere.

Moreover, Juno’s initial orbit around Jupiter, its “capture orbit,” is being split into two, which will allow the spacecraft to test its science instruments prior to commencing scientific operations. NASA is also preparing for Juno’s close encounters with Jupiter by making observations of the planet via powerful telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope. These ground- and space-based observations will give researchers a better prediction of what the spacecraft might see during its mission.

Juno launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 variant launch vehicle on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 41. The spacecraft completed an Earth flyby on Oct. 10, 2013. Juno’s principal investigator, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute based out of San Antonio, Texas, discussed the changes in Juno’s plans, and the surprises that lie ahead:

“We’re already more than 90 percent of the way to Jupiter, in terms of total distance traveled. With a year to go, we’re looking carefully at our plans to make sure we’re ready to make the most of our time once we arrive. We have models that tell us what to expect, but the fact is that Juno is going to be immersed in a strong and variable magnetic field and hazardous radiation, and it will get closer to the planet than any previous orbiting spacecraft. Juno’s experience could be different than what our models predict…that’s part of what makes space exploration so exciting.”

This intrepid spacecraft continues NASA’s rich heritage exploring our Solar System’s largest, yet most enigmatic, gas giant. Juno will give the world its closest, most in-depth view of Jupiter since various spacecraft, starting with NASA’s Pioneer 10 performing a “flyby” in 1973, began exploring the outer Solar System planet. Pioneer 11 followed in 1974 with another flyby. Voyagers 1 and 2 both famously visited Jupiter during 1979, investigating the planet, its ring system, and many of its moons; the images returned from these spacecraft remain iconic.

Jupiter has also been investigated by Ulysses, Cassini, and New Horizons , with Galileo becoming the first Jovian orbiter in the mid-1990s. And in July 2016, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will once again visit this Solar System colossus shrouded in mystery, in another historic trek to “sort out the unknowns.”

Spectators crowd the shoreline as an Atlas 5 rocket launches NASA’s JUNO spacecraft to Jupiter, as photographed from Playalinda Beach. Photo Credit: Mike Killian / AmericaSpace

 

[Fenrir]

NASA and Commercial Satellites Map Hidden Glacier Margins In Turkey

NASA and Commercial Satellites Map Hidden Glacier Margins In Turkey

A small glacier crowning one of the Kaçkar Mountains in eastern Turkey appears as a blurry cluster of blue pixels in an image captured in September 2011 by NASA’s and U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat 5 satellite. A view of the same glacier, taken by the commercial satellite WorldView-2 in the same month, reveals areas of ice that escaped Landsat, hidden in the shadows cast by nearby peaks or obscured by debris deposits.

A comparison of images of a small glacier in the Kaçkar Mountains in northeastern Turkey: the one on the left was taken by Landsat-5 on September 19, 2011, and the one on the right was captured by the commercial satellite WorldView-2 on September 8, 2011. The blue line shows the margins of the glacier as seen by Landsat – the delineated margins correspond to 0.07 square miles (0.2 square kilometers) of glacier ice. The WorldView-2 image reveal areas of ice in the shadows cast by nearby peaks or obscured by debris deposits over glacier ice: using this data, the researchers were able to map 0.28 square miles (0.74 square kilometers) of sunlit glacier ice, plus 0.07 square miles (0.2 square kilometers) of ice in the shadows (delineated in yellow). Credits: NASA

These are just two of the images analyzed in a new study by researchers from NASA and Turkey’s Ege University. The team used satellite scenes from research and commercial satellites to map changes in the extent of Turkey’s 14 glaciers from the 1970s to the present. Most of Turkey’s glaciers are small, less than one square mile in area.

The study, published on June 15 in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment, showed that the area of glaciers in Turkey shrunk by more than half in four decades: they went from 9.6 square miles (25 square kilometers) in the 1970s to 4.2 square miles (10.85 square kilometers) in 2013. During this period, five glaciers disappeared completely. The scientists attributed the recession of Turkey’s glaciers to increasing summer minimum temperatures. There were no changes in precipitation nor in cloud cover in Turkey’s glacier regions from the 1970s to the present.

This is the first attempt to map the small glaciers of a whole country using a combination of imagery from government and commercial satellites. In total, the researchers analyzed 72 Landsat images and 41 commercial satellite images (from IKONOS, Quickbird-2, GeoEye-1 and WorldView-1 and -2), in addition to five scenes captured by the ASTER instrument on NASA’s Terra spacecraft.

The images from the satellites of the Landsat program have a spatial resolution (the area of Earth’s surface contained in each pixel of a satellite image) that varies from 196 feet (60 meters) per pixel for the first three Landsat missions —the first one launched in 1972— to up to 49 feet (15 meters) per pixel for Landsat 8, launched in 2013. In comparison, Digital Globe commercial satellites offer much sharper views: they can “zoom in” as much as 16 inches (40 centimeters) per pixel. The availability of commercial satellite images dates back to 2000, while the Landsat satellite series started collecting information in 1972.

The longer Landsat record allowed the researchers to reconstruct the extension of Turkey’s glaciers at five time periods between the 1970s and 2013, while the higher resolution of the commercial satellite data let them delineate the current margins of the glaciers more precisely.

Two views of Gedik Glacier, a small glacier in the Mercan Mountains in central Turkey. On the left, an image captured by Landsat 5 on September 10, 2011. On the right, a scene taken by the commercial satellite WorldView-2 on September 13, 2011. Landsat-5 data mapped 0.02 square miles (0.06 square kilometers) of glacier ice while WorldView-2 data mapped 0.02 square miles (0.06 square kilometers) of sunlit ice, plus an area of glacier ice in the shadow (delineated in yellow) amounting to 0.015 square miles (0.04 square kilometers). “This shows that Landsat data give comparable mapping accuracies for the sunlit portions of small glaciers while underestimating the total glacier area by 40% due to shadows,” said Compton Tucker, one of the authors of the study. “This disparity is more pronounced for smaller glaciers and less so for larger glaciers.” Credits: NASA

WorldView-2’s 16-inch spatial resolution enabled the researchers to find ice camouflaged by debris, by spotting striations in the in the dirt-blanketed glacier sections created by the movement of the underlying ice. The commercial satellites’ higher radiometric resolution (capability to discriminate differences in brightness) provided the ability to map glacier ice hidden in shadows.

The scientists did not always find more glacier ice in the commercial satellite images: for several Turkish glaciers, they also identified areas where seasonal snow had previously been confused for ice.

"The commercial satellite data’s higher spatial detail and higher radiometric resolution are like being able to see in dark," said Compton Tucker, one of the authors of the study and an Earth scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"Landsat data, with their systematic mapping of large areas, told us where to look in greater detail. Without Landsat’s long record, studies like ours would be impossible to undertake, because we don’t have a time machine to go back to the 1970s and 1980s and see how Turkey’s glaciers were doing then," Tucker said. "Using Landsat and commercial satellite data together, we can map glaciers with high accuracy. It’s a powerful combination for studying the Earth from space."

The commercial satellites’ ability to spot ice obscured by shadows would be particularly useful for mapping other glaciers in mountainous terrain, such as the Himalayas and the Andes, Tucker said.

 

[Fenrir]

Could 'Windbots' Someday Explore the Skies of Jupiter?

Could 'Windbots' Someday Explore the Skies of Jupiter? | NASA

An artist's rendering shows a windbot bobbing through the skies of Jupiter, drawing energy from turbulent winds there. This notional windbot is portrayed as a polyhedron with sections that spin to absorb wind energy and create lift, although other potential configurations are being investigated. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Among designers of robotic probes to explore the planets, there is certainly no shortage of clever ideas. There are concepts for robots that are propelled by waves in the sea. There are ideas for tumbleweed bots driven by wind, rolling across Antarctica or Mars. Recently a team of engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, wondered if a probe could be buoyant in the clouds of Earth or a distant gas giant planet, like Jupiter.

That team has recently begun studying their question, thanks to a one-year, $100,000 study, funded by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. They're investigating the feasibility of creating a windbot, a new class of robotic probe designed to stay aloft in a planet's atmosphere for a long time without wings or hot-air balloons. The NASA-funded study will systematically investigate how future spacecraft of this kind could stay airborne and harvest energy.

Although no mission is currently scheduled to utilize windbots, the researchers hope their study will open new avenues for atmospheric science on gas giant planets using high-mobility robotic explorers.

Unlike the moon and Mars, which have already been explored by robotic rovers, gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn have no solid surface on which a probe to land on. In 1995, NASA's Galileo spacecraft dropped off an atmospheric probe that descended into Jupiter under a parachute. The battery-powered probe survived only about an hour before succumbing to high heat and pressure as it fell into the planet's ponderously deep atmosphere. In contrast to the plummeting probe, a windbot could have rotors on several sides of its body that could spin independently to change direction or create lift.

Adrian Stoica, principal investigator for the windbots study at JPL, points to a great example to think about from nature: a dandelion seed. "A dandelion seed is great at staying airborne. It rotates as it falls, creating lift, which allows it to stay afloat for long time, carried by the wind. We'll be exploring this effect on windbot designs."

Stoica and colleagues think that, to stay airborne for a long time, a windbot would need to be able to use energy available in the planet's atmosphere. That energy might not be solar, because the probe could find itself on the planet's night side for an extended period. Nuclear power sources also could be a liability for a floating probe because of their weight. But winds, temperature variations and even a planet's magnetic field could potentially be sources of energy an atmospheric probe could exploit.

As they begin their study, the team suspects the best bet for an atmospheric robot to harvest energy is turbulence -- wind that's frequently changing direction and intensity. The key is variability. High wind velocity isn't enough. But in a dynamic, turbulent environment there are gradients -- differences in energy from high to low -- that can be used.

"It's a spring of energy a probe could drink from," said Stoica, who thinks a windbot might generate power in a similar way to some wristwatches that can be wound by shaking.

Embracing turbulence to make power and stay aloft is a departure from the approach taken by conventional aircraft, which carry their own internal power sources and perform best in smooth air. Commercial airliners, for example, cruise in Earth's stratosphere, where winds tend to be much smoother and flow faster than in the dense air closer to the ground.

The JPL team is starting out by characterizing winds among the clouds of Jupiter to understand what kinds of places might be best for sending a windbot and to determine some of the technical requirements for its design. "There are lots of things we don't know," Stoica said. "Does a windbot need to be 10 meters in diameter or 100? How much lift do we need from the winds in order to keep a windbot aloft?"

One thing the team is pretty certain of is that a windbot would need to be able to sense the winds around itself in order to live off the turbulence. To that end, they plan to build a simple windbot model as part of their study. The aerodynamic modeling for this type of craft is particularly difficult, so Stoica thinks having a physical model will be important.

The model windbot would be subjected to carefully controlled turbulent airflows to determine how best to design systems that react and reorient the robot to keep it aloft. After that, the team would move on to investigating means, such as electronic sensors, for a windbot to perceive the wind field in the environment around itself. Putting these capabilities together into a functional prototype would be left for a future study.

If the cost of building windbots turned out to be sufficiently affordable, Stoica thinks it would be useful to have multiple units sending back data from different places in a planet's atmosphere. "One could imagine a network of windbots existing for quite a long time on Jupiter or Saturn, sending information about ever-changing weather patterns," he said. "And, of course, what we learn about the atmospheres of other planets enriches our understanding of Earth's own weather and climate."

In fact, windbots might also come in handy as an additional tool to help scientists understand turbulent weather phenomena on Earth, such as hurricanes, without venturing beyond our planet's atmosphere. A windbot designed to sense and feed off turbulence might not only survive such hazardous environments, but also transmit valuable data all the while.

Despite its potential, the windbot concept is not without its tradeoffs. The buoyant probe might have to sacrifice travel time in moving to interesting destinations on a planet to simply stay alive -- trading a shorter route from point A to point B to follow the energy available from winds to stay aloft. At other times, when it has sufficient energy, it might be able to head to its destination via a more direct path.

The windbot concept is a long way from being ready to launch to Jupiter, but Stoica and colleagues are excited to dive into their initial study. "We don't yet know if this idea is truly feasible. We'll do the research to try and find out," he said. "But it pushes us to find other ways of approaching the problem, and that kind of thinking is extremely valuable."

NIAC is part of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which innovates, develops, tests and flies hardware for use in NASA's future missions. The California Institute of Technology manages JPL for NASA.




Another Way of Looking at Pluto

Data from the New Horizons mission have revised Pluto’s diameter to just 2370 kilometers across. That’s smaller than the moons Triton, Ganymede, Callisto, Io, Europa, and Titan, not to mention Earth’s own satellite. In more immediately relatable terms: Here’s what it would look like if someone plopped Pluto onto Australia.

This striking scale render was created by one David Murray and comes to us by way of his friend, Nathan Lee:

Pluto's diameter is 2,370km. Sydney to Perth is 3,274km. Adelaide to Darwin is 2,620km. Australia has beer though!

 

[Fenrir]

We've Taken Another Big Step Toward Asteroid Mining

Many components in your phones and batteries are made with “rare Earth metals.” You know why they call them that? Because they are actually rare on Earth, and we’re going to run out. But they’re not rare in space. Which is why today a company launched the prototype for a vehicle that will search for asteroids to mine beyond Earth.

The Arkyd 3, launched successfully today from the International Space Station, begins a 90-day low-Earth orbit mission to test its software and control systems. If all goes well, it will be followed in December by the Arkyd 6 spacecraft (pictured above), which will test a mid-wave infrared sensor, which could take measurements from the surface of asteroids in order to detect metals and water.

Of course, the Arkyds aren’t just on the prowl for rare Earth metals like neodymium and yttrium. The Arkyd 6 will look for any precious metal, and also water. If we can find water deposits locked up in local asteroids, it would be a huge help for space vessels that need to stock up on the life-giving liquid (and fuel source) during long journeys.

The Arkyd 3 was created by Planetary Resources, a private space agency funded in part by Larry Page, Richard Branson, and other techno-utopian entrepreneurs. But the Arkyd missions are also part of an ongoing effort by public and private groups to make asteroid mining a reality. Late last year, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft landed the Philae probe on a moving comet, which could be viewed as an early proof of concept for asteroid mining operations. The Rosetta mission showed that it isn’t unrealistic for us to make plans to set up a mine on an asteroid, using remote-controlled equipment.

Planetary Resources co-founder Peter Diamandis said in a statement:

The successful deployment of the A3R is a significant milestone for Planetary Resources as we forge a path toward prospecting resource-rich asteroids. Our team is developing the technology that will enable humanity to create an off-planet economy that will fundamentally change the way we live on Earth.

Not only could space mining help supplement diminishing resources on Earth, but it could also usher in a new space age. One of the main problems with getting humanity off the Earth has been funding. Mining could provide the space industry with a source of funds, and maybe turn the asteroid Ceres into the next gold rush town.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

We've Taken Another Big Step Toward Asteroid Mining

Many components in your phones and batteries are made with “rare Earth metals.” You know why they call them that? Because they are actually rare on Earth, and we’re going to run out. But they’re not rare in space. Which is why today a company launched the prototype for a vehicle that will search for asteroids to mine beyond Earth.

The Arkyd 3, launched successfully today from the International Space Station, begins a 90-day low-Earth orbit mission to test its software and control systems. If all goes well, it will be followed in December by the Arkyd 6 spacecraft (pictured above), which will test a mid-wave infrared sensor, which could take measurements from the surface of asteroids in order to detect metals and water.

Of course, the Arkyds aren’t just on the prowl for rare Earth metals like neodymium and yttrium. The Arkyd 6 will look for any precious metal, and also water. If we can find water deposits locked up in local asteroids, it would be a huge help for space vessels that need to stock up on the life-giving liquid (and fuel source) during long journeys.

The Arkyd 3 was created by Planetary Resources, a private space agency funded in part by Larry Page, Richard Branson, and other techno-utopian entrepreneurs. But the Arkyd missions are also part of an ongoing effort by public and private groups to make asteroid mining a reality. Late last year, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft landed the Philae probe on a moving comet, which could be viewed as an early proof of concept for asteroid mining operations. The Rosetta mission showed that it isn’t unrealistic for us to make plans to set up a mine on an asteroid, using remote-controlled equipment.

Planetary Resources co-founder Peter Diamandis said in a statement:

The successful deployment of the A3R is a significant milestone for Planetary Resources as we forge a path toward prospecting resource-rich asteroids. Our team is developing the technology that will enable humanity to create an off-planet economy that will fundamentally change the way we live on Earth.

Not only could space mining help supplement diminishing resources on Earth, but it could also usher in a new space age. One of the main problems with getting humanity off the Earth has been funding. Mining could provide the space industry with a source of funds, and maybe turn the asteroid Ceres into the next gold rush town.

you should post this here: Huge asteroid with $5 trillion worth of platinum to pass by Earth

 

[Fenrir]

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth | NASA

This artist's concept depicts one possible appearance of the planet Kepler-452b, the first near-Earth-size world to be found in the habitable zone of star that is similar to our sun. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another “Earth.”

This artist's concept compares Earth (left) to the new planet, called Kepler-452b, which is about 60 percent larger in diameter. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle

The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone -- the area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet -- of a G2-type star, like our sun. The confirmation of Kepler-452b brings the total number of confirmed planets to 1,030.

"On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0."

This size and scale of the Kepler-452 system compared alongside the Kepler-186 system and the solar system. Kepler-186 is a miniature solar system that would fit entirely inside the orbit of Mercury. Credits: NASA/JPL-CalTech/R. Hurt

Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth and is considered a super-Earth-size planet. While its mass and composition are not yet determined, previous research suggests that planets the size of Kepler-452b have a good chance of being rocky.

While Kepler-452b is larger than Earth, its 385-day orbit is only 5 percent longer. The planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than our sun, has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter and has a diameter 10 percent larger.

There are 4,696 planet candidates now known with the release of the seventh Kepler planet candidate catalog - an increase of 521 since the release of the previous catalog in January 2015. Credits: NASA/W. Stenzel

“We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment," said Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who led the team that discovered Kepler-452b. "It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth. That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”

To help confirm the finding and better determine the properties of the Kepler-452 system, the team conducted ground-based observations at the University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory, the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, and the W. M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These measurements were key for the researchers to confirm the planetary nature of Kepler-452b, to refine the size and brightness of its host star and to better pin down the size of the planet and its orbit.

Since Kepler launched in 2009, twelve planets less than twice the size of Earth have been discovered in the habitable zones of their stars.
Credits: NASA/N. Batalha and W. Stenzel

The Kepler-452 system is located 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. The research paper reporting this finding has been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.

In addition to confirming Kepler-452b, the Kepler team has increased the number of new exoplanet candidates by 521 from their analysis of observations conducted from May 2009 to May 2013, raising the number of planet candidates detected by the Kepler mission to 4,696. Candidates require follow-up observations and analysis to verify they are actual planets.

Twelve of the new planet candidates have diameters between one to two times that of Earth, and orbit in their star's habitable zone. Of these, nine orbit stars that are similar to our sun in size and temperature.

“We've been able to fully automate our process of identifying planet candidates, which means we can finally assess every transit signal in the entire Kepler dataset quickly and uniformly,” said Jeff Coughlin, Kepler scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who led the analysis of a new candidate catalog. “This gives astronomers a statistically sound population of planet candidates to accurately determine the number of small, possibly rocky planets like Earth in our Milky Way galaxy.”

These findings, presented in the seventh Kepler Candidate Catalog, will be submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. These findings are derived from data publically available on the NASA Exoplanet Archive.

Scientists now are producing the last catalog based on the original Kepler mission’s four-year data set. The final analysis will be conducted using sophisticated software that is increasingly sensitive to the tiny telltale signatures of Earth-size planets.

Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

 

[Fenrir]

Updated Kepler Catalog Includes 521 New Possible Exoplanets

Earlier today, during the announcement of the most Earth-like planet ever discovered, researchers working on the Kepler mission released an updated catalog—which now includes 521 new candidate planets. Add that to the 4,175 already discovered by the space-based telescope.

Above. An artist’s conception of habitable-zone planets with similarities to Earth: from left, Kepler-22b, Kepler-69c, the just announced Kepler-452b, Kepler-62f and Kepler-186f. Last in line is Earth itself.

Kepler is truly turning out to be an extraordinary planet hunter. The space-based telescope has now detected 4,696 objects of interest, including the new candidate planets. Confirmation of the new super-Earth brings the total number of known planets to 1,030. The data analyzed by the scientists was captured by Kepler from May 2009 to May 2013, a four year span.

The new catalog—the seventh to be released by the Kepler team, and the first since January 2015—is the first to be fully automated. Typically, the first step in the planet hunting process is to find signals that show periodic dips in brightness (i.e. the transit method of exoplanetary detection), followed by a more thorough analysis in which KOIs, or Kepler Objects of Interest, are highlighted for future study. This second step is traditionally handled by a team of scientists, but that can be tremendously time consuming.

But now, NASA has written an automated software program that effectively replicates this tedious process. As a result, planet hunters are able to assess all the Kepler planets in a more uniform and coherent fashion.

The number of planets in each subsequent catalog keeps growing and growing (Credits: NASA Ames/W. Stenzel and SETI Institute/J. Coughlin)

“Now that the process is automated, we’re able to assess every single transit-like signal and do so automatically,” noted Jeff Coughlin, Kepler research scientist at SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, at a press conference earlier today.

What’s more, the new-and-improved process will allow astronomers to better determine the number of small, cool planets that are best candidates for hosting life.

NASA released this graphic earlier today. The blue dots show planet candidates from previous catalogs, while the yellow dots show new candidates from the seventh catalog. (Credits: NASA Ames/W. Stenzel)

“New planet candidates continue to be found at all periods and sizes due to continued improvement in the detection techniques,” noted NASA during the media briefing. “Notably, several of these new candidates are near-Earth-sized and at long orbital periods, where they have a chance of being rocky with liquid water on their surface.”

More specifically, the new catalog includes 12 planetary candidates that are less than twice Earth’s diameter and are in orbit within their star’s habitable zone, i.e. that sweet-spot in a solar system where a rocky planet can sustain liquid water at its surface. Nine of these planets orbit stars that are similar to our sun in terms of size and temperature. That’s incredibly encouraging; astronomers are increasingly finding that terrestrial, or rocky, planets are among the most common in the Galaxy.

Of the dozen Earth-like candidates announced, only Kepler 452b—the exoplanet described earlier today as being the most Earth-like yet—has been confirmed. The remaining eleven will have to be verified by astronomers in the months and years to come.

(Credits: NASA Ames/W. Stenzel)

Above is a visualization of the new potentially Earth-like, habitable zone planetary candidates (shown in open yellow circles). The dark green area represents liberal estimates for the habitable zone, while the light green area represents more conservative estimates. The open blue circles are candidates from previous catalogs, while filled-in circles are confirmed planets.

“Kepler 452b takes us one step closer to understanding how many habitable planets are out there,” noted Joseph Twicken, a member of the SETI Institute and a Kepler scientist, in a statement. “Continued investigation of the other candidates in this catalog and one final run of the Kepler science pipeline will help us find the smallest and coolest planets. Doing so will allow us to better gauge the prevalence of habitable worlds.”

And as Coughlin noted at the press conference: “In a year, we’re going to release the eighth planet catalog, and we’re optimistic we’ll discover more habitable zone planets.”

In more good news, all the data is publicly archived—and will remain that way for years to come.

 

[Fenrir]

NASA's Space Launch System Design 'Right on Track' for Journey to Mars

NASA's Space Launch System Design 'Right on Track' for Journey to Mars | NASA

You know the feeling of pride and achievement when you've worked really hard on a term paper, and finally turn it in? That's how the critical design review team for NASA's Space Launch System is feeling this week as the program completed its review.

The in-depth review – the first in almost 40 years for a NASA exploration class vehicle -- provides a final look at the design and development of the integrated rocket before full-scale fabrication begins. Throughout the course of 11 weeks, 13 teams – including representatives from several NASA field centers – reviewed more than 1,000 files of data as part of the comprehensive assessment process.

NASA's Space Launch System Program Manager Todd May and others on the critical design review team pore over hundreds of design and development documents on the SLS Block 1 configuration. The critical design review provides a final look at the design and development of the integrated rocket ahead of full-scale fabrication. SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built for deep space missions, including to an asteroid and ultimately Mars. Credits: NASA/MSFC

SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built for a new era of exploration to destinations beyond Earth’s orbit. It will launch astronauts in the agency’s Orion spacecraft on missions to an asteroid placed in lunar orbit, and eventually to Mars.

"Now that we've completed our review, we will brief NASA leadership, along with the independent review team, about the results and readiness to proceed to the next phase. After that step is complete, we'll move on to design certification," said Todd May, SLS program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. "Critical design review represents a major commitment by the agency to human exploration, and through these reviews, we ensure the SLS design is on track to being a safe, sustainable and evolvable launch vehicle that will meet the agency's goals and missions.

"It's an exciting time for NASA and our nation," May continued, "as we prepare to go to places in deep space that we've never been before."

The critical design review is for the first of three configurations planned for SLS, referred to as SLS Block 1. It will stand 322 feet tall, provide 8.4 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, weigh 5.5 million pounds and carry 70 metric tons or 154,000 pounds of payload, equivalent to approximately 77 one-ton pickup trucks’ worth of cargo. Its first mission -- Exploration Mission-1 -- will launch an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to demonstrate the integrated system performance of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft before a crewed flight.

The critical design review team, including members of the Standing Review Board, listen to presentations during the SLS critical design review. This week, the SLS Program completed its critical design review -- a first in almost 40 years for a NASA exploration class vehicle. SLS Program managers will present the results from the critical design review board and Standing Review Board to Marshall’s Center Management Council. After receiving the council’s concurrence, the results then will be briefed to the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. Credits: NASA/MSFC

Block 1 requires many critical parts to get it off the ground and safely into space, including twin solid rocket boosters, powerful engines, flight computers, avionics and the core stage. The core stage, towering more than 200 feet tall with a diameter of 27.6 feet, will carry cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that will feed the vehicle’s four RS-25 engines.

The team turned in its work to a Standing Review Board composed of seasoned experts from NASA and industry who are independent of the program. The board will review and assess the program’s readiness and confirm it remains on target to meet the established schedule and cost goals.

"Much of the benefit of this review is what we do to prepare for it because that's where we really bring things out," said Jim Reuter, head of the Standing Review Board. "And you can tell it in the spirit of the people here. They are excited about what they're doing. They can see that this is the review that's going to make it real."

SLS Program managers will present the results from the critical design review board and Standing Review Board to Marshall’s Center Management Council. After receiving the council’s concurrence, the results then will be briefed to the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

Artist concept of the SLS Block 1 configuration. Credits: NASA/MSFC

Element-level critical design reviews for the SLS core stage, boosters and engines have been completed successfully. The integrated spacecraft and payloads are nearing completion on their critical design review.

The Engineering Directorate at Marshall, where the SLS program is managed, provided the majority of the initial phase CDR documents, including drawings and data.

"A thorough review requires a wide range of engineering skills and experts to assess everything from avionics and software that fly the vehicle to ground transportation and integrated systems testing designs and plans," said Preston Jones, deputy director of Marshall's Engineering Directorate. "We have gone through every design interface and rechecked analysis to ensure we are meeting all SLS mission performance and crew safety requirements."

The Orion Program at Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Ground Systems Development Office at Kennedy Space Center in Florida also will undergo similar reviews this year. After those reviews are done, NASA will set a date for Exploration Mission-1.

"We've nailed our review schedules," said Garry Lyles, chief engineer for the SLS Program Office at the Marshall Center. "The team is performing at a really high level. And I’m unbelievably positive in the structural robustness of this vehicle; it has tremendous performance. We’ve picked the right vehicle for the journey to Mars."

 

[Fenrir]

Pluto is Something Way More Awesome Than a Mere Planet

Stop hoping that Pluto will regain its former designation as a planet. It isn’t going to happen. But the good news is, Pluto is something much cooler than a mere planet. It’s the largest dwarf planet we know, and one half of the first binary planet system. Pluto didn’t get demoted, it got promoted.

We’re all feeling the Pluto-love, with all the new data flowing in from the New Horizons probe. I keep getting asked, “When will we get the ‘Pluto is a planet again!’ article? Or is it silly and nostalgic to hope?” That article isn’t coming—but instead of sorrow over Pluto losing its old title, I’m celebrating all the awesome titles getting piled on to this little world after its reclassification.

I am in love with Pluto and all its moons. I love the weirdly young surface. I love its strange thermal-driven geomorphology. I love that I’m constantly surprised by all its mysteries. But Pluto isn’t a planet, and I’m happy for it. Ever since Pluto’s reclassification as a dwarf planet, it’s been piling on far cooler titles. See for yourself!

The Largest of the Dwarf Planets, and the King of the Kuiper Belt

Instead of being the very smallest planet, Pluto is confirmed as the largest dwarf planet. We had trouble measuring the world’s size from afar due to the haze of its thin atmosphere creating a fuzzy mirage. The New Horizons probe finally pinned down its size: 2,370 kilometers (1,473 miles) in diameter with a potential error of plus/minus 20 kilometers (12 miles). This means that Pluto is the undisputed largest dwarf planet. The next in line is Eris, with a diameter of 2,336 kilometers (1,451 miles) with an error of plus/minus 2 kilometers (7 miles). Even if Pluto is at the very smallest end of its potential size range and Eris at the very top of its range, Pluto still comes out bigger as the largest dwarf planet.

It’s close, but Pluto narrowly edges out Eris for title of the largest dwarf planet. It also gets a more interesting moon system, even if it is less dense. Image credit: NASA

This also means Pluto is slightly larger than our earlier estimates—which means that it is a bit less dense, with a larger proportion of ice layered onto the active world. A deeper layer of ice means, in turn, that the troposphere is lower than our previous atmospheric models. The weirdest bit is that this also means that Pluto is less dense than Eris, which is smaller yet heavier. For all the strange wonders we’re finding at Pluto, whatever is going on at the next-largest dwarf planet Eris is going to be entirely different.

The dwarf planets in our solar system are located in two places: in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. Like the main asteroid belt,the Kuiper Belt is full of dwarf planets, jagged asteroids, and shards of ice. Being largest of the dwarf planets also makes Pluto the de facto King of the Kuiper Belt.

The Namesake of Both the Plutoids and the Plutinos

Classifying objects serves a function by organizing similar objects together to make them easier to analyze. Despite our nostalgic affection for classifying Pluto a planet, its dramatically eccentric, inclined orbit makes it stand out as the outlier in a game of, “Which of these is not like the others?” Instead, the dwarf planet is the namesake for an entirely new class of solar system objects: the plutoids.

Pluto’s orbit is far too eccentric and inclined to match the planets in the rest of the solar system. Image credit: NASA

Plutoids are dwarf planets outside of Neptune’s orbit. These trans-Neptonian objects have highly elliptical orbits that send them on journeys outside the plane defined by the rest of the planets in our solar system. As dwarf planets, these bodies are massive enough to be near-spheres, but not so massive that they clear out their orbit. In a more technical definition, every plutoid is massive enough that their self-gravity overcomes rigid body forces so they’re in hydrostatic equilibrium (aka, spherical), but not massive enough to gravitationally dominate their orbit.

While some moons are big enough to border on dwarf planets, any satellite of a plutoid is a moon, not a plutoid.

Pluto is the namesake of the plutoids, dwarf planets in trans-Neptunian orbits. Image credit: NASA

Pluto and Eris are both plutoids with orbits farther out than Neptune. But Ceres isn’t a plutoid because it’s located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Haumea andMakemake are also plutoids, and Quaoar might be one. Sedna may be a plutoid, but it doesn’t have a moon so we won’t know its mass (and thus if it’s massive enough to be a sphere) unless we send a probe out to investigate. It’s also possible that Neptune’s largest moon Triton is actually a former plutoid that was captured into orbit around the gas giant.

Pluto is also the namesake of plutinos, which are any trans-Neptonian object of any size that are in orbital resonance with Neptune. Most plutinos have an orbital period about 1.5 times that of Neptune, clustering with an average of 247 years to make a complete trip around the sun. Along with Pluto, other plutinos include Orcus, Ixion, Huya, and an entire scattering of objects.

Our First Binary Planetary System

By far the coolest title Pluto has earned isn’t a solo title, but a joint honor shared with Charon.Charon is Pluto’s largest moon: at half the diameter of Pluto and 10% of its mass, Charon is the largest moon in relation to its primary world in our entire solar system. Charon is big enough that if it weren’t orbiting Pluto, it’d be a dwarf planet in its own right.

The mass ratio between parent and moon for Pluto and Charon is 10:1, far closer to parity than the usual hundreds to one of terrestrial planet-moon systems, or the thousands or even tens of thousands to one of the mass of gas giants to their diminutive moons.

Pluto and Charon mutually orbit their barycenter in these photographs taken b the New Horizons spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

That’s where things get interesting: Charon orbits Pluto, and Pluto orbits Charon. The center of mass between the two worlds — the barycenter — is in empty space, not nestled within Pluto’s rocky core. This goes beyond the distinct wobble that our moon induces in Earth’s orbit—instead, this creates a distinct point that both Pluto and Charon orbit around.

When it comes to stars, any time the barycenter of two stars’ orbit is beyond the surface of the primary object, and is instead out in space somewhere, that’s enough to declare them a binary star system. The same is true for asteroids — we’ve found asteroid pairs with barycenters outside both rocks, and declared them binary asteroid systems. Since the barycenter of Pluto and Charon is an empty point in space, surely that means that Pluto-Charon a binary planetary system. This would make Pluto and Charon not only the first binary planet system in our solar system, but the first one we’ve found among the literally hundreds of Kepler exoplanet worlds.

Pluto and Charon are tidally locked in orbit around a mutual barycenter. Image credit:Stephanie Hoover

One final argument in favor of listing Pluto and Charon as a binary dwarf planet system is that they are the undeniable pair dominating all the little moons. Nix and Hydra are the larger of the remaining moons, but are just a tiny fraction of a percent of the size of Charon. Styx and Kerberos are even smaller yet. This family of tiny moons doesn’t even orbit Pluto directly: they all orbit the barycenter between Charon and Pluto.

The dance of the tiny moons is even stranger than just the fact that they orbit Pluto-Charon: they also interact with each other, inducing severe gravitational wobbles when they get too closein a bizarre dance we’re just starting to understand.

The smaller moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra orbit the gravitational center between Pluto and Charon. Image credit: NASA/STScI/Showalter

We’re not the only ones making this argument. The notorious International Astronomy Union (IAU) who originally redefined Pluto away from being a planet are open about their receptiveness to reclassifying Charon from moon to dwarf planet:

Charon may receive consideration because Pluto and Charon are comparable in size and orbit each other, rather than just being a satellite orbiting a planet. Most important for Charon’s case as a dwarf planet is that the centre of gravity about which Charon orbits is not inside of the system primary, Pluto. Instead this centre of gravity, called the barycentre, resides in free space between Pluto and Charon.

The IAU considered a proposal to name Pluto and Charon as a binary system in 2006. It was neither accepted nor rejected, but instead was merely abandoned, as they went on to more pressing issues of nomenclature and classification. That leaves the organization open to giving Pluto and Charon their rightly-earned title as the first binary planetary system, and the first binary dwarf planets.

Pluto is far cooler than a mere planet. Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Pluto doesn’t need to be a planet to be cool. We already have eight planets. Instead of being the smallest of the four rocky, terrestrial worlds, Pluto gets to be something truly special. With all these awesome titles — the most massive dwarf planet, the namesake of an entire classification of solar system objects, and the primary body in the first binary planetary system of any variety — Pluto was never downgraded. Instead, it was upgraded to become something far more interesting.

Top image: Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra orbit around the barycenter of Pluto and Charon. Styx and Kerberos are represented by a potato and a banana as actual images of the small moons are not yet available from the New Horizons flyby. Credit: Dorien Gunnels

 

[Fenrir]

Delta IV Using Upgraded RS-68A Engine Launches Advanced USAF WGS-7 Satcom

Delta IV Using Upgraded RS-68A Engine Launches Advanced USAF WGS-7 Satcom « AmericaSpace

A spectacular sunset launch from Cape Canaveral by a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Medium+ rocket placed the U. S. Air Force/ Boeing WGS-7 Wideband Global SATCOM into super synchronous transfer orbit July 23, after a 24 hr. delay due to dangerous thunderstorms in the area. Photo Credit: Talia Landman / AmericaSpace

A spectacular sunset launch from Cape Canaveral by a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Medium+ rocket placed the U.S. Air Force/ Boeing WGS-7 Wideband Global SATCOM into super synchronous transfer orbit July 23, after a 24 hr. delay due to dangerous thunderstorms in the area.

The 8:07 p.m. EDT launch came at the opening of a 39 minute launch window for the mission to place WGS-7 into a 36,107 x 238 nautical mile orbit, inclined 24 degrees to the equator. The satellite’s own propulsion system will be used to lower apogee and raise perigee to about a 19,232 nautical mile geosynchronous altitude where the satellite will remain fixed over the equator at a specific location, with the rest of the WGS fleet positioned around the planet.

Launch of WGS-7 July 23, 2015. Photo Credit: Alan Walters / AmericaSpace

The USAF’s 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron worked aggressively July 23 to keep ULA apprised that approaching severe thunderstorms mandated a scrub to keep the 205 ft. launch vehicle and its $566 million satellite payload safely under cover in its mobile service tower. Then July 24 the Weather Squadron was again challenged by numerous, but weaker thundershowers around Cape Canaveral, that remained barely within limits to allow an on time rollback of the service tower and then fueling to begin 3 hours before liftoff.

According to Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president for Atlas and Delta Programs, WGS satellites are an important element of a new high-capacity satellite communications system. WGS 7 will provide enhanced communications capabilities to troops in the field for the next decade and beyond.

“WGS 7 will enables more robust and flexible execution of Command and Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR), as well as battle management and combat support information functions” Sponnick said.

The Delta IV Medium+ (5,4) vehicle lifted off from Launch Complex 37 on 1.47 million lb. thrust, half of it provided by four Aerojet solid rocket boosters and the rest from the 702,000 lb. thrust uprated RS-68A oxygen/hydrogen engine making its debut on a Delta IV Medium.

Three RS-68As first flew in June, 2012 on the triple bodied Delta IV Heavy launch of the National Reconnaissance Office NRO-15 spacecraft to geosynchronous orbit.

NRO-15 is a massive electronic intelligence satellite with an eavesdropping antenna spanning up to 360 ft. (110 m). The uprated A version of the RS-68 was developed specifically for this mission and similar giant NRO antennas to follow. The A version will now be used on all Delta IV’s allowing ULA to standardize the assembly and internal structure of all the Common Booster Cores (CBCs) used by the launcher.

The RS-68A has 39,000 lb. more liftoff thrust than the first version of the engine that had powered all previous Delta IV missions.

The four solids separated in pairs just past the 90 sec. mark in the ascent, followed by the 5 meter faring separation past the 3 min. point. The burnout and separation of the CBC first stage occurred at 4 min into the flight.

The Delta IV’s cryogenic second stage, powered by an Aerojet Rocketdyne 24,750 lb. thrust RL10B-2 engine, was then ignited for about a 16 min. a firing that ended just off the west coast of north Africa.

The vehicle then coasted until the second stage ignited for a second time, burning 3 min. 18 sec. until 33 min. into the flight, with cutoff over south central Africa. The vehicle then coasted for 9 min. to just east of Madagascar, where the spacecraft was released 42. mi. after liftoff.

WGS-7 is the first Block II follow-on WGS spacecraft from the original 6 satellites in the WGS Block l and ll constellations.

At liftoff WGS weighed about 13,000 lb, but by the time it uses its fuel to reach its stationary orbit, spacecraft mass was down to 7,600 lbs. according to USAF Capt. Doug Downs, a WGS engineer at Los Angeles Air Force Station.

The WGS 7 spacecraft is placed in its 5 meter fairing at the commercial Astrotech Space Operations facility near Cape Canaveral. Photo Credit: ULA

According to the Air Force, WGS-7 will support communications links in the X-band and Ka-band spectra. While Block I and II satellites can instantaneously filter and downlink up to 4.575 MHz from 39 primary channels, WGS-7 can filter and downlink up to 5.375 MHz from 46 primary channels.

As with the Block II satellites, WGS-7 includes a high-bandwidth radio frequency (RF) bypass capability, which allows for larger bandwidth allocations to users, said USAF Depending on the mix of ground terminals, data rates, and modulation and coding schemes employed, a single WGS satellite can support data transmission rates between 2.1 and 3.6 Gbps.

WGS-7 is also designed for up to ~800 MHz of additional bandwidth through the use of “Redundant Port Activation.”

WGS has 19 independent coverage areas, 18 of which can be positioned throughout its field-of-view. This includes eight steerable/shapeable X-band beams formed by separate transmit/receive phased arrays; 10 Ka-band beams served by independently steerable duplexed antennas; and one transmit/ receive X-band Earth-coverage beam. WGS can tailor coverage areas and connect X-band and Ka-band users anywhere within its field-of-view.

Five globally-located Army Wideband SATCOM Operations Centers provide 24/7 payload monitoring and command and control of the WGS constellation. Each Global Satellite Configuration and Control Element has the capability to control up to three satellites at a time.

Spacecraft platform control and anomaly resolution will be accomplished by the 3rd Space Operations Squadron at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, CO.

According to the space engineering website Spaceflight-101 the RS-68 to RS-68A upgrade included two major design modifications. The first was a switch of the engine turbine nozzles from an axis-symmetric design to three-dimensional nozzles to reduce turbine blade loading and to expand the operational range of the LOX and LH2 turbopumps.

The site says engine specific impulse was improved by increasing the number of main injector combustion elements for better mixing and combustion efficiency. Additional upgrades made to the engine include a new bearing material that is more resistant to stress corrosion cracking.

 

[Fenrir]

Hubble Looks in on a Galactic Nursery

Hubble Looks in on a Galactic Nursery | NASA

This dramatic image shows the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s view of dwarf galaxy known as NGC 1140, which lies 60 million light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus. As can be seen in this image NGC 1140 has an irregular form, much like the Large Magellanic Cloud — a small galaxy that orbits the Milky Way.

This small galaxy is undergoing what is known as a starburst. Despite being almost ten times smaller than the Milky Way it is creating stars at about the same rate, with the equivalent of one star the size of our sun being created per year. This is clearly visible in the image, which shows the galaxy illuminated by bright, blue-white, young stars.

Galaxies like NGC 1140 — small, starbursting and containing large amounts of primordial gas with far fewer elements heavier than hydrogen and helium than are present in our sun — are of particular interest to astronomers. Their composition makes them similar to the intensely star-forming galaxies in the early Universe. And these early Universe galaxies were the building blocks of present-day large galaxies like our galaxy, the Milky Way. But, as they are so far away these early Universe galaxies are harder to study so these closer starbursting galaxies are a good substitute for learning more about galaxy evolution.

The vigorous star formation will have a very destructive effect on this small dwarf galaxy in its future. When the larger stars in the galaxy die, and explode as supernovae, gas is blown into space and may easily escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy. The ejection of gas from the galaxy means it is throwing out its potential for future stars as this gas is one of the building blocks of star formation. NGC 1140’s starburst cannot last for long.

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Text credit: European Space Agency

 

[Fenrir]

New Horizons Discovers Flowing Ices on Pluto

New Horizons Discovers Flowing Ices on Pluto | NASA

New Horizons discovers flowing ices in Pluto’s heart-shaped feature. In the northern region of Pluto’s Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain), swirl-shaped patterns of light and dark suggest that a surface layer of exotic ices has flowed around obstacles and into depressions, much like glaciers on Earth. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
NASA’s New Horizons mission has found evidence of exotic ices flowing across Pluto’s surface, at the left edge of its bright heart-shaped area. New close-up images from the spacecraft’s Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) reveal signs of recent geologic activity, something scientists hoped to find but didn’t expect.

“We’ve only seen surfaces like this on active worlds like Earth and Mars,” said mission co-investigator John Spencer of SwRI. “I'm really smiling.”

The new close-up images show fascinating detail within the Texas-sized plain (informally named Sputnik Planum) that lies within the western half of Pluto’s heart-shaped region, known as Tombaugh Regio. There, a sheet of ice clearly appears to have flowed—and may still be flowing—in a manner similar to glaciers on Earth.

In the northern region of Pluto’s Sputnik Planum, swirl-shaped patterns of light and dark suggest that a surface layer of exotic ices has flowed around obstacles and into depressions, much like glaciers on Earth.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Meanwhile, New Horizons scientists are using enhanced color images (see below) to detect differences in the composition and texture of Pluto’s surface. When close-up images are combined with color data from the Ralph instrument, they paint a new and surprising portrait of Pluto in which a global pattern of zones vary by latitude. The darkest terrains appear at the equator, mid-tones are the norm at mid-latitudes, and a brighter icy expanse dominates the north polar region. The New Horizons science team is interpreting this pattern to be the result of seasonal transport of ices from equator to pole.

This pattern is dramatically interrupted by the bright “beating heart” of Pluto.

Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced color global view of Pluto. (The lower right edge of Pluto in this view currently lacks high-resolution color coverage.) The images, taken when the spacecraft was 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometers) away, show features as small as 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers), twice the resolution of the single-image view taken on July 13. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
The “heart of the heart,” Sputnik Planum, is suggestive of a reservoir of ices. The two bluish-white “lobes” that extend to the southwest and northeast of the “heart” may represent exotic ices being transported away from Sputnik Planum.

Additionally, new compositional data from New Horizons’ Ralph instrument indicate that the center of Sputnik Planum is rich in nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane ices. “At Pluto’s temperatures of minus-390 degrees Fahrenheit, these ices can flow like a glacier,” said Bill McKinnon, of Washington University in St. Louis, deputy leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team. In the southernmost region of the heart, adjacent to the dark equatorial region, it appears that ancient, heavily-cratered terrain (informally named “Cthulhu Regio”) has been invaded by much newer icy deposits.

This annotated image of the southern region of Sputnik Planum illustrates its complexity, including the polygonal shapes of Pluto’s icy plains, its two mountain ranges, and a region where it appears that ancient, heavily-cratered terrain has been invaded by much newer icy deposits. The large crater highlighted in the image is about 30 miles (50 kilometers) wide, approximately the size of the greater Washington, DC area.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

The newly-discovered range of mountains rises one mile (1.6 kilometers) above the surrounding plains, similar to the height of the Appalachian Mountains in the United States. These peaks have been informally named Hillary Montes (Hillary Mountains) for Sir Edmund Hillary, who first summited Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

“For many years, we referred to Pluto as the Everest of planetary exploration,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “It’s fitting that the two climbers who first summited Earth’s highest mountain, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, now have their names on this new Everest.”

View a simulated flyover using New Horizons’ close-approach images of Sputnik Planum and Pluto’s newly-discovered mountain range – Hillary Montes, in the video below.

This simulated flyover of two regions on Pluto, northwestern Sputnik Planum (Sputnik Plain) and Hillary Montes (Hillary Mountains), was created from New Horizons close-approach images. Sputnik Planum has been informally named for Earth’s first artificial satellite, launched in 1957. Hillary Montes have been informally named for Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two humans to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953. The images were acquired by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14 from a distance of 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers). Features as small as one-half mile (1 kilometer) across are visible. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

 

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NASA’s New Horizons Team Finds Haze, Flowing Ice on Pluto

NASA’s New Horizons Team Finds Haze, Flowing Ice on Pluto | NASA

Backlit by the sun, Pluto’s atmosphere rings its silhouette like a luminous halo in this image taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft around midnight EDT on July 15. This global portrait of the atmosphere was captured when the spacecraft was about 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers) from Pluto and shows structures as small as 12 miles across. The image, delivered to Earth on July 23, is displayed with north at the top of the frame. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Flowing ice and a surprising extended haze are among the newest discoveries from NASA’s New Horizons mission, which reveal distant Pluto to be an icy world of wonders.

“We knew that a mission to Pluto would bring some surprises, and now -- 10 days after closest approach -- we can say that our expectation has been more than surpassed,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate. “With flowing ices, exotic surface chemistry, mountain ranges, and vast haze, Pluto is showing a diversity of planetary geology that is truly thrilling."

Just seven hours after closest approach, New Horizons aimed its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) back at Pluto, capturing sunlight streaming through the atmosphere and revealing hazes as high as 80 miles (130 kilometers) above Pluto’s surface. A preliminary analysis of the image shows two distinct layers of haze -- one about 50 miles (80 kilometers) above the surface and the other at an altitude of about 30 miles (50 kilometers).

“My jaw was on the ground when I saw this first image of an alien atmosphere in the Kuiper Belt,” said Alan Stern, principal investigator for New Horizons at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. “It reminds us that exploration brings us more than just incredible discoveries -- it brings incredible beauty.”

Studying Pluto’s atmosphere provides clues as to what’s happening below.

“The hazes detected in this image are a key element in creating the complex hydrocarbon compounds that give Pluto’s surface its reddish hue,” said Michael Summers, New Horizons co-investigator at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Models suggest the hazes form when ultraviolet sunlight breaks up methane gas particles -- a simple hydrocarbon in Pluto’s atmosphere. The breakdown of methane triggers the buildup of more complex hydrocarbon gases, such as ethylene and acetylene, which also were discovered in Pluto’s atmosphere by New Horizons. As these hydrocarbons fall to the lower, colder parts of the atmosphere, they condense into ice particles that create the hazes. Ultraviolent sunlight chemically converts hazes into tholins, the dark hydrocarbons that color Pluto’s surface.

Scientists previously had calculated temperatures would be too warm for hazes to form at altitudes higher than 20 miles (30 kilometers) above Pluto’s surface.

“We’re going to need some new ideas to figure out what’s going on,” said Summers.

The New Horizons mission also found in LORRI images evidence of exotic ices flowing across Pluto’s surface and revealing signs of recent geologic activity, something scientists hoped to find but didn’t expect.

The new images show fascinating details within the Texas-sized plain, informally named Sputnik Planum, which lies within the western half of Pluto’s heart-shaped feature, known as Tombaugh Regio. There, a sheet of ice clearly appears to have flowed -- and may still be flowing -- in a manner similar to glaciers on Earth.

“We’ve only seen surfaces like this on active worlds like Earth and Mars,” said mission co-investigator John Spencer of SwRI. “I'm really smiling.”

Additionally, new compositional data from New Horizons’ Ralph instrument indicate the center of Sputnik Planum is rich in nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane ices.

“At Pluto’s temperatures of minus-390 degrees Fahrenheit, these ices can flow like a glacier,” said Bill McKinnon, deputy leader of the New Horizons Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team at Washington University in St. Louis. “In the southernmost region of the heart, adjacent to the dark equatorial region, it appears that ancient, heavily-cratered terrain has been invaded by much newer icy deposits.”

View a simulated flyover using New Horizons’ close-approach images of Sputnik Planum and Pluto’s newly-discovered mountain range, informally named Hillary Montes, in the video below: