Tag: space

INNOVATIVE SOLAR SAIL PROPULSION SYSTEM COULD SOON DRIVE SPACECRAFT FOR SCIENCE MISSIONS, NASA PROJECTS

NASA says it cleared a “key technology milestone” last month that could help move the agency toward future use of an ambitious and economical technique for propelling spacecraft through deep space: solar sail technology.

Operating in a manner similar to how wind is reflected by a sailboat, solar sail propulsion relies on sunlight, specifically the pressure created by solar radiation, to propel spacecraft.

Conceptually, the technology has existed for decades. A notable early example includes its appearance in Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven’s 1974 novel, “The Mote in God’s Eye,” where a light-propelled spacecraft is employed by an extraterrestrial civilization. More recently, the idea was even put forward that the curiously shaped interstellar object ‘Oumuamua could have potentially represented a form of this technology, although most astronomers found this possibility unlikely.

Given its promise for future space missions, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate recently provided funding for solar sail technology to assist in reaching a technology readiness level able to facilitate proposals for its use on science missions.

As of this week, the space agency is now reporting the successful deployment of one of four solar sail quadrants during a technology demonstration on January 30 at the Colorado facility of its prime contractor, Redwire Corporation, which developed the sail’s deployment mechanisms and 100-foot-long booms. The sail’s membranes were developed by Huntsville, Alabama-based NeXolve.

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center technologist Les Johnson called the demonstration “a major last step” prior to the technology’s use in space missions. Johnson has worked with NASA on the development of solar sail technology for the last quarter century and says that now he hopes there will be bids for its use in forthcoming space science missions.

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MORPHEUS SPACE UNVEILS NEW THRUSTER THAT USES LIQUID METAL AS A PROPELLANT

In-space mobility company Morpheus Space has unveiled their potentially game-changing nanosatellite propulsion system, the GO-2, which they believe will open up access to space to smaller companies and organizations “needing in-space mobility solutions.”

A field emission electric propulsion (FEEP) system that uses liquid metal as a propellant, the GO-2 is touted as a more efficient and reliable electric propulsion system than competing ion thruster designs and one that could dramatically increase access to space.

“This self-contained, plug-and-play, electric propulsion system is one of the most capable, efficient, and innovative solutions for mobility in space,” explained Morpheus Space CEO Daniel Bock in an email to The Debrief.

MORPHEUS SPACE BUILDING ON PREVIOUS LANDMARK ACHIEVEMENTS

After bursting on the scene as an R&D company in 2018, Morpheus Space has transitioned to a commercial enterprise with numerous landmark achievements in satellite propulsion. Among the most noteworthy is the company’s first-ever successful test of a propulsion system on a nanosatellite, the first successful collision avoidance maneuver by a nanosatellite, and their exclusive mission planning software known as Journey.

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Military May Get Its Own SpaceX Starship Rockets For Dangerous Missions

The Pentagon has approached SpaceX regarding the purchase of Starship space launch vehicles for sensitive, high-risk missions, the company has said. At present, the U.S. government relies on non-military contractors to launch payloads for various operations, including satellite launches, and does not have its own space launch vehicles — at least any that are disclosed — which it could deploy in a potential contingency scenario. SpaceX is already working with the Air Force and Space Force on the ‘Rocket Cargo’ program, which seeks to rapidly deliver cargo, and possible personnel, anywhere on Earth that can support a landing.

Aviation Week was the first to report on the DoD’s interest in Starship, following comments made by a SpaceX official at the Space Mobility Conference in Orlando, Florida on January 30.

SpaceX’s complete ‘Starship’ system, as The War Zone has highlighted in the past, comprises a super-heavy rocket booster and spacecraft. Starship — which will be capable of landing vertically — constitutes the largest, and most powerful, rocket ever flown, according to the company, and is reportedly capable of carrying up to 150 metric tons while being fully reusable. Eventually, SpaceX intends for its Starship system to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars, but it is still in relatively early flight test development.

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Strange Reflective ‘Anomalies’ on the Moon Are a Mystery, Scientists Say

Moon dust has fascinated scientists ever since Neil Armstrong scooped up a vial of the stuff back in 1969. The jagged and statically charged lunar dust provides clues about the moon’s early formation, and tells us about our own geologic history and that of the inner solar system.

Now, planetary scientists have discovered strange “anomalies” in sun-reflecting particles covering meter-wide moon rocks. This research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Planets, could help scientists understand more about the processes that formed and changed the moon’s crust and created unexplained magnetic anomalies. But, for now at least, the odd rocks and dust particles remain an unsolved mystery.

Researchers came across these extraterrestrial dust bunnies while trawling a catalog of images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. They used artificial intelligence to go through the more than a million images and narrow rocks of interest down to around 130,000.

“We keep finding unknown objects in this way, such as the anomalous rocks that we are investigating in this new study,” said study co-author Valentin Bickel, from the University of Bern, in a press statement. 

They saw that some rocks around the Reiner K crater—a smaller impact crater near the larger Reiner crater on the western side of the moon—had noticeable dark patches on them. “Normally, lunar dust is very porous and reflects a lot of light back in the direction of illumination,” explained Marcel Hess, an image analyst from the Technische Universität Dortmund. “However, when the dust is compacted, the overall brightness usually increases. This is not the case with the observed dust-covered rocks.”

The team described the rocks’ strange light-reflecting properties using a technique called photometric analysis, which measures how light reflects off objects. 

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Why interstellar objects like ‘Oumuamua and Borisov may hold clues to exoplanets

On October 17 and 18, 2017, an unusual object sped across the field of view of a large telescope perched near the summit of a volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The Pan-STARRS1 telescope was designed to survey the sky for transient events, like asteroid or comet flybys. But this was different: The object was not gravitationally bound to the Sun or to any other celestial body. It had arrived from somewhere else.

The mysterious object was the first visitor from interstellar space observed passing through the Solar System. Astronomers named it 1I/‘Oumuamua, borrowing a Hawaiian word that roughly translates to “messenger from afar arriving first.” Two years later, in August 2019, amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov discovered the only other known interstellar interloper, now called 2I/Borisov, using a self-built telescope at the MARGO observatory in Nauchnij, Crimea.

While typical asteroids and comets in the Solar System orbit the Sun, ‘Oumuamua and Borisov are celestial nomads, spending most of their time wandering interstellar space. The existence of such interlopers in the Solar System had been hypothesized, but scientists expected them to be rare. “I never thought we would see one,” says astrophysicist Susanne Pfalzner of the Jülich Supercomputing Center in Germany. At least not in her lifetime.

With these two discoveries, scientists now suspect that interstellar interlopers are much more common. Right now, within the orbit of Neptune alone, there could be around 10,000 ‘Oumuamua-size interstellar objects, estimates planetary scientist David Jewitt of UCLA, coauthor of an overview of the current understanding of interstellar interlopers in the 2023 Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Researchers are busy trying to answer basic questions about these alien objects, including where they come from and how they end up wandering the galaxy. Interlopers could also provide a new way to probe features of distant planetary systems.

But first, astronomers need to find more of them.

“We’re a little behind at the moment,” Jewitt says. “But we expect to see more.”

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CUTTING-EDGE ANALYSIS OF THE WINCHCOMBE METEORITE CONFIRMS PRESENCE OF LIFE-SUPPORTING ORGANIC COMPOUNDS

German researchers using a cutting-edge, chemical-free detection method have confirmed the presence of organic compounds in the Winchcombe Meteorite, including nitrogen and amino acids. The new findings confirm similar results from a previous analysis of the well-known space rock, although this is the first time such a detection was made without chemical treatments.

“The team of researchers are now the first to demonstrate, to a high degree of precision, the existence of some important nitrogen compounds in this meteorite with amino acids and heterocyclic hydrocarbons – without applying any chemical treatment, and by using a new type of detector design,” a press release announcing the findings explains.

WITNESSES SPOTTED WINCHCOMBE METEORITE FALLING OVER ENGLAND IN 2021

The Winchcombe meteorite gained some level of media attention after it was witnessed by a network of cameras falling from the sky over Winchcombe, England, in February 2021. This allowed researchers to locate it within days, offering those who study space rocks one of the most pristine specimens ever collected.

“Normally, meteorites are tracked down in the cold and hot deserts on Earth, where the dry climate means that they don’t weather very fast, but they do change as a result of humidity,” explained Dr. Christian Vollmer from the Institute of Mineralogy at Münster University. “If a meteorite fall is observed soon after the event and the meteorite is quickly collected, as was the case in Winchcombe, they are important ‘witnesses’ for us regarding the birth of our solar system – which makes them especially interesting for research purposes.”

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SOMETHING IS ORBITING THESE DISTANT EXOPLANETS AFTER ALL, ACCORDING TO RESEARCHERS WHO FIRE BACK OVER EXOMOON CONTROVERSY

The search for exomoons orbiting planets outside our solar system has sparked a significant debate within the astronomical community, involving a pair of contrasting studies that presented divergent viewpoints on the existence of exomoons Kepler-1625b-i and Kepler-1708b-i.

Much like Schrödinger’s oddball cat that is both dead and alive inside a box, we won’t really know until someone goes and looks. But in a new paper recently uploaded to the arXiv preprint server, a team of astronomers led by David Kipping from Columbia University takes issue with the drama surrounding the ongoing exomoon search. 

In 2017, Kipping, alongside Columbia University astronomer Alex Teachey, discovered the first possible exomoon candidate, Kepler-1625b-i, using the Hubble and Kepler telescopes. Years later, in 2022, Kipping, as well as astronomers from NASA, MIT, CalTech, UCLA, and other prominent institutions discovered a second possible exomoon, lovingly called Kepler-1708b-i.

For the astronomers, this was a home run. Not only were astronomers finding exoplanets out there, but finding exoplanets with exomoons. The team focused on known cold gas giants that were far away from their host stars, where the effect of the star’s gravity should not be enough to strip these gas giants of their exomoons. This makes sense. In our solar system, gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn have a lot of moons. It stands to reason that gas giant exoplanets could too.

In December of 2023, a study was published that dashed the exomoon theory against the proverbial lunar rocks. Published in Nature Astronomy, astronomers René Heller and Michael Hippke applied a new algorithm, called Pandora, to the previous exomoon research, and concluded, much like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, that those were no moons.

It’s an astronomical roller coaster, and Kipping’s latest paper comes out swinging at Heller and Hippke.

“The reason they didn’t see them [the exomoons] is not because of the data (as they thought),” Kipping told The Debrief. “But it is actually because their algorithm for finding moons didn’t work properly.”

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ASTRONOMERS BAFFLED BY A MYSTERIOUS OBJECT IN THE “MASS GAP” BETWEEN NEUTRON STARS AND BLACK HOLES

Astronomers using a telescope array in South Africa have spotted a mysterious yet massive object within what astronomers term the “mass gap” between neutron stars and black holes, that also shares a binary orbit with a neutron star.

The fact that the mysterious object lies in this mass gap leads them to believe it is either the largest neutron star ever observed, the least massive black hole, or something else entirely. The discovery could have significant applications for understanding the “uncertain physics” underlying a range of massive cosmic objects.

Objects of this size are typically categorized as “astrophysical compact objects,” and they generally come in one of two varieties: black holes or neutron stars. Still, there is an enormous mass gap between the smallest black hole and the largest neutron star. For example, the largest neutron stars range between 2.2 to 2.5 solar masses, while black holes smaller than 5 solar masses are considered extremely rare. The result is a mass gap where these objects simply should not be.

As a result, discovering a compact astronomical object situated within this gap is a major event. Astronomers Ewan Barr and Arunima Dutta from the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, who made the discovery, say that previous objects in this mass gap have also been spotted, but “the nature of these objects and the mechanisms through which they formed remain unknown.”

The astronomers made the discovery while scanning a globular cluster known as NGC 1851 using the Karoo Array Telescope (MeerKAT) in South Africa. There, they spotted a pulsar in a binary orbit with an unknown compact object with a mass that landed in the lower range of the mass gap.

“The nature of these mass gap objects is unknown, as is the formation of their host binary systems,” the researchers write in the study detailing their findings. They also point out that the companion’s mass of 2.09 to 2.71 (solar masses) is in the mass gap, “indicating either a very massive NS (Neutron Star) or a low-mass BH (Black Hole).”

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No, the James Webb Space Telescope hasn’t found life out there—at least not yet

The rumors have been out there for a while now, percolating through respectable corners of the astronomy and astrobiological community, that the James Webb Space Telescope has found a planet with strong evidence of life.

Some of this sentiment recently bubbled into the public view when the British news magazine The Spectator published an item titled “Have we just discovered aliens?” In accordance with Betteridge’s law of headlines, the answer to the question posed in this headline is no.

But is it a hard no? That’s a more difficult question. The Spectator featured comments by some serious British scientists, including astrophysicist Rebecca Smethurst, who said, “I think we are going to get a paper that has strong evidence for a biosignature on an exoplanet very, very soon.”

Additionally, there was British astronaut Tim Peake fanning the flames with this comment: “Potentially, the James Webb telescope may have already found [alien life]… it’s just that they don’t want to release or confirm those results until they can be entirely sure, but we found a planet that seems to be giving off strong signals of biological life.”

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Newly discovered cosmic megastructure challenges theories of the universe

Astronomers have discovered a ring-shaped cosmic megastructure, the proportions of which challenge existing theories of the universe.

The so-called Big Ring has a diameter of about 1.3bn light years, making it among the largest structures ever observed. At more than 9bn light years from Earth, it is too faint to see directly, but its diameter on the night sky would be equivalent to 15 full moons.

The observations, presented on Thursday at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, are significant because the size of the Big Ring appears to defy a fundamental assumption in cosmology called the cosmological principle. This states that above a certain spatial scale, the universe is homogeneous and looks identical in every direction.

“From current cosmological theories we didn’t think structures on this scale were possible,” said Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire, who led the analysis. “We could expect maybe one exceedingly large structure in all our observable universe.”

Zooming out on the universe should, in theory, reveal a vast, featureless expanse. Yet the Big Ring is one of a growing list of unexpectedly large structures. Others include the Giant Arc, which appears just next to the Big Ring and was also discovered by Lopez in 2021. Cosmologists calculate the current theoretical size limit of structures to be 1.2bn light years, but the Big Ring and the Giant Arc, which spans an estimated 3.3bn light years, breach this limit.

Intriguingly, the two structures are at the same distance from Earth, near the constellations of Boötes the Herdsman, raising the possibility that they are part of a connected cosmological system.

“These oddities keep getting swept under the rug, but the more we find, we’re going to have to come face-to-face with the fact that maybe our standard model needs rethinking,” said Lopez. “As a minimum it’s incomplete. As a maximum we need a completely new theorem of cosmology.”

The Big Ring was discovered by analysing data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a catalogue of distant quasars. These objects are so bright that they can be seen from billions of light years away and act like giant, distant lamps, illuminating intervening galaxies that their light passes en route and which otherwise would go unseen.

Lopez and colleagues used several different statistical algorithms to identify potential large-scale structures and the Big Ring emerged. The structure appears as an almost perfect ring on the sky, but further analysis revealed it has more of a coil shape, like a corkscrew, which is aligned face-on with Earth.

Cosmologists are unsure what mechanism could have given rise to the structure. One possibility is a type of acoustic wave in the early universe, known as baryonic acoustic oscillations, that could give rise to spherical shells in the arrangement of galaxies today. Another explanation is the existence of cosmic strings, hypothetical “defects” in the fabric of the universe that could cause matter to clump along large-scale faultlines.

Dr Jenny Wagner, a cosmologist at the Bahamas Advanced Study Institute & Conferences, described the discovery as significant. “It doesn’t seem to be a mere chance alignment,” she said.

Wagner said it was possible to accommodate the Big Ring within the cosmological principle, depending on how its limits are defined, but that the more of these outlier, large-scale structures that are discovered, the less statistically plausible this view becomes. “This is why the search for further giant structures is so valuable,” she said. “Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if we have to abandon the cosmological principle after future discoveries.”

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