Astronomers make most distant detection yet of fluorine in star-forming galaxy

This artist’s impression shows NGP–190387, a star-forming, dusty galaxy that is so far away its light has taken over 12 billion years to reach us.Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Full Caption and Hi-Res Zoomable Image

A new discovery is shedding light on how fluorine — an element found in our bones and teeth as fluoride — is forged in the Universe. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, a team of astronomers have detected this element in a galaxy that is so far away its light has taken over 12 billion years to reach us. This is the first time fluorine has been spotted in such a distant star-forming galaxy.

“We all know about fluorine because the toothpaste we use every day contains it in the form of fluoride,” says Maximilien Franco from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, who led the new study, published today in Nature Astronomy. Like most elements around us, fluorine is created inside stars but, until now, we did not know exactly how this element was produced. “We did not even know which type of stars produced the majority of fluorine in the Universe!”

Franco and his collaborators spotted fluorine (in the form of hydrogen fluoride) in the large clouds of gas of the distant galaxy NGP–190387, which we see as it was when the Universe was only 1.4 billion years old, about 10% of its current age. Since stars expel the elements they form in their cores as they reach the end of their lives, this detection implies that the stars that created fluorine must have lived and died quickly.

Expansion of universe directly impacts black hole growth

First rendered image of a black hole, illuminated by infalling matter
(Image credit: Jean-Pierre Luminet)

Over the past 6 years, gravitational wave observatories have been detecting black hole mergers, verifying a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity. But there is a problem—many of these black holes are unexpectedly large. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, the University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, have proposed a novel solution to this problem: black holes grow along with the expansion of the universe.

Since the first observation of merging black holes by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015, astronomers have been repeatedly surprised by their large masses. Though they emit no light, black hole mergers are observed through their emission of gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of spacetime that were predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Physicists originally expected that black holes would have masses less than about 40 times that of the Sun, because merging black holes arise from massive stars, which can’t hold themselves together if they get too big.

Comparison of black hole merger observations with predictions from the new model. The horizontal axis shows the total mass of both black holes in any individual merger, relative to the Sun’s mass.

The LIGO and Virgo observatories, however, have found many black holes with masses greater than that of 50 suns, with some as massive as 100 suns. Numerous formation scenarios have been proposed to produce such large black holes, but no single scenario has been able to explain the diversity of black hole mergers observed so far, and there is no agreement on which combination of formation scenarios is physically viable. This new study, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is the first to show that both large and small black hole masses can result from a single pathway, wherein the black holes gain mass from the expansion of the universe itself.

Astronomers suggest radiation, not supernovae, drives superwinds in some galaxies

This image zooms in on the Mrk 71 region in the galaxy NGC 2366. The red, blue and green colors reflect the emission of oxygen and helium ions. The observations were made from the Hubble Space Telescope. Image credit: Sally Oey

The finding could provide insight into how the universe became transparent

When astronomers observe superwinds traveling at extremely high speeds from super star clusters, or “starbursts,” they previously assumed the winds were driven by supernovae, the explosions of stars.

This was the case for a starburst called Mrk 71 in a nearby galaxy. Astronomers had observed incredibly fast superwinds—traveling at about 1% of the speed of light—emanating from the cluster, and classic reasoning suggested the blasts from many supernovae drive the gas to such a high rate of speed.

But University of Michigan astronomers think supernovae aren’t the reason: the cluster is too young to have supernovae. They suspect a different mechanism is behind the superwind.

By studying the wind and starburst properties, the astronomers established that ultraviolet radiation from the compact starburst itself drove the superwind. Their findings, published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, may help explain one chapter of the universe’s beginnings.

Infant planet discovered

Discovery image of planet, which lies about 100 times the Earth-Sun distance from its parent star.

One of the youngest planets ever found around a distant infant star has been discovered by an international team of scientists led by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa faculty, students, and alumni.

Thousands of planets have been discovered around other stars, but what sets this one apart is that it is newly-formed and can be directly observed. The planet, named 2M0437b, joins a handful of objects advancing our understanding of how planets form and change with time, helping shed new light on the origin of the Solar System and Earth. The in-depth research was recently published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“This serendipitous discovery adds to an elite list of planets that we can directly observe with our telescopes,” explained lead author Eric Gaidos, a professor in the UH Mānoa Department of Earth Sciences. “By analyzing the light from this planet we can say something about its composition, and perhaps where and how it formed in a long-vanished disk of gas and dust around its host star.”

Uncovering the secrets of ultra-low frequency gravitational waves

An artist's impression of the colliding bubbles that can produce extremely low frequency gravitational waves during a cosmological phase transition in the early Universe.
Image credit: Riccardo Buscicchio.

New methods of detecting ultra-low frequency gravitational waves can be combined with other, less sensitive measurements to deliver fresh insights into the early development of our universe, according to researchers at the University of Birmingham.

Gravitational waves - ripples in the fabric of Einstein's spacetime - that cross the universe at the speed of light have all sorts of wavelengths, or frequencies. Scientists have not yet managed to detect gravitational waves at extremely low ‘nanohertz’ frequencies, but new approaches currently being explored are expected to confirm the first low frequency signals quite soon.

The main method uses radio telescopes to detect gravitational waves using pulsars – exotic, dead stars, that send out pulses of radio waves with extraordinary regularity. Researchers at the NANOGrav collaboration, for example, use pulsars to time to exquisite precision the rotation periods of a network, or array, of millisecond pulsars – astronomers’ best approximation of a network of perfect clocks - spread throughout our galaxy. These can be used to measure the fractional changes caused by gravitational waves as they spread through the universe.

Carbon from a cosmic source

Partners in space: massive stars often occur in close binary systems in which one star takes mass from its companion. New research has now shown that these systems produce about twice as much carbon as individual, massive stars. © ESO/M. Kornmesser / S.E. de Mink

Computer simulations show that binary stars produce a large amount of this vital element

Many things work better in pairs. The production of chemical elements is no exception. Many elements are formed inside stars during fusion processes. Carbon plays an important role in this because it is the basis of life and thus ultimately of human beings. But how effective is the cosmic source of this important building block? A study led by the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics shows that massive stars produce twice as much carbon when they have a companion star.

The researchers know that massive stars are essential in the synthesis of all heavy elements – from carbon and oxygen to iron. Although most of these stellar heavyweights are born in multiple star systems, previous models have looked almost exclusively at single stars. An international team led by Robert Farmer from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching has now calculated the carbon footprint of massive stars that are partners in a binary system.

Scientists find evidence the early solar system harbored a gap between its inner and outer regions

An MIT study suggests that a mysterious gap existed within the solar system’s protoplanetary disk around 4.567 billion years ago, and likely shaped the composition of the solar system’s planets. This image shows an artist’s interpretation of a protoplanetary disk.
Credits:Credit: National Science Foundation, A. Khan

In the early solar system, a “protoplanetary disk” of dust and gas rotated around the sun and eventually coalesced into the planets we know today.

A new analysis of ancient meteorites by scientists at MIT and elsewhere suggests that a mysterious gap existed within this disk around 4.567 billion years ago, near the location where the asteroid belt resides today.

The team’s results, appearing today in Science Advances, provide direct evidence for this gap.

“Over the last decade, observations have shown that cavities, gaps, and rings are common in disks around other young stars,” says Benjamin Weiss, professor of planetary sciences in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). “These are important but poorly understood signatures of the physical processes by which gas and dust transform into the young sun and planets.”

Likewise the cause of such a gap in our own solar system remains a mystery. One possibility is that Jupiter may have been an influence. As the gas giant took shape, its immense gravitational pull could have pushed gas and dust toward the outskirts, leaving behind a gap in the developing disk.

Did a black hole eating a star generate a neutrino?

Artist’s illustration of tidal disruption event AT2019dsg where a supermassive black hole spaghettifies and gobbles down a star. Some of the material is not consumed by the black hole and is flung back out into space.
Credit: DESY, Science Communication Lab

In October 2019, a high-energy neutrino slammed into Antarctica. The neutrino, which was remarkably hard to detect, piqued astronomers’ interest: what could generate such a powerful particle?

Researchers traced the neutrino back to a supermassive black hole that had just ripped apart and swallowed a star. Known as a tidal disruption event (TDE), AT2019dsg occurred just months earlier — in April 2019 — in the same region of the sky where the neutrino had come from. The monstrously violent event must have been the source of the powerful particle, astronomers said.

But new research casts doubt on that claim.

In a study published this month in the Astrophysical Journal, researchers at Northwestern University and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, present extensive new radio observations and data on AT2019dsg, enabling the team to calculate the energy emitted by the event. The findings show AT2019dsg generated nowhere near the energy needed for the neutrino; in fact, what it spewed out was quite “ordinary,” the team concludes.

Observe the Moon

International Observe the Moon Night is Oct 16, 2021

In celebration of International Observe the Moon Night, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission created this music video featuring the song "A Million Dreams," performed by the musical artist P!NK and the Ndlovu Youth Choir from South Africa.

OBSERVE THE MOON NIGHT WEBSITE

MUSIC LICENSED AND USED WITH PERMISSION:
“A Million Dreams”
Performed by P!NK and the Ndlovu Youth Choir
P!NK appears courtesy of RCA Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment
Courtesy of UNICEF


Written by Benj Pasek [ASCAP], Justin Paul [ASCAP]
Published by Pick in a Pinch Music [ASCAP], Breathelike Music [ASCAP]
Admin by Kobalt Songs Music Publishing
Published by T C F Music Publishing, Inc. (ASCAP)
Production Credits:
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Produced and Edited by David Ladd (AIMM)
Moon visualizations by Ernie Wright (USRA)
Animations by NASA’s Conceptual Image Lab
Cinematography by David Ladd
Lowell Discovery Telescope footage by Stephen Tegler
Stock Footage provided by Pond5

Source/Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

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42 Asteroids in our Solar System

This poster shows 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter (orbits not to scale). The images in the outermost circle of this infographic have been captured with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The asteroid sample features 39 objects larger than 100 kilometers in diameter, including 20 larger than 200 kilometers. The poster highlights a few of the objects, including Ceres (the largest asteroid in the belt), Urania (the smallest one imaged), Kalliope (the densest imaged) and Lutetia, which was visited by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission. 
Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser/Vernazza et al./MISTRAL algorithm (ONERA/CNRS)
Click Here For Hi-Res Zoomable Image

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile, astronomers have imaged 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. Never before had such a large group of asteroids been imaged so sharply. The observations reveal a wide range of peculiar shapes, from spherical to dog-bone, and are helping astronomers trace the origins of the asteroids in our Solar System.

The detailed images of these 42 objects are a leap forward in exploring asteroids, made possible thanks to ground-based telescopes, and contribute to answering the ultimate question of life, the Universe, and everything.

“Only three large main belt asteroids, Ceres, Vesta and Lutetia, have been imaged with a high level of detail so far, as they were visited by the space missions Dawn and Rosetta of NASA and the European Space Agency, respectively,” explains Pierre Vernazza, from the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille in France, who led the asteroid study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics. "Our ESO observations have provided sharp images for many more targets, 42 in total."

The previously small number of detailed observations of asteroids meant that, until now, key characteristics such as their 3D shape or density had remained largely unknown. Between 2017 and 2019, Vernazza and his team set out to fill this gap by conducting a thorough survey of the major bodies in the asteroid belt.

Most of the 42 objects in their sample are larger than 100 km in size; in particular, the team imaged nearly all of the belt asteroids larger than 200 kilometers, 20 out of 23. The two biggest objects the team probed were Ceres and Vesta, which are around 940 and 520 kilometers in diameter, whereas the two smallest asteroids are Urania and Ausonia, each only about 90 kilometers.

By reconstructing the objects’ shapes, the team realized that the observed asteroids are mainly divided into two families. Some are almost perfectly spherical, such as Hygiea and Ceres, while others have a more peculiar, “elongated” shape, their undisputed queen being the “dog-bone” asteroid Kleopatra.

By combining the asteroids’ shapes with information on their masses, the team found that the densities change significantly across the sample. The four least dense asteroids studied, including Lamberta and Sylvia, have densities of about 1.3 grams per cubic centimeter, approximately the density of coal. The highest, Psyche and Kalliope, have densities of 3.9 and 4.4 grams per cubic centimeter, respectively, which is higher than the density of diamond (3.5 grams per cubic centimeter).

This large difference in density suggests the asteroids’ composition varies significantly, giving astronomers important clues about their origin. “Our observations provide strong support for substantial migration of these bodies since their formation. In short, such tremendous variety in their composition can only be understood if the bodies originated across distinct regions in the Solar System,” explains Josef Hanuš of the Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, one of the authors of the study. In particular, the results support the theory that the least dense asteroids formed in the remote regions beyond the orbit of Neptune and migrated to their current location.

These findings were made possible thanks to the sensitivity of the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument mounted on ESO’s VLT. “With the improved capabilities of SPHERE, along with the fact that little was known regarding the shape of the largest main belt asteroids, we were able to make substantial progress in this field,” says co-author Laurent Jorda, also of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille.

Astronomers will be able to image even more asteroids in fine detail with ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction in Chile and set to start operations later this decade. “ELT observations of main-belt asteroids will allow us to study objects with diameters down to 35 to 80 kilometers, depending on their location in the belt, and craters down to approximately 10 to 25 kilometers in size,” says Vernazza. “Having a SPHERE-like instrument at the ELT would even allow us to image a similar sample of objects in the distant Kuiper Belt. This means we’ll be able to characterize the geological history of a much larger sample of small bodies from the ground.”

Source/Credit: ESO (European Southern Observatory)

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Radio signals from distant stars suggest hidden planets

Using the world’s most powerful radio antenna, scientists have discovered stars unexpectedly blasting out radio waves, possibly indicating the existence of hidden planets.

The University of Queensland’s Dr Benjamin Pope and colleagues at the Dutch national observatory ASTRON have been searching for planets using the world’s most powerful radio telescope Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) situated in the Netherlands.

“We’ve discovered signals from 19 distant red dwarf stars, four of which are best explained by the existence of planets orbiting them,” Dr Pope said.

“We’ve long known that the planets of our own solar system emit powerful radio waves as their magnetic fields interact with the solar wind, but radio signals from planets outside our solar system had yet to be picked up.

“This discovery is an important step for radio astronomy and could potentially lead to the discovery of planets throughout the galaxy.”

Previously, astronomers were only able to detect the very nearest stars in steady radio emission, and everything else in the radio sky was interstellar gas, or exotica such as black holes.

LUCY: Path to the Trojan Asteroids

 

Lucy is the first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojans – two swarms of asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit, leading and trailing the giant planet by sixty degrees. These primitive bodies are thought to be the “fossils” of planet formation, trapped by Jupiter’s gravity at the dawn of the solar system. Now, NASA is sending Lucy on a winding, twelve-year-long path to visit one main-belt asteroid and seven Jupiter Trojans. Lucy will provide the first up-close look at these mysterious objects, helping scientists to better understand the evolution of the solar system.

YouTube Link

Source/Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Final Editing and Conversion: Scientific Frontline

Dark Energy, A Mysterious Force

 For the past 31 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has continued its important mission of uncovering the mysteries of the universe. One of those mysteries that Hubble has helped us begin to understand is dark energy and dark matter.

Source/Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.

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Mysterious Metal-Rich Near-Earth Asteroids

 

An artist impression of a close flyby of the metal-rich near-Earth asteroid 1986 DA.
Astronomers using the NASA Infrared Telescope
Facility have confirmed that the asteroid is made of 85% metal.
Addy Graham/University of Arizona

Metal-rich near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs, are rare, but their presence provides the intriguing possibility that iron, nickel and cobalt could someday be mined for use on Earth or in Space.

New research, published in the Planetary Science Journal, investigated two metal-rich asteroids in our own cosmic backyard to learn more about their origins, compositions and relationships with meteorites found on Earth.

These metal-rich NEAs were thought to be created when the cores of developing planets were catastrophically destroyed early in the solar system's history, but little more is known about them. A team of students co-led by University of Arizona planetary science associate professor Vishnu Reddy studied asteroids 1986 DA and 2016 ED85 and discovered that their spectral signatures are quite similar to asteroid 16 Psyche, the largest metal-rich body in the solar system. Psyche, located in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter rather than near Earth, is the target of NASA's Psyche mission.

"Our analysis shows that both NEAs have surfaces with 85% metal such as iron and nickel and 15% silicate material, which is basically rock," said lead author Juan Sanchez, who is based at the Planetary Science Institute. "These asteroids are similar to some stony-iron meteorites such as mesosiderites found on Earth."

Astronomers have been speculating as to what the surface of Psyche is made of for decades. By studying metal-rich NEAs that come close to the Earth, they hope to identify specific meteorites that resemble Psyche’s surface.

"We started a compositional survey of the NEA population in 2005, when I was a graduate student, with the goal of identifying and characterizing rare NEAs such as these metal-rich asteroids," said Reddy, principal investigator of the NASA grant that funded the work. "It is rewarding that we have discovered these 'mini Psyches' so close to the Earth."

"For perspective, a 50-meter (164-foot) metallic object similar to the two asteroids we studied created the Meteor Crater in Arizona," said Adam Battle, who is a co-author of the paper along with fellow Lunar and Planetary Laboratory graduate students Benjamin Sharkey and Theodore Kareta, and David Cantillo, an undergraduate student in the Department of Geosciences.

The paper also explored the mining potential of 1986 DA and found that the amount of iron, nickel and cobalt that could be present on the asteroid would exceed the global reserves of these metals.

Additionally, when an asteroid is catastrophically destroyed, it produces what is called an asteroid family – a bunch of small asteroids that share similar compositions and orbital paths.

The team used the compositions and orbits of asteroids 1986 DA and 2016 ED85 to identify four possible asteroid families in the outer region of the main asteroid belt, which is home to the largest reservoir of small bodies in the inner part of the solar system. This also happens to be the region where most of the largest known metallic asteroids including 16 Psyche reside.

"We believe that these two 'mini Psyches' are probably fragments from a large metallic asteroid in the main belt, but not 16 Psyche itself," Cantillo said. "It's possible that some of the iron and stony-iron meteorites found on Earth could have also come from that region in the solar system too."

The paper's findings are based on observations from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on the island of Hawaii. The work was funded by the NASA Near-Earth Object Observations Program, which also funds the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility.

Source/Credit: University of Arizona

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What's Up Oct. 2021

What's Up for October? What to look for this month at sunrise and sunset, and two brilliant stars vying for the "pole" position.

On October 10th look for the five-day-old crescent Moon to join Venus and bright, orange-colored Antares in the southwest after sunset. Then watch as Venus closes on Antares, for a close conjunction on the 15th and 16th, where the two will be only about a degree and a half apart.

Venus comes within about 1.5° of the bright orange-colored star Antares on Oct. 15 and 16, in the hour or so after sunset. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
During the last week of October, Mercury pops briefly into view for early risers.

Look for it about 10 degrees above the eastern horizon, or about the width of your fist held at arm's length, about 30-45 minutes before sunrise.

In the last week of October, Mercury can be glimpsed briefly in the morning sky before sunrise for those with a fairly clear view of the eastern horizon.

Then on October 30th, in the last couple of hours before daybreak, look for the 24-day-old crescent Moon to join brilliant blue-white star Regulus.

Find the crescent Moon near brilliant star Regulus in the east before dawn on Oct. 30.

All month long, look high overhead early in the evening to find two bright stars that take turns with Polaris being the North Star. Their names are Vega and Deneb. Both of these stars are part of the Summer Triangle, and we introduced the other member of the trio, Altair, in last month's video. To find Vega and Deneb, look high overhead in the first few hours after it gets dark. They'll be two of the brightest stars you can see up there.

In October, look high overhead to find bright stars Vega and Deneb in the few hours after sunset. The pair rotate toward the west, setting in the pre-dawn hours.

Vega is a bluish-white star, and like Altair, it's a fast rotator, spinning every 12 and a half hours, compared to the Sun's 27-day rotation. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope found Vega to have a debris disk around it that could be similar to regions in our own solar system.

Deneb is a blue-white supergiant star that is fusing hydrogen at a phenomenal rate.

With this sort of fury, the party won't last all that much longer. Deneb is likely headed for an explosive end as a supernova within a few million years. Deneb is much farther away than most bright stars in our night sky. This means it's SUPER luminous to be that bright from so far away. Because it's so bright, it's one of the most distant stars you can see with the unaided eye.

These stars rotate around the northern celestial pole, and this time of year, they dip toward the western horizon before setting in the pre-dawn hours. Both Vega and Deneb are part of a special group of stars that take turns being the pole star in the north, as Earth's axis wobbles in a circle over a period of 26,000 years. For now the distinction of "North Star" belongs to Polaris, for at least a few hundred years more.

Over 26,000 years, Polaris trades the title of North Star with a group of others, including Vega and Deneb. Of these special stars, Polaris is the bright star that coincides closest with the Celestial North Pole.

Finally, October 16th is International Observe the Moon Night, when everyone is invited to learn about the science and exploration of the Moon. Visit this link to find out how you can take part.

Source/Credit: NASA / JPL

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Mars’ Surface Shaped by Fast and Furious

 

Craters and river valleys on the surface of Mars.
A breached crater lake and outlet valley are outlined in white.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/ JPL ASU

On Earth, river erosion is usually a slow-going process. But on Mars, massive floods from overflowing crater lakes had an outsized role in shaping the Martian surface, carving deep chasms and moving vast amounts of sediment, according to a new study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.  

The study, published in Nature, found that the floods, which probably lasted mere weeks, eroded more than enough sediment to completely fill Lake Superior and Lake Ontario.  

“If we think about how sediment was being moved across the landscape on ancient Mars, lake breach floods were a really important process globally,” said lead author Tim Goudge, an assistant professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. “And this is a bit of a surprising result because they’ve been thought of as one-off anomalies for so long.”  

Crater lakes were common on Mars billions of years ago when the Red Planet had liquid water on its surface. Some craters could hold a small sea’s worth of water. But when the water became too much to hold, it would breach the edge of the crater, causing catastrophic flooding that carved river valleys in its wake. A 2019 study led by Goudge determined that these events happened rapidly.  

Remote sensing images taken by satellites orbiting Mars have allowed scientists to study the remains of breached Martian crater lakes. However, the crater lakes and their river valleys have mostly been studied on an individual basis, Goudge said. This is the first study to investigate how the 262 breached lakes across the Red Planet shaped the Martian surface as a whole. 

The VIPER

 

NASA's first lunar mobile robot, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, will map the location and concentration of water ice and other frozen volatiles in an area west of Nobile crater, near the lunar South Pole. Understanding the distribution of water and other resources on the Moon is vital for sustaining human exploration there. Scheduled to be delivered in late 2023 as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, the rover will explore an area of about 36 square miles during its 100-day mission.

Source/Credit: NASA/SVS

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Einstein Ring

 

This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, shows a distant galaxy located in the constellation Fornax. It is the largest and one of the most complete Einstein rings ever discovered.

This object’s unusual shape is the result of gravitational lensing. Albert Einstein, in his general theory of relativity, first theorized that a large gravitational field could act as a lens.

Additional Acknowledgements and Credits:
ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Jha, L. Shatz
Gravitational lensing in action video: NASA, ESA & L. Calçada
Albert Einstein video: Pond 5
Music Credits: "’Finder" by Jamal Steven Pilgrim [ASCAP] via Open Note [ASCAP], and Universal Production Music.

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NASA Releases Interactive Graphic Novel “First Woman”

 

NASA released its first digital, interactive graphic novel on Saturday in celebration of National Comic Book Day. “First Woman: NASA’s Promise for Humanity” imagines the story of Callie Rodriguez, the first woman to explore the Moon.

While Callie’s story is fictional, the first woman and the first person of color will walk on the Moon, achieving these historic milestones as part of NASA’s Artemis missions. Through this graphic novel, NASA aims to inspire the next generation of explorers – the Artemis Generation.

Download, read, and interact with “First Woman” or listen to the audio version exclusively on NASA’s SoundCloud.

“The story of Callie captures how passion, dedication, and perseverance allow us to turn our dreams into reality,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “Callie, much like myself, grew her skills, seized learning opportunities, and overcame challenges to become a NASA astronaut. Her diversity is reflected in our own astronaut corps today – it's important we can see ourselves as the explorers among the stars.”

The 40-page comic book highlights NASA technologies for traveling to, landing on, and exploring the Moon. The digital format comes to life, letting readers engage and interact through augmented reality elements using the First Woman website or their mobile devices.

Readers can download the First Woman application for Android or iOS to explore life-sized environments and 3D objects, including NASA’s Orion spacecraft and the lunar surface. Additional content includes videos, games, challenges to earn collector badges, and ways to virtually participate in NASA missions.

“We crafted this graphic novel and digital ecosystem to share NASA’s work in a different and exciting way,” said Derek Wang, director of communications for the Space Technology Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “We set out to make the content both engaging and accessible. From space fans of all ages to hardworking educators looking for new ways to get students excited about STEM, we hope that there is something for everyone to enjoy.”

NASA plans to release a Spanish version of the first issue of the comic book, “From Dream to Reality,” on the website in the future.

Source/Credit: NASA

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Peering into the Moon's shadows

The 17 newly studied craters and depressions are located near the South Pole. While the smallest of these regions (region 11) has a size of only 0.18 square kilometers, the largest (region 9) measures 54 square kilometers. Region 9 is not located in the section of the south polar region shown here, but a bit further to the North, in Schrödinger Basin. The representations of the lunar surface shown here are based on altimeter data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. 
Credit: MPS/University of Oxford/NASA Ames Research Center/FDL/SETI Institute

The Moon’s polar regions are home to craters and other depressions that never receive sunlight. Today, a group of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany present the highest-resolution images to date covering 17 such craters in the journal Nature Communications. Craters of this type could contain frozen water, making them attractive targets for future lunar missions, and the researchers focused further on relatively small and accessible craters surrounded by gentle slopes. In fact, three of the craters have turned out to lie within the just-announced mission area of NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), which is scheduled to touch down on the Moon in 2023. Imaging the interior of permanently shadowed craters is difficult, and efforts so far have relied on long exposure times resulting in smearing and lower resolution. By taking advantage of reflected sunlight from nearby hills and a novel image processing method, the researchers have now produced images at 1-2 meters per pixel, which is at or very close to the best capability of the cameras.

The Moon is a cold, dry desert. Unlike the Earth, it is not surrounded by a protective atmosphere and water which existed during the Moon’s formation has long since evaporated under the influence of solar radiation and escaped into space. Nevertheless, craters and depressions in the polar regions give some reason to hope for limited water resources. Scientists from MPS, the University of Oxford and the NASA Ames Research Center have now taken a closer look at some of these regions.