Space Stories: Strange Asteroid Behavior, Another Earth in Our Solar System, and the Study of Galaxy Clusters

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Photo of Dimorphos taken by the DATA spacecraft. (NASA)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Futurism: “Something Weird is Going On with the Asteroid NASA Smashed“

Nearly a year ago, NASA successfully smashed an asteroid for the first time, in a landmark test to see whether we could divert a killer space rock before disaster — but now, the asteroid in question is behaving strangely. As New Scientist reports, a schoolteacher and his pupils seem to have discovered that the orbit of Dimorphos, the space rock socked by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) last September, has apparently continued slowing down, unexpectedly, in the year since the refrigerator-sized craft smashed into it.

—Kindai University: “Possible Existence of Earth-Like Planet Predicted in the Outskirts of the Solar System“

Researchers from Japan predict, based on computer simulations, the likely existence of an Earth-like planet in the distant Kuiper Belt. There are many unexplained anomalies in the orbits and distribution of trans-Neptunian objects, small celestial bodies located at the outer reaches of the solar system. Now, based on detailed computer simulations of the early outer solar system, researchers from Japan predict the possibility of an undiscovered Earth-like planet beyond Neptune orbiting the Sun. Should this prediction come true, it could revolutionize our understanding of the history of the solar system.

—European Space Agency: “X-ray mission lifts off to study high-energy Universe“

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) lifted off on a H-IIA rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 08:42 JST / 00:42 BST / 01:42 CEST on 7 September 2023. The successful launch marks the beginning of an ambitious mission to explore the growth of galaxy clusters, the chemical make-up of the Universe, and the extremes of spacetime. XRISM is a collaboration between JAXA and NASA, with significant participation from ESA.

RIP: Marilyn Lovell, Wife of Apollo 13 Commander

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Astronaut James Lovell and Marilyn Lovell at a 1969 news conference. (Paul Shane/AP)

Marilyn Lovell died on August 27th in Lake Forest, Illinois at the age of 93. She is the wife of astronaut James A. Lovell Jr., who commanded the troubled Apollo 13 mission. You can read her full obituary at the Washington Post site.

I just wanted to highlight one interesting piece from the obituary. It relates to the Lovell’s viewing the 1969 film Marooned shortly before the 1970 Apollo 13 crisis. The film, starring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman, was a fictional account of three astronauts in a capsule facing possible destruction after a rocket failure. A short time later her husband would be one of the three astronauts facing a real crisis in a crippled capsule, while she worried below.

They say life is stranger than fiction. Luckily, Apollo 13 ended better for the crew. You way want to check out this trailer for Marooned and even rent it one of these days.

As for Marilyn Lovell, she led an amazing life here on Earth with her husband (now 95) and large family.

Rest in peace.

Pic of the Week: Hurricane Idalia Over Florida

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Hurricane Idalia as it travels over Florida. (NASA)

The image above showing Idalia hitting Florida was captured from the International Space Station on August 30, 2023.

Here is the full explanation about the image from the site:

An astronaut on the International Space Station used a handheld camera to capture the second photo (below) at 10:44 a.m. Eastern Time (14:44 Universal Time) on August 30, several hours after landfall. Idalia had weakened to a category 1 storm by this time with sustained winds of 150 kilometers (90 miles) per hour. It continued to weaken as it moved northeast over Georgia, South Carolina, and then offshore over the Atlantic Ocean on August 31.

You can see this image and others at NASA’s Earth Observatory site.

Space Stories: New Horizon Questions, A Dark Spot on Neptune, and Prioritizing Exoplanets

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Space.com : “NASA’s New Horizons Mission Faces an Uncertain Future (op-ed)“

With its budget being trimmed for 2024, NASA is making some weighty decisions… and one includes drastically trimming New Horizons funds by replacing the current science staff with a new team in an effort to save about $3 million—a rounding error in terms of the planetary science budget...As it stands, New Horizons will exit the Kuiper Belt around 2028 and should continue operating until 2050.

—ScienceDaily : “Mysterious Neptune Dark Spot Detected from Earth for the First Time“

Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have observed a large dark spot in Neptune’s atmosphere, with an unexpected smaller bright spot adjacent to it. This is the first time a dark spot on the planet has ever been observed with a telescope on Earth. These occasional features in the blue background of Neptune’s atmosphere are a mystery to astronomers, and the new results provide further clues as to their nature and origin.

—Universe Today : “TESS has Found Thousands of Possible Exoplanets: Which Ones Should JWST Study?“

We will soon have more than 10,000 worlds where life might be able to survive. It’s an amazing idea, but with so many exoplanets we don’t have the resources to search for life on all of them. So how do we prioritize our search? That’s the focus of a recent paper on the pre-print server arxiv. In it, the team strives to identify the “best in class” candidates for exoplanets that could be further studied by the spectroscopic cameras of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Their list could not only help astronomers find evidence of life but also help us understand the range of atmospheres exoplanets have.

A New Crew Departs for the ISS

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): ISS crew preparing for August 26, 2023 launch. (Terry Renna/AP Photo)

A new crew departed Earth for the International Space Station (ISS) at 3:27am ET today from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The crew includes:

  • NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli,
  • ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen,
  • JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and
  • Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov.

The new crew should be onboard the ISS tomorrow morning, bringing the number of occupants at the station to 11 until 4 crew members return to Earth in a few days.

Russia is probably happy to have attention back on the ISS rather than the Moon for the moment. It has not been a good week for the Russian space program.

You can read more about the new crew members at this NASA site.