Dec. 2: This article has been updated with information about additional observations completed by astronomers after it was published.

It was after midnight on Sept. 19 and Paul Chodas, the manager of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was working late, studying an object called 2020 SO that other astronomers had spotted in the night skies just the day before. Something about its orbit was peculiar.

The computer program he was working with showed that 2020 SO followed a nearly circular path just slightly outside our planets orbit. And the plane of the objects orbit was just barely tilted relative to Earths.

I was suspicious immediately, he said.

Out of curiosity, Dr. Chodas ran his simulation in reverse. With time dialing backward, he watched 2020 SO pass very near Earth in September 1966. Close enough that it could have originated from the Earth, he said.

At 1:12 a.m., Dr. Chodas acted on his hunch, and sent an email to fellow astronomers with a subject line of 2020 SO = Surveyor 2 Centaur r/b? In the months that followed, amateur skywatchers and professional astronomers alike have been tracking this specter with their telescopes, following what many now believe is a rocket booster that flew toward the moon more than 50 years ago during a failed NASA mission.

On Tuesday, the object, now temporarily orbiting Earth, made its closest pass. AScientists around the world took advantage of that alignment, and the new observations have revealed conclusive evidence that the dot on their monitors really is a ghost of the Cold War moon race.

Hopes were high when Surveyor 2 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. (then known as Cape Kennedy), on Sept. 20, 1966. NASA designed the roughly one-ton lunar lander to collect images of the moon in preparation for the Apollo missions. It was following close on the heels of its successful predecessor, Surveyor 1, launched just a few months earlier, which had landed on the moon and returned over 11,000 images.

Surveyor 1 performed flawlessly, said Mike Dinn, then the deputy station director of Australias Tidbinbilla Tracking Station, where giant radio antennas communicated with the spacecraft during its journey. We fully expected Surveyor 2 to be a complete success.

But it wasnt the spacecraft crashed into the moon. Its death knell came roughly 16 hours after launch, when one of the three small engines attached to the spacecrafts legs failed to fire. The imbalanced thrust sent Surveyor 2 into a spin, and after 38 unsuccessful attempts to revive the engine it became clear that the mission could not be salvaged. Mr. Dinn and his colleagues at Tidbinbilla were the last people to communicate with the spacecraft.

(Five more Surveyor missions followed, and four were successful before NASA switched its focus to human exploration of the moon.)

Fast-forward 54 years. On Sept. 17, one of the Pan-STARRS telescopes near the summit of Haleakala on Maui, which search for asteroids and other objects that may pose a risk to Earth, recorded something moving across the sky. It traced out a small arc, which caught the attention of astronomers reviewing the data the next morning.

Whenever you see an object that moves in a slightly curved path in the sky, it has to be close, said Richard Wainscoat, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and a Pan-STARRS team member.

Dr. Wainscoat and his colleagues reported their discovery to the Minor Planet Center, a clearinghouse for observations of asteroids, comets and other small bodies. On Sept. 18, the Minor Planet Center issued an announcement about the new object, naming it 2020 SO.

Within a few hours, Dr. Chodas was studying the object, and eventually poring over records of space launches in 1966 that aligned with the orbital path his computer program had mapped out. He quickly found Surveyor 2.

Although the robotic spacecraft was destroyed when it hit the moon, the second stage of the Atlas-Centaur rocket that carried it to space had been jettisoned a few minutes after launch. After flying by the moon, the roughly 25-foot-long cylindrical booster had disappeared into space.

In the email he sent to colleagues, Dr. Chodas explained his conclusion that 2020 SO was very likely the Centaur rocket booster from Surveyor 2.

Since September, scientists around the world have been investigating 2020 SO. Vishnu Reddy, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizonas Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and Adam Battle, a graduate student there, compared observations of 2020 SO with a known Centaur rocket booster orbiting just a few hundred miles above Earth.

The optical colors matched, Dr. Reddy said, but sealing the deal would require infrared observations of 2020 SO. At those wavelengths, its a slam dunk to compare objects compositions.

Theres very little ambiguity in the infrared, Dr. Reddy said.

The orbit of 2020 SO is also ever so slightly anomalous, deviating from what is expected based on gravity alone, said Davide Farnocchia, an asteroid dynamicist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. That may shed light on its identity.

The cause of that irregularity is most likely the pressure exerted by solar radiation. Particles of sunlight photons have energy, and they exert a force when they collide with something, Dr. Farnocchia said. They cause a gentle push away from the sun.

The fact that 2020 SO is being shoved around by sunlight suggests that its something relatively large and low mass, like an empty rocket booster, as opposed to something small and massive, like a rocky asteroid.

Dr. Farnocchia compared the phenomenon with the wind.

If you have an empty soda can, youre going to move it much farther, he said. If you have a solid rock, its much harder to push it away.

In the last few weeks, scientists have been gearing up for a much closer look at 2020 SO. It was captured by Earths gravity in early November, and it made its closest approach to our planet on Tuesday. At that point, 2020 SO was about 27,400 miles away, or roughly one-tenth of the distance to the moon.

Dr. Reddy and his colleagues were waiting. Using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on the island of Hawaii, they captured an infrared spectrum of 2020 SO and compared it with the other Centaur rocket body they had already observed. Everything matched.

It was the ultimate apples to apples comparison, Dr. Reddy said.

And confirming its identity felt exciting, he added: Its something different. We look at rocks all the time.

In a few months, 2020 SO will escape Earths gravity and once again start to orbit the sun. But its not gone forever, Dr. Chodas said.

In 2036, its coming back.

Read the rest here:

NASA Launched a Rocket 54 Years Ago. Has It Finally Come Home? - The New York Times

Read: The Voyager mission made the solar system a real place

More than 40 years ago, Gurnett designed and built one of the instruments on the Voyager mission that can sense such things. Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in 2012, and Voyager 2 followed in 2018. But the spacecraft actually havent left the solar system, despite many headlines over the years claiming that they have. This might seem, at first glance, a little contradictoryhow can something exist in the space between stars and within the solar system at the same time? Arent those two different things?

From our perspective, interstellar space begins when sun particles cant go any farther. The sun releases a steady current of high-energy particles in all directions, all the time, and this solar wind encompasses the planets, their moons, and other celestial bodies in a protective bubble called the heliosphere. Scientists had predicted that the breeze would stop where it met the cold particles of the interstellar medium, which is sprinkled with material left behind by supernovas, the deaths of other stars. But they didnt know exactly where this sphere of the suns influence stopped until 2012, when Voyager 1 detected the beginning of a different cosmic environment. Its not impossible, but its very difficult for solar plasmas to cross that boundary, Bill Kurth, a research scientist at the University of Iowa and Gurnetts co-author on the new findings, told me.

Read: Its easier to leave the solar system than to reach the sun

This is where the Voyagers are, beyond the heliosphere. Kurth once published a commentary in a science journal that said leaving the heliosphere was more or less the same as leaving the solar system. I was soundly criticized, he said, laughing. Because while the solar wind blows quite far120 astronomical units, with a single unit equal to the distance between the Earth and the sunour stars influence extends even deeper. Not through warmth, but through gravity.

The suns gravity can keep objects in its orbit far beyond where the heliosphere ends. As the Voyagers continue on their journey, eventually they will enter the Oort cloud, a region of icy objects past Pluto. Because those objects are gravitationally bound to the sun, they still count as ours. This is where the solar system truly endspast the far edge of the Oort cloud, which is somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 astronomical units away. Even though Voyager 1s out and beyond 150 astronomical units, its got a long, long ways to go before it gets beyond the Oort cloud, Kurth says. It will be another few hundred years before the Voyagers reach this region, and tens of thousands more before they pass through to the other side.

Read: When will the Voyagers stop calling home?

When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the notion of doing science so far from our own planet, out in interstellar space, was a distant thought. NASA was focused on swinging by our neighboring planets and moons to collect valuable data and beautiful pictures. After the grand tour, the spacecraft just kept going. In the years since, mission managers at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory have turned off various components on the two spacecraft, from science instruments to heaters, rationing every watt of power to keep the machines going. Someday, engineers may be forced to turn off one of the elements that help the spacecraft communicate with Earth, a process that takes about 20 hours each way. Its a risky move. If it does work, then we gain two more watts, Suzanne Dodd, the Voyager project manager, told me last year. If it doesnt, then we lose the mission."

Read more from the original source:

The Voyagers Found a Small Surprise in Interstellar Space - The Atlantic

A misunderstood piece of space junk whizzed by Earth Tuesday (Dec. 1), but don't worry, it's just part of an old moon mission's rocket.

The object, nicknamed 2020 SO, was once thought to be an asteroid. But after its (re)discovery by the PAN-STARRS survey telescope, astronomers realized the mystery object's orbit didn't make sense for a rocky or icy world.

"We followed it quite a bit for the very first few days, once there was a possibility for it to be natural," Marco Michelli, an astronomer at the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre, said in a statement.

But after a couple of weeks measuring its position, Michelli and his team realized the object had to be artificial. It was showing a lot of changes in its orbit due to the ongoing pressure of the solar wind, which sends particles streaming across the solar system. "It was too light to have formed naturally."

Astronomers eventually concluded the orbit matched the upper stage of the rocket for NASA's failed Surveyor 2 lander that was supposed to land on the moon in 1966. However, the mission failed after the rocket overshot the moon, and the rocket drifted into orbit around the sun.

Related: The strange story of 2020 SO: How an asteroid turned into rocket junk and the NASA scientist who figured it out

So why did the rocket show up now? The theory is the rocket was temporarily caught in Earth's gravity and will soon fly away from our planet again.

In the ongoing search for near-Earth asteroids, the rocket shows a bit of a blind spot in the zones where telescope surveys typically search, another ESA official added.

"In some ways it has been and is hiding in the boundary between near-Earth object and space debris searches, a search region where there are very few objects distributed over a large volume of space" Tim Flohrer, head of ESA's space debris office, said in the same statement.

"The life of this rocket part so far has similarities to an object called WT1190F, a small temporary satellite of Earth thought to be debris from the 1998 Lunar Prospector mission, that impacted in 2015. It is still to be assessed if this newly rediscovered object could return and re-enter Earths atmosphere one day."

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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A piece of vintage NASA space junk from a 1966 moon mission just whizzed by Earth - Space.com

The Plutonium Pathway followed by Pu-238 used in the nuclear batteries that fuel NASA rovers.

The plutonium-238 that powers NASAs rovers on Mars crisscrosses the United States first on a tour of national laboratories.

Department of Energy officials outlined the path and process of manufacturing the Pu-238 for the Perseverance Rover that launched in July and is already about two-thirds of the way to the Red Planet.

Perseverance's nuclear heart completed its own journey of seven years and nearly 5,000 miles before finally meeting up with the rover at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said Matt Dozier, the host of DOEs Direct Current podcast.

NASA uses a solid-state nuclear battery, called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, instead of, say, solar arrays, so the rover can keep operating during dust storms and the Martian night. With a halflife of 90 years, Pu-238 can keep a craft powered for decades.

Whats the secret to their longevity? Dozier asks. Its not turmeric, or acai berries, or wheat germthe Mars rovers, and dozens of other NASA missions, run on a diet of pure plutonium-238.

The $75 million MMRTG produces about 110 watts of electricity from the heat of decaying PU-238.

Dozier interviewed DOE officials tasked with processing and securing the dangerous isotope during each step of its manufacture:

1 Idaho National Laboratory: The fuel begins its journey as neptunium-237, a by-product of nuclear reactors thats stored at Idaho National Laboratories. The Oak Ridge National Lab essentially calls up the Idaho National Lab and phones in a shipment, let's say, for neptunium, said Robert Wham, program manager for the Pu-238 Supply Program at Oak Ridge. We get neptunium on a just-in-time basis; its shipped to us, and then we do the chemical processing here.

2 Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Oak Ridge mixes the Np-237 with aluminum and bombards it with radiation in a reactor for 50 to 60 days. Some of the Np-237 turns into Pu-238, which Oak Ridge technicians separate, collecting plutonium as a powder. Oak Ridge also builds an iridium cladding that should keep the plutonium contained.

Oak Ridge National Laboratorys Chris Jensen peers through 4.5 feet of alternating lead and glass ... [+] layers into a hot cell where plutonium is separated from neptunium for NASA rover power systems.

One of the things that we worry about is that if there's an accident either during launch or shortly after launch, that when these generators come back to Earth, and they'll crash into Earth at very high velocities, very high speeds, said Easo George, an alloys expert who serves as the governors chair at the Department of Energys Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee. And we want to make sure that ifsuch a very low-probability eventbut if something like that were to happen, that the iridium would contain the plutonium fuel and prevent it contaminating areas around where it strikes.

3 Los Alamos National Laboratory: The Pu-238 then heads 1,400 miles west to Los Alamos National Laboratory, where technicians press it into ceramic pellets, heat it in a kiln, encapsulate it in the iridium cladding, and test it to NASAs standards. At that point:

It's silver in color, it's kind of round, about an inch tall, and it's fairly heavy because it is a dense material, said Jackie Lopez-Barlow, LANLs radioisotope power systems program manager. So if you were to hold it in the palm of your hand, it would take up about half the size of your palm of your hand. You wouldn't want to hold it in your hand, because it's extremely hot, about 400 Celsius.

4 Idaho National Laboratory: The fuel then hits the road again, returning to Idaho where the fuel clads will be inserted into nuclear-power systems built by Teledyne Energy Systems Incorporated and Aerojet Rocketdyne. INL performs more testing on the whole unit and then has to get the power system to Florida in time for NASAs launch window, when Earth and Mars are closest in their orbits, an event that occurs once every 26 months.

5 Kennedy Space Center: The 2,500-mile trip from Idaho to Florida happens via semi-trailer, supervised by the Department of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration.

So those guys come up to our laboratory with their tractor, said Kelly Lively, INLs department manager for radioisotope power systems, and we would already have our power system inserted into a steel cask inside our transportation trailer which is a 52 foot long semi-trailer.

You know it's a nuclear payload being transported across several state lines, so it's kind of a sobering moment.

6 Cape Canaveral Air Force Station: After the power unit is married to the rover at Kennedy, it takes a relatively short trip to the cape to enter the nose cone ofin Perseverences casean Atlas V rocket.

The Pu-238 is not weapons-grade, but that doesnt mean the Martians couldnt turn it to nefarious ends. It is still a proliferation risk, according to the World Nuclear Association:

In practical terms, there are two different kinds of plutonium to be considered: reactor-grade and weapons-grade.... The two kinds differ in their isotopic composition but must both be regarded as a potential proliferation risk, and managed accordingly.

Marvin the Martian holding an Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator. (Photo by Albert L. ... [+] Ortega/Getty Images)

More:

NASAs Plutonium Tours U.S. Before Heading To Mars - Forbes

What if you could hitch a ride on NASA's Juno spacecraft at Jupiter? We may be stuck on Earth, but the space agency has given us the next best option: a new video flyover of Jupiter based on photos from Juno's recent flyby in June.

The stunning video, which is made up of 41 images captured on June 2, gives us a glimpse of what we'd see if we were able to fly around Jupiter ourselves, combining pictures taken from different angles as the spacecraft sped by the solar system's largest planet.

Throughout the video, we see zoomed-in views of Jupiter's upper atmosphere at Juno's closest approach, when the spacecraft was about 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) above the planet's cloud tops, as well as zoomed-out views. At the spacecraft's closest point to Jupiter, the gas giant's powerful gravity sped the spacecraft up to an impressive 130,000 mph (209,000 kph) relative to the planet, according to a NASA statement.

In photos: Juno's amazing views of Jupiter

Citizen scientist Kevin Gill created the video with data from Juno's JunoCam, which digitally projects images onto a sphere with a virtual "camera," giving us these beautiful views of Jupiter. These pictures were taken between 5:47 a.m. and 7:25 a.m. EDT (0947 and 1125 GMT) on June 2 as the spacecraft made its 27th close flyby of the planet.

Juno launched in 2011 and, after a five-year trek through space, reached Jupiter in July 2016. The spacecraft circles the solar system's largest planet taking data so we can understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. Since its first flyby, Juno has provided incredible information about the planet, including an up-close look at Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a giant storm swirling through the planet's atmosphere.

Though the spacecraft was meant to take a dive into Jupiter's atmosphere in 2018, NASA has extended its mission through 2021.

Follow Kasandra Brabaw on Twitter @KassieBrabaw. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Link:

Fly over Jupiter in this stunning video from NASA's Juno spacecraft - Space.com

Space technology and prepared foods developed for astronauts will also help keep Americans safe this Thanksgiving, as many prepare for a socially distanced family meal.

While the holidays may be a bit different this year, the video cameras used for virtual family dinners stem from tools that were originally developed in part by NASA. In fact, the space agency first modernized conference calling for the purpose of spaceflight, according to a statement from NASA.

More importantly, the packaged food system formally known as the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system developed for astronauts on the Gemini and Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s is used commercially today to ensure food safety and reduce foodborne illnesses.

Video: Food on Thanksgiving table is safer because ... space travelThanksgiving in space 2020: Here's what astronauts will eat in orbit (video)

"It's one of these things where we maybe don't appreciate the benefits, we just take them for granted now, because HACCP is so ingrained in how we produce food," Alice Johnson, vice president of food safety and quality at Butterball Turkey LLC., said in the statement.

The HACCP system was originally developed in the early 1960s by Paul Lachance NASA's first flight food and nutrition coordinator and Howard Bauman, a microbiologist at Pillsbury. Their efforts were focused on eliminating potential hazards during the food production process to ensure safe food was manufactured for astronauts.

However, in addition to helping astronauts, the HACCP has helped improve food safety around the world. Following an outbreak of the food-borne illness botulism in 1971, canned food companies started following HACCP regulations. Soon thereafter, the same protocols were implemented for meat, poultry, seafood and juice industries. And, with the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Food Safety Modernization Act in 2011, all U.S. food producers and foriegn imports that register with the FDA must meet regulations originally established by the HACCP, according to the statement.

NASA recipe: How to make space cornbread dressingRelated: Space food photos: what astronauts eat in orbit

Implementing the HACCP system may vary across different food industries. For example, checkpoints at a Butterball plan may look for "farm residue," or pesticides, and ensure that refrigeration is below a certain temperature, whereas checkpoints at an Ocean Spray plant focus on filtration and metal detection. In addition, an important aspect of the HACCP is keeping meticulous records, which makes FDA inspections more effective.

"It takes a team of quality assurance folks, engineers, and scientists to identify critical control points for safety and quality," Katy Latimer, vice president of research and development for Ocean Spray, said in the statement.

Since HACCP was originally developed for astronauts, the system has helped to prevent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses linked to unsafe practices, as well as ensure safe meals on Thanksgiving, and all year round, NASA officials said.

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Read more here:

How NASA tech helped make your Thanksgiving food safe (and your family Zoom sessions, too) - Space.com

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as Nasa, has said they will be there when one of last nights Toy Show stars is ready.

Adam King, from Cork, won the hearts of the nation following his appearance on Fridays Late Late Toy Show.

Adam told host Ryan Tubridy that his dream is to become CAPCOM - capsule communicator or captain of ground control - at Nasa.

Ground control has since responded to Adam, with Nasa tweeting: Adams kind heart and adventurous spirit inspires us.

Theres space for everybody at NASA, and we cant wait for him to one day join our team of dreamers. Well be here when hes ready.

The Irish Embassy in the US had said they would reach out to Nasa and see if they can't help bring your dreams a little closer.

Adams kind heart and adventurous spirit inspires us.

Theres space for everybody at NASA, and we cant wait for him to one day join our team of dreamers. Well be here when hes ready. pic.twitter.com/WJCzue9O13

And that wasnt the only space shout out for the 6-year-old. Famed astronaut Chris Hadfield - who has completed three flights into space - also reached out on social media.

Adam - Ive been lucky enough to CAPCOM many spaceflights. We should talk space together. Take care, be good.

Adam - Ive been lucky enough to CAPCOM many spaceflights. We should talk space together. Take care, be good - Chris@RTELateLateShow https://t.co/XacYA9ncKT

And the space community werent finished yet!

The European Space Agency reached out to the Late Late team for Adams details so they could send some spacey goodies.

Plenty of other figures also came forward, including Nasa Astronaut Shane Kimbrough who said he was inspired by Adam.

Aeronautical engineer Dr Nora Patten said she would love to meet Adam, calling him a star while former astronaut Daniel Tank added: We need more Irish talent in the space program - Im behind you 100%!

Speaking to the Irish Examiner on Saturday, Adams father David said they had been humbled by the reaction to his appearance.

It came across that Adam was just being himself on the show. The outpouring of emotion, not just from Ireland, but from all over the world has been incredibly humbling, he said.

"I don't think it's hit home with us yet, the meaning of it."

David said they have Nora Patten and Chris Hadfield's books at home, and they are well worn and well-read.

"Our children would genuinely aspire to be like them. We are fortunate that we can see the International Space Station fly over our house, we can get the telescope out and see Mars and Venus in the sky because we live in the countryside.

He said that Adam and his siblings would jump at the chance to work with NASA and the European Space Agency.

Adam was surprised by Temple Street porter John Doyle on last night's, who Adam said was his friend who gave him presents when he attended the hospital.

Adams joy at seeing John was, for many, a highlight of the 2020 Toy Show.

John said Adam has an infectious smile and he brings the best out of people while Adam said that John is one of his heroes, with John replying in kind.

I am actually humbled that Adam is my friend, John said.

Who needs a (virtual) hug from Adam King right about now?#LateLateToyShow pic.twitter.com/4pMqwpEty6

More:

Nasa tells Toy Shows Adam 'we cant wait for him to one day join our team of dreamers' - Irish Examiner

In this annotated illustration, the location of the Perseverance rovers entry, descent, and landing microphone is shown. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The first to be rigged with microphones, the agencys latest Mars rover picked up the subtle sounds of its own inner workings during interplanetary flight.

A microphone aboard NASAs Mars 2020 Perseverance rover has recorded the sounds of the spacecraft as it hurtles through interplanetary space. While another mic aboard the rover is intended specifically to listen for the laser zaps of the SuperCam instrument, this one is devoted to capturing some or all of the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) sequence from the firing of the mortar that releases the parachute to the Mars landing engines kicking in to the rover wheels crunching down onto the surface.

Data for the 60-second audio file was collected on October 19 during an in-flight checkout of the camera and microphone system that will pick up some of the landing drama at Mars Jezero Crater early next year.

You can listen to the sound file here:

The subdued whirring you hear is from the rovers heat rejection fluid pump. Located at the rear-starboard side of the Perseverance, the pump is part of the rovers thermal system, which will help maintain operational temperatures for vehicle components on even the coldest of winter nights. It does its job by circulating fluid through a heat exchanger mounted adjacent to the always-toasty Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator and then into a network of tubes spread throughout the rovers chassis.

With apologies to the person who came up with the slogan for Alien, I guess you could say that in space no one may be able to hear you scream, but they can hear your heat rejection fluid pump, said Dave Gruel, lead engineer for Mars 2020s EDL Camera and Microphone subsystem. The microphone we included to hear what its like to land on Mars was actually able to pick up Perseverances thermal system operating in the vacuum of space through mechanical vibration.

In this annotated illustration, the location of the Perseverance rovers entry, descent, and landing microphone is shown. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

As any fan of cinematic sci-fi knows, the vacuum of space is a less-than-optimal environment for auditory transmissions. But that doesnt mean sound cant find another way. Sound waves can travel through solid objects. When these mechanical vibrations are registered by an electrical component, they sometimes are turned into an electrical signal. (Anyone listening to music through in-ear headphones may have encountered this phenomenon as a rustling or thumping noise when the headphone cord brushes up against a surface.)

The sound file was processed by DPA Microphones of Alleroed, Denmark, which manufactured the EDL microphone hardware flying on Mars 2020.

As great as it is to pick up a little audio on spacecraft operations in-flight, the sound file has a more important meaning, Gruel added. It means that our system is working and ready to try to record some of the sound and fury of a Mars landing.

An electrical cable can be seen snaking its way along insulation material in this in-flight image of the interior of the Mars 2020 spacecraft on its way to the Red Planet. The picture was assembled using three images taken by the Perseverance rovers rear left Hazcam during a systems check on October 19, 2020. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The EDL microphone was not tailor-made for this mission or space exploration and the team does not know quite what to expect from their sound files of landing day.

Getting sound from landing is a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have, said Gruel. If it doesnt happen, it will not impede the rovers mission of discovery at Jezero Crater one bit. If even a portion of the landing sequence is captured on audio, that would be awesome.

Humanitys most sophisticated rover is traveling to the Red Planet with the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. Together, they will enter the Martian atmosphere on Feb. 18, 2021, at 12:47 p.m. PST (3:47 p.m. EST) and will touchdown at Jezero Crater 410 seconds later.

A key objective of Perseverances mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planets geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASAs Artemis lunar exploration plans.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

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Hear Subtle Sounds NASA's Perseverance Picked Up As It Travels Through Deep Space on the Way to Mars - SciTechDaily

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Giving thanks to NASA this Thanksgiving - AZFamily

A giant metallic asteroid, about three times farther away from the sun than the Earth, has caught the attention of scientists and astronomers across the planet since 1852 - but now NASA has plans to travel to the rare, expensive find.

Scientists wonder whether this asteroid, named 16 Psyche, could be an exposed core of an early planet, once possibly as large as Mars, that lost its rocky outer layers after countless collisions billions of years ago. Scientists have numerous other theories for how 16 Psyche could have formed.

Astronomers have studied 16 Psyche in visible and infrared wavelengths, as well as radar, and have found that the asteroid's shape somewhat resembles a potato.

The extremely valuable piece of space debris, which is one of the most massive objects floating in our solar system's asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is said to be worth an astounding $10,000,000,000,000,000,000. That is $10 quintillion, a financial amount greater than the world's total gross domestic product (GDP).

The reason this intriguing asteroid is worth so much money is that it is unlike most other asteroids that have rocky or icy bodies, NASA said. Scientists believe the asteroid is composed mostly of metallic iron and nickel, similar to Earth's core.

"We've seen meteorites that are mostly metal, but Psyche could be unique in that it might be an asteroid that is totally made of iron and nickel," Tracy Becker, a researcher with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, said in a statement. Becker was an author of a study on the asteroid that published earlier this fall.

This means this asteroid may represent a scale model of the Earth's core as it existed during planetary accretion, before gaining enough mass to become a planet. Psyche is the only known metallic corelike body currently floating close enough for us to access, according to Extreme Tech.

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"What makes Psyche and the other asteroids so interesting is that they're considered to be the building blocks of the solar system," Becker said.

The asteroid travels around the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter at a distance ranging from 235 million to 309 million miles from the sun. Psyche takes about five Earth years to complete one orbit of the sun, but only a bit over four hours to rotate once on its axis (a Psyche "day"), NASA explained.

Observations indicate that its dimensions are 173 miles by 144 miles, by 117 miles. Its average diameter is about 140 miles - about 1/16 the diameter of Earth's moon or about the distance between Los Angeles and San Diego.

NASA is planning to launch a spacecraft to study the asteroid in 2022. However, it will be several years beyond that until researchers learn more specific details about the asteroid because the spacecraft won't arrive until early 2026.

"The Psyche mission will be the first mission to investigate a world of metal rather than of rock and ice," the NASA website says. "Psyche offers a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets."

With a planned orbit that will last for 21 months, the spacecraft will map and study 16 Psyche's properties to understand whether Psyche is a core or unmelted material, as well as charting the topography of the asteroid and determine how it was formed in comparison to the Earth. They hope studying the asteroid will help them better understand Earth's core.

"To understand what really makes up a planet and to potentially see the inside of a planet is fascinating. Once we get to Psyche, we're really going to understand if that's the case, even if it doesn't turn out as we expect. Any time there's a surprise, it's always exciting," Becker said.

Studying 16 Psyche could provide the opportunity to learn more about an object that is akin to the inside of planets like Earth and unveil secrets of the solar system, researchers say.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.

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NASA planning first-of-its-kind mission to rare asteroid - Yahoo News

The "Rest and Be Thankful" target is located up and to the left of the image center. This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 2951. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image

We're planning four Martian days covering sols 2954 through 2957 ahead of the U.S. holiday break. Holidays, for me, are times to celebrate, reflect, or mourn. For some, it can be all three at once. In honor of Native American Heritage Month, I'd like to share a quote from Paula Peters of the Mashpee Wampanoag: "We are still here to acknowledge them, learn from them, talk about them, and give gratitude to the creator for them." While the "them" was in reference to the material objects from their culture that endures to this day, I think "them" can also mean our loved ones past and present.

Today, the science team reflected on the rocks on one of the many "benches" we're traversing over on our way to significant sulfate outcrops identified from orbit. Over the planning sols, we'll take five ChemCam observations named after the Scottish locations "Achnagarron" ("Field of the Geldings"), "Achnaha" ("Field by the Stable"), "Achnacarry" ("Field by the Wier"), "Achininver" ("Field by the River Mouth"), and "Achnasau" ("Field with the Barns") along with Mastcam documentation images of each. Additional observations include a Mastcam mosaic "along strike" (i.e. in the direction of the rock bedding plane) to the bench and a distant ChemCam RMI mosaic of the sulfates ahead. Before we drive off on sol 2956, the appropriate "Rest and Be Thankful" target, named after an actual location where hikers stopped in Scotland, will be cleaned by the Dust Removal Tool (DRT) and measured with APXS. Afterwards, we'll continue to drive ~75 meters towards the sulfates and take a Mastcam mosaic of the arm workspace in front of the rover, a Navcam cloud search movie, and a MARDI image looking at the rocks underneath the rover.

I recommend being like that target and "rest and be thankful" for the coming week.

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Sols 2954-2957: Rest and Be Thankful NASA's Mars Exploration Program - NASA Mars Exploration

Scientists used data gathered by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during 13 years of exploring the Saturn system to make detailed images of the icy moon - and to reveal geologic activity.

New composite images made from NASA's Cassini spacecraft are themost detailed global infrared views ever produced of Saturn's moon Enceladus. Anddata used to build those images provides strong evidence that the northernhemisphere of the moon has been resurfaced with ice from its interior.

Cassini'sVisible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) collected light reflected off Saturn, its rings and itsten major icy moons - light that is visible to humans as well as infrared light.VIMS then separated the light into its various wavelengths, information that tellsscientists more about the makeup of the material reflecting it.

The VIMS data,combined with detailed images captured by Cassini's Imaging Science Subsystem,were used to make the new global spectral map of Enceladus.

Cassiniscientists discovered in 2005 that Enceladus - which looks like a highly reflective,bright white snowball to the naked eye - shoots out enormous plumes of icegrains and vapor from an ocean that lies under the icy crust. The new spectralmap shows that infrared signals clearly correlate with that geologic activity,which is easily seen at the south pole. That's where the so-called "tiger stripe"gashes blast ice and vapor from the interior ocean.

Infrared images of Enceladus were used to make this interactive 3D globe. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/LPG/CNRS/University of Nantes/Space Science Institute

But some of thesame infrared features also appear in the northern hemisphere. That tellsscientists not only that the northern area is covered with fresh ice but thatthe same kind of geologic activity - a resurfacing of the landscape - has occurredin both hemispheres. The resurfacing in the north may be due either to icy jetsor to a more gradual movement of ice through fractures in the crust, from the subsurfaceocean to the surface.

"Theinfrared shows us that the surface of the south pole is young, which is not asurprise because we knew about the jets that blast icy material there,"said Gabriel Tobie, VIMS scientist with the University of Nantes in France and co-authorof the new research published in Icarus.

"Now,thanks to these infrared eyes, you can go back in time and say that one largeregion in the northern hemisphere appears also young and was probably activenot that long ago, in geologic timelines."

Managedby NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Cassini was anorbiter that observed Saturn for more than 13 years before exhausting its fuelsupply. The mission plunged it into the planet's atmosphere in September 2017,in part to protect Enceladus, which has the potential of holding conditionssuitable for life, with its ocean likely heated and churned by hydrothermalvents like those on Earth's ocean floors.

TheCassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the EuropeanSpace Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of Caltech inPasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate inWashington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

More information about Cassini can be found here:

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/cassini

News Media Contact

Grey Hautaluoma / Alana JohnsonNASA Headquarters, Washington202-358-0668 / 202-358-1501grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov / Alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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Infrared Eyes on Enceladus: Hints of Fresh Ice in Northern Hemisphere - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

TAMPA, Fla. NASA's annual hackathon is now virtual because of the pandemic. It's happening the first weekend of October, wherever you are!

The theme of the 2020 International Space Apps Challenge is "Take Action." Organizers say it's a reminder of the difference we can all make in the world, even from our own homes. Teams will be given data from NASA and other space agencies around the world to solve challenges like how to sustain our planet or how to create a global internet network.

Even though this is an international competition, Space Apps is broken into local groups. The closest to us is Tampa. You can sign up individually or as a team of two to six people. You can register now.

The competition starts at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3. The hackathon ends at midnight Sunday, Oct. 4. Awards will be given to the most promising projects.

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NASA needs your help to solve some of the world's biggest problems - WTSP.com

A satellite spotted several tropical storms and dozens of wildfires ravaging the United States together in one image.

NASA's Aqua satellite captured six tropical storms and more than 100 different U.S. wildfires in a single photo snapped on Tuesday (Sept. 15). The wildfires, which have particularly scoured California, have now burned about 4 million acres (over 16,000 square kilometers) across 10 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. When the photo was taken, there were six named storms total Sally off the Gulf Coast, Paulette, Rene, Teddy and Vicky in the Atlantic Ocean and Karina in the Pacific.

While "satellite images are generated every single day, in fact multiple times from multiple satellites," NASA said in a statement, "it is still very unusual to capture an image of so many hazards in one image."

Related: No, we can't control hurricanes from space

In the image, you can see Hurricane Sally making landfall on the Gulf Coast overnight on Sept. 15, where it brought extreme flooding. The red spots in the image show the areas across the country where significantly higher temperatures indicate fires.

On the left of the image, you can see Hurricane Karina in the Pacific. In the Atlantic, on the right of the image, are several other tropical storms. Then-Hurricane Paulette, for one, can be seen nearing Bermuda with winds as high as 74 mph (119 kph), though it is not expected to hit land, according to NASA. In the lower right-hand corner of the image, you can see Hurricane Teddy, swirling east of the Leeward Islands. Teddy also has winds reaching 74 mph (119 kph).

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Tropical storms and billowing wildfire smoke rage in the same NASA satellite photo - Space.com

NASA is going to be testing a new precision landing system designed for use on the tough terrain of the moon and Mars for the first time during an upcoming mission of Blue Origins New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket. The Safe and Precise Landing Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) system is made up of a number of lasers, an optical camera and a computer to take all the data collected by the sensors and process it using advanced algorithms, and it works by spotting potential hazards, and adjusting landing parameters on the fly to ensure a safe touchdown.

SPLICE will get a real-world test of three of its four primary subsystems during a New Shepard mission to be flown relatively soon. The Jeff Bezos -founded company typically returns its first-stage booster to Earth after making its trip to the very edge of space, but on this test of SPLICE, NASAs automated landing technology will be operating on board the vehicle the same way they would when approaching the surface of the moon or Mars. The elements tested will include terrain relative navigation, Doppler radar and SPLICEs descent and landing computer, while a fourth major system lidar-based hazard detection will be tested on future planned flights.

Currently, NASA already uses automated landing for its robotic exploration craft on the surface of other planets, including the Perseverance rover headed to Mars. But a lot of work goes into selecting a landing zone with a large area of unobstructed ground thats free of any potential hazards in order to ensure a safe touchdown. Existing systems can make some adjustments, but theyre relatively limited in that regard.

SPLICE is designed to enable more exact landings, and ones that can deal with more nearby hazards, enabling exploration in areas that were previously considered off-limits for landers. That could greatly expand our ability to gain more knowledge and better understanding of the moon and Mars, which is particularly important as we continue to work toward more human exploration and even potential colonization.

The lidar system mentioned above is a key new ingredient in these SPLICE tests, as we dont actually know in great detail how well lidar will perform with the terrain on Mars and the moon, where reflectivity could be quite different from what it is here on Earth within our own atmosphere. Still, NASA is confident it should provide much better precision than radar-based methods for surface mapping and feature detection.

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NASA to test precision automated landing system designed for the moon and Mars on upcoming Blue Origin mission - TechCrunch

Southern University has signed onto a mentoring program with aerospace giant Boeing that will get students involved in work with NASA on the program that will send astronauts into space.

For Southern, it's a chance to get students job experience and exposure.

"We're looking at focusing more on the aerospace industry and getting our students prepared to work there," said Samuel Washington, director of the office of governmental contracting services.

While Southern does not have a specific aerospace engineering degree track, the university is looking to develop a focus on it within the engineering college, Washington said.

The18-month "mentor-protg" agreement will involve work on NASAs Space Launch System program. The SLS is the worlds most powerful rocket, and is capable of launching missions "to the moon, Mars and beyond," according to a press release.

There are already a number of Southern engineering alumni working with Boeing and NASA at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

Cedric Cole is one of four alumni currently working on the SLS. He believes the mentorship program is a great opportunity for students to work on anything of any magnitude at NASA.

"Its the exposure that theyll get that will set them up for the rest of their career," he said. "The amount of intense engineering that goes on here, itll set you up to work in almost any industry."

Cole and his colleagues are electrical and avionics engineers who work on wiring harnesses, programming and troubleshooting the rockets.

"The fact that youre using 3-D and 2-D modeling software and then there's the physical aspect of it where you get to physically touch the wiring harnesses and the connectors and being able to have the hands-on experience will set anybody up in engineering.

Dr. Washington said the mentorship program is an opportunity to further the progress of Black people in aerospace engineering.

In 2017, NASA increased its hiring of Black engineers by 12 percent, according to that year's Federal Viewpoint Survey. The aerospace engineering industry, especially at NASA has had a steady increase in diversity over the last 20 years.

Boeing has enjoyed a productive relationship with Southern University that will only be enhanced by this NASA Mentor-Protg agreement, said John Shannon, Boeing SLS vice president and program manager, in a press release. The Mentor-Protg program allows Boeing to promote the growth of small suppliers and strengthen the NASA industrial base.

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Southern signs mentorship agreement with Boeing, NASA for work on moon, Mars rockets - The Advocate

New images from data provided by the Cassini spacecraft provide evidence that Saturn's moon Enceladus has been resurfaced with ice from the interior.

Composite images were reconstructed using the NASA spacecraft's monitoring data - gathered over 13 years of exploring Saturn and its moons - to map out the geologic activity on the icy satellite Enceladus.

(Photo: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute via Wikimedia Commons )This spectacular view is a mosaic of four high-resolution images taken by the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Feb. 16, 2005, during its close flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus.

The infrared mapping of the icy Saturn moon was taken through the Cassini Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). This instrument collected the light that bounces off Saturn, its ring systems, and its ten major moons. The collected light includes those that are most visible to the human eye, as well as its infrared emissions.

VINS, onboard the Cassini, then sorts the light gathered based on its wavelength - which also gave scientists an idea of the materials detected by the satellite-based on the discrepancies of the light wavelengths reflected off of it.

RELATED:NASA On Saturn: The Final Chapter Of Cassini

The research team that handles Cassini data discovered that Enceladus "shoots out enormous plumes of ice grains and vapor from an ocean that lies under the icy crust" in 2005, according to a NASA news release.

A new interactive model from NASA shows infrared images corroborate with the previously inferred geologic activity, which is more distinguishable at the moon's south pole. In the composite images, the so-called "tiger stripe," marked by red lines of varying lengths, represent the ice and vapor coming from the ocean below the surface.

The same infrared features were also noted in the northern hemisphere, which tells the Cassini scientists that the northern part of Enceladus is covered with fresh ice. Furthermore, it strongly suggests that the same kind of geologic activity that created ice and vapor in the south also occurs in the northern hemisphere. The smaller amounts of ice and vapor in the northern hemisphere, according to NASA, might be caused by either icy jets or the gradual movement of ice through fractures in Enceladus' crust.

"The infrared shows us that the surface of the south pole is young, which is not a surprise because we knew about the jets that blast icy material there," said VIMS scientist Gabriel Tobie, from the University of Nantes in France.

The Cassini-Huygens space-research mission was first launched in October 1997. It included the Cassini orbiter, which is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) located in Southern California, and the Huygens lander that probed the ringed planet's largest moon - Titan. The European Space Agency provided the Huygens probe, which analyzed Titan's atmospheric structure as well as its surface as it landed via parachute. The data collected by the probe was transmitted through a radio link to Cassini, through a probe data relay subsystem (PDRS).

RELATED: Engineers from the European Space Agency Solves the Huygens Probe Mistery

Cassini-Huygens was a collaboration between the United States' NASA, ESA, and the Italian Space Agency.

Cassini has observed Saturn for more than 13 years. Once it ran out of fuel, and to protect Saturn and its moons from damage, moved to finish its mission by plunging into Saturn's atmosphere in September 2017, continuously transmitting data to the NASA JPL up until the end.

Check out more news and information on NASA Cassini in Science Times.

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NASA on Enceladus - Infrared Mapping Reveals Fresh Ice on Northern Hemisphere - Science Times

Understanding the Suns behavior is an important part of life in our solar system. Scientists use several indicators to track solar cycle progress. Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center

Every morning, astronomer Steve Padilla takes a short walk from his home to the base of a tower that soars 150 feet above the ground. Tucked in the San Gabriel Mountains, about an hours drive north from Los Angeles, the Mount Wilson Observatory has long been a home for space science its Padillas home too, one of the perks to his work as Mount Wilsons Sun observer. Mount Wilson has several solar system sentinels; the telescope perched at the top of this tower keeps constant watch on the Sun. Observers study the Sun closely, so we can better understand the life and activity of our star.

Padilla boards the outdoor elevator. He clips himself to a safety harness, which is attached to the open-air cab, the same one used every day since the telescope went into operation in 1912 (the cables have since been replaced).

It can be a little scary on windy days, Padilla said.

At the top, Padilla adjusts a set of mirrors that projects an image of the Sun into an observing room far below. Back on the ground, he uses an array of pencils, varying in graphite weight, to sketch the dark spots mottling the face of the Sun. This daily chore is the foundation of the sunspot number, our longest record of solar activity. Humans have observed sunspots dark blotches that arise from strong magnetic activity for more than 1,000 years, and tracked them in detail since the invention of the telescope, for the past 400. Even with the modern-day host of spacecraft studying the Sun, taking the time to draw sunspots remains the chief way theyre counted. Surveying sunspots is the most basic of ways we study how solar activity rises and falls over time,and its the basis of how we track the solar cycle.

Sunspot number over the past five solar cycles. Scientists use sunspots to track solar cycle progress; the dark spots are associated with solar activity, often as the origins for giant explosions such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections which can spew light, energy, and solar material out into space. The panel consulted monthly updates in sunspot number data from the World Data Center for the Sunspot Index and Long-term Solar Observations, at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels, which tracks sunspots and pinpoints the highs and lows of the solar cycle. Credit: SILSO data/image, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels

Sunspots correspond with the Suns natural 11-year cycle, in which the Sun shifts from relatively calm to stormy. At its most active, called solar maximum, the Sun is freckled with sunspots and its magnetic poles reverse. (On Earth, that would be like if the North and South Poles flip-flopped every decade.) During solar minimum, sunspots are few and far between. Often, the Sun is as blank and featureless as an egg yolk.

Understanding the Suns behavior is an important part of life in our solar system. The Suns powerful outbursts can disturb the satellites and communications signals traveling around Earth, or one day, Artemis astronauts exploring distant worlds. NASA scientists study the solar cycle so we can better predict solar activity. As of 2020, the Sun has begun to shake off the sleep of minimum, which occurred in December 2019. Solar Cycle 25 is underway,and scientists are eager for another chance to put their understanding of solar cycle signs to the test.

The most important thing to remember with predictions is, youre going to be wrong, said Dean Pesnell, a solar cycle expert at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Youre never going to be perfect. Its what you learn from that, that allows you to make progress in your predictions.

During drowsy solar minimum, Padilla observed more spotless days. There are no spots to draw, so I just have a paper with nothing on it, he said. Even the absence of sunspots is a useful observation: Tallying up spotless days is one indicator that the Suns mood is shifting toward minimum. (Instead of sunspots, dark coronal holes cloud the Suns poles at minimum.) On the other hand, in solar maximum, hundreds of spots can form at once. Some drawings can take several hours to complete.

Sunspot drawings from SILSO at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Surveying sunspots with daily hand-drawn drawings is the most basic of ways we study how solar activity rises and falls over time, and its the basis of how we track the solar cycle. Credit: SILSO/Royal Observatory of Belgium

The Sun has its own pace that we cannot speed up, said Frdric Clette, director of theWorld Data Center for the Sunspot Index and Long-term Solar Observations, or SILSO, at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels, which tracks sunspots and pinpoints the solar cycles highs and lows. Sometimes, we have a hard time tempering the impatience of people who expect to know overnight if the Sun is truly waking up again.

Around the world, observers conduct daily sunspot censuses. They draw the Sun at the same time each day, using the same tools for consistency. Together, their observations make up the international sunspot number, a complex task run by SILSO. Some 80 stations around the world contribute their data. Exactly how many stations are included in each days count depends on a number of factors like weather (clouds and high winds obscure view of the Sun), or maybe a solar observer has a last-minute appointment.

Despite the interference of daily life, these manual surveys are still the most reliable, long-term record of sunspots we have.

Satellites can do a lot of things better than a drawing by hand, said Olivier Lematre, a Royal Observatory of Belgium solar observer. But consider a satellite with a 10- to 15-year lifespan thats just one solar cycle. You cant compare it to anything else outside that lifespan.

But long-term studies are the backbone of solar cycle science. With extensive historical records, scientists can trace the arc of decades-long patterns in the Suns behavior.When it comes to counting sunspots, its not so much about the accuracy or resolution of the observations as the consistency of the data itself. Even while their city was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, an observer from the Royal Observatory team made their way each day to the telescope tower, to keep the record intact.

Lematreapproaches each sunspot drawing methodically, outlining a family of sunspots before shading in finer details. The delicate pencil work belies the powerful explosions sunspots can unleash.

Sunspots arise from clusters of intense magnetic energy. Buoyed by their magnetic force, they rise through churning solar material like a grain of rice in a boiling pot. Sunspots appear darker because theyre cooler than their surroundings; the magnetic knot at their core keeps energy from radiating out past the Suns surface. When enough magnetic energy builds over the sunspot, a powerful eruption can burst free like an exploding soda bottle spewing light and solar matter.

If they happen to be facing Earth, these solar storms can disrupt satellites, astronauts, and communications signals like radio or GPS. Earths upper atmosphere mightexpand in response, slowing satellites in orbit the way gravel roads slow down cars, eroding satellites lifetimes. Although changes on the Sun arent usually visible to us without the help of scientific instruments, they impact the space around Earth and other planets.

Deep inside the Sun, electrified gases flow in currents that generate the Suns magnetic field, which fuels its mighty outbursts. During solar minimum, the Suns magnetic field is relaxed. At the height of the solar cycle, its a tangled mess of magnetic field lines. Understanding this flow, called the dynamo, is key in the effort to predict what the Sun will do next.

Since 1989, the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel an international panel of experts sponsored by NASA and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has met each decade to make their prediction for the next solar cycle. The prediction includes the sunspot number at maximum and the cycles expected start and peak. The effort requires assessing many different models and navigating many personalities.

Images from NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory show the Sun near solar minimum in October 2019 and the last solar maximum in April 2014. Dark coronal holes cover the Sun during solar minimum, while bright active regionsindicating more solar activitycover the Sun during solar maximum. Credit: NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory/Joy Ng

We each have our favorite predictions, or the ones we have the most confidence in, said Lisa Upton, a solar physicist at Space Systems Research Corporation in Westminster, Colorado, and prediction panel co-chair. Our duty is to come to a consensus. If we take all of our opinions and models, where is the most overlap, and where can we agree the solar cycle is going to land?

Scientists are always chasing solar minimum, but they can only recognize it in hindsight. Since minimum is defined by the lowest number of sunspots in a solar cycle, scientists have to see the numbers steadily rise before determining when they were at the bottom.

To complicate things, solar cycles often overlap. As one cycle transitions to the next, both old and new sunspots emerge on the Sun at once. Sunspots often appear in groups, which are like magnets, each with a positive and negative end. As the Suns magnetic field slowly flips, so does the polarity of sunspot groups. Where one cycles sunspots drift across the Sun with their positive end in the lead, the next cycles spots walk negative foot first. On top of that, sunspotsin the Suns two hemispheres also have opposite orientations.

Each sunspots unique magnetic signature makes it possible to determine which cycle produced it the old one or the new. When the Sun stirs from solar minimum, besides counting the sunspots, scientists want to make sure all the spots rising to the surface are actually new.

I just caution people, because as excited as we are for the new cycle to come, we have to wait until we actually reach minimum, Upton said. It can be six to eight months past minimum before we can say minimum has actually occurred. Indeed, not until September 2020 did scientists confirm the Sun reached solar minimum in December 2019.

Besides sunspots, other indicators can signal when the Sun is reaching its low. If the Suns magnetic field were a jigsaw puzzle, one piece is still missing: the magnetic field at the poles. Although scientists cant measure the polar magnetic field as accurately as other parts of the Sun, estimates provide clues. (Soon, ESA, the European Space Agency, and NASAs Solar Orbiter will send new images of the Suns poles.) In previous cycles, scientists have noticed the strength of the polar magnetic field during solar minimum hints at the intensity of the next maximum. When the poles are weak, the next maximum is weak, and vice versa.

The past few cycles, the strength of the magnetic field at the Suns poles has steadily declined; so too has the sunspot number. Now, the poles are roughly as strong as they were at the same point in the last cycle, Cycle 24.

This is the big test for our models whether Cycle 25 will play out about the same as Cycle 24, Pesnell said.

Another indicator of solar cycle progress comes from outside the solar system. Cosmic rays are high-energy particle fragments, the rubble from exploded stars in distant galaxies. During solar maximum, the Suns strong magnetic field envelops our solar system in a magnetic cocoon that is difficult for cosmic rays to infiltrate. In off-peak years, the number of cosmic rays in the solar system climbs as more and more make it past the quiet Sun. By tracking cosmic rays both in space and on the ground, scientists have yet another measure of the solar cycle.

While minimum may lack the fireworks of solar maximum, its useful for scientists. They make their forecasts, and wait to see how their estimates play out. Some consider it a time to return to the basics.

In solar minimum, you can ask more difficult questions than at maximum, Pesnell said.

One area of solar study, called helioseismology, involves scientists collecting soundwaves from inside the Sun, as a way of probing the elusive dynamo. During solar minimum, they dont have to worry about soundwaves bouncing off the sunspots and active regions characteristic of solar maximum. When sunspots disappear from view, scientists have a chance to finetune their models without all the solar drama.

Continued here:

How NASA & Scientists Around the World Track the Solar Cycle - SciTechDaily

A police stop could have cost former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin his career in space before he ever got started.Melvin, who was never afraid launching into space on two Space Shuttle Atlantis missions to help build the International Space Station, never knew what was going to happen when the cops pulled him over."I've been on this rocket with millions of pounds of thrust and not once was I afraid of going to space," said Melvin, who is Black. "It's when I've been stopped by police officers that I didn't even know ... I was starting to sweat and just holding the steering wheel really hard.""Every father in the Black community has a conversation with their son to tell them that if you get stopped by an officer, you know, you assume the position, which is 10-2 (hands on the wheel), look straight ahead," he added. "You tell the officer, you know, you're real respectful, you say you're reaching for your obvious things."Melvin spoke Monday during a panel celebrating Black lives in the space industry during the 2020 Virtual Humans to Mars Summit hosted by Explore Mars, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the human exploration of Mars.Panelists who shared their personal experiences and discussed the Black Lives Matter movement, the death of George Floyd, and subsequent protests included former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, NASA Deputy Manager of Commercial Lunar Payload Services Camille Alleyne and Danielle Wood, director of the Space Enabled Research Group in MIT's Media Lab.Melvin can still remember one traffic stop when he was a student at Heritage High School in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he graduated in 1982."I was in a car with my girlfriend and a police officer rolled up on us," Melvin said. "He took her out of the car and told her that I was raping her because he wanted me to go to jail."And you know, when Black men get into the prison system, that they really never get out and have a second chance. I was going to college on scholarship and want to be a chemistry major."Melvin urged people to make sure they're not part of the problem by contributing to racism, asking people to assess both what they're doing to hurt and how they can help fight racism.The path to spaceLuckily that stop didn't derail his career. Melvin ended up logging more than 565 hours in space, but space was not his first choice.During the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, Melvin said he was the "antenna engineer," holding the antennas for his parents while they watched it."And the next day all the kids in the neighborhood said, 'Do you want to be an astronaut?' No, I don't see someone who looks like me," Melvin recalled.Five blocks down the street from where Melvin grew up, Arthur Ashe learned how to play tennis. Ashe, the only Black man to win singles titles at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the Australian Open, turned pro in 1969. Ashe was also the first Black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team."My dad talked about his perseverance his athleticism, his intelligence," Melvin said. "'I want you to be like him.' It wasn't until I got to NASA, when a friend said, 'You'd be a great astronaut.'"Related video from 2018: NASA Astronaut says he saw 'organic looking,' 'alien like' creature on Space Shuttle AtlantisMelvin didn't fill out an application until his friend, Charlie Camarda, got into the astronaut program. "If that guy can get in, I can get in, and that's when I applied."Melvin was drafted in 1986 to play in the National Football League for the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys but pulled his hamstrings and didn't end up playing any regular season games.In 1989, he began working at NASA Langley Research Center in the Fiber Optic Sensors group of the Nondestructive Evaluation Sciences Branch, according to NASA. He was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1998.In addition to serving as an astronaut, Melvin has also headed NASA's education program, co-chaired the White House's Federal Coordination in STEM Education Task Force and chaired the International Space Education Board.Contrasting momentsMelvin learned about the death of George Floyd while in Florida for the launch of NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon."I see this Black man getting his life snuffed out, saying he can't breathe," Melvin said. "And when I heard him calling for his mother, that's when I started crying because I thought about my mother. I thought about if that was me, being the life snuffed out of me."Floyd's death as now-former police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes was in sharp contrast with the achievement of launching American astronauts from U.S. soil on U.S. rockets for the first time since 2011."If we can (send people to the International Space Station), we can do anything. We can fix these problems."And it leads back to the necessity of diversity, Melvin said.Melvin said his "aha" moment in space came unexpectedly. He anticipated it would happen as he helped install the European Space Agency's Columbus Laboratory on the International Space Station in 2008.But it wasn't until NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson invited Melvin over to the Russian segment of the station to share a meal. The crew included astronauts with Russian, French, German, African American and Asian American backgrounds and was hosted by Whitson -- the first female commander of the space station, Melvin said."We were breaking bread at 17,500 miles per hour, going around the planet every 90 minutes. And that was when my head exploded, and I had this epiphany about our planet and looking back at it, getting this thing called the orbital perspective."It's something astronauts gain as they gaze down at our planet as a whole."I think we as a civilization need to take that thing that we get in space as astronauts," he said. "And we know that if we don't work together as a team, and we were one of the most diverse teams in space, then we (would) perish."Working together is the only way Melvin thinks humanity can survive on this planet, get back to the moon and get to Mars."The way we do it is with the right perspective. And we bring this perspective home from space, to go back to space as a civilization of diverse people," he said. "It's perspective together, that we work together, we live together, and we change the universe together."

A police stop could have cost former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin his career in space before he ever got started.

Melvin, who was never afraid launching into space on two Space Shuttle Atlantis missions to help build the International Space Station, never knew what was going to happen when the cops pulled him over.

"I've been on this rocket with millions of pounds of thrust and not once was I afraid of going to space," said Melvin, who is Black. "It's when I've been stopped by police officers that I didn't even know ... I was starting to sweat and just holding the steering wheel really hard."

"Every father in the Black community has a conversation with their son to tell them that if you get stopped by an officer, you know, you assume the position, which is 10-2 (hands on the wheel), look straight ahead," he added. "You tell the officer, you know, you're real respectful, you say you're reaching for your obvious things."

Melvin spoke Monday during a panel celebrating Black lives in the space industry during the 2020 Virtual Humans to Mars Summit hosted by Explore Mars, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the human exploration of Mars.

Panelists who shared their personal experiences and discussed the Black Lives Matter movement, the death of George Floyd, and subsequent protests included former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, NASA Deputy Manager of Commercial Lunar Payload Services Camille Alleyne and Danielle Wood, director of the Space Enabled Research Group in MIT's Media Lab.

Melvin can still remember one traffic stop when he was a student at Heritage High School in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he graduated in 1982.

"I was in a car with my girlfriend and a police officer rolled up on us," Melvin said. "He took her out of the car and told her that I was raping her because he wanted me to go to jail.

"And you know, when Black men get into the prison system, that they really never get out and have a second chance. I was going to college on scholarship and want to be a chemistry major."

Melvin urged people to make sure they're not part of the problem by contributing to racism, asking people to assess both what they're doing to hurt and how they can help fight racism.

Luckily that stop didn't derail his career. Melvin ended up logging more than 565 hours in space, but space was not his first choice.

During the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, Melvin said he was the "antenna engineer," holding the antennas for his parents while they watched it.

"And the next day all the kids in the neighborhood said, 'Do you want to be an astronaut?' No, I don't see someone who looks like me," Melvin recalled.

Five blocks down the street from where Melvin grew up, Arthur Ashe learned how to play tennis. Ashe, the only Black man to win singles titles at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the Australian Open, turned pro in 1969. Ashe was also the first Black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team.

"My dad talked about his perseverance his athleticism, his intelligence," Melvin said. "'I want you to be like him.' It wasn't until I got to NASA, when a friend said, 'You'd be a great astronaut.'"

Related video from 2018: NASA Astronaut says he saw 'organic looking,' 'alien like' creature on Space Shuttle Atlantis

Melvin didn't fill out an application until his friend, Charlie Camarda, got into the astronaut program. "If that guy can get in, I can get in, and that's when I applied."

Melvin was drafted in 1986 to play in the National Football League for the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys but pulled his hamstrings and didn't end up playing any regular season games.

In 1989, he began working at NASA Langley Research Center in the Fiber Optic Sensors group of the Nondestructive Evaluation Sciences Branch, according to NASA. He was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1998.

In addition to serving as an astronaut, Melvin has also headed NASA's education program, co-chaired the White House's Federal Coordination in STEM Education Task Force and chaired the International Space Education Board.

Melvin learned about the death of George Floyd while in Florida for the launch of NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon.

"I see this Black man getting his life snuffed out, saying he can't breathe," Melvin said. "And when I heard him calling for his mother, that's when I started crying because I thought about my mother. I thought about if that was me, being the life snuffed out of me."

Floyd's death as now-former police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes was in sharp contrast with the achievement of launching American astronauts from U.S. soil on U.S. rockets for the first time since 2011.

"If we can (send people to the International Space Station), we can do anything. We can fix these problems."

And it leads back to the necessity of diversity, Melvin said.

Melvin said his "aha" moment in space came unexpectedly. He anticipated it would happen as he helped install the European Space Agency's Columbus Laboratory on the International Space Station in 2008.

But it wasn't until NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson invited Melvin over to the Russian segment of the station to share a meal. The crew included astronauts with Russian, French, German, African American and Asian American backgrounds and was hosted by Whitson -- the first female commander of the space station, Melvin said.

"We were breaking bread at 17,500 miles per hour, going around the planet every 90 minutes. And that was when my head exploded, and I had this epiphany about our planet and looking back at it, getting this thing called the orbital perspective."

It's something astronauts gain as they gaze down at our planet as a whole.

"I think we as a civilization need to take that thing that we get in space as astronauts," he said. "And we know that if we don't work together as a team, and we were one of the most diverse teams in space, then we (would) perish."

Working together is the only way Melvin thinks humanity can survive on this planet, get back to the moon and get to Mars.

"The way we do it is with the right perspective. And we bring this perspective home from space, to go back to space as a civilization of diverse people," he said. "It's perspective together, that we work together, we live together, and we change the universe together."

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Former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin was never afraid to go to space. But a police stop made him sweat - KSBW The Central Coast

A member of the L3Harris team removes a cloth from the Roman Space Telescopes primary mirror. Credit: L3Harris Technologies

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescopes primary mirror, which will collect and focus light from cosmic objects near and far, has been completed. Using this mirror, Roman will capture stunning space vistas with a field of view 100 times greater than Hubble images.

Achieving this milestone is very exciting, said Scott Smith, Roman telescope manager at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Success relies on a team with each person doing their part, and its especially true in our current challenging environment. Everyone plays a role in collecting that first image and answering inspiring questions.

Roman will peer through dust and across vast stretches of space and time to study the universe using infrared light, which human eyes cant see. The amount of detail these observations will reveal is directly related to the size of the telescopes mirror, since a larger surface gathers more light and measures finer features.

Romans primary mirror is 7.9 feet (2.4 meters) across. While its the same size as the Hubble Space Telescopes main mirror, it is less than one-fourth the weight. Romans mirror weighs only 410 pounds (186 kilograms) thanks to major improvements in technology.

The Roman Space Telescopes primary mirror reflects an American flag. Its surface is figured to a level hundreds of times finer than a typical household mirror. Credit: L3Harris Technologies

The primary mirror, in concert with other optics, will send light to Romans two science instruments the Wide Field Instrument and Coronagraph Instrument. The first is essentially a giant 300-megapixel camera that provides the same sharp resolution as Hubble across nearly 100 times the field of view. Using this instrument, scientists will be able to map the structure and distribution of invisible dark matter, study planetary systems around other stars, and explore how the universe evolved to its present state.

The coronagraph demonstrates technology that blocks out the glare of stars and allows astronomers to directly image planets in orbit around them. If the coronagraph technology performs as anticipated, it will see planets that are almost a billion times fainter than their host star and enable detailed studies of giant planets around other suns.

Roman will observe from a vantage point about 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) away from Earth in the direction opposite the Sun. Romans barrel-like shape will help block out unwanted light from the Sun, Earth, and Moon, and the spacecrafts distant location will help keep the instruments cool, ensuring that it will be able to detect faint infrared signals.

Crane operators lower the support equipment to move the Roman Space Telescopes primary mirror. Using this mirror, Roman will provide a new view into the universe, helping scientists solve cosmic mysteries related to dark matter, dark energy, and planets around other stars. Credit: L3Harris Technologies

Because it will experience a range of temperatures between manufacture and testing on Earth and operations in space, the primary mirror is made of a specialty ultralow-expansion glass. Most materials expand and contract when temperatures change, but if the primary mirror changed shape it would distort the images from the telescope. Romans mirror and its support structure are designed to reduce flexing, which will preserve the quality of its observations.

Development of the mirror is much further along than it would typically be at this stage since the mission leverages a mirror that was transferred to NASA from the National Reconnaissance Office. The team modified the mirrors shape and surface to meet Romans science objectives.

The newly resurfaced mirror sports a layer of silver less than 400 nanometers thick about 200 times thinner than a human hair. The silver coating was specifically chosen for Roman because of how well it reflects near-infrared light. By contrast, Hubbles mirror is coated with layers of aluminum and magnesium fluoride to optimize visible and ultraviolet light reflectivity. Likewise, the James Webb Space Telescopes mirrors have a gold coating to suit its longer wavelength infrared observations.

Romans mirror is so finely polished that the average bump on its surface is only 1.2 nanometers tall more than twice as smooth as the mission requires. If the mirror were scaled to be Earths size, these bumps would be just a quarter of an inch high.

The mirror was precisely finished to the Roman Space Telescopes optical prescription, said Bonnie Patterson, program manager at L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York. Since its so much smoother than required, it will provide even greater scientific benefit than originally planned.

Next, the mirror will be mounted for additional testing at L3Harris. It has already been extensively tested at both cold and ambient temperatures. The new tests will be done with the mirror attached to its support structure.

Romans primary mirror is complete, yet our work isnt over, said Smith. Were excited to see this mission through to launch and beyond, and eager to witness the wonders it will reveal.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at Goddard, with participation by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from research institutions across the United States.

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NASAs Roman Space Telescope Primary Mirror Completed Field of View 100 Times Greater Than Hubble - SciTechDaily