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Studying Exoplanets | The James Webb Space Telescope
Space Sparks Episode 9: Until recently, the only planetary system we could study was our own Solar System. Now astronomers have found evidence for thousands of planets around stars other than our own Sun. These are known as exoplanets. Because of this we are getting closer to answering key questions such as: Is Earth unique? Do other planetary systems similar to ours exist? Are we alone in the Universe?
Thanks to its powerful capabilities at infrared wavelengths, the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope will offer a unique view of the outer planets in our own magnificent Solar System
Watch this special Space Sparks episode to learn how Webb will study exoplanets.
Video Credits:
Directed by: Bethany Downer and Nico Bartmann
Editing: Nico Bartmann
Web and technical support: Enciso Systems
Written by: Owen Higgins
Narration: Sara Mendes de Costa
Footage and photos: ESA/Hubble, ESA/Webb, ESA, NASA, CSA, STScI, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab, Northrup Grumman, M. Kornmesser, J. Olmsted (STScI), ESO, L. Calçada, Solar Dynamics Observatory, L. Hustak, A Carter (UCSC), the ERS 1386 team, A. Pagan (STScI), A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), JPL, Caltech, spaceengine.org
Tempestuous Young Stars in The Orion Nebula | Hubble
The bright variable star V 372 Orionis takes center stage in this image from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope, which has also captured a smaller companion star in the upper left of this image. Both stars lie in the Orion Nebula, a colossal region of star formation roughly 1,450 light years from Earth.
Image Description: Two very bright stars with cross-shaped diffraction spikes are prominent: the larger is slightly lower-right of center, the smaller lies towards the upper-left corner. Small red stars with short diffraction spikes are scattered around them. The background is covered nearly completely by gas: smoky, bright blue gas around the larger star in the center and lower-right, and wispier red gas elsewhere.
V 372 Orionis is a particular type of variable star known as an Orion Variable. These young stars experience some tempestuous moods and growing pains, which are visible to astronomers as irregular variations in luminosity. Orion Variables are often associated with diffuse nebulae, and V 372 Orionis is no exception; the patchy gas and dust of the Orion Nebula pervade this scene.
This image overlays data from two of Hubble’s instruments. Data from the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 at infrared and visible wavelengths were layered to reveal rich details of this corner of the Orion Nebula. Hubble also left its own subtle signature on this astronomical portrait in the form of the diffraction spikes surrounding the bright stars. These prominent artefacts are created by starlight interacting with Hubble’s inner workings, and as a result they reveal hints of Hubble’s structure. The four spikes surrounding the stars in this image are created by four vanes inside Hubble supporting the telescope’s secondary mirror. The diffraction spikes of the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope, on the other hand, are six-pointed as a result of Webb’s hexagonal mirror segments and 3-legged support structure for the secondary mirror.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, J. Bally, M. Robberto
Space Butterfly: Nebula Westerhout 40 | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope
What looks like a red butterfly in space is in reality a nursery for hundreds of baby stars, revealed in this infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Officially named Westerhout 40 or W40, the butterfly is a nebula—a giant cloud of gas and dust in space where new stars may form. The butterfly's "wings" are giant bubbles of hot, interstellar gas blowing from the hottest, most massive stars in this region.
The material that forms W40's wings was ejected from a dense cluster of stars that lies between the wings in the image. The hottest, most massive of these stars, W40 IRS 1a, lies near the center of the star cluster.
W40 is about 1,400 light-years from the Sun, about the same distance as the well-known Orion Nebula, although the two are almost 180 degrees apart in the sky.
This image, captured with the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope, is one of the largest and sharpest images ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy—otherwise known as M31.
Distance:2 million light years
This is a cropped version of the full image and has 1.5 billion pixels. You would need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image. It is one of the biggest Hubble images ever released and shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded in a section of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disc stretching across over 40,000 light-years.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), J. Dalcanton (University of Washington, USA), B. F. Williams (University of Washington, USA), L. C. Johnson (University of Washington, USA), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler
This image, captured with the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope, is one of the largest and sharpest images ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy—otherwise known as M31.
Distance:2 million light years
This is a cropped version of the full image and has 1.5 billion pixels. You would need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image. It is one of the biggest Hubble images ever released and shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded in a section of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disc stretching across over 40,000 light-years.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), J. Dalcanton (University of Washington, USA), B. F. Williams (University of Washington, USA), L. C. Johnson (University of Washington, USA), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler
This image, captured with the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope, is one of the largest and sharpest images ever taken of the Andromeda galaxy—otherwise known as M31.
Distance:2 million light years
This is a cropped version of the full image and has 1.5 billion pixels. You would need more than 600 HD television screens to display the whole image. It is one of the biggest Hubble images ever released and shows over 100 million stars and thousands of star clusters embedded in a section of the galaxy’s pancake-shaped disc stretching across over 40,000 light-years.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), J. Dalcanton (University of Washington, USA), B. F. Williams (University of Washington, USA), L. C. Johnson (University of Washington, USA), the PHAT team, and R. Gendler.
SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch: GPS III Mission | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Jan. 18, 2023, lifted off at 7:24 a.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, carrying a U.S. Space Force GPS satellite. The Falcon 9 launched the Lockheed Martin-built GPS III SV-06—the 6th of the newest version of the satellite known as GPS III. The GPS constellation of 31 satellites operated by the U.S. Space Force provides positioning, navigation and timing signals to military and civilian users. GPS satellites operate in medium Earth orbit at an altitude of 12,550 miles.
The launch of SV-06 was SpaceX’s fifth GPS mission, its second national security space launch of 2023 and Falcon 9’s 196th flight.
The first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched Crew-5 astronauts to the International Space Station.
Approximately two and a half minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s first stage separated. Following separation, the first stage landed on the “A Shortfall of Gravitas” drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
GPS III SV06 will augment the current GPS constellation that is comprised of 31 operational spacecraft operating in MEO at an altitude of approximately 20,200 km (12,550 miles) in six orbital planes. Each satellite circles the Earth twice per day. GPS is the premier space-based provider of positioning, navigation, and timing services for more than four billion users worldwide.
This latest generation of GPS satellite boasts a 15-year design life—25 percent longer than the previous generation of GPS satellites on orbit and brings new capabilities to users such as the new L1C civilian signal, which opens the window for future interoperability with international satellite navigation systems.
The payload for this mission is Global Positioning System III Space Vehicle 06 (GPS-III-SV06). It was built in Littleton, Colorado, by Lockheed Martin and it was placed into a medium Earth orbit (MEO) with an operational circular orbit at 20,180 km and an inclination of 55 degrees.
GPS-III-SV06 had a launch mass of 4.352 kg and is named after Amelia Earhart, the famous aviator who became the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean solo in 1932. Earhart disappeared during a flight around the world in 1937.
The mission marked the fifth GPS III satellite launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with one previously launched on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Medium+ (4,2) rocket.
GPS III SV06 will augment the current GPS constellation that is comprised of 31 operational spacecraft operating in MEO at an altitude of approximately 20,200 km (12,550 miles) in six orbital planes. Each satellite circles the Earth twice per day. GPS is the premier space-based provider of positioning, navigation, and timing services for more than four billion users worldwide.
This latest generation of GPS satellite boasts a 15-year design life—25 percent longer than the previous generation of GPS satellites on orbit and brings new capabilities to users such as the new L1C civilian signal, which opens the window for future interoperability with international satellite navigation systems.
China's Lunar Rover Yutu-2: New Images of The Moon's Far Side | CNSA
China's lunar rover beamed back new images from far side of moon before Chinese New Year. For the new Year of the Rabbit, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) released the latest pictures taken by the robotic lunar rover Yutu-2 to send its New Year wishes to everyone.
Yutu-2 is the robotic lunar rover component of CNSA's Chang'e 4 mission to the Moon, launched on December 7, 2018. Chang'e 4 entered lunar orbit on December 12, 2018, before making the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon on January 3, 2019. Yutu-2 is currently operational as the longest-lived lunar rover and the first lunar rover traversing the far side of the Moon.
It has travelled a distance of over 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) along the Moon's surface.
Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)/South China Morning Post (SCMP)
Preparing for a More Powerful International Space Station | This Week @NASA
Week of Jan. 20, 2023: Preparing for a more powerful space station, building a more fuel-efficient aircraft, and a way to possibly predict solar flares . . . a few of the stories to tell you about—This Week at NASA!
Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
NASA's Space to Ground: First Timers | Week of Jan. 20, 2023
NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Nicole Mann and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata concluded their spacewalk on Jan. 20, 2023, at 3:35 p.m. EST after 7 hours and 21 minutes.
Mann and Wakata completed work left over from a previous spacewalk for a platform on which a set of International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs) for the station’s 1B power channel will be installed later this year, as well as most of the work to install a similar mounting platform for a set of iROSAs for the 1A power channel. Due to time constraints, plans to bolt a final strut for the second platform were deferred until a future spacewalk. There is no impact to station operations.
The installation is part of a series of spacewalks to augment the International Space Station’s power channels with new iROSAs. Four iROSAs have been installed so far, and two more will be mounted to the platforms installed during this spacewalk in the future.
It was the 258th spacewalk in support of space station assembly, upgrades, and maintenance, the first spacewalk of 2023, and the first spacewalk for both astronauts.
Mann and Wakata are in the midst of a planned six-month science mission living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program.
Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
Expedition 68: New Crew & Earth Photos | International Space Station
NASA astronaut and Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Nicole Mann is pictured during a fit check of her Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), or spacesuit, ahead of a planned spacewalk
Expedition 68 Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is pictured during a fit check of his Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), or spacesuit, ahead of a planned spacewalk
Nicole and Koichi are pictured during a fit check of their Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs), or spacesuit, inside the Quest airlock ahead of a planned spacewalk
Cosmonaut Anna Kikina (Russia) works on life support maintenance tasks
Station Commander: Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos (Russia)
Roscosmos (Russia): Flight Engineers Anna Kikina & Dmitri Petelin
NASA: Flight Engineers Nicole Mann, Frank Rubio & Josh Cassada
JAXA (Japan): Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
"Enjoy these stunning Earth views from the China Space Station. Take a four-minute space tour! Happy Chinese New Year/Spring Festival 2023! Year of The Rabbit!"
Shenzhou-15 Crew Members:
Fei Junlong (commander), Zhang Lu (taikonaut), and Deng Qingming (taikonaut)
The Island Nation of Madagascar in The Indian Ocean | International Space Station
The island nation of Madagascar, looking north toward Earth's horizon, is pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 262 miles above the Indian Ocean.
Station Commander: Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos (Russia)
Roscosmos (Russia): Flight Engineers Anna Kikina & Dmitri Petelin
NASA: Flight Engineers Nicole Mann, Frank Rubio & Josh Cassada
JAXA (Japan): Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Light Pollution: Stars Disappearing, Citizen Scientists Report | Globe at Night
The infographic above illustrates the impact of light pollution on our ability to see stars and other objects in the night sky.
A startling analysis from Globe at Night—a citizen science program run by the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab—concludes that stars are disappearing from human sight at an astonishing rate. The study finds that, to human eyes, artificial lighting has dulled the night sky more rapidly than indicated by satellite measurements. The study published in the journal Science showcases the unique contributions that citizen scientists can make in essential fields of research.
From the glowing arc of the Milky Way to dozens of intricate constellations, the unaided human eye should be able to perceive several thousand stars on a clear, dark night. Unfortunately, growing light pollution has robbed about 30% of people around the globe and approximately 80% of people in the United States of the nightly view of their home galaxy. A new paper published in the journal Science concludes that the problem is getting rapidly worse.
New citizen-science-based research sheds alarming light on the problem of ‘skyglow’—the diffuse illumination of the night sky that is a form of light pollution. The data for this study came from crowd-sourced observations collected from around the world as part of Globe at Night, a program run by the NSF’s NOIRLab and developed by NOIRLab astronomer Connie Walker. The research reveals that skyglow is increasing more rapidly than shown in satellite measurements of Earth's surface brightness at night.
“At this rate of change, a child born in a location where 250 stars were visible would be able to see only around 100 by the time they turned 18,” said Christopher Kyba, a researcher at the German Research Centre for Geosciences and lead author of the paper detailing these results.
Light pollution is a familiar problem that has many detrimental effects, not only on the practice of astronomy. It also has an impact on human health and wildlife, since it disrupts the cyclical transition from sunlight to starlight that biological systems have evolved alongside. Furthermore, the loss of visible stars is a poignant loss of human cultural heritage. Until relatively recently, humans throughout history had an impressive view of the starry night sky, and the effect of this nightly spectacle is evident in ancient cultures, from the myths it inspired to the structures that were built in alignment with celestial bodies.
Despite being a well-recognized issue, however, the changes in sky brightness over time are not well documented, particularly on a global scale.
Globe at Night has been gathering data on stellar visibility every year since 2006. Anyone can submit observations through the Globe at Night web application: https://www.globeatnight.org/webapp/ on a desktop or smartphone. After entering the relevant date, time and location, participants are shown a number of star maps. They then record which one best matches what they can see in the sky without any telescopes or other instruments.
This gives an estimate of what is called the naked eye limiting magnitude, which is a measure of how bright an object must be in order to be seen. This can be used to estimate the brightness of skyglow, because as the sky brightens, the fainter objects disappear from sight.
The authors of the paper analyzed more than 50,000 observations submitted to Globe at Night between 2011 and 2022, ensuring consistency by omitting entries that were affected by factors including cloud cover and moonlight. They focused on data from Europe and North America, since these regions had a sufficient distribution of observations across the land area as well as throughout the decade studied. The paper notes that the sky is likely brightening more quickly in developing countries, where satellite observations indicate the prevalence of artificial lighting is growing at a higher rate.
After devising a new method to convert these observations into estimates of the change in skyglow, the authors found that the loss of visible stars reported by Globe at Night indicates an increase in sky brightness of 9.6% per year over the past decade. This is much greater than the roughly 2% per year global increase in surface brightness measured by satellites.
“This shows that existing satellites aren't sufficient to study how Earth's night is changing,” said Kyba. “We've developed a way to ‘translate’ Globe at Night observations of star visibility made at different locations from year to year into continent-wide trends of sky brightness change. That shows that Globe at Night is not just an interesting outreach activity, it is an essential measurement of one of Earth's environmental variables.”
Existing satellites are not well suited to measuring skyglow as it appears to humans, because there are no current instruments monitoring the whole Earth that can detect wavelengths shorter than 500 nanometers, which corresponds to the color cyan, or greenish blue. Shorter wavelengths, however, contribute disproportionately to skyglow, because they scatter more effectively in the atmosphere. White LEDs, now increasingly commonly used in high-efficiency outdoor lighting, have a peak in emission between 400 and 500 nanometers.
“Since human eyes are more sensitive to these shorter wavelengths at nighttime, LED lights have a strong effect on our perception of sky brightness,” said Kyba. “This could be one of the reasons behind the discrepancy between satellite measurements and the sky conditions reported by Globe at Night participants.”
Beyond wavelength differences, space-based instruments do not measure light emitted horizontally very well, such as from illuminated signs or windows, but these sources are significant contributors to skyglow as seen from the ground. Crowd-sourced observations will therefore always be invaluable for investigating the direct human effects of sky brightness.
“The increase in skyglow over the past decade underscores the importance of redoubling our efforts and developing new strategies to protect dark skies,” said Walker. “The Globe at Night dataset is indispensable in our ongoing evaluation of changes in skyglow, and we encourage everyone who can to get involved to help protect the starry night sky.”
Credit: NOIRLab/National Science Foundation (NSF)/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), P. Marenfeld
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