Scientists at NASA have named the celestial object as Asteroid 2024 EU4, a report in Times Now said. The giant space rock is reported to be around 420 feet, which is larger as compared to other asteroids that come near our planet.
According to NASA’s data, the asteroid is moving incredibly fast, traveling at a speed of 101,885 km per hour. Shockingly, scientists believe that it will make a close approach to Earth on March 23 i.e. today. However, scientists believe it will be 4.5 million miles away from our planet and there is nothing much to worry about.
On the other hand, there is a fear that any slight deviation in the asteroid’s orbit will have catastrophic consequences on Earth. However, NASA scientists have stated that there’s no need for immediate panic.
NASA has been closely tracking the asteroid’s path and confirmed that it will maintain a safe distance from Earth, Times Now reported.
Due to its massive size, scientists have classified the asteroid 2024 EU4 in a potentially hazardous object. Any asteroids that are larger than 150 meters, and come within 4.6 million miles of Earth are considered potentially hazardous.
Worth mentioning, apart from the threat from Asteroid 2024 EU4, Earth has escaped four asteroids today, NASA reported.
NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Tracy C. Dyson are set to reach the space station this month and in March.
“Human Brain Organoid Models for Neurodegenerative Disease & Drug Discovery” (HBOND) studies the mechanisms behind neuro-inflammation, a common feature of neurodegenerative disorders.
Researchers create “organoids” using patient-derived iPSCs (induced pluripotent stem cells) from patients who have Parkinson’s disease and primary progressive multiple sclerosis.
Results could help improve diagnostics, provide insights into the effects of aging, accelerate drug discovery, and identify therapeutic targets for patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases.
The “organoid” models also could provide a way to anticipate how extended spaceflight affects the brain and support development of countermeasures, according to NASA.
Plants can serve as a source of food and provide other life-support services on long-term missions to the Moon and Mars.
The study on “Plant Responses Against the Stresses of Microgravity and High Ultraviolet Radiation in Space” (Plant UV-B) examines how stress from microgravity, UV radiation, and the combination of the two affect plants at the molecular, cellular, and whole organism levels.
“Results could increase understanding of plant growth in space and support improvements in plant cultivation technologies for future missions,” the space agency said.
Weightlessness causes fluids in the body to move toward the head, which can cause changes in eye structure and vision known as ‘Spaceflight Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome’ (SANS) along with other health problems.
The new study will examine whether thigh pressure cuffs could provide a simple way to counter this shift in body fluids and help protect astronauts from SANS and other issues on future missions to the Moon and Mars.
Thigh cuffs also could help treat or prevent problems for patients on Earth who have conditions that cause fluid accumulation in the head, such as long-term bedrest and diseases.
The Hubble Telescope has captured a bow-shaped nebula which is about 4,000 light-years away.
Nebulas are from elements such as interstellar gas smoke, vapour, etc. They formed after the aftermath of Supernova, which is considered as the biggest star explosion in space.
NASA took to its official Instagram handle and shared the photo of the nebula.
Explaining the celestial event, NASA said that the nebula is crafted from the material casted off by a dying sun-like star as it enters its white-dwarf phase of evolution.
NASA further informed that the dense ridges of material are swept back from the nebula’s central star creating the bow shape.
According to the information, this star is considered one of the hottest as well, with a surface temperature of about 200,000 kelvin. The nebula spans more than a light-year wide and is energized by ultraviolet light from the central star.
Giving a brief description of the colours of the nebula, NASA wrote in the caption, "A bow-tie shaped nebula in pink-range colours against the blackness of space. The centre glows in lighter shades including details in the blue. Tendrils of gold expanding out which can be seen in the image creating the unique shape."
It is to be noted that the Hubble Space Telescope was launched by NASA in the year 1990. Hubble was released into space to discover the unknown things in space. It also can look at celestial events light years away.
Watch the image here:
Akshata, an Indian researcher, became the first woman of the country to lead science and robotic operations on Earth and Mars from NASA. Besides, she will operate the rover, which will be sent to the Mars.
Akshata took to her official Instagram and shared her incredible journey.
“I came to the United States a little over 13 years ago with almost nothing but a dream to work at NASA and lead breakthrough science and robotic operations on Earth and Mars. Everyone I met told me that this was impossible as a foreign national on a visa, and that I should either have a plan B or change my field completely. I’m glad that I didn’t listen to anyone. I persevered until I found a way!"
"From getting my PhD at MIT to knocking 100s of doors to get hired full-time at NASA, nothing came easy. Today, I work on multiple cool space missions including the Perseverance rover collecting samples to bring back to Earth.”
"No dream is ever too big or crazy. Believe in yourself, keep those blinkers on and keep working! I promise, you’ll get there if you work hard.”
Akshata also shared a video which featured the rover she is working with and wrote, “First Indian citizen to operate a rover in Mars.”
The video has amassed 7.63 lakh views and netizes have filled the comment section with praises as one user wrote, “The country is proud of you,” another user wrote, “Girl that's how a dream come true.”
Watch the video below:
The Psyche spacecraft lifted off atop a Falcon Heavy rocket on October 13 at 10:19 AM EDT (7.49 PM IST) from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.
“We have liftoff! NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, along with the agency’s DSOC (Deep Space Optical Communications) technology demonstration,” NASA said in a blogpost.
“Liftoff of Falcon Heavy!” SpaceX posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Falcon Heavy's two side boosters came back to Earth for a landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which is next door to KSC, about 8.25 minutes after liftoff. It was the fourth launch and landing for each booster, SpaceX said in a mission description.
This was the first interplanetary mission for SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, and is also the Falcon Heavy’s first science mission for NASA’s Launch Services Programme, based at Kennedy.
The spacecraft will travel on a journey of nearly six years and about 3.6 billion kilometres to the asteroid by the same name orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter to study its composition.
This will be the first time NASA has explored a world made not of rock and ice, but with large amounts of metal, as the mission seeks to understand a previously unexplored building block of planet formation: iron cores.
NASA will have the first optical communications demonstration from distances farther than the Moon, through DSOC, which will operate during the first two years of the roughly six-year journey to Psyche.
Along with DSOC, other instruments carried on the Psyche spacecraft include two multispectral imagers, two magnetometers, and a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer.
The spacecraft will arrive at the asteroid Psyche in 2029, after about six years of a solar electric-powered cruise. It will spend 26 months in orbit around the asteroid Psyche, mapping and studying Psyche’s properties.
Europa's frigid zones, characterized by extremely cold temperatures, have been a focal point of this groundbreaking discovery. The observations by the James Webb Space Telescope suggest the presence of carbon, a fundamental building block of life, beneath the icy surface of Europa.
According to a TOI report, the study published in the journal 'Science' on September 21, 2023, was a collaborative effort by two independent teams of astronomers investigating signs of a space observatory on the moon's surface.
Lead author Geronimo Villanueva highlighted the crucial role of chemical diversity in supporting life, emphasising that Europa's ocean holds the key to deciphering the potential life-enabling or inhibiting nature of carbon gas.
While Europa stands out as a celestial body where life could possibly exist, NASA underscores that the mere presence of carbon is not sufficient for life to thrive. It necessitates an energy source, organic nutrients, and a continuous supply of organic molecules.
The focus shifted to Europa's Taro Regio region, a rugged area rich in ice, where a substantial concentration of carbon dioxide was identified. Scientists hypothesize that substances from the moon's ocean depths may have surfaced in this region, potentially carrying vital clues about Europa's hidden biosphere.
The James Webb Space Telescope's data was also scrutinized for signs of water vapour erupting from Europa's surface, a phenomenon hinted at in previous Hubble Space Telescope observations. The analysis revealed no definitive evidence of plume activity, suggesting the need for more nuanced investigations. These findings will inform upcoming space missions, including NASA's Europa Clipper and ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, as they probe Europa's mysteries.
NASA's plan to dispatch the Europa Clipper spacecraft for further investigation underscores the significance of Europa in the quest for extraterrestrial
OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer), the first US mission to collect a sample from an asteroid, will return with material from asteroid Bennu. It is carrying an estimated 8.8 ounces of rocky material collected from the surface of the asteroid Bennu in 2020.
The asteroid sample capsule is scheduled to land in a Utah desert in the US on Sunday at 8.25 p.m. IST (8.55 a.m. MDT), reports Wired.
The precious cargo contains approximately 250 grams of material collected by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from the asteroid Bennu about two years ago.
After seven years in space, the mission is now facing one of its most difficult challenges -- returning the samples to Earth.
According to the report, the spacecraft itself won't enter the planet's atmosphere, but it will drop off a parcel in a precise trajectory to make it land in the Utah desert.
While transporting the sample, the capsule must shield it from heat, vibrations, and contamination from our planet.
For an accurate "parcel drop," the spacecraft must follow a precise path and velocity. If the capsule is dropped at an angle too steep, it will skip off the planet's atmosphere like a rock across a river.
This would send the samples into space, where they could not be recovered. If the capsule is angled too low, it will burn up in the atmosphere of Earth, the report explained.
These samples carried by the OSIRIS-REx mission are important because asteroids such as Bennu can act as a "time capsule" for our solar system's earliest history.
The asteroid sample will help researchers learn about how our planet and solar system formed, as well as the origin of organics that may have led to life on Earth.
Once retrieved, the sample will be documented, cared for, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and later distributed for analysis to scientists worldwide.
NASA had commissioned an independent study to better understand how the space agency can contribute to ongoing government efforts to further the study observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as balloons, aircraft, or as known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective.
“At this point, there is no reason to conclude that existing UAP reports have an extraterrestrial source,” the report said.
The report stated that insufficient data and stigma about the topic continue to be significant barriers to uncovering the nature of UAPs. The independent study recommends that NASA can play a prominent role in the government’s effort to understand UAP by furthering the study and data collection of UAP.
“The negative perception surrounding the reporting of UAP poses an obstacle to collecting data on these phenomena. NASA’s very involvement in UAP will play a vital role in reducing the stigma associated with UAP reporting, which almost certainly leads to data attrition at present. NASA’s long-standing public trust, which is essential for communicating findings about these phenomena to citizens, is crucial for destigmatising UAP reporting,” the report said.
NASA has a variety of existing and planned Earth-and space-observing assets, together with an extensive archive of historic and current data sets, which should be used to address the challenges of detecting and/or understanding UAP.
“Data is the critical lifeblood needed to advance scientific exploration, and we thank the independent study team members for lending NASA their expertise towards identifying what available data is possible to understand the nature and origin of future UAP,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, in a statement.
The independent study team, set up outside of NASA, used unclassified data from civilian government entities, commercial data, and data from other sources to inform their findings and recommendations in the report. There are currently a limited number of high-quality observations of UAP, which currently make it impossible to draw firm scientific conclusions about their nature.
“Using unclassified data was essential for our team’s fact-finding, open-communication collaboration, and for upholding scientific rigour to produce this report for NASA,” said David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation and chair of the UAP independent study team.
“The team wrote the report in conjunction with NASA’s pillars of transparency, openness and scientific integrity to help the agency shed light on the nature of future UAP incidents. We found that NASA can help the whole-of-government UAP effort through systematic data calibration, multiple measurements and ensuring thorough sensor metadata to create a data set that is both reliable and extensive for future UAP study.”
The UAP independent study team is a counsel of 16 community experts across diverse areas on matters relevant to potential methods of study for unidentified anomalous phenomena. NASA commissioned the study to examine UAP from a scientific perspective and create a roadmap for how to use data and the tools of science to move our understanding of UAP forward.
The Psyche mission is a journey to a unique metal-rich asteroid of the same name, orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.
The probe is set to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida at 10.38 a.m. EDT on October 5.
The mission may help scientists understand more about how planets form.
The spacecraft’s solar arrays are folded like an envelope into their stowed position. Xenon gas -- fuel for the journey to the asteroid belt -- is loaded. All four thrusters have passed their final tests. Engineers have confirmed the massive high-gain antenna is set to transmit data. The software is tested and ready.
The science instruments -- a multispectral imager, magnetometer, and gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer -- that will investigate the asteroid Psyche are also poised for action, the agency said.
"These missions take so many people and so much meticulous, rigorous, personally driven work," said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator for Psyche at Arizona State University, in a statement.
"I am ready to be ecstatic. We all are, but we are not ecstatic yet. Let’s launch and establish communications -- then we can scream, jump, and hug each other!"
Within two weeks, technicians will begin encapsulating the spacecraft in its payload fairing -- the cone at the top of the rocket -- and the spacecraft will move to SpaceX facilities at Kennedy Center.
After escaping Earth’s gravity, Psyche will use solar electric propulsion to accomplish its six-year journey to the asteroid. The efficient propulsion system works by accelerating and expelling charged atoms, or ions, of the neutral gas xenon -- creating a thrust that gently propels the spacecraft with a force akin to what you’d feel holding a single AA battery in your hand.
Technicians recently loaded 1,085 kilograms of xenon onto the spacecraft over the course of about two weeks.
Measuring roughly 279 kilometres at its widest point, the asteroid Psyche presents a unique opportunity to explore a metal-rich body that may be part of a core of a planetesimal, the building block of an early planet.
Once the spacecraft reaches Psyche in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, it will spend about 26 months orbiting the asteroid, gathering images and other data that will tell scientists more about its history and what it is made of.
Developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a microwave-oven-size device called MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment), has generated oxygen for the 16th and final time aboard Perseverance rover.
"MOXIE's impressive performance shows that it is feasible to extract oxygen from Mars' atmosphere -- oxygen that could help supply breathable air or rocket propellant to future astronauts," said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, in a statement.
“Developing technologies that let us use resources on the Moon and Mars is critical to build a long-term lunar presence, create a robust lunar economy, and allow us to support an initial human exploration campaign to Mars," Melroy added.
MOXIE served as the first-ever demonstration of technology that humans could use to survive on, and leave, the Red Planet.
It produces molecular oxygen through an electrochemical process that separates one oxygen atom from each molecule of carbon dioxide pumped in from Mars’ thin atmosphere.
As these gases flow through the system, they’re analysed to check the purity and quantity of the oxygen produced.
Since Perseverance landed on Mars in 2021, MOXIE has generated a total of 122 grams of oxygen, equivalent to about what a small dog breathes in 10 hours.
At its most efficient, MOXIE was able to produce 12 grams of oxygen an hour -- twice as much as NASA's original goals for the instrument -- at 98 per cent purity or better.
On its 16th run, on August 7, the instrument made 9.8 grams of oxygen.
An oxygen-producing system could help future missions in various ways, but the most important of them would be as a source of rocket propellant, which would be required in industrial quantities to launch rockets with astronauts for their return trip home.
Rather than bringing large quantities of oxygen with them to Mars, future astronauts could live off the land, using materials they find on the planet’s surface to survive.
The next step would be to create a full-scale system that includes an oxygen generator like MOXIE and a way to liquefy and store that oxygen.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission, led by scientists at ISRO, made history on Wednesday after India became the first nation in the world to land near the South Pole of the moon. India also became the fourth nation to make a soft landing on the moon after the erstwhile USSR, the US, and China.
The lander landed near the South Pole of the moon after travelling about 3.84 lakh km for over 40 days.
"Congratulations ISRO on your successful Chandrayaan-3 lunar South Pole landing! And congratulations to India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon. We’re glad to be your partner on this mission!" Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator, said in a post on X (formerly Twitter)
Congratulations @isro on your successful Chandrayaan-3 lunar South Pole landing! And congratulations to #India on being the 4th country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon. We’re glad to be your partner on this mission! https://t.co/UJArS7gsTv
— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) August 23, 2023
"History made! Congratulations to ISRO," added the UK Space Agency.
History made! 🇮🇳🌖
— UK Space Agency (@spacegovuk) August 23, 2023
Congratulations to @isro 👏#Chandrayaan3 https://t.co/6bPUfA3yXy
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft comprises a propulsion module (weighing 2,148 kg), a lander (1,723.89 kg) and a rover (26 kg).
With the landing, a major portion of the Rs 600 crore Chandrayaan-3 mission has been realised. The remaining portion is the moon rover rolling down from the lander, moving around and doing the programmed experiments.
"Incredible! Congratulations to ISRO, Chandrayaan_3, and to all the people of India!!," European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Josef Aschbacher said on X.
Incredible! Congratulations to @isro, #Chandrayaan_3, and to all the people of India!!
— Josef Aschbacher (@AschbacherJosef) August 23, 2023
What a way to demonstrate new technologies AND achieve India’s first soft landing on another celestial body. Well done, I am thoroughly impressed.
And kudos once again to @esaoperations for… https://t.co/GT3kyWHP6L
"What a way to demonstrate new technologies AND achieve India’s first soft landing on another celestial body," he added.
Emphasising ESA's support in the process, he said the agency "is learning great lessons and providing crucial expertise".
While there is no official confirmation whether there are dome-shaped structures on the moon’s surface or not, the images do not seem to be released by NASA. Albeit, the viral image has triggered an interesting discussion on social media with many saying that the dome-shaped structure was built by the Mughals calling it, “Moon under Mughals.”
BIG BREAKING:
— rae (@ChillamChilli) August 21, 2023
NASA has release pics of dome shaped structures on moon. Sources are saying these structures were built by MUGHAL’s. pic.twitter.com/twOJReX5nD
One user has said that it is the Romila Thaper version of the moon. Another said that Chacha Nehru built the structure on the moon. One more user commented, “So it is not Armstrong who landed on the moon first.” Several other hilarious comments were made by social media users on this fake image.
So it's not Armstrong who has first landed on moon.
— Yousufguda (@yousufguda75131) August 21, 2023
It is not the first time that rumours associated with NASA have attracted so much attention on the internet. Over the years many different speculations and rumours have been wrongly attributed to NASA.
Earlier there was a rumour that NASA has already found an alien life and it also has made secret videos of it but the independent US agency has repeatedly denied such claims. It was quite a big achievement when humanity managed to land on the moon. But there were many people across the world who thought that all of it was fake.
Nevertheless, repeated investigations carried out independently by different agencies have debunked such rumours confirming that the landing on the moon was very much real and scientific data related to the same is readily available.
While temporary losses in communications have occurred before, due to systems upgrades on the ground or missed contact with satellites, this outage marked the first time that NASA had to rely on backup control hardware at Johnson Space Center’s Building 30, CNN reported.
According to ISS Programme Manager Joel Montalbano, the outage occurred on Tuesday morning and lasted about 90 minutes.
But NASA was able to communicate with the astronauts aboard ISS via Russian systems within 20 minutes after the outage began, he was quoted as saying.
The outage also caused no danger for the crew.
“It wasn’t an issue on board. It was purely a ground problem,” he said. He explained that the outage happened due to a pre-planned upgrade to the power systems that triggered some “reconfiguration”.
“We knew this (the upgrade work) was going on,” Montalbano said.
“In preparation for that we have the backup command and control system that we would use if we have to close the centre for a weather emergency.”
In about an hour and a half NASA could transition to using the backup system -- designed for use during hurricane season or in the event of a weather outage, Montalbano said.
He noted that the outage, which impacted only the first floor of the mission control building, affected the key communications providing hardware, including voice contact and telemetry, or data about the space station’s pressure levels, power and position.
It did not affect flight controllers, or the rotating crew of NASA employees who constantly monitor the ISS from consoles in the main mission control room.
Montalbano said that NASA would work to “better understand what happened and then take some lessons learned”, the report said.
From wildfires, flooding, heatwaves, a record hot June, and July likely to be the warmest absolute month on record, millions of people over the globe are experiencing the effects of extreme weather.
NASA said it is tracking it all, and sharing its data.
"The data is clear: Our Earth is warming, and NASA is committed to empowering scientists, decisionmakers, and people around the world to make data-based decisions when it comes to climate," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, at a recent media roundtable, highlighting the agency's climate work.
"With more than two dozen satellites, instruments aboard the International Space Station, and commercial and international partnerships, NASA uses our unique vantage point of space to observe our planet. To put it another way, NASA is bringing space down to Earth," he added.
NASA experts pointed out quite a few of the agency's endeavours to combat climate change, including missions to improve our understanding of how global warming is changing biological systems, looking into next-gen technologies like unmanned aircraft to monitor wildfire response mechanisms and deploying satellites to track greenhouse gas emissions across the globe.
They also discussed how artificial intelligence and deep learning could aid the agency with getting climate data that's as precise and accurate as possible. The experts also argued the urgency to step up efforts to tackle climate change.
"The heat waves that we're seeing in the US, in Europe and in China are demolishing records left, right and centre," Gavin Schmidt, director, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies was quoted as saying by Space.com
"There has been decade on decade of increasing temperatures -- throughout the last four decades."
CHAPEA, or Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, is a ground-based mission at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The mission is the first of three planned one-year Mars surface simulations, during which crew members will live and work in a 3D-printed, 1,700-square-foot habitat called Mars Dune Alpha for an year.
The four-member crew include biologist Kelly Haston, Ross Brockwell, who is a structural engineer, Nathan Jones, a physician, and Anca Selariu, a Navy microbiologist.
During the simulation, crew members will carry out different types of mission activities, including simulated spacewalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, personal hygiene, exercise, and crop growth. To be as Mars-realistic as feasible, the crew also will face environmental stressors such as resource limitations, isolation, and equipment failure.
"The simulation will allow us to collect cognitive and physical performance data to give us more insight into the potential impacts of long-duration missions to Mars on crew health and performance," said Grace Douglas, CHAPEA principal investigator, in a statement.
"Ultimately, this information will help NASA make informed decisions to design and plan for a successful human mission to Mars," Douglas added.
The mission also includes two alternates to the crew: Alyssa Shannon, former primary crew member and an advanced practice nurse; and Trevor Clark, former back-up crew member aerospace engineer.
The in-person media event includes an opportunity to speak with subject matter experts and capture b-roll and photos inside the habitat. Crew members will not be available as they'll arrive at NASA Johnson later this spring to begin training for the simulated mission.
CHAPEA's missions 2 and 3 will be conducted in 2025 and 2026, respectively.
NASA is leading a return to the Moon for long-term exploration. Through the Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.
Lessons learned on and around the Moon and activities like CHAPEA on the ground will prepare NASA for the next giant leap: sending astronauts to Mars.
While "63 days is a long time to wait for the results of a flight, the data coming in indicates all is well with the first aircraft on another world", the mission officials said in a statement.
Ingenuity landed on the Red Planet in February 2021 attached to the belly of NASA's Mars Perseverance rover and it also marked the two-year anniversary of its first flight, which took place on April 19, 2021.
Originally tasked with only five test flights to prove its "pioneering" technology, Ingenuity helicopter exceeded all expectations and has completed a record 52 flights on Mars.
However on its 52nd flight on April 26, mission controllers lost contact with the helicopter as it descended toward the surface for landing.
The mission officials expected the communications dropout because a hill stood between the helicopter’s landing location and the Perseverance rover’s position, blocking communication between the two. The rover acts as a radio relay between the helicopter and mission controllers at JPL.
In anticipation of this loss of communications, the team had already developed re-contact plans for when the rover would drive back within range. Contact was re-established June 28 when Perseverance crested the hill and could see Ingenuity again.
The goal of Flight 52, a 363-metre and 139-second-long flight, was to reposition the helicopter and take images of the Martian surface for the rover's science team.
"The portion of Jezero Crater the rover and helicopter are currently exploring has a lot of rugged terrain, which makes communications dropouts more likely," said JPL's Josh Anderson, the Ingenuity team lead, in a statement.
"The team's goal is to keep Ingenuity ahead of Perseverance, which occasionally involves temporarily pushing beyond communication limits. We’re excited to be back in communications range with Ingenuity and receive confirmation of Flight 52," he added.
The new flight data suggest that Ingenuity remains in good health. If further checkouts confirm that, the helicopter may fly again within the next couple of weeks, the team said.
The target for Flight 53 is an interim airfield to the west, from which the team plans to perform another westward flight to a new base of operations near a rocky outcrop the Perseverance team is interested in exploring.
NASA's X-57 Maxwell all-electric aircraft project will conclude aircraft operational activities by the end of September, with documentation and close-out activities continuing for several months afterwards.
The research from the X-57 provides aviation researchers with hundreds of lessons learned, as well as revolutionary development in areas ranging from battery technology to cruise motor control design.
The aircraft was built by modifying an Italian Tecnam P2006T to be powered by an electric propulsion system.
"I'm incredibly proud of their tenacity and ingenuity as they led the way in advancing electrified propulsion. The future of electrified propulsion is possible because of their contributions," said Brad Flick, director of NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
Finalising aircraft operations by September 2023 will not incorporate first flight of the X-57 aircraft, the US space agency said.
The project encountered several challenges to safe flight, including mechanical issues late into its lifecycle and a lack of availability of critical components required to develop experimental hardware.
Given the approaching planned end of aircraft operations, the timeline would not allow the team to reach acceptable flight conditions.
Although most of the X-57's development will complete by September 2023, the team will officially conclude its work several months afterward with additional technical publications.
The primary goal of the X-57 project, said NASA, was to provide knowledge about the aircraft's electric-propulsion-focused design and airworthiness process with regulators.
"The objective was not to develop a prototype, but to develop a test platform for technologies and design methods," NASA added.
"They did things that had never been done before, and that's never easy," Flick said. "While we prepare to finish this project later this year, I see a long list of achievements to celebrate and an industry that's better today because of their work."
Early in the project, the X-57 team members found they would need significant developments in battery technology.
The lithium-ion batteries installed on the aircraft warm up as they discharge energy and too much warming could result in overheating.
The project worked with Electric Power Systems in North Logan, Utah to address this issue.
Engineers demonstrated that the new battery system design would stay within acceptable, safe limits while powering the aircraft.
The design of the cruise motor controllers is another success of the X-57 project. These controllers convert energy stored in the aircraft's lithium-ion batteries to power its motors, which drive its propellers.
NASA said it will continue its research into electric aircraft through other projects, including its Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration.
The postcard is an artistic interpretation of the landscape, with colour added over two black-and-white panoramas captured by Curiosity's navigation cameras.
The views were taken on April 8 at 9.20 a.m. and 3.40 p.m. local Mars time, providing dramatically different lighting.
"Capturing two times of day provides dark shadows because the lighting is coming in from the left and the right, like you might have on a stage -- but instead of stage lights, we're relying on the Sun," said Curiosity engineer Doug Ellison of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who planned and processed the images, in a statement.
Blue was added to parts of the postcard captured in the morning and yellow to parts taken in the afternoon.
Curiosity is in the foothills of Mount Sharp, which stands 5 km high within Gale Crater, where the rover has been exploring since landing in 2012.
In the distance beyond its tracks is Marker Band Valley, a winding area in the "sulfate-bearing region" within which the rover discovered unexpected signs of an ancient lake.
Farther below are two hills - "Bolivar" and "Deepdale" -- that Curiosity drove between while exploring "Paraitepuy Pass."
Adding to the depth of the shadows is the fact that it was winter -- a period of lower airborne dust -- at Curiosity's location when the images were taken.
"Mars' shadows get sharper and deeper when there's low dust and softer when there's lots of dust," Ellison added.
Curiosity, which landed on Mars in 2012, was designed to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms called microbes.
According to Mirror, the US space agency's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) has achieved a significant milestone by navigating through the solar wind.
Scientists have warned about the potential impact of an upcoming solar storm, commonly referred to as an "internet apocalypse", which could strike within the next decade.
The spacecraft, which was launched in 2018, took a remarkable journey that brought it close to the sun's surface, where the solar wind is generated.
Solar wind consists of a continuous stream of charged particles emanating from the sun's outermost atmosphere, known as the corona, according to the report.
Despite the harsh conditions of intense heat and radiation, the Parker Solar Probe persevered in gathering vital information about the sun's workings.
Professor Stuart Bale of the California University who served as the lead author of the study explained the significance of understanding solar wind.
"Winds carry lots of information from the sun to Earth. So understanding the mechanism behind the sun's wind is important for practical reasons on Earth," Bale was quoted as saying.
"That's going to affect our ability to understand how the sun releases energy and drives geomagnetic storms -- which are a threat to our communication networks," he added.
Such an event could cause people to lose internet access for months or even years, rendering satellites and power lines useless.
Meanwhile, NASA has launched a new campaign offering the public the opportunity to have their name stencilled onto a microchip, which will ride aboard NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft next year.
Europa Clipper spacecraft is scheduled for journey to Jupiter and its moon Europa in October 2024.
Lunar soil refers to the fine-grained material covering the Moon's surface. This was the first time that this extraction has been done in a vacuum environment, paving the way for astronauts to one day extract and use resources in a lunar environment, called in-situ resource utilisation.
Oxygen remains a crucial building block for establishing a long-term presence on the lunar surface. In addition to using oxygen for breathing, it can also be used as a propellant for transportation, helping lunar visitors stay longer and venture farther.
"With the successful completion of this demonstration test, NASA has established that oxygen can be extracted from existing lunar material to provide humans with resources critical for survival and transportation on extraterrestrial worlds," the agency said.
NASA's Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration (CaRD) team at Johnson Space Center in Houston conducted the test in conditions similar to those found on the Moon by using a special spherical chamber with a 15-feet diameter called the Dirty Thermal Vacuum Chamber.
The chamber is considered "dirty" because unclean samples can be tested inside.
The team used a high-powered laser to simulate heat from a solar energy concentrator and melted the lunar soil simulant within a carbothermal reactor. A carbothermal reactor is where the process of heating and extracting the oxygen takes place.
After the soil was heated, the team was able to detect carbon monoxide using a device called the Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSolo), which is similar to a device that will fly on two upcoming exploration missions to the Moon's South Pole.
"This technology has the potential to produce several times its own weight in oxygen per year on the lunar surface, which will enable a sustained human presence and lunar economy," said Aaron Paz, NASA senior engineer and CaRD project manager at Johnson.
To apply this process to oxygen production on the Moon, a carbothermal reactor needs to be able to hold pressure to keep gases from escaping to space, while still allowing lunar material to travel in and out of the reaction zone.
Operating the reactor in a vacuum environment for the CaRD test simulated the conditions at the lunar surface and increased the technical readiness level of the reactor to a six, which means the technology has a fully functional prototype or representational model and is ready to be tested in space.
"Our team proved the CaRD reactor would survive the lunar surface and successfully extract oxygen," said Anastasia Ford, NASA engineer and CaRD test director at Johnson. "This is a big step for developing the architecture to build sustainable human bases on other planets."
The same technology could be applied to Artemis missions, and one day to journeys deeper into the solar system.
Launched in 2002, the RHESSI observed solar flares and coronal mass ejections from its low-Earth orbit, helping scientists understand the underlying physics of how such powerful bursts of energy are created. NASA decommissioned it after 16 years, in 2018, due to communications difficulties.
The US Department of Defense, which is monitoring the satellite, expects the 660-pound spacecraft to re-enter the atmosphere at approximately 9:30 p.m. EDT (7 a.m. IST) on Wednesday, but the timings can vary.
While NASA expects most of the spacecraft to burn up as it travels through the atmosphere, some components are expected to survive re-entry.
"The risk of harm coming to anyone on Earth is low - approximately one in 2,467," the agency said in a statement.
The spacecraft launched aboard an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL rocket with a mission to image the high-energy electrons that carry a large part of the energy released in solar flares.
It achieved this with its sole instrument, an imaging spectrometer, which recorded X-rays and gamma rays from the Sun. Before RHESSI, no gamma-ray images nor high-energy X-ray images had been taken of solar flares.
Data from RHESSI provided vital clues about solar flares and their associated coronal mass ejections. These events release the energy equivalent of billions of megatons of TNT into the solar atmosphere within minutes and can have effects on Earth, including the disruption of electrical systems. Understanding them has proven challenging.
During its mission tenure, RHESSI recorded more than 100,000 X-ray events, allowing scientists to study the energetic particles in solar flares.
The imager helped researchers determine the particles' frequency, location, and movement, which helped them understand where the particles were being accelerated.
Over the years, RHESSI documented the huge range in solar flare size, from tiny nanoflares to massive superflares tens of thousands of times bigger and more explosive. RHESSI even made discoveries not related to flares, such as improving measurements of the Sun's shape, and showing that terrestrial gamma-ray flashes -- bursts of gamma rays emitted from high in Earth's atmosphere over lightning storms -- are more common than previously thought.
The crew includes NASA astronauts Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist 1 Christina Hammock Koch, and Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy Hansen, who is part of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
They will work as a team to execute an ambitious set of demonstrations during the flight test.
"The Artemis II crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars. This is their crew, this is our crew, this is humanity's crew," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, in a statement.
Together the astronauts "represent our creed: E pluribus unum - out of many, one. Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreamers - the Artemis Generation," he added.
The approximately 10-day Artemis II flight test will launch on the agency's powerful Space Launch System rocket, prove the Orion spacecraft's life-support systems, and validate the capabilities and techniques needed for humans to live and work in deep space.
The flight, set to build upon the successful uncrewed Artemis I mission completed in December, has paved the way for future long-term human exploration missions to the Moon, and eventually Mars. This is the agency's Moon to Mars exploration approach.
Artemis II will be NASA astronaut Wiseman's second trip to space. He previously served as a flight engineer aboard the International Station for Expedition 41 from May through November 2014.
Wiseman has logged more than 165 days in space, including almost 13 hours as lead spacewalker during two trips outside the orbital complex.
For Glover it will be the second spaceflight, serving previously as pilot on NASA's SpaceX Crew-1, which landed May 2, 2021, after 168 days in space.
As a flight engineer aboard the space station for Expedition 64, he contributed to scientific investigations, technology demonstrations, and participated in four spacewalks.
Koch also will be making her second flight into space on the Artemis II mission. She served as flight engineer aboard the space station for Expedition 59, 60, and 61. Koch has also set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space and participated in the first all-female spacewalks.
Hansen from CSA will be making his first flight to space.
He was one of two recruits selected by CSA in May 2009 through the third Canadian Astronaut Recruitment Campaign. In 2017, Hansen became the first Canadian to be entrusted with leading a NASA astronaut class, leading the training of astronaut candidates from the US and Canada.
Through Artemis missions, NASA will use innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.
This initiative is in collaboration with NASA, and the 4G mobile network will be launched in a SpaceX rocket near the end of 2023.
But, you may wonder why there is a need for a 4G network on the moon. It turns out that it will help in the Artemis 1 mission.
The 4G network will enable remote control of the rover, real-time video streaming, and transmission of telemetry data back to Earth.
These capabilities will be incredibly helpful for the astronauts working on the moon, as well as for the scientists and engineers monitoring their work from Earth.
The first launch is scheduled for November 2023, and the technology will be used only for astronauts and the equipment used on the moon's surface.
Nokia is setting up the 4G network on the moon with the help of NASA's Tipping Point program. Communication between equipment, astronauts, and Earth will be fast, and it will be possible to make WhatsApp video calls from the moon to Earth using this technology.
You may wonder why Nokia is opting for 4G instead of 5G. The reason is simple - it's because the Earth doesn't have a better 5G network yet.
Nokia is also planning to launch a 5G network on the moon in the future, but for now, 4G is the best option. With the 4G network, astronauts can stay connected with their office update back on Earth, and they can share their experiences in real-time.
The new office aims to carry out NASA's human exploration activities on the Moon and Mars for the benefit of humanity.
"The Moon to Mars Programme Office will help prepare NASA to carry out our bold missions to the Moon and land the first humans on Mars," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, in a statement.
"The golden age of exploration is happening right now, and this new office will help ensure that NASA successfully establishes a long-term lunar presence needed to prepare for humanity's next giant leap to the Red Planet."
As directed by the 2022 NASA Authorization Act, the Moon to Mars Programme Office focuses on hardware development, mission integration, and risk management functions for programmes critical to the agency's exploration approach that uses Artemis missions at the Moon to open a new era of scientific discovery and prepare for human missions to Mars.
This includes the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, supporting ground systems, human landing systems, spacesuits, Gateway, and more related to deep space exploration.
The new office will also lead planning and analysis for long-lead developments to support human Mars missions.
The office resides within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD), and Kshatriya, appointed as deputy associate administrator, will report to its Associate Administrator Jim Free.
Kshatriya previously served as acting deputy associate administrator for Common Exploration Systems Development, providing leadership and integration across several of the programmes that now fall within the new office.
In the new role, Kshatriya is responsible for programme planning and implementation for human missions to the Moon and Mars.A
He will direct and lead the programmes to ensure Artemis and Mars planning, development, and operations are consistent with ESDMD requirements, and will serve as the single point of focus for risk management.
Kshatriya began his career in the space programme in 2003, working as a software engineer, robotics engineer, and spacecraft operator primarily focused on the robotic assembly of the International Space Station.
From 2014 to 2017, he served as a space station flight director, where he led global teams in the operations and execution of the space station during all phases of flight.
From 2017 to 2021, he became deputy, and then acting manager, of the ISS Vehicle Office, where he was responsible for sustaining engineering, logistics, and hardware programme management.
In 2021, he was assigned to NASA Headquarters in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate as an assistant deputy associate administrator, where he was an integral part of the team that returned a spacecraft designed to carry humans to the Moon during the Artemis I mission.
Son of first-generation Indian immigrants to the US, Kshatriya holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, and a Master of Arts in Mathematics from The University of Texas at Austin.
He has also been decorated with the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for actions as the lead flight director for the 50th expedition to the space station, as well as the Silver Snoopy -- an award that astronauts bestow for outstanding performance contributing to flight safety -- for his actions as lead robotics officer for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Dragon demonstration mission to the orbiting laboratory.
The flare, classified as X1.2, is the seventh solar flare to hit Earth this year, and was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the Sun constantly.
X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.
The strong solar flare peaked at 10:33 p.m. ET (8:03 a.m. IST) on March 28, the observatory said.
"A R3 (Strong) HF radio blackout event occurred due to a X1.2 flare from Region 3256 on March 28, at 10:33 p.m. EDT," National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center said in a statement.
The strong solar flare ionised the top layer of Earth's atmosphere, affecting radio communications across southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand for about one hour, Space.com reported.
Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy. Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.
Meanwhile, a scientist at the University College London (UCL) has discovered a giant 'hole' on the surface of the Sun.
Daniel Verscharen, Associate Professor of space and climate physics at UCL said the hole is 20 times larger than the Earth, and could result in a geomagnetic storm, reaching our planet at a speed of about 1.8 million miles per hour.
It is likely to hit Earth by Friday, he was quoted as saying to Business Insider.
Earlier this week, the Earth witnessed a geomagnetic storm of magnitude G4, the strongest in nearly six years, causing auroras all over the US, NOAA said.
The storm's unexpected ferocity not only made auroras visible as far south as New Mexico in the US, but it also forced spaceflight company Rocket Lab to delay a launch by 90 minutes, Space.com reported.
According to scientists, more such solar storms are expected because the Sun is gearing up to a peak of activity, which happens about every 11 years.
But there is nothing to worry about as it will not hit us because it will stay at a safe distance that is less than half of how far the moon from Earth is, reported Earth Sky.
The big rock 2023 DZ2 will be closest to us at about 2:51 pm CT (1.21 am IST) on Saturday, March 25. Astronomers found this rock in late February at an observatory in La Palma, which is in the Canary Islands, Spain.
2023 DZ2 is a type of space rock called NEO, which stands for Near Earth Object. It goes around the sun every 3.16 years. When it comes close to Earth, it's called an Apollo-class asteroid. Scientists think it is between 44 and 99 meters wide.
A tweet from NASA said that;
A newly discovered #asteroid named 2023 DZ2 will safely pass by Earth on Saturday at 100K+ miles away. 🌎
— NASA Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch) March 21, 2023
While close approaches are a regular occurrence, one by an asteroid of this size (140-310 ft) happens only about once per decade, providing a unique opportunity for science.
People who live in the Northern Hemisphere may be able to see 2023 DZ2 as it passes by Earth.
If you want to look at the asteroid, the best way to do it is by using a telescope that is at least six inches or bigger. This is the best way to see it from the Northern Hemisphere.
Earth Sky says that if you look at 2023 DZ2 through a telescope, it will look like a star that is moving slowly across the sky.
You can see it if you look towards the southeastern horizon, to the east of the constellations Orion, Canis Major, and Canis Minor.
The Virtual Telescope Project is hosting a live stream of the asteroid at 6:30 pm CT on March 25 (5 am IST).
Soon, scientists and space agencies started tracking the new asteroid to gauge the chances of its impact on Earth. Orbit analysts continued monitoring asteroid but cited that it is common for newly discovered asteroids to appear more risky during the initial observations than they really are.
NASA initially placed the asteroid on the 'Risk List' of the objects present in space. The space rock named 2023DW ranked 1 out of 10 on the Torino scale, which is used to measure the chances of the space object impacting the Earth.
However, if latest observations are to be believed, the asteroid has been reassigned to 0 on the Torino scale. This means chances of a collision is almost zero, or is very low as to be effectively zero.
The asteroid which is a little over 49 meters in diameter was discovered by two astronomers in Chile on February 26 and is being monitored by NASA and the European Space Agency.
The new budget will allow NASA to continue exploring the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all through Artemis, the Mars Sample Return mission, and other efforts, the US space agency said.
"The budget details a blueprint to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement.
The budget allows NASA to monitor and protect the planet, advance sustainable aviation, better support orbital debris management, develop innovative new technologies, and inspire the Artemis Generation.
"President Biden's budget will help us explore new cosmic shores, continue to make strides in travelling to and working in space and on the Moon, increase the speed and safety of air travel with cutting-edge technologies, and help protect our planet and improve lives here on Earth," said Nelson.
The proposal asks $8.1 billion for the Artemis programme, which aims to send astronauts to Mars, through NASA's Moon to Mars exploration approach.
The Biden administration also aims to earmark $949 million for a mission to return Mars rock and soil samples, and allocated almost $2.5 billion for Earth Science.
The budget also invests $39 million to better understand the orbital debris environment and explore approaches to ensure safe access to space.
It invests more than $500 million in a suite of technologies to meet the US' goal of net-zero carbon emissions from the aviation sector by 2050, and $1.39 billion to support the research and development of new technologies to advance space exploration capabilities.
With another $158 million marked for NASA's Office of STEM Engagement, it would allow NASA to engage more students through enhanced partnerships and platforms.
According to NASA, the data has enabled an initial collection of 21 research papers which provide new insight into how some of the smallest-scale processes in our universe -- the beginnings of star formation -- impact the evolution of the largest objects in our cosmos: galaxies.
The Webb observations are led by Janice Lee, Gemini Observatory chief scientist at the US-based National Science Foundation's NOIRLab and affiliate astronomer at the US-based University of Arizona.
"The clarity with which we are seeing the fine structure certainly caught us by surprise," said team member David Thilker of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) images show the presence of a network of highly structured features within these galaxies, including glowing cavities of dust and massive cavernous bubbles of gas that line the spiral arms.
"We are directly seeing how the energy from the formation of young stars affects the gas around them, and it's just remarkable," said team member Erik Rosolowsky of the University of Alberta, Canada.
The American Space Agency further mentioned that this web of features appears to be built from individual and overlapping shells and bubbles where young stars are releasing energy in some regions of the nearby galaxies observed.
"Areas which are completely dark in Hubble imaging light up in exquisite detail in these new infrared images, allowing us to study how the dust in the interstellar medium has absorbed the light from forming stars and emitted it back out in the infrared, illuminating an intricate network of gas and dust," said team member Karin Sandstrom of the University of California, San Diego.
According to reports, NASA's James Webb telescope captured the entire development and a space weather forecaster Dr Tamitha Skov shared the video on her Twitter handle.
In the video, material from a northern prominence can be seen breaking away from the main filament and now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of the Sun.
“Talk about Polar Vortex! Material from a northern prominence just broke away from the main filament & is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our Star. Implications for understanding the Sun's atmospheric dynamics above 55° here cannot be overstated!”Skov wrote while sharing the video on the micro-blogging site.
Talk about Polar Vortex! Material from a northern prominence just broke away from the main filament & is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our Star. Implications for understanding the Sun's atmospheric dynamics above 55° here cannot be overstated! pic.twitter.com/1SKhunaXvP
— Dr. Tamitha Skov (@TamithaSkov) February 2, 2023
Meanwhile scientists and physicist have raised concern over the development and its impact on the Earth.
“It takes 11 years to complete 1 solar year. A solar year means minimum Sun spot to Maximum Sun spot. This is a regular phenomenon, but this time the intensity is more. There are possibilities that the chunk that broke off may get mixed with the Sun again as it has gravity,” said physicist Professor Prashant Parida.
“Even if it does not mix, neither it will affect the mass of the Sun, nor the rotation and revolution of the earth. However, the phenomenon may result in the solar storm which is visible in the north and south poles affecting telecommunication on the Earth. There are several instances of plane crashes due to the phenomenon,” he added.
Notably, the Sun emits solar flares that affect communications on Earth.
“Sun is made up of gas and continuous atomic reaction is taking place on its surface. The phenomenon will have no impact on Earth as long as they lie close to the poles of the Sun. So there is no need to panic,” said Subhendu Patnaik, Deputy Director of Pathani Samanta Planetarium.
“If the charged particles of the Sun approach towards Earth, then it may affect telecommunication,” Patnaik informed.
The mission is NASA's sixth crew rotation flight.
Crew-6 will send the SpaceX Dragon capsule Endeavour aloft atop a Falcon 9 rocket, which will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in the US, according to a NASA blogpost.
The mission will carry NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, as well as UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.
The launch will air live on NASA Television, its app, and the agency's website, mentioned the blogpost.
In December last year, NASA launched the first-ever global satellite mission that will observe nearly all water on Earth's surface, measuring the height of water in the planet's lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and the ocean.
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) spacecraft atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
"Warming seas, extreme weather, more severe wildfires -- these are only some of the consequences humanity is facing due to climate change," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
Formally classified as LHS 475 b, the planet is almost exactly the same size as our own, clocking in at 99 per cent of Earth's diameter.
LHS 475 b is relatively close, at only 41 light-years away, in the constellation Octans.
"These first observational results from an Earth-size, rocky planet open the door to many future possibilities for studying rocky planet atmospheres with Webb," said Mark Clampin, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.
"Webb is bringing us closer and closer to a new understanding of Earth-like worlds outside our solar system, and the mission is only just getting started," he said in a statement late on Wednesday.
The research team was led by Kevin Stevenson and Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, both of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
Among all operating telescopes, only Webb is capable of characterising the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets.
Although the team can't conclude what is present, they can definitely say what is not present.
"There are some terrestrial-type atmospheres that we can rule out," said Lustig-Yaeger. "It can't have a thick methane-dominated atmosphere, similar to that of Saturn's moon Titan.a
Webb also revealed that the planet is a few hundred degrees warmer than Earth.
If clouds are detected, it may lead the researchers to conclude that the planet is more like Venus, which has a carbon dioxide atmosphere and is perpetually shrouded in thick clouds.
"We're at the forefront of studying small, rocky exoplanets," Lustig-Yaeger said.
The liftoff of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft is planned during a 69-minute launch window.
Artemis I is an uncrewed flight test to launch SLS and send Orion around the Moon and back to Earth to thoroughly test its system before flights with astronauts.
"Teams will perform standard maintenance to repair minor damage to the foam and cork on the thermal protection system and recharge or replace batteries on the rocket, several secondary payloads, and the flight termination system," NASA said in a statement late on Wednesday.
The space agency plans to roll the rocket back to the launch pad as early as November 4.
NASA had pushed back the Artemis I Moon mission launch to November in the wake of hurricane Ian.
It said that over the coming days, managers will assess the scope of work to perform while in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).
Artemis I will provide a foundation for human exploration in deep space and demonstrate NASA's commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.
The space agency attempted the first test of its kind two weeks ago to see if in the future a killer rock could be nudged out of Earth's way.
This mission shows that NASA is trying to be ready for whatever the universe throws at us, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a briefing at NASA headquarters in Washington.
The Dart spacecraft carved a crater into the asteroid Dimorphos on Sept 26, hurling debris out into space and creating a cometlike trail of dust and rubble stretching several thousand miles (km). It took days of telescope observations from Chile and South Africa to determine how much the impact altered the path of the 525-foot (160-metre) asteroid around its companion, a much bigger space rock.
Before the impact, the moonlet took 11 hours and 55 minutes to circle its parent asteroid. Scientists had hoped to shave off 10 minutes but Nelson said the impact shortened the asteroid's orbit by about 32 minutes.
Neither asteroid posed a threat to Earth and still don't as they continue their journey around the sun. That's why scientists picked the pair for the world's first attempt to alter the position of a celestial body.
We've been imagining this for years and to have it finally be real is really quite a thrill, said NASA programme scientist Tom Statler.
Launched last year, the vending machine-size Dart short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test was destroyed when it slammed into the asteroid 7 million miles (11 million km) away at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph).
Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland built the spacecraft and managed the 325 million mission.
This is a very exciting and promising result for planetary defence, said the lab's, Nancy Chabot. (AP)
The two interacting galaxies, making up the pair known as 'Arp-Madore 608-333', seem to float side by side in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope.
"Though they appear serene and unperturbed, the two are subtly warping one another through a mutual gravitational interaction that is disrupting and distorting both galaxies. Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys captured this drawn-out galactic interaction," NASA said in a statement.
The interacting galaxies are part of an effort to build up an archive of interesting targets for more detailed future study with Hubble, ground-based telescopes, and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.
To build up this archive, astronomers scoured existing astronomical catalogues for a list of targets spread throughout the night sky.
They hoped to include objects already identified as interesting and that would be easy for Hubble to observe no matter which direction it was pointing.
"Deciding how to award Hubble observing time is a drawn-out, competitive, and difficult process, and the observations are allocated to use every last second of Hubble time available," said NASA.
However, there is a small but persistent fraction of time around 2-3 per cent that goes unused as Hubble turns to point at new targets.
Snapshot programmes not only produce beautiful images but also enable astronomers to gather as much data as possible with Hubble, according to the space agency.
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into low-Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation.
As teams complete post-storm recovery operations, NASA has determined it will focus Artemis I launch planning efforts on the launch period that opens on November 12 and closes on November 27.
"Teams at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida conducted initial inspections Friday to assess potential impacts from Hurricane Ian. There was no damage to Artemis flight hardware, and facilities are in good shape with only minor water intrusion identified in a few locations," the space agency said in a statement.
Next, engineers will extend access platforms around the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to prepare for additional inspections and start preparation for the next launch attempt, including retesting the flight termination system.
NASA said that over the coming days, managers will assess the scope of work to perform while in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and identify a specific date for the next launch attempt.
"Focusing efforts on the November launch period allows time for employees at Kennedy to address the needs of their families and homes after the storm and for teams to identify additional checkouts needed before returning to the pad for launch," said NASA.
Artemis I is NASA's uncrewed flight test which will provide a foundation for human exploration in deep space and demonstrate NASA's commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.
This was humanity's first effort in altering the motion of any celestial body in space played out by scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, US.
Here are some of the facts about the mission you must know:
A spacecraft under the DART mission is set to clash with tiny moon of the asteroid Didymos. The spacecraft is roughly the size of a small car, will strike the smaller body at about 4 miles per second on September 26, 2022.
As per reports, the impact has been set at 4:30 am (IST) on September 27. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is set to make history as the world’s first planetary defense test.
Details:
DART is the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact.
DART will deliberately collide with a target asteroid—which poses no threat to Earth— in order to change its speed and path.
Deputy Director of Pathani Samanta Planetarium, Subhendu Patnaik said that NASA’s technologies will be tested in the mission including the autoguided system.
“The DART Mission will intentionally crash into a non-hazardous asteroid to try to change its orbit. It will be helpful in future to destroy the asteroids coming towards earth in space,” said Patnaik.
According to Patnaik, NASA will subsequently reveal the change in the path of the asteroid after the collision with the spacecraft.
“Always observations are kept on large asteroids and so far it has been ascertained that no known asteroid larger than 140 meters in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years,” Patnaik added.
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a first such mission, was set to impact its target asteroid -- which poses no threat to Earth -- at 7.14 p.m. on Monday (4.44 a.m. on Tuesday IST).
"This test will show a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it to change the asteroid's motion in a way that can be measured using ground-based telescopes," the US space agency said in an update.
DART's target is the binary, near-Earth asteroid system Didymos, composed of the roughly 780-metre diameter "Didymos" and the smaller, approximately 160-metre size "Dimorphos", which orbits Didymos.
DART will impact Dimorphos to change its orbit within the binary system, and the DART Investigation Team will compare the results of DART's kinetic impact with the asteroid to highly detailed computer simulations of kinetic impacts on asteroids, according to NASA.
"Doing so will evaluate the effectiveness of this mitigation approach and assess how best to apply it to future planetary defense scenarios, as well as how accurate the computer simulations are and how well they reflect the behaviour of a real asteroid," the space agency added.
DART will provide important data to help better prepare for an asteroid that might pose an impact hazard to Earth, should one ever be discovered.
The US space agency is monitoring the forecast associated with the formation of a tropical depression in the Caribbean Sea while in parallel continuing to prepare for a potential launch opportunity on September 27, during a 70-minute window.
"Managers are initiating activities on a non-interference basis to enable an accelerated timeline for rolling back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to protect the rocket, should it be necessary," NASA said in a statement.
Discussions about whether to remain at the launch pad or roll back to the VAB are also ongoing, it added.
NASA said it will make a decision on whether to remain at the launch pad or roll back using incremental protocols to take interim steps necessary to protect people and hardware "with a final decision anticipated no later than Saturday".
The US space agency has met all objectives for the launch, including the key hydrogen leak threat which has resulted in two failure attempts.
NASA will attempt to launch its Artemis I moon mission on September 27, with a potential backup opportunity of October 2 under review.
On September 3, NASA attempted to launch Artemis I but called it off after detecting a liquid hydrogen leak.
The US space agency on August 30 scrubbed the mission launch for the first time owing to technical glitch with one of the SLS rocket's engines.
Artemis I is NASA's uncrewed flight test which will provide a foundation for human exploration in deep space and demonstrate NASA's commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.
NASA released a revised version of its 'Moon to Mars' objectives late on Tuesday.
"We need a roadmap with staying power, and through a collaborative process, we've identified a core set of defined objectives to achieve our exploration goals with our partners," said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy.
"These objectives are both practical and aspirational, and we were gratified by the thoughtful contributions of our workforce, industry, and international partners who will join us in shaping our future together," he said in a statement.
The blueprint covers four broad areas: science; transportation and habitation; lunar and Martian infrastructure; and operations.
Under Artemis, NASA has set a vision to explore more of the Moon than ever before.
With its Artemis I mission now on the launchpad, the agency plans to return humans to the Moon and establish a cadence of missions including at the lunar south polar region.
These missions set up a long-term presence to inform future exploration of farther destinations, including Mars.
"We're helping to steward humanity's global movement to deep space," said Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.
"The objectives will help ensure a long-term strategy for solar system exploration can retain constancy of purpose and weather political and funding changes. They help provide clear direction as new technologies, vehicles, and elements are developed in the coming years and are designed to be realistically achievable," added Free.
NASA plans to send the first humans back to orbit the Moon with Artemis II no earlier than 2024, and to the lunar surface no earlier than 2025 on the Artemis III mission.
"We wanted to shape objectives to guide the upcoming missions, as opposed to previous approaches, which consisted of building elements and capabilities first to support the campaign," said Kurt Vogel, director of space architectures in the office of the NASA Administrator.
A new paper published in Nature Geoscience details the impacts, which ranged between 85 and 290 kms from InSight's location, a region of Mars called Elysium Planitia.
The first of the four confirmed meteoroids made the most dramatic entrance: It entered Mars' atmosphere on September 5, 2021, exploding into at least three shards that each left a crater behind.
Then, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter flew over the estimated impact site to confirm the location.
After locating these spots, the orbiter's team used the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, or HiRISE, to get a colour close-up of the craters.
"After three years of InSight waiting to detect an impact, those craters looked beautiful," said Ingrid Daubar of Brown University, a co-author of the paper.
After combing through earlier data, scientists confirmed three other impacts had occurred on May 27, 2020, February 18, 2021 and August 31, 2021.
InSight's seismometer has detected over 1,300 marsquakes.
Provided by France's space agency, the instrument is so sensitive that it can detect seismic waves from thousands of miles away.
"But the September 5, 2021, event marks the first time an impact was confirmed as the cause of such waves," said NASA.
The sound of a meteoroid striking Mars - created from data recorded by NASA's InSight lander - is like a "bloop" due to a peculiar atmospheric effect.
The four meteoroid impacts confirmed so far produced small quakes with a magnitude of no more than 2.0. But the impacts will be critical to refining Mars' timeline.
"Impacts are the clocks of the solar system," said the paper's lead author Raphael Garcia. "We need to know the impact rate today to estimate the age of different surfaces."
Scientists can approximate the age of a planet's surface by counting its impact craters: The more they see, the older the surface.
According to a recent update by NASA’s asteroid tracking system, there will be five near-earth asteroid flybys this week. The US space agency revealed that the flybys began on September 11 and will last until September 18.
According to an India Today report, an asteroid headed toward Earth this week is bigger than the Statue of Unity, the tallest statue in the world.
The asteroid dubbed 2005 RX3 is moving at a staggering speed of 62,820 km per hour will come close to Earth on September 18. Reportedly, the object will come as close as 47,42,252 kilometers to the Earth.
Notably, the asteroid last visited Earth in 2005 and will return to Earth in March 2036 as per NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which has been tracking the object in space.
Apart from 2005 RX3, four more asteroids are also on a close approach to Earth according to their orbital movements tracked by NASA.
The four asteroids which are headed toward Earth this week are 2020 PT4, 2022 QD1, 2022 QB37 and 2022 QJ50.
As per NASA, the 2020 PT4 asteroid will come as close as 71,89,673 km to Earth at a speed of 39,024 km per hour. 2022 QD1 is nearly 130 meters in size and is expected to zoom past Earth at a blazing speed of 34,200 km per hour on September 16.
2022 QB37 will approach Earth on September 18 and 2022 QJ50 will be on a course towards Earth by the end of this week.
For the unversed, asteroids are rocky fragments formed during the solar system's formation some 4.6 billion years ago. According to NASA JPL, an asteroid is classified as a near-Earth object when its distance from Earth is less than 1.3 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.
NASA said that it adjusted the targeted dates for a cryogenic demonstration test and the next launch opportunities for Artemis I.
The agency will conduct the demonstration test on September 21, before going for the launch.
"The updated dates represent careful consideration of multiple logistical topics, including the additional value of having more time to prepare for the cryogenic demonstration test, and subsequently more time to prepare for the launch," the US space agency said in a statement.
Artemis I teams have completed repair work to the area of a hydrogen leak in one of the rocket's engines.
On September 3, NASA attempted to launch Artemis I but called it off after detecting a liquid hydrogen leak.
Artemis I is NASA's uncrewed flight test which will provide a foundation for human exploration in deep space and demonstrate NASA's commitment and capability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.
The US space agency on August 30 scrubbed the mission launch for the first time owing to technical glitch with one of the SLS rocket's engines.
During the second launch attempt, engineers saw a leak in a cavity between the ground side and rocket side plates surrounding an 8-inch line used to fill and drain liquid hydrogen from the SLS rocket.
While the rocket launch coverage will be initiated by NASA at 5:45am EDT (3:15pm IST), it is scheduled to lift off at 2:17pm ET (11:47pm IST).
It is an ambitious plan of NASA to send humans to the Moon for the first time in over five decades.
If you want to watch the live streaming of the launch, then you can watch it on NASA’s official YouTube channel. You can also watch the launch of the rocket via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
You can also watch the launch to the moon in 360-degree VR via Facebook, organised by Felix&Paul Studios. The VR stream will begin 90 minutes prior to the launch.
The first attempt on August 29 had failed after the launch controllers could not cool down the four RS-25 rocket engines. So, this is the second attempt at the launching and NASA is leaving no stones unturned to make it a successful operation.
The rocket will go around the Earth, then leave the planet’s orbit for the Moon.
NASA had postponed the launch of its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket because of a technical malfunction.
Landing on the Moon would just be the first step for the Artemis program as NASA plans to make the Moon the stepping stone of its journey to Mars and then further exploration of deep space.
The exoplanet called 'HIP 65426 b' is a gas giant, meaning it has no rocky surface and could not be habitable.
The exoplanet is about six to 12 times the mass of Jupiter, and these observations could help narrow that down even further.
It is young, about 15 to 20 million years old, compared to our 4.5-billion-year-old Earth.
"This is a transformative moment, not only for Webb but also for astronomy generally," said Sasha Hinkley, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Exeter in the UK.
The image, as seen through four different light filters, shows how Webb's powerful infrared gaze can easily capture worlds beyond our solar system, pointing the way to future observations that will reveal more information than ever before about exoplanets, the space agency said in a statement.
This image shows the exoplanet 'HIP 65426 b' in different bands of infrared light.
A set of masks within each instrument, called a coronagraph, blocks out the host star's light so that the planet can be seen.
Astronomers discovered the planet in 2017 using the SPHERE instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile and took images of it using short infrared wavelengths of light.
Webb's view, at longer infrared wavelengths, reveals new details that ground-based telescopes would not be able to detect because of the intrinsic infrared glow of Earth's atmosphere.
Since 'HIP 65426 b' is about 100 times farther from its host star than Earth is from the Sun, it is sufficiently distant from the star that Webb can easily separate the planet from the star in the image.
"It was really impressive how well the Webb coronagraphs worked to suppress the light of the host star," Hinkley said.
Taking direct images of exoplanets is challenging because stars are so much brighter than planets.
The 'HIP 65426 b' planet is more than 10,000 times fainter than its host star in the near-infrared, and a few thousand times fainter in the mid-infrared.
"Obtaining this image felt like digging for space treasure," said Aarynn Carter, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
In July, James Webb Space Telescope produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date.
NASA Mission managers met to discuss data and develop a forward plan to address issues that arose during the launch attempt for the flight test.
"During that launch attempt, teams were not able to chill down the four RS-25 engines to approximately minus 420 degrees Fahrenheit, with engine 3 showing higher temperatures than the other engines," the space agency said in a statement late on Tuesday.
Teams also saw a hydrogen leak on a component of the tail service mast umbilical quick disconnect, called the purge can, and managed the leak by manually adjusting propellant flow rates.
"In the coming days, teams will modify and practice propellant loading procedures to follow a procedure similar to what was successfully performed during the Green Run at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi," said NASA.
The updated procedures would perform the chill-down test of the engines, also called the kick start bleed test, about 30 to 45 minutes earlier in the countdown during the liquid hydrogen fast fill liquid phase for the core stage.
Teams also are configuring platforms at Launch Pad 39B to enable engineers access to the purge can on the tail service mast umbilical.
Once access is established, technicians will perform assessments and torque connection points where necessary, said NASA.
The Artemis I launch is part of a larger space programme to take astronauts back to the moon sometime after 2025. A first round trip test mission is to take place in about 42 days.