Image (Credit): Hubble’s view of spiral galaxy IC 4709. (ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Koss, A, Barth)
This week’s image comes from the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows an almost too perfect spiral galaxy that might have come from AI software, but it is a real image from NASA and ESA. You are looking at spiral galaxy IC 4709, which is about 240 million light-years away.
Its view here is studded with stars, many of which appear particularly large and bright thanks to their nearby locations in our own galaxy, and which feature the characteristic diffraction patterns caused by Hubble’s optics. Much further away — around 240 million light-years distant in fact, in the southern constellation Telescopium — is the spiral galaxy IC 4709. Its swirling disc filled with stars and dust bands is beautifully captured, as is the faint halo surrounding it. The compact region at its core might be the most remarkable sight, however: this is an active galactic nucleus (AGN).
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the Europa Clipper above Europa. (NASA)
NASA has decided to move forward with the Europa Clipper mission even though there have been some questions about its ability to withstand the moon’s radiation. The launch is set for an October 10 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA is also moving forward with the return of the empty Starliner capsule currently attached to the International Space Station. This Friday, September 6, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner will disconnect from the station and land at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. If all goes well, NASA can continue to study the capsule and learn more about what went wrong.
ESA’s Prospect package, including drill and a miniaturised laboratory, will fly to the Moon’s South Polar region in search of volatiles, including water ice, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative…NASA has selected Intuitive Machines for a flight opportunity in 2027 that will deepen our understanding of the Moon and answer key questions about where and how volatiles can be found on the lunar surface.V olatiles, such as water ice, are chemical components that easily evaporate or vaporise under certain conditions. Prospect is a suite of instruments that will drill up to at least one metre depth beneath the lunar surface, extract samples, and process them in a mini lab. The combination of robotic drill and sample analysis package aims to identify volatiles trapped beneath the surface at extremely cold temperatures down to –150 °C.
The universe may seem static, only capable of being captured in still frames, but that is far from the truth. It is actually ever-changing, just not on timescales clearly visible to humans. NASA’s upcoming Roman Space Telescope will bridge this gap in time, opening the way to the dynamic universe. RINGS, the Roman Infrared Nearby Galaxy Survey, will specifically uncover the dynamic universe by searching galaxies for fossils of their formation history. RINGS will also lead scientists to clues about the true nature of dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up the majority of the mass in our universe. Roman will launch in 2027, prepared to revolutionize how scientists understand our universe and give them access to the vision of the universe as it truly is: changing.
The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted six likely rogue worlds — objects with planet-like masses but untethered from any star’s gravity — including the lightest ever identified with a dusty disk around it. The elusive objects offer new evidence that the same cosmic processes that give birth to stars may also play a common role in making objects only slightly bigger than Jupiter.
Image (Credit): Initial crew 9 portrait (left to right): Stephanie Wilson, cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, pilot Nick Hague and commander Zena Cardman. (NASA)
NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson will not make the September 24 flight, but they are most likely going to go on later missions.
While we await their future flights, NASA has a profile page on each of them that you can review (as well as the other NASA astronauts, Nick Hague, who remains on this month’s flight):
– Zena Cardman: Zena Cardman was selected by NASA as a member of the 2017 “Turtles” Astronaut Class. The Virginia native holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology and a Master’s of Science in Marine Sciences from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research focused primarily on geobiology and geochemical cycling in subsurface environments, from caves to deep sea sediments. Cardman’s experience includes multiple Antarctic expeditions.
–Nick Hague: Col. Tyler N. Hague was selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2013. The Kansas native earned a Bachelor of Science in astronautical engineering from the United States Air Force Academy in 1998, and a Master of Science in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000. Selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2013, Hague completed astronaut candidate training in July 2015. During his first mission to the International Space Station in 2018, he and his crewmate Alexey Ovchinin, of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, experienced a catastrophic rocket booster malfunction that resulted in the launch abort of their Soyuz MS-10. In 2019, Hague launched on Soyuz MS-12 and served as Flight Engineer on the International Space Station for 203 days during Expedition 59 and 60. During 2020-2022, Hague completed a developmental rotation with the United States Space Force, serving as the new military service’s Director of Test and Evaluation at The Pentagon in Washington D.C. He returned to NASA in August 2022 to work on the Boeing Starliner Program. Hague is currently training for his second spaceflight, where he will serve as commander for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission.
–Stephanie Wilson: Stephanie D. Wilson is a veteran of three spaceflights, STS-121 in 2006, STS-120 in 2007, and STS-131 in 2010 and has logged more than 42 days in space. Born in Boston, she attended high school in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, earned her Bachelor of Science in Engineering Science from Harvard University in 1988, and earned her Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering in 1992 from the University of Texas at Austin. Wilson has served as the Space Station Integration Branch Chief from 2010 to 2012, the Mission Support Crew Branch Chief from 2018 to 2020, and Deputy of the Assigned Crew Branch from 2021-2023. In 2013, she completed a 9-month detail to NASA’s Glenn Research Center as the Acting Chief of Program and Project Integration in the Spaceflight Systems Directorate.
Delays and changes seem to be the norm at NASA, but there are plenty of missions coming up that should keep all of the astronauts busy.
The good news is that the crewed resupply flight this month will also be supplying the two stuck astronauts with supplies, including clothing and pressure suits. I hope their families were also able to throw in a few fun items as well to keep their spirits up.
Image (Credit): Launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on August 31, 2024. (SpaceX)
First the good news. SpaceX is able to launch its Falcon 9 rockets following a booster issue last week. That led to the immediate launch yesterday of two back-to-back launches of Starlink satellites.
Now the bad news. Russian scientists have reported that SpaceX’s second launch of its Starship rocket last November created a hole in the ionosphere. Specifically, an exploding engine generated the shock wave that created this hole. The scientists claim this is the first time a “human-caused explosion” has had this impact on the ionosphere.
This is the “plain language summary” from the Russian study:
On 18 November 2023, SpaceX launched the Starship, the tallest and the most powerful rocket ever built. About 2 min and 40 s after the liftoff, the Super Heavy engine separated from the Starship spacecraft and exploded at an altitude of 90 km. The main core Starship continued to rise to 149 km and exploded as well. The rocket launch and explosion produced an unexpected response in the ionosphere—the ionized part of the Earth’s atmosphere. The Starship flew at a velocity, exceeding the local sound speed, and generated cone-like atmospheric shock-acoustic waves. Most unexpectedly, the observed disturbances represented long and intensive multi-oscillation wave structures that propagated northward, which is unusual for disturbances driven by a rocket launch. The Starship explosion also generated a large-amplitude total electron content depletion that could have been reinforced by the impact of the spacecraft’s fuel exhaust in the lower atmosphere. This study appears to be the first-time detection of a non-chemical ionospheric hole produced by a man-made explosion.
I like the fact that Russian’s can share results in plain language. However, it is a little disturbing that we needed the Russians to fill us in on the destructive impact of the Starship rockets. Nature noted that “Ionospheric disturbances can affect not only satellite navigation but also communications and radio astronomy.”
We have seen the mess that the rockets can leave on the ground, but this is something else. We need to understand the impact of such launches and related issues if this is to become the new way of doing things. The FAA and NASA should be looking into this matter.
Our Awesome Universe 