Space News & Blog Articles

Before the end of this decade, NASA plans to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. But this time, through the Artemis Program, it won’t be a “footprints and flags” affair. With other space agencies and commercial partners, the long-term aim is to create the infrastructure that will allow for a “sustained program of lunar exploration and development.” If all goes according to plan, multiple space agencies will have established bases around the South Pole-Aitken Basin, which will pave the way for lunar industries and tourism.

For humans to live, work, and conduct various activities on the Moon, strategies are needed to deal with all the hazards – not the least of which is lunar regolith (or “moondust”). As the Apollo astronauts learned, moondust is jagged, sticks to everything, and can cause significant wear on astronaut suits, equipment, vehicles, and health. In a new study by a team of Texas A&M engineers, regolith also poses a collision hazard when kicked up by rocket plumes. Given the many spacecraft and landers that will be delivering crews and cargo to the Moon in the near future, this is one hazard that merits close attention!

The study was conducted by Shah Akib Sarwar and Zohaib Hasnain, a Ph.D. Student and an Assistant Professor (respectively) with the J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University. For their study, Sarwar and Hasnain investigated particle-particle collisions for lunar regolith using the “soft sphere” method, where Newton’s equations of motion and a contact force model are integrated to study how particles will collide and overlap. This sets it apart from the “hard sphere” method, which models particles in the context of fluids and solids.

Apollo 15 astronaut salutes next to the American flag in 1971. The Moon’s regolith or soil appears in various shades of gray. Credit: NASA

While lunar regolith ranges from tiny particles to large rocks, the main component of “Moondust” is fine, silicate minerals with an average size of 70 microns. These were created over billions of years as the airless Moon’s airless surface was struck by meteors and asteroids that pounded much of the lunar crust into a fine powder. The absence of an atmosphere also meant that erosion by wind and water (common here on Earth) was absent. Lastly, constant exposure to solar wind has left lunar regolith electrostatically charged, which means it adheres to anything it touches.

Scientists are discovering that more and more Solar System objects have warm oceans under icy shells. The moons Enceladus and Europa are the two most well-known, and others like Ganymede and Callisto probably have them too. Even the dwarf planet Ceres might have an ocean. But can any of them support life? That partly depends on the water temperature, which strongly influences the chemistry.

We’re likely to visit Europa in the coming years and find out for ourselves how warm its ocean is. Others on the list we may never visit. But we may not have to.

Researchers at Cornell University are figuring out how to determine the temperature of an icy world’s ocean by measuring the thickness of its ice shell and associated properties. They published their results in a research article in the journal JGR Planets. It’s titled “Ice-Ocean Interactions on Ocean Worlds Influence Ice Shell Topography,” and the lead author is Justin Lawrence, a visiting scholar at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science. Lawrence is also a program manager at Honeybee Robotics, a subsidiary of Blue Origin that builds technologies for space exploration.

Their research is based on what’s called ice-pumping, a phenomenon observed under the ice in Antarctica.

“When ice is submerged, a melting and freezing exchange process termed the “ice pump” can affect ice composition, texture, and thickness,” the researchers write. “We find that ice pumping is likely beneath the ice shells of several ocean worlds in our solar system.”

The Apollo Program delivered 12 American astronauts to the surface of the Moon. But that program ended in 1972, and since then, no human beings have visited. But Artemis will change that. And instead of just visiting the Moon, Artemis’ aim is to establish a longer-term presence on the Moon. That requires more complexity than Apollo did. Astronauts will need to transfer between vehicles.

All of that activity requires a reliable spacecraft docking system.

When Artemis astronauts blast off from Earth, they’ll be in the four-seat Orion spacecraft. Orion will take them to lunar orbit, where two will transfer into the Starship HLS, and two will remain in Orion. Starship HLS will deliver them to the lunar surface. In the future, the Lunar Gateway will be in orbit around the Moon, and astronauts will move from Orion to the Gateway to the Starship HLS.

These transfers are complicated and risky maneuvers. The docking system that will make this work is called SpaceX’s Starship HLS docking system. It’s based on SpaceX’s successful Dragon 2 docking system. The Dragon 2 system allows the Dragon 2 spacecraft to dock with the ISS so crew and equipment can be transferred. It’s been in use since 2020.

NASA and SpaceX are busy testing the new Starship HLS docking system. They recently completed ten days of testing at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. They conducted more than 200 different docking scenarios involving different speeds and angles. The results from this full-scale testing will feed into ongoing computer models of the system, which will, in turn, feed into future testing and design.

Well it certainly caught my attention when I saw the headlines  “China’s first Space Environment Simulator” sounds like something right out of an adventure holiday. Whilst you can’t buy tickets to ‘have a go’ it’s actually for China to test spacecraft before launching them into the harsh environments of space. It allows researchers to simulate nine environmental factors; vacuum, high and low temperature, charged particles, electromagnetic radiation, space dust, plasma, weak magnetic field, neutral gasses and microgravity – and it even looks futuristic too!

The Harbin Institute of Technology and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation developed the simulator as part of China’s first large scale scientific facility. It’s official name is the Space Environment Simulation and Research Infrastructure facility, or SESRI for short and it will provide focus to explore the environments of space with focus on space craft and life forms and also on plasma (charged gas) interactions. 

The facility covers an area the size of 50 soccer fields, has four main laboratories and has the ability to tailor the environmental conditions based on research requirements. Each one covers a different aspect of space exploration for example the Lunar Dust Simulation chamber studies the impact of dust on spacecraft, astronauts and their spacesuits. Any space faring person or craft is subjected to extreme temperature fluctuations, to elevated levels of charged particles and electromagnetic radiation and to higher levels of space dust and all of these are adjustable with the simulator.

Some experiments that previously required time in space will no longer have to be launched and can be completed on the ground in a far more controlled, safer and even cheaper environment. Deputy Commander in Chief of the project Li Liyi even mused that it was akin to bringing the space station to Earth. In addition to offering and simulating the environment to test space craft, it will also allow for agricultural breeding and life science experiments to explore humans reaction and interaction to long term colonies on other planets. 

The official opening came after 18 years of work from start to finish and hopes to establish China as one of the world’s main aerospace powers. It has already received interest from as many as 110 universities and institutes from over 30 countries. 

Only the other week I had to fix my leaky tap. That was a nightmare.  I cannot begin to imagine how you deal with a leaky spacecraft! In August 2020 Russia announced that their Zvezda module had an air leak. An attempt was make to fix it but in November 2021 another leak was found. Earlier this week, Russia announced the segment is continuing to leak but the crew are in no danger. 

It’s amazing to think that the International Space Station that has graced many a night sky, was launched back in 1998. A wonderful piece of international co-operation between US, Russia, Canada, Japan and the countries of the European Space Agency, it has been orbiting Earth ever since providing a ‘zero gravity’ laboratory for research into all manner of things. Orbiting at an altitude of about 400 km it comprises 16 pressurised modules that have supported research in the fields of biology, physics, engineering and astronomy. 

The Zvezda module (whose name means star) was the third module to be launched to the station and provides all of the life support systems which are supplemented by the US Orbital Segment and the living quarters. The main structure of the module was built in the mid-1980’s to be destined for the Mir Space Station. It consists of a cylindrical ‘work compartment’ for the crew to live and work and its this which is the main bulk of the module. There is a smaller spherical Transfer Compartment at the front end and a cylindrical Transfer Chamber to the rear. These two Transfer units provide the capability to connect the module with other modules of the station.  The Transfer Chamber is surrounded by the Assembly Compartment which is unpressurised and home to thrusters, antennae, thermometers and propellant tanks. 

Russian officials have stated that specialists are engaged in monitoring the leas in the Zvezda module and the crew regularly conduct work to locate and fix possible leaks.  They do stress however that there is no threat to the crew or station. 

If that wasn’t enough to worry any of the inhabitants (and I’m sure they must be a little concerned) the officials went on to report that the leaks in the module have increased but operations are not currently at threat. This is off the back of the leaks identified and fixed in 2020 and 2021. It’s not just air leaks either; there have been coolant leaks from the external backup radiator, coolant leaks from the Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked at ISS and even leaks from the Progress supply ship in February 2023.

Universe Today has surveyed the importance of studying impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, and comets, and what these fantastic scientific fields can teach researchers and space fans regarding the search for life beyond Earth. Here, we will discuss how planetary atmospheres play a key role in better understanding our solar system and beyond, including why researchers study planetary atmospheres, the benefits and challenges, what planetary atmospheres can teach us about finding life beyond Earth, and how upcoming students can pursue studying planetary atmospheres. So, why is it so important to study planetary atmospheres?

Dr. Brian Toon, who is a Professor and Research Scientist in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, tells Universe Today, “There are many reasons to study planetary atmospheres. For example, we think the sun was much dimmer in the early history of the solar system, yet Earth and Mars each were as warm or warmer than now. How is this possible? Venus and Mars have carbon dioxide dominated atmospheres with more CO2 in the vertical column than Earth. Yet one is colder than Earth and the other warmer. Even though Venus is closer to the sun its clouds reflect so much light that it effectively has less sunlight than Earth, yet its surface is warm enough to melt lead. How is this possible? We need to understand other atmospheres to understand the past and future of Earth.”

Image of Mars with its thin atmosphere comprised primarily of carbon dioxide obtained by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter in 1976. (Credit: NASA)

Ultraviolet and filtered image of Venus with its thick and cloudy atmosphere obtained by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Akatsuki spacecraft on May 23, 2018. (Credit: JAXA/ISAS/DARTS/Kevin M. Gill)

Aside from Earth, Venus, and Mars, the other planetary bodies in our solar system that possess atmospheres include Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, dwarf planet Pluto, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, which is the only solar system moon with a dense atmosphere. The formation and evolution of these atmospheres are what scientists are attempting to better understand via computer models that are often combined with data obtained by ground- or space-based telescopes. Through this, scientists have learned, and continue to learn, a great deal about the atmospheres of these intriguing and mysterious worlds that inhabit our solar system. But even with all the instruments and technological advancements, what are some of the benefits and challenges of studying planetary atmospheres?

If future explorers manage to set up communities on Mars, how will they pay their way? What’s likely to be the Red Planet’s primary export? Will it be Martian deuterium, sent back to Earth for fusion fuel? Raw materials harvested by Mars-based asteroid miners, as depicted in the “For All Mankind” TV series? Or will future Martians be totally dependent on earthly subsidies?

In a new book titled “The New World on Mars,” Robert Zubrin — the president of the Mars Society and a tireless advocate for space settlement — says Mars’ most valuable product will be inventions.

“We’re talking about creating a new and potentially extremely inventive branch of human civilization, which will benefit humanity as a whole enormously,” he says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast. “But moreover, we’ll play from that strength to make money.”

Zubrin isn’t waiting until humans step foot on Mars to get started.

“We are in the process of drawing up business plans for two major initiatives — one in the artificial intelligence area and the other in the synthetic food production area,” he says. “And the idea is, fairly soon we’re going to be presenting these business plans to investors, with the idea of starting companies devoted to these two different technological ideas that we have put together.”

Astronomers have detected a large amount of water vapour in the protoplanetary disk around a young star. There’s at least three times as much water among the dust as there is in all of Earth’s oceans combined. And it’s not spread throughout the disk; it’s concentrated in the inner disk region.

No water means no life, so finding this much water in the part of a protoplanetary disk where rocky planets form is an intriguing discovery. And this isn’t just any disk. It’s a cold, stable disk, the type most likely to form planets.

The findings are presented in a new paper published in Nature Astronomy. It’s titled “Resolved ALMA observations of water in the inner astronomical units of the HL Tau disk.” The lead author is Stefano Facchini, an astronomer at the Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.

“I had never imagined that we could capture an image of oceans of water vapour in the same region where a planet is likely forming,” said Facchini.

The star, HL Tau (HL Tauri), is a young star about 450 light-years away. It’s likely less than 100,000 years old, making it a prime observing target in the quest to understand planet formation. When it comes to seeing inside the gas and dust surrounding young stars like this, ALMA is our best tool. One of ALMA’s first high-resolution images is of HL Tau and its disk. The image shows rings in the disk that indicate where young planets are probably forming.

On October 19th, 2017, astronomers with the Pann-STARRS survey observed an Interstellar Object (ISO) passing through our system – 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua. This was the first time an ISO was detected, confirming that such objects pass through the Solar System regularly, as astronomers predicted decades prior. Just two years later, a second object was detected, the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. Given ‘Oumuamua’s unusual nature (still a source of controversy) and the information ISOs could reveal about distant star systems, astronomers are keen to get a closer look at future visitors.

For instance, multiple proposals have been made for interceptor spacecraft that could catch up with future ISOs, study them, and even conduct a sample return (like the ESA’s Comet Interceptor). In a new paper by a team from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Alan Stern and his colleagues studied possible concepts and recommended a purpose-built robotic ISO flyby mission called the Interstellar Object Explorer (IOE). They also demonstrate how this mission could be performed on a modest budget with current spaceflight technology.

The study was conducted by Alan Stern, the Principal Investigator for NASA’s New Horizons missions, and his colleagues at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. This included Principal Scientist Silvia Protopapa, manager Matthew Freeman, researcher/director Joel Parker, and systems engineer Mark Tapley. They were joined by Cornell Research Associate Darryl Z. Seligman and Caden Andersson, a researcher with Colorado-based company Custom Microwave Inc. (CMI). Their paper appeared on February 5th, 2024, in the journal Planetary and Space Science.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is under construction at Cerro Pachon in Chile. The observatory should be able to spot interstellar objects like ‘Oumuamua. Credit: Wil O’Mullaine/LSST

Since ‘Oumuamua first buzzed our system, scientists have assigned a high value to ISOs, which represent material ejected from other solar systems. By obtaining samples and studying them up close, we could learn much about the formation of other stars and planets without actually sending missions there. We could also learn a lot about the interstellar medium (ISM) and how organic material, and maybe even the building blocks for life, are distributed throughout the galaxy (aka. Panspermia Theory). As they state in their paper:

If you explore the night sky it won’t be long before you realise there is a lot of dust and gas up there. The interstellar dust between the stars accounts for 1% of the mass of the interstellar medium but reflects 30% of the starlight in infrared wavelengths. The dust plays a key role in the formation of stars and the evolution of the Galaxy. A team of astronomers have attempted to map the dust out to a distance of 3000 light years and have just released the first 3D map of the dust in our Galaxy. 

The scattering and absorption of starlight by dust particles (extinction) allows us to explore dust clouds in three dimensions. It also tends to absorb shorter wavelengths from stars causing the stars obscured by the cloud to appear more red in colour. By analysing this it is possible to estimate the extent of dust extinction along our line of sight. When the distance measurements to the stars are taken into account it is possible to build a 3D map of dust clouds.

In understanding the distribution and collecting data for the model generation, Gaia has been a game changer. Gaia is the European Space Agency astrometry observatory that has been mapping the distances and positions of stars across the Galaxy. Since its launch 10 years ago it has collected data from 1 billion stars, mostly within a few kiloparsecs of the Sun (1 parsec is 3.26 light years).  Knowing the position of stars accurately enables the reduction of errors in the dust extinction modelling. The combination of stellar astrometry data, phototometric, extinction and spectroscopic data, now was the perfect time to investigate the three dimensional distribution of dust in the Milky Way. 

The study, by lead author Gordian Edenhofer from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics was recently published in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The team present a three dimensional dust map that goes further and deeper into space with greater resolution than ever before. The processing technique used enabled the team to investigate dust distribution beyond 1 kiloparsec whilst also resolving nearby dust clouds with parsec scale precision. 

They were able to present the map of dust out to a distance of 1.25 kiloparsec in greater resolution than before. This was thanks to their use of distance and extinction estimates from previous studies that had lower uncertainties than other data sets. Their map has an angular resolution of up to 14 arc minutes and parsec-scale distance resolution. It’s always pleasing to find a result that is in agreement with previous studies and existing 3D dust maps. But even more pleasing when it goes further by improving the area of space covered and with a higher spatial resolution than before.

Our gleaming Earth, brimming with liquid water and swarming with life, began as all rocky planets do: dust. Somehow, mere dust can become a life-bearing planet given enough time and the right circumstances. But there are unanswered questions about how dust forms any rocky planet, let alone one that supports life.

Planets form inside protoplanetary disks, the massive rotating collections of gas and dust that swirl around young stars. Rocky planets form when dust clumps together, which in turn forms larger and larger bodies. Eventually, there are planetesimals, the true building blocks of planets.

How exactly does the dust clump together in these disks?

There are two processes that allow dust grains to form larger and larger structures. One is coagulation, where dust grains collide with one another in the disk and stick together.

The other process is called streaming instability. In this process, dust grains moving through the protoplanetary disk experience drag. This concentrates them into loose clumps, which eventually self-collapse. “If these clumps are massive enough, planetesimals could form by the self-gravitational collapse of the clump,” explains Ryosuke Tominaga of the RIKEN Star and Planet Formation Laboratory.

If predictions are correct, a key outburst star could put on a show in early 2024.

If astronomers are correct, a familiar northern constellation could briefly take on a different appearance in 2024, as a nova once again blazes into prominence. The star in question is T Coronae Borealis, also referred to as the ‘Blaze Star’ or T CrB. Located in the corner of the constellation Corona Borealis or the Northern Crown, T CrB is generally at a quiescent +10th magnitude, barely discernible with binoculars… but once every 60 years, the star has flared briefly into naked eye visibility at around +2nd magnitude.

The enigma that is T Coronae Borealis was first noted by Irish astronomer John Birmingham on the night of May 12, 1866. Observers later scoured the region for decades to come, until hitting pay-dirt with a second flare-up from the star once again in 1946. None other than astronomer Leslie Peltier of Starlight Nights fame witnessed the 1946 outburst. A recent study by Bradley Shaefer Louisiana State University in 2023 suggests that a bright ‘guest star’ seen in 1217 and again in 1787 in the same region mentioned in medieval manuscripts may in fact have been apparitions of T CrB.

We now know that T Coronae Borealis is what’s known as a recurrent nova. This occurs when a white dwarf companion star orbiting a red giant siphons off material, which accretes and compresses around the white dwarf star. This accumulates on the white dwarf, until it reaches a limit where runaway fusion occurs, and it shines briefly as a nova. Recurrent novae are rare, and less than 10 are known of in our galaxy.

This seems to suggest a periodicity of 80 years for the Blaze Star, suggesting another appearance running up to 2026. A suspicious dimming recorded in 2023, however, is now giving astronomers pause. The star behaved the same way in 1945, about a year prior to outburst. Astronomers are now hoping that we’ll see T CrB brighten this year.

Intuitive Machines says it’s putting its Odysseus moon lander to bed for a long lunar night, with hopes of reviving it once the sun rises again near the moon’s south pole.

The Houston-based company and NASA recapped Odysseus’s six days of operation on the lunar surface, shared pictures showing its off-kilter configuration, and looked ahead to the mission’s next phase during a briefing today at Johnson Space Center in Texas.

The original plan called for the solar-powered spacecraft to be turned off when the sun fell below the lunar horizon, but Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said mission controllers would instead put the Odysseus into hibernation and try restoring contact in three weeks’ time. “We are going to leave the computers and the power system in a place where we can wake it up and do this development test objective, to actually try to ping it with an antenna and see if we can’t wake it up once it gets power again,” he told reporters.

Last week, Odysseus became the first-ever commercial spacecraft to survive a descent to the lunar surface, and the first U.S.-built spacecraft to do so since NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972. NASA struck a deal to pay Intuitive Machines $118 million to deliver six science instruments to the lunar surface under the terms of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, or CLPS.

Sue Lederer, NASA’s project scientist for CLPS at Johnson Space Center, said every one of NASA’s payloads has met “some level of their objectives, and we’re very excited about that.”

During the Universe’s Dark Ages, dense primordial gas absorbed and scattered light, prohibiting it from travelling. Only when the first stars and galaxies began to shine in energetic UV light did the Epoch of Reionization begin. The powerful UV light shone through the Universe and punched holes in the gas, allowing light to travel freely.

New observations with the James Webb Space Telescope reveal how it happened. The telescope shows that faint dwarf galaxies brought an end to the darkness.

To reach back in time and answer fundamental questions about our Universe is the James Webb Space Telescope’s greatest gift. The powerful infrared space telescope has peered back into the earliest stages of the Universe’s life and shown astronomers the forces that shaped it. One of our biggest questions about the Universe concerns the Epoch of Reionization (EOR) that occurred several hundred million years after the Big Bang, ending the Universe’s Dark Ages.

Scientists have been uncertain about the source of light that caused the EOR. The primordial gas that blocked light from travelling prior to the EOR was hydrogen, and it comprised the Intergalactic Medium (IGM). Only higher-energy UV light can ionize hydrogen, so astronomers looked for sources of UV light. (Gamma rays and X-rays can too, but there weren’t enough sources to cause the EOR.) Candidates included Population III stars, the very first stars to form in the Universe. They were massive and luminous and could’ve provided the required UV light.

Quasars were another candidate because they emit so much light above the threshold needed to ionize hydrogen. But there weren’t enough of them to trigger the EOR. Massive galaxies were also a candidate, but astronomers think that they would’ve absorbed much of their own light.

Here’s a front row seat on what it would be like to return to Earth inside a space capsule. Varda Space Industries’ small W-1 spacecraft successfully landed at the Utah Test and Training Range on February 21, 2024.  A camera installed inside the cozy 90 cm- (3 ft)-wide capsule captured the entire stunning reentry sequence, from separation from the satellite bus in low Earth orbit (LEO) to the fiery re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere, to parachute deploy, to the bouncy landing.

At the end of this 5-minute video, you’ll see a pair legs with mud-caked shoes approach to gather the parachute and retrieve the capsule. Not only is there video, but sound as well. And the sounds of reentry and landing are what grabs you!  

There’s a also full 27-minute unedited raw footage from separation to touchdown is also available, below.

On X, Varda said reentry speeds reached Mach 25.

W-1 was part of a Rocket Lab Photon spacecraft launched in June 2023 on SpaceX’s Transporter-8 rideshare mission (NASA’s CAPSTONE mission also launched on this flight.). Varda used the spacecraft to test their in-space manufacturing technologies. Inside the capsule, the company was able to produce crystals of a drug called ritonavir, an antiviral drug grown in the microgravity LEO environment that can be used to treat HIV and hepatitis C.  The company’s goal is to develop the infrastructure to make LEO more accessible to commercial industries.  

The possibility for life beyond the Earth has captivated us for hundreds of years. It has been on the mind of science fiction writers too as our imaginations have explored the myriad possibilities of extraterrestrial life. But what would it really be like if/when we finally meet one; would it lead to war or peace? Researchers have used a complex language model to simulate the first conversations with civilisations from pacifists to militarists and the outcomes revealed interesting challenges.

The first radio transmissions were made in 1895 and since then the signals, however weak have been leaking out into space. The first intentional transmission out into space was the Arecibo message of 1974 that was sent toward the globular cluster M13 22,180 light years away. That means the signal won’t arrive there for about another 22,131 years! During this time of course, all the signals have been leaking out but the further they travel, the weaker they get. Its likely then that any signals out to a distance of about 100 light years is likely to be so weak as to not be detectable. 

It would be so easy to be dragged into other areas of debate about aliens but it feels useful to set the scene of how difficult it will be to make contact or rather, how likely it may be. Assume then, that in some way, we do find ourselves making communication with an alien civilisation. Just how that conversation goes has been modelled by a team led by Mingyu Jin from Northwestern University. 

The team used a new artificial intelligence framework known as CosmoAgent to simulate the interaction based upon the unique Large Language Model (LLM). The system uses a Multi-Agent System to enable modelling among a diverse range of civilisations. The civilisations have the ability to choose their own character traits from hiding, fighting or collaborating. This dynamic environment allows for a plethora of outcomes from alliances forming, adherence to rules to rivalries to how a civilisation might respond to an unforeseen event. 

Diversity and conditions for life were also inherent in the modelling using transition matrices to analyse how civilisations might grow and change over time. This natural progression of an intelligent life form would inevitably mean ethics, morals, beliefs and sciences would develop along a varied path. These different frameworks would hugely effect just how such a civilisation might respond to alien contact. 

Ingenuity has been the first aerial vehicle on another world. NASA announced the end of the Martian helicopter’s life at the end of its 72nd flight. During the flight there had been a problem on landing and, following the incident a few photos revealed chips in one of the rotor blades but nothing too serious. New images have been revealed that show the craft is missing one of its rotor blades entirely! 

Mars Ingenuity was developed by NASA as a small lightweight drone that made history by becoming the first powered flight on Mars. It was part of the mission that took the Perseverance rover to Mars in February 2021.  Undertaking powered flights in the thin Martian atmosphere it demonstrated that powered flight was possible as it surveyed the surrounding area for items of interest for further exploration. 

The construction was the brainchild of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory who oversaw the construction on behalf of the agency. NASA’s Ames Research Centre and Langley Research Center played a significant role in flight performance analysis and technical support. 

On board the vehicle was some cutting edge technology that was tailored for the conditions on Mars. First of course, are the rotors, the thin atmosphere on Mars mean larger than usual blades were needed to generate the lift required. It was built with lightweight materials like carbon fibre to make it as efficient as possible, new and efficient solar cells that would drive the autonomous navigation systems. It was equipped with sensors and cameras to enable data collection of the Martian terrain to send back to Perseverance rover and controllers on Earth. 

Ingenuity had been flying in a terrain with few rocks – which it uses in some part for navigation – and so had been experiencing difficulties. On 6 Jan it made an emergency landing because it couldn’t accurately identify its location. It happened again on the next flight but this time it seems to have come down at an angle and struck the ground with one of its rotors. Images suggested it had suffered some chips on one of the rotor blades however, recent images reveal the damage is more severe.

Universe Today has explored the importance of studying impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, and solar physics, and what this myriad of scientific disciplines can teach scientists and the public regarding the search for life beyond Earth. Here, we will explore some of the most awe-inspiring spectacles within our solar system known as comets, including why researchers study comets, the benefits and challenges, what comets can teach us about finding life beyond Earth, and how upcoming students can pursue studying comets. So, why is it so important to study comets?

Dr. James Bauer, who is a Research Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Maryland, tells Universe Today, “For star gazers, comets are some of the most attention-grabbing objects in the sky. They move, they change their shape, appearance, and their brightness, as they travel through their orbits. Yet they are scientifically important for other reasons. When they venture towards the Sun (approach their orbital perihelion), they show what they are made of, by emitting gas and dust from the comet nucleus. They are the most accessible, least altered solar system bodies, and they are accessible because they come close to the Sun and Earth. They have retained a significant portion of their volatiles over time, and they have likely played a significant role in transporting volatile material through the solar system, for example from the outer solar system to the inner planets.”

While comets have been explored via spacecraft for only the last few decades, their observational history dates back several thousand years, including Halley’s Comet, which becomes visible from Earth every 75-79 years, and was most famously illustrated on the Bayeux Tapestry in the 11th century that depicted the Norman invasion of England in 1066, known as the Battle of Hastings. Like most astronomical phenomena throughout history, the cometary observations were initially perceived as either positive or negative omens, whether it be for fortune or health.

In fact, it was the legendary Greek philosopher, Aristotle, who proclaimed during the 4th century BCE that comets were atmospheric phenomena. This belief went unopposed until a series of physicists and mathematicians made their own scientific assertions about comets, including the French mathematician, Jean Pena, who deduced that comets were of celestial origin as opposed to terrestrial origin. This was later confirmed by Tycho Brahe, who used the Great Comet of 1577 to measure its parallax and deduced that comets are of astronomical nature, as well. Since the dawn of the Space Age, several spacecraft missions have visited comets up-close, including Halley’s Comet on a few occasions, offering scientists incredible opportunities to learn more about these mysterious balls of ice. But, even with advanced ground- and space-based exploration technologies, what are some of the benefits and challenges of studying comets?

“Comets change,” Dr. Bauer tells Universe Today. “Throughout their orbits, as well as their behavior in different orbital passes near the sun (perihelion passages), they often have variations in their behavior. This makes them exciting to study. Each variance provides more information as to the cause and nature of its behavior. It also makes the behavior difficult to interpret. For example, if you measure an unusually strong presence of a species, unless you have observed the comet over a broad timescale, you cannot assume it is a regular feature of the comet and not something from a short-term outburst. This makes it difficult to interpret the same exciting variances in behavior.”

NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission was hailed a success when it collided with its target asteroid Dimorphos last year. The purpose of the endeavour was to see if it could redirect an asteroid and, since the impact, astronomers have been measuring and calculating the impact on the target. It is incredible that the 580kg spacecraft travelling at 6 km/s was able to impart enormous kinetic energy to the 5 billion kg asteroid.

The DART mission, launched by NASA in 2021, aimed to test our ability to deflect asteroids. By crashing a spacecraft into the smaller asteroid of the Didymos binary system, DART was to demonstrate the effectiveness of kinetic impactors in altering an asteroid’s trajectory. This mission marked a crucial step in planetary defence, showcasing technology that could one day protect us from potential asteroid impacts.

Studies from the impact have shown that the kinetic impact approach for deflecting asteroids is a viable approach. Earth-based observations indicate that Dimorphos’ orbit around its parent asteroid, Didymos, decreased by approximately 33 minutes. However, researchers remain uncertain about the overall ‘impact’ to the asteroid from the spacecraft’s impact. Additionally to be able to understand the efficiency of the moment transfer from the impact (known as the beta factor) a precise measurement fo the asteroids mass must be known. This is up to the Hera mission to achieve. 

Hera is a European Space Agency mission due for launch in October 2024 and arrive in 2026. Its purpose is to survey the Didymos binary asteroid system following the DART impact. Hera will measure the mass accurately but will also attempt to measure the recoil from material ejected out into space. We already have some information from the Italian LICIACube, images from James Webb and Hubble show a plume of debris that extended 10,000 km into space. 

While we wait for Hera to arrive, research teams have been simulating the DART impact using the Bern Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics impact code (SPH). It was developed at the University of Bern and was designed to model the break up of rocky bodies from collisions. It’s a fascinating tool that converts colliding bodies into millions of individual particles whose behaviours are informed by the laws of physics. This isn’t just some whimsical game though, the software has been used already to reproduce the impact of Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft with the asteroid Ryugu.

When a satellite reaches the end of its life, it has only two destinations. It can either be maneuvered into a graveyard orbit, a kind of purgatory for satellites, or it plunges to its destruction in Earth’s atmosphere. The ESA’s ERS-2 satellite took the latter option after 30 years in orbit.

ERS-2 was an Earth Observation satellite launched in 1995. It was scheduled to last three years but lasted much longer. In March 2,000, a computer and a gyro failed, and the mission continued but suffered some data degradation. Other equipment failures followed, and the mission finally ended in 2011. ERS-2 was destroyed during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere on February 21st, 2024. But unlike other satellites, the destruction of ERS-2 was caught on camera. The Tracking and Imaging Radar (TIRA) at the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR in Germany captured images of the satellite’s demise.

TIRA has a 34-meter tracking antenna, and on February 19, 20 and 21, the facility tracked the satellite for a few minutes while it travelled overhead. A GIF of these images shows ERS-2 tumbling through the sky and its solar array coming loose.

via GIPHY

The images show the solar array coming loose the day before ERS-2 re-entered the atmosphere.