Space Stories: Another Artemis II Delay, AI Discovers Cosmic Oddities in Hubble Data, and AI Drives a Martian Rover

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artemis II mission patch. (NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—CBS News: “Artemis II Moon Rocket Fueling Test Runs into Problems with Hydrogen Leak“

A hydrogen leak at the base of NASA’s Artemis II moon rocket Monday threw a wrench into a carefully planned countdown “wet dress” rehearsal, but engineers were able to manage a workaround and the test proceeded toward a simulated launch. Whether mission managers will be able to clear the rocket for an actual launch as early as Sunday to propel four astronauts on a flight to the moon will depend on the results of a detailed overnight review and post-test analysis. NASA only has three days — Feb. 8, 10 and 11 — to get the mission off this month or the flight will slip to March.

—ZME Science: “Astronomers Unleashed an AI on Hubble’s Archive and Uncovered 1,300 “Cosmic Oddities.” Most Were Completely New to Science“

For more than three decades, the Hubble Space Telescope has collected targeted images to answer specific scientific questions, from mapping galaxies to studying nearby nebulae. Hubble has gathered so much data that despite their best efforts, astronomers haven’t had the time to analyze it all in detail yet…Now, two astronomers have revisited that massive archive with a new plan. They deployed an artificial intelligence system designed to notice when something looks “wrong”. In just 60 hours of computing time, the tool flagged over 1,300 anomalies hidden within 100 million Hubble snapshots. Hundreds of them have never appeared in scientific literature.

—NASA/JPL “NASA’s Perseverance Rover Completes First AI-Planned Drive on Mars“

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has completed the first drives on another world that were planned by artificial intelligence. Executed on Dec. 8 and 10, and led by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the demonstration used generative AI to create waypoints for Perseverance, a complex decision-making task typically performed manually by the mission’s human rover planners…During the demonstration, the team leveraged a type of generative AI called vision-language models to analyze existing data from JPL’s surface mission dataset. The AI used the same imagery and data that human planners rely on to generate waypoints — fixed locations where the rover takes up a new set of instructions — so that Perseverance could safely navigate the challenging Martian terrain.

Space Stories: Moon Kills Earth Water Theory, Astronauts in Quarantine, and China Loses Two Rockets

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: NASA

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Universities Space Research Association: “Our Moon’s 4 Billion-Year Impact Record Suggests Meteorites Didn’t Supply Earth’s Water“

A long-standing idea in planetary science is that water-rich meteorites arriving late in Earth’s history could have delivered a major share of Earth’s water. A new study by Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and University of New Mexico argues that the Moon’s surface record sets a hard limit on that possibility: even under generous assumptions, late meteorite delivery since about 4 billion years ago could only have supplied a small fraction of Earth’s water...In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Dr. Tony Gargano at USRA’s Lunar and Planetary Institute and the University of New Mexico analyzed a large suite of Apollo lunar regolith samples using high-precision triple oxygen isotopes. Earth has erased most of its early bombardment record through tectonics, and constant crustal recycling. The Moon, by contrast, preserves a continuously accessible archive: lunar regolith, the loose layer of debris produced and reworked by impacts over billions of years

—Florida Today: “NASA Artemis Astronauts in Quarantine Ahead of Rocket Launch in Florida“

The four astronauts who will soon become the first humans in more than half a century to fly on a lunar mission have begun the quarantine process – a crucial sign that NASA believes a launch could be imminent. Sequestering themselves away from others for the next several days ensures that the three Americans and one Canadian selected for a mission known as Artemis 2 are at low risk of becoming sick and jeopardizing the mission. The crew members have entered quarantine in Texas as NASA makes final preparations in Florida to ready the towering rocket that will get the mission off the ground as early as February.

—Technology.org: “China’s Space Ambitions Hit Turbulence: Two Rockets Fail Within 12 Hours“

The Long March 3B departed Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China at 11:55 Eastern (1655 UTC) on January 16. Amateur footage confirmed the rocket left the pad on schedule. Then came silence. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) waited nearly 12 hours before acknowledging what observers already suspected. “The specific cause is under further analysis and investigation,” state media Xinhua reported…Less than 12 hours after the Long March 3B failure, Galactic Energy attempted something the company had been working toward for months: the first flight of its Ceres-2 rocket. After repeatedly postponed launch windows, the solid-fueled rocket finally lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 11:08 p.m. Eastern on January 16 (0408 UTC, January 17). It didn’t work. Galactic Energy confirmed an anomaly had occurred and that investigation was underway.

Space Stories: A Peruvian Solar Observatory, NASA Rocket Traffic, and a Reborn Back Hole

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Aerial view of the fortress at Chankillo. (Servicio Aerofotográfico Nacional, Lima)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Discover Magazine: “The Earliest-Known Astronomical Observatory in the Americas May Offer New Insights“

There was a time when Stonehenge was believed to be a kind of “Neolithic computer.” Archaeology has since corrected that misconception. Today, the evidence points strongly in another direction: to an arid hill in the Casma Valley on Peru’s northern coast, about 200 miles north of Lima. There stands Chankillo, a complex built around 250 B.C.E., considered the earliest known solar observatory in the Americas and the clearest known example of a monument designed to track the sun’s position throughout the entire year, according to a study in Science. Modest in appearance and largely absent from tourist posters and classic postcards, Chankillo has renewed attention as archaeologists report preliminary findings from ongoing excavations.

—CBS News: “NASA Juggling Piloted Moon Mission and Space Station Crew Replacement Flight“

With a space station medical evacuation safely completed, NASA is focused on two challenging missions proceeding in parallel: launching four astronauts on a flight around the moon, at the same time as the agency is planning to send four replacement astronauts to the International Space Station...The Artemis 2 mission and Crew 12’s planned space station flight present a unique challenge for NASA. The agency has not managed two piloted spacecraft at the same time since a pair of two-man Gemini capsules tested rendezvous procedures in low-Earth orbit in 1965. The agency has never flown a deep space mission amid another launch to Earth orbit.

—Royal Astronomical Society: “‘Reborn’ Black Hole Spotted ‘Erupting like Cosmic Volcano’“

One of the most vivid portraits of “reborn” black hole activity – likened to the eruption of a “cosmic volcano” spreading almost one million light-years across space – has been captured in a gigantic radio galaxy. The dramatic scene was uncovered when astronomers spotted the supermassive black hole at the heart of J1007+3540 restarting its jet emission after nearly 100 million years of silence.

Note: Please ignore the previous posting for today about the Apollo 17 mission. It’s a good story, but I will need to retell it at another time (that is, on December 19th).

Space Stories: A Dead Galaxy, Newly Discovered Cloud-9, and Preparing for Artemis II

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): GS-10578, also called Pablo’s Galaxy. (JADES Collaboration)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—innovation News Network: “Astronomers Discover Ancient “Dead Galaxy” Starved by its Supermassive Black Hole“

Using observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), researchers found that a growing supermassive black hole can slowly starve a galaxy rather than destroy it outright. The galaxy, catalogued as GS-10578 and nicknamed Pablo’s Galaxy, existed just three billion years after the Big Bang. Despite this early stage in cosmic history, it is enormous – around 200 billion times the mass of the Sun. Most of its stars formed between 12.5 and 11.5 billion years ago, indicating a rapid burst of star formation before the galaxy suddenly shut down.

—CNN: “‘Cloud-9’ is a Newly Discovered Celestial Object. It Could Help Solve a Cosmic Mystery“

Astronomers may have discovered a previously unknown type of astronomical object, nicknamed “Cloud-9,” that could shed light on dark matter, one of the biggest mysteries in the universe. …Cloud-9 is thought to be a dark matter cloud that could be a remnant of galaxy formation from the early days of the universe, according to new research published Monday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

—Space.com: “NASA to Roll Out Rocket for Artemis 2 Moon Mission on Jan. 17“

The first crewed moon mission in more than 50 years remains on track to launch as soon as Feb. 6. NASA announced on Friday evening (Jan. 9) that it plans to roll the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft that will fly the Artemis 2 moon mission out to the pad for prelaunch checks on Jan. 17, weather and technical readiness permitting.

Space Stories: Modernizing a Space Center, a Rogue Saturn, and a Lifeless Europa

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The space shuttle orbiter Enterprise lifted by crane into the Structural Dynamic Test Facility at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for vibration testing in July 1978. (NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Fox54 News: “NASA to Begin Modernization at Marshall Space Flight Center: Historic Structures to be Demolished Starting this Weekend“

With NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman in place, the agency is spearheading a major infrastructure modernization initiative, starting with the demolition of historic testing facilities at Marshall Space Flight Center. The space agency will tear down the Dynamic Test Stand and the Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, known as the T-Tower, beginning Jan. 10. The move marks the first phase of removing 25 outdated structures at the Alabama center.

—Sky & Telescope: “Rogue Saturn Discovered Floating Through the Milky Way“

Most planets orbit comfortably around their stars, but some worlds are not so lucky. Astronomers have discovered a number of these rogue planets, which float through the Milky Way untethered to a solar system. Now, for the first time, they’ve directly measured the mass of one of these worlds, finding that it’s around Saturn’s mass. The planet might’ve been flung far from its star through a past gravitational interaction. But such encounters are surprising for a planet with such a hefty mass.

—McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences: “Jupiter’s Moon Europa has a Seafloor that May Be Quiet and Lifeless“

The giant planet Jupiter has nearly 100 known moons, yet none have captured the interest and imagination of astronomers and space scientists quite like Europa, an ice-shrouded world that is thought to possess a vast ocean of liquid salt water. For decades, scientists have wondered whether that ocean could harbor the right conditions for life, placing Europa near the top of the list of solar system bodies to explore. A new study led by Paul Byrne, an associate professor of Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences, throws cold water on the idea that Europa could support life at the seafloor. Using calculations that consider the moon’s size, the makeup of its rocky core, and the gravitational forces from Jupiter, Byrne and a team of scientists conclude that Europa likely lacks the tectonic motion, warm hydrothermal vents, or any other sort of underwater geologic activity that would presumably be a prerequisite for life.