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Celebrating the Webb Space Telescope’s First Year of Science | This Week @NASA
Celebrating the Webb Space Telescope’s first year of science, testing remote possibilities of a NASA humanoid robot, and a fleet of clean new rides for Artemis astronauts . . . a few of the stories to tell you about This Week at NASA!
Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Video Producer, Editor & Narrator: Andre Valentine
NASA Orion Crew Modules for Artemis II, Artemis III & Artemis IV Moon Missions
FriendsofNASA.org: The Orion spacecraft for NASA’s crewed Artemis II (right), Artemis III (left) and Artemis IV (center) Moon missions are stationed next to each other inside the high bay of the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 22, 2023. Each capsule is in a different stage of production as technicians and engineers prepare the spacecraft to carry astronauts to and around the Moon on their upcoming flights.
Technicians recently installed the heat shield on the Artemis II crew module, and teams are preparing to conduct acoustic testing later this summer. Once complete, the crew module will be joined with its service module in preparation to fly four astronauts around the Moon.
The Artemis III crew module, which will carry the next astronauts to step foot on the lunar surface from Earth to their human landing system and return them home, was removed from the clean room inside the high bay to complete a series of pressure and leak tests. The Artemis IV crew module arrived at the spaceport in February and is in the early stages of the assembly process.
Fires Rage in British Columbia, Canada | NASA Aqua Earth Satellite
In July 2023, a combination of unusual heat, dry lightning, and drought fueled major outbreaks of fire in Canada. According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC), nearly 600 out-of-control fires burned throughout the country on July 13, 2023, with about half of these raging in British Columbia or Alberta.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image on July 12, 2023. Dense plumes of smoke billowing from several of the largest fires streamed east, prompting Environment Canada to issue air quality warnings for several communities in British Columbia, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories.
Several blazes in British Columbia have produced smoke-infused storm clouds known as pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) in recent weeks, though the features are not apparent in this image. Scientists track these towering, heat-generated storms closely because they loft smoke high in the atmosphere where fast-moving upper-level winds spread the smoke widely.
“We observed 14 pyroCbs with satellites on July 9-10 alone—several in British Columbia and some in Quebec,” said David Peterson, an atmospheric scientist with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. “This surge in activity has made 2023 the most active year for pyroCbs both in Canada and worldwide since we began tracking their numbers closely about a decade ago.” As of July 13, with about six weeks left in the Canadian fire season, Peterson and colleagues had observed 90 pyroCbs in Canada and 104 worldwide in 2023. The previous records, both set in 2021, were 50 for Canada and 100 worldwide.
That is not the only remarkable aspect of the fires in Canada. More than 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres) had burned in British Columbia as of July 12 , 2023, roughly 30 times the average for that point in the year.
The large amount of burned area in British Columbia contributed to record-breaking burned area totals at a national scale. Across Canada, fires had charred 9.4 million hectares as of July 12, an area about the size of the state of Indiana. That is well ahead of the 7.1 million hectares burned in 1997, the second-highest year on the CIFFC record. A major outbreak of fire in eastern Canada in June also contributed to the high numbers.
Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC): https://ciffc.ca
Large Magellanic Cloud: Large & Small Stars in Harmonious Coexistence | Hubble
This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This sharp image reveals a large number of low-mass infant stars coexisting with young massive stars.
Distance: ~160,000 light years
Credit: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA)
The Milky Way & Magellanic Cloud: Southern Hemisphere View 'Down Under'
Two galaxies are easily visible in this night sky image above Australia—The Milky Way and an irregular dwarf galaxy, called the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), located about 160,000 light years away. Orbiting The Milky Way Galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud satellite galaxy is a member of the Local Group. The Local Group is the galaxy group that includes our Milky Way.
Two galaxies are easily visible in this night sky image above Australia—The Milky Way and irregular dwarf galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), located about 160,000 light years away. Orbiting The Milky Way Galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud satellite galaxy is a member of the Local Group. The Local Group is the galaxy group that includes the Milky Way.
Astrophotographer Mark Wright: "Place to yourself . . . The beach was completely isolated with perfectly clear skies on my last night of camping. I'd been looking for conditions like this for the whole week, and it all came good at the very end. Needless to say I spent the whole night imaging! (and paid the price afterwards)"
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. Source: Globe at Night—a citizen science program run by the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab.
The Fading Milky Way
Light pollution is a growing environmental problem that threatens to erase the night sky before its time. A recent study revealed that perhaps two-thirds of the world's population can no longer look upwards at night and see the Milky Way—a hazy swath of stars that on warm summer nights spans the sky from horizon to horizon.
The Milky Way is dimming, not because the end of the Universe is near, but rather as a result of light pollution: the inadvertent illumination of the atmosphere from street lights, outdoor advertising, homes, schools, airports and other sources. Every night billions of bulbs send their energy skyward where microscopic bits of matter—air molecules, airborne dust, and water vapor droplets—reflect much of the wasted light back to Earth.
NASA's Space to Ground: Watershed Moment | Week of July 14, 2023
NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station. Note: Northrop Grumman’s 19th commercial resupply mission is launching no earlier than Tuesday, August 1, 2023.
Station Commander: Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos (Russia)
Roscosmos (Russia): Flight Engineers Dmitri Petelin & Andrey Fedyaev
Flight Engineer Sultan Alneyadi of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
NASA: Flight Engineers Frank Rubio, Stephen Bowen, Warren Hoburg
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.
Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
A GSLV Mk-III launch vehicle (LVM3-M4) successfully launched the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission, from the Second Launch Pad (SLP) of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, India, on July 14, 2023, at 09:05 UTC (14:35 local time). Chandrayaan-3, ISRO’s third lunar exploration mission, consists of a propulsion module, a lander and a rover.
After reaching the moon, Chandrayaan-3 is planned to land about 70.9 degrees south of the lunar equator. Chandrayaan-3 is India's effort to become the fourth country, after the United States, Russia and China, to successfully soft-land on the Moon.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft would also be the first to land at the lunar south pole, an area of special interest for space agencies and private space companies because of the presence of water ice that could support future surface activities.
A GSLV Mk-III launch vehicle (LVM3-M4) successfully launched the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission, from the Second Launch Pad (SLP) of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, India, on July 14, 2023, at 09:05 UTC (14:35 local time). Chandrayaan-3, ISRO’s third lunar exploration mission, consists of a propulsion module, a lander and a rover.
After reaching the moon, Chandrayaan-3 is planned to land about 70.9 degrees south of the lunar equator. Chandrayaan-3 is India's effort to become the fourth country, after the United States, Russia and China, to successfully soft-land on the Moon.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft would also be the first to land at the lunar south pole, an area of special interest for space agencies and private space companies because of the presence of water ice that could support future surface activities.
Chandrayaan-3, which means “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit, is expected to take off aboard a Launch Vehicle Mark III rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota in southern Andhra Pradesh state at 2:30 p.m. local time (5 a.m. ET) on July 14, 2023.
After reaching the Moon, the Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander is planned to touchdown about 70.9 degrees south of the lunar equator. Chandrayaan-3 is India's effort to become the fourth country, after the United States, Russia and China, to successfully soft-land on the Moon.
Image Credit: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
Ribbons & Pearls: Spiral Galaxy NGC 1398 in Fornax | ESO
This picture shows spectacular ribbons of gas and dust wrapping around the pearly center of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1398. This galaxy is located in the constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), approximately 65 million light-years away.
Rather than beginning at the very middle of the galaxy and swirling outwards, NGC 1398’s graceful spiral arms stem from a straight bar, formed of stars, that cuts through the galaxy’s central region. Most spiral galaxies—around two thirds—are observed to have this feature, but it is not yet clear whether or how these bars affect a galaxy’s behavior and development.
This image comprises data gathered by the FOcal Reducer/low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument, mounted on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal Observatory, Chile. It shows NGC 1398 in striking detail, from the dark lanes of dust mottling its spiral arms, through to the pink-hued star-forming regions sprinkled throughout its outer regions.
The Toby Jug Nebula: IC 2220| Gemini South Telescope
A billowing pair of nearly symmetrical loops of dust and gas mark the death throes of an ancient red-giant star, as captured by Gemini South, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab. The resulting structure, said to resemble an old style of English jug, is a rarely seen bipolar reflection nebula. Evidence suggests that this object formed by the interactions between the dying red giant and a now-shredded companion star.
The glowing nebula IC 2220, nicknamed the Toby Jug Nebula owing to its resemblance to an old English drinking vessel, is a rare astronomical find. This reflection nebula, located about 1,200 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Carina (the keel), is a double-lobed, or bipolar, cloud of gas and dust created and illuminated by the red-giant star at its center. This end-of-life phase of red giant stars is relatively brief, and the celestial structures that form around them are rare, making the Toby Jug Nebula an excellent case study into stellar evolution.
This image showcases the Toby Jug Nebula’s magnificent, nearly symmetrical double-looped structure and glowing stellar heart. These features are unique to red giants transitioning from aging stars to planetary nebulae and therefore offer astronomers valuable insight into the evolution of low- to intermediate-mass stars nearing the end of their lives as well as the cosmic structures they form.
At the heart of the Toby Jug Nebula is its progenitor, the red-giant star HR3126. Red giants form when a star burns through its supply of hydrogen in its core. Without the outward force of fusion, the star begins to contract. This raises the core temperature and causes the star to then swell up to 400 times its original size. Though HR3126 is considerably younger than our Sun—a mere 50 million years old compared to the Sun’s 4.6 billion years—it is five times the mass. This allowed the star to burn through its hydrogen supply and become a red giant much faster than the Sun.
As HR 3126 swelled, its atmosphere expanded and it began to shed its outer layers. The expelled stellar material flowed out into the surrounding area, forming a magnificent structure of gas and dust that reflects the light from the central star. Detailed studies of the Toby Jug Nebula in infrared light have revealed that silicon dioxide (silica) is the most likely compound reflecting HR3126’s light.
Astronomers theorize that bipolar structures similar to those seen in the Toby Jug Nebula are the result of interactions between the central red giant and a binary companion star. Previous observations, however, found no such companion to HR3126. Instead, astronomers observed an extremely compact disk of material around the central star. This finding suggests that a former binary companion was possibly shredded into the disk, which may have triggered the formation of the surrounding nebula.
In about five billion years from now, when our Sun has burned through its supply of hydrogen, it too will become a red giant and eventually evolve into a planetary nebula. In the very distant future, all that will be left of our Solar System will be a nebula as vibrant as the Toby Jug Nebula with the slowly cooling Sun at its heart.
The image was processed by NOIRLab’s Communication, Education & Engagement team as part of the NOIRLab Legacy Imaging Program. The observations were made with Gemini South on Cerro Pachón in Chile using one of the dual Gemini Multi-Object Spectrographs (GMOS). Though spectrographs are designed to split light into various wavelengths for study, the GMOS spectrographs also have powerful imaging capabilities, as demonstrated by this exceptional view of the Toby Jug Nebula.
Image Credits: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Rodriguez (Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab)
Moon Stance: European Astronauts Alexander Gerst & Samantha Cristoforetti
European Space Agency astronauts Alexander Gerst of Germany and Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy stand in a Norwegian fjord escorted by a waning crescent Moon. The pair is fully equipped for their first field expedition on lunar geology, as part of an intensive training week with the European Space Agency’s PANGAEA course.
Alexander and Samantha are wearing a digitally enhanced geology toolkit: a belt with a microscope, a spectrometer and a chest rig with a tablet to record their movements and document their findings. The astronauts also carry a rock hammer, a magnifying lens, sampling bags, a magnet and cue cards to help them identify rocks for science.
The duo was about to embark on a hunt to locate rare Earth rocks similar to those found in the heavily cratered highlands of the Moon—anorthosites. These rocks are billions of years old and originated from deep within the Earth. Anorthosites have been carved by Arctic glaciers in the mountains surrounding the small fishing village of Nusfjord.
Top European planetary scientists follow the astronauts closely to fill any knowledge gaps the might have about lunar science. The trainees have gained an extensive set of geological knowledge and skills, and are trained to work with scientists and explore autonomously as if they were exploring the surface of the Moon.
Alexander and Samantha are also supported by a series of tools and an app, a sort of ‘space tablet’ called the Electronic Field Book that helps them identify and record minerals and rocks, interact with a remote science team and collect the promising samples.
The digital tool is tested in each PANGAEA edition to support lunar exploration with future NASA Artemis missions in mind.
The Spanish Dancer Galaxy: NGC 1566 Twirls into View | NOIRLab
CosmoView 42: This image, taken by astronomers using the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, captures the galaxy NGC 1566 as it twirls, flinging its arms through the vastness of space. Colloquially nicknamed the Spanish Dancer, this spiral galaxy is often studied by astronomers learning about galaxy groups, stars of different ages, and galactic black holes.
Distance: 20 million light years
Video Credits: Dark Energy Survey
DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)
Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)
Zooming to The Spanish Dancer Galaxy: NGC 1566 | NOIRLab
This video zooms into the galaxy NGC 1566. The galaxy twirls into view from the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab in Chile. Colloquially nicknamed the Spanish Dancer, spiral galaxy NGC 1566 is often studied by astronomers learning about galaxy groups, stars of different ages, and galactic black holes.
Distance: 20 million light years
Video Credits: Dark Energy Survey
DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)
Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)
The Spanish Dancer Galaxy: NGC 1566 | Victor Blanco Telescope in Chile
This image, taken by astronomers using the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, captures the galaxy NGC 1566 as it twirls, flinging its arms through the vastness of space. Colloquially nicknamed the Spanish Dancer, this spiral galaxy is often studied by astronomers learning about galaxy groups, stars of different ages, and galactic black holes.
Distance:20 million light years
Image Credits: Dark Energy Survey DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)
Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)
China Unveils Initial Plans for Crewed Moon Landing | CCTV
China plans to land its taikonauts on the moon before 2030 to carry out scientific exploration, according to a preliminary plan released by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) on Wednesday, July 12, 2023, at the 9th China (International) Commercial Aerospace Forum in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, central China.
The plan is to launch two carrier rockets to send a lunar lander and a crewed spacecraft to a lunar orbit, respectively. The craft and lunar lander will rendezvous and dock with each other, and then taikonauts will enter the lander.
As the lunar lander descends and arrives at the preset area on the lunar surface, taikonauts will carry out scientific tasks and collect samples.
After completing the planned tasks, taikonauts will return to the lander, which will lift them back to the lunar orbit to dock with their spacecraft.
In the final step, the spacecraft will fly taikonauts back to Earth with lunar samples.
Chinese researchers are working on the development of the Long March-10 carrier rocket, a new generation of crewed spacecraft, lunar lander, lunar landing spacesuit, crewed lunar rover, and other equipment, explained Zhang Hailian, deputy chief designer at this space industry forum.
The new carrier rocket will have three and a half stages with a carrying capacity of about 27 tonnes to the lunar transfer orbit, and the rocket body is five meters in diameter.
The new generation of manned spacecraft has three parts—an escape tower, a re-entry capsule, and a service capsule, Zhang said, adding that the new spaceship will employ module designs that can satisfy the needs of both near-Earth and deep-space explorations.
The lunar landing spacecraft will consist of two parts—a landing section and a propulsion section, and can send two taikonauts to the lunar surface at the same time.
The lunar rover will weigh 200 kg and can accommodate two taikonauts.
In addition, the spacesuit being developed for the moon landing, with a single working time of no less than eight hours, will feature better mobilities to help taikonauts walk, climb, squat, drive, and operate machines.
Zhang said China would also explore the construction of a lunar scientific research station and carry out systematic and long-term lunar exploration and related technical tests and verification.
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