Our Awesome Universe

Space Stories: Psyche Ready to Go, Interesting Exoplanets, and Protecting Astronaut Health

Posted on October 2, 2023 by onespaceman2000

^{Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of NASA’s Psyche mission approaching the asteroid Psyche. (NASA)}

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Universe.com: “NASA’s Psyche Now Set to Launch October 12“

With just under two weeks until its planned launch, NASA’s Psyche mission has been rescheduled. As per a NASA blog post, the agency along with SpaceX are now aiming for liftoff on October 12 at 10:16 A.M. EDT from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida — the first of several NASA science missions that will ride to space on a Falcon Heavy Rocket. The mission was originally set to launch October 5.

—Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets: “UdeM-Led Study of Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b Reveals New Insights into its Atmosphere and Star“

A team of astronomers has made an important leap forward in our understanding of the intriguing TRAPPIST-1 exoplanetary system. Not only has their research shed light on the nature of TRAPPIST-1 b, the exoplanet orbiting closest to the system’s star, but it has also shown the importance of parent stars when studying exoplanets. The findings, published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters, shed light on the complex interplay between stellar activity and exoplanet characteristics.

—NASA: “NASA Funds Eight Studies to Protect Astronaut Health on Long Missions“

NASA is funding eight new studies aimed at better understanding how the human body reacts to spaceflight. These studies will be done on Earth without the need for samples and data from astronauts. Collectively, these studies will help measure physiological and psychological responses to physical and mental challenges that astronauts may encounter during spaceflight. With this information, NASA may be better able to mitigate risks and protect astronaut health and performance during future long-duration missions to the International Space Station, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Television: 60 Minutes Goes to Mars

Posted on October 1, 2023 by onespaceman2000

Just a heads up. Tune into CBS’s 60 Minutes next Sunday to learn more about NASA’s efforts to design what may be future habitats on Mars. It involves 3D-printing technologies, which have also been discussed as a means of building a lunar base. In fact, NASA has issued contracts for such construction on the Moon.

Here is a clip discussing this upcoming segment. It is part of a 90-minute episode of 60 Minutes. I am not sure if we should expect a name change for the series.

Note: CBS News had another report on 3D-printing on Mars back in 2017 titled “Mars Colony Could 3D-Print Stuff from Red Planet Dust.” Hopefully, 60 Minutes had a good scoop that advances the story.

Television: Space Tourism

Posted on September 30, 2023 by onespaceman2000

CBS News had a recent broadcast called “Space Tourism: The Next Great Leap.” Here is the CBS summary:

In the aftermath of the Titan submersible tragedy, extreme travel has come under fresh scrutiny. But one industry stands out for both its allure and the lack of regulation protecting participants’ safety: space tourism. CBS Reports explores the next great leap for humankind and whether regulators and industry stakeholders are striking the right balance between encouraging innovation and ensuring safety.

It was only a matter of time that the deep sea deaths led to greater interest in other nonessential risk. It discusses the space tourist programs under SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and others, though it does not get any of them on the record to talk about risk. The news program does reach out to a few tourists, and spends a lot of time with a balloon company that is not yet a real player in this industry.

Many if not most of the space tourists are wealthy individuals with the means to investigate and understand the risk, so one can only worry so much. This is the same subset of humanity climbing mountains because they are there or jumping from helicopters to ski, so they would probably find some other way to expire with their money just to be “alive.” So, should we care? Maybe millionaire guinea pigs are an easier way to fund missions and experiment until space travel is safer for greater numbers.

Probably we should have at least minimal standards equivalent to other forms of privately-owned craft, be it boats or planes. And only when these craft become true transports for the public should they fall under greater regulation. It’s just an idea, but until then caveat emptor.

Space Quote: New Horizons for New Horizons

Posted on September 29, 2023 by onespaceman2000

^{Image (Credit): Artist’s rending of the New Horizons spacecraft approaching Pluto. (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI))}

“The New Horizons mission has a unique position in our solar system to answer important questions about our heliosphere and provide extraordinary opportunities for multidisciplinary science for NASA and the scientific community…The agency decided that it was best to extend operations for New Horizons until the spacecraft exits the Kuiper Belt, which is expected in 2028 through 2029.”

–Statement by Nicola Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, regarding the plans for the New Horizons spacecraft. The NASA statement notes that starting in fiscal year 2025, the New Horizons spacecraft will focus on gathering unique heliophysics data, which does not preclude additional flybys of later identified items in the Kuiper Belt.

Pic of the Week: Herbig-Haro 211

Posted on September 28, 2023 by onespaceman2000

^{Image (Credit): Herbig-Haro 211 as captured by the JWST.}

This week’s image is from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It shows a colorful and expansive Herbig-Haro 211, with a Herbig-Haro (HH) being “…luminous regions surrounding newborn stars, formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shock waves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds.”

NASA explains what we are seeing:

This image of HH 211 from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals an outflow from a Class 0 protostar, an infantile analog of our Sun when it was no more than a few tens of thousands of years old and with a mass only 8% of the present-day Sun (it will eventually grow into a star like the Sun).

Infrared imaging is powerful in studying newborn stars and their outflows, because such stars are invariably still embedded within the gas from the molecular cloud in which they formed. The infrared emission of the star’s outflows penetrates the obscuring gas and dust, making a Herbig-Haro object like HH 211 ideal for observation with Webb’s sensitive infrared instruments. Molecules excited by the turbulent conditions, including molecular hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and silicon monoxide, emit infrared light that Webb can collect to map out the structure of the outflows.

The image showcases a series of bow shocks to the southeast (lower-left) and northwest (upper-right) as well as the narrow bipolar jet that powers them. Webb reveals this scene in unprecedented detail — roughly 5 to 10 times higher spatial resolution than any previous images of HH 211. The inner jet is seen to “wiggle” with mirror symmetry on either side of the central protostar. This is in agreement with observations on smaller scales and suggests that the protostar may in fact be an unresolved binary star.