Improved vision for James Webb Space Telescope

Posted Yesterday

Key science elements of the James Webb Space Telescope have been upgraded ahead of the observatory’s launch in 2018.
The telescope, also known as JWST, is a joint project of NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency. It carries a 6.5 m-diameter telescope and four state-of-the-art science instruments optimised for infrared observations. Europe has led the development of two of the instruments.

Mission accomplished. The final taping of the protective cover is applied and the James Webb Space Telescope NIRSpec instrument is in its final flight configuration and ready to go back into the Integrated Science Instrument Module. From left to right: Ralf Ehrenwinkler (Airbus DS), Frank Merkle (Airbus DS), Kai Hoffmann (Airbus DS), Robert Eder (Airbus DS), Max Speckmaier (Airbus DS) and Maurice te Plate (ESA). Copyright NASA–C. Gunn

As a general-purpose observatory, it will tackle a wide range of topics, including detecting the first galaxies in the Universe and following their evolution over cosmic time, witnessing the birth of new stars and their planetary systems, and studying planets in our Solar System and around other stars.
Installation of the four instruments in the telescope’s Integrated Science Instrument Module, or ISIM, was completed last April. Since then, the module has undergone extensive testing to ensure it can withstand the stresses of launch and operation in space.

A critical part of this process saw the instruments complete cryogenic testing in a round-the-clock campaign running for 116 days last summer.

This photo shows NASA engineers at Goddard inspecting an MSA with a low light test. The inspection light source is held by the technician at the front of the picture. Four array quadrants are located within the octagonal frame in the centre of a titanium mosaic base plate. Each quadrant contains a grid of 365×171 micro-shutters, and each micro-shutter measures approximately 100 µm × 200 µm – the width of a human hair. NIRSpec is built by European industry to ESA’s specifications and managed by the ESA JWST Project at ESTEC, the Netherlands. The prime contractor is Airbus Defence and Space in Ottobrunn, Germany. The NIRSpec detector and micro-shutter array subsystems are provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Copyright NASA Goddard/Chris Gunn

Following the campaign, several months were dedicated to replacing key components of some of the instruments already known to require additional work before the next stages.
Europe’s ‘NIRSpec’, the near-infrared multi-object spectrograph, was one of the instruments upgraded. NIRSpec will split infrared light from distant stars and galaxies into its colour components – a spectrum – providing scientists with vital information on their chemical composition, age and distance.
The first generation of JWST’s highly sensitive near-infrared detectors were found to suffer from a design flaw that resulted in a progressive degradation of their performance. New detectors have now been installed in all three near-infrared instruments.
“Excellent detectors are crucial to the outstanding instrument performance needed when you want to look at the extremely distant and faint early stars and galaxies that formed when our Universe was still young, and the new detectors secure this top priority of NIRSpec and JWST,” says Pierre Ferruit, ESA’s JWST project scientist.
Another crucial component of NIRSpec are its microshutter arrays, a new technology developed for JWST by NASA.

James Webb Space Telescope mural image. Artist’s impression. Copyright Northrop Grumman

One of the defining and pioneering features of NIRSpec is its ability to analyse the light from more than 100 astronomical objects at the same time. This is made possible by an assembly of four microshutter arrays, totalling almost a quarter of a million individual shutters.
Armed with a pre-selected list of interesting targets, each shutter can be programmed to open or close individually. The light from the chosen targets passes through the selected open shutters before entering the next stage of the instrument, where it is split into a spectrum and projected onto the detectors for analysis.

But after testing in 2012 designed to simulate the extreme acoustic environment experienced during launch, it was discovered that several thousand microshutters in NIRSpec were jammed closed and could no longer open.
A thorough investigation performed with an engineering model of NIRSpec, including tests at NASA’s acoustic facility, found the root cause of the problem and new arrays were built.
The overall performance of the new microshutter assembly was found to be superior to the old system in many ways, and the delicate replacement operation was completed last month.

“This required the instrument’s outer cover to be opened and therefore an exceptionally strict cleanliness regime was needed to avoid contamination,” says Maurice te Plate, ESA’s JWST system integration and test manager.
“In particular, the microshutters are very sensitive to material such as small polyester fibres that can get stuck inside and prevent them from fully closing.
“We just completed our final checks and we are now ready to install NIRSpec back in to the Module.”
“NIRSpec is in its final flight configuration,” adds Peter Jensen, ESA’s JWST project manager. “We have now completed the endeavour we started 11 years ago – it has not been easy, but through skill, persistence, and dedication, the team has made it.”
Later this year, the module and instruments will resume the extensive programme of environmental tests to reproduce the conditions endured during launch and in space. The module will later be integrated into the JWST observatory for full-scale cryogenic optical and system testing before launch on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Source: ESA

Latest Selfie from NASA Mars Rover Shows Wide Context

February 24, 2015

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at the "Mojave" site, where its drill collected the mission's second taste of Mount Sharp. The scene combines dozens of images taken during January 2015 by the MAHLI camera at the end of the rover's robotic arm.

Image Credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Full image and caption

-- The latest self-portrait covers the key "Pahrump Hills" sites
-- Taken beside January's "Mojave" drilling site, the image also shows the mission's next planned drilling site
A sweeping view of the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop on Mars, where NASA's Curiosity rover has been working for five months, surrounds the rover in Curiosity's latest self-portrait.
The selfie scene is assembled from dozens of images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the rover's robotic arm.
Pahrump Hills is an outcrop of the bedrock that forms the basal layer of Mount Sharp, at the center of Mars' Gale Crater. The mission has examined the outcrop with a campaign that included a "walkabout" survey and then increasingly detailed levels of inspection. The rover climbed from the outcrop's base to higher sections three times to create vertical profiles of the rock structures and chemistry, and to select the best targets for sample-collection drilling.
The component images for this self-portrait were taken in late January, while Curiosity was at a drilling site called "Mojave 2." At that site, the mission collected its second drilled sample of Pahrump Hills for laboratory analysis. The first sample was collected in September from a site called "Confidence Hills." Since leaving the Mojave site, Curiosity has driven to another location visible in the scene, where drilling at a site called "Telegraph Peak" is planned.
Curiosity took previous self-portraits with the MAHLI camera at three sites it explored before reaching the base of Mount Sharp.
"Compared with the earlier Curiosity selfies, we added extra frames for this one so we could see the rover in the context of the full Pahrump Hills campaign," said rover team member Kathryn Stack  at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "From the Mojave site, we could include every stop we've made during the campaign."
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions.
Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, developed, built and operates MAHLI. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Monster Black Hole's Mighty Belch Could Transform Entire Galaxy

by Calla Cofield,    February 19, 2015 02:01pm ET

This artist's illustration depicts the furious cosmic winds streaming out from a monster supermassive black hole as detected by NASA's NuSTAR space telescope and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory.

A ravenous, giant black hole has belched up a bubble of cosmic wind so powerful that it could change the fate of an entire galaxy, according to new observations.
Researchers using two X-ray telescopes have identified a cosmic wind blowing outward from the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy PDS 456. Astronomers have seen these winds before, but the authors of the new research say this is the first observation of a wind moving away from the center in every direction, creating a spherical shape.
The wind could have big implications for the future of the galaxy: It will cut down on the black hole's food supply, and slow star formation in the rest of the galaxy, the researchers said. And it's possible that strong cosmic winds are a common part of galaxy evolution — they could be responsible for turning galaxies from bright, active youngsters to quiet middle-agers. [The Strangest Black Holes in the Universe]

Big eater

The supermassive black hole at the center of PDS 456 is currently gobbling up a substantial amount of food: A smorgasbord of gas and dust surrounds the black hole and is falling into the gravitational sinkhole.
As matter falls, it radiates light. The black hole at the center of PDS 456 is devouring so much matter, that the resulting radiation outshines every star in the galaxy. These kinds of bright young galaxies are known as quasars: a galaxy with an incredibly bright center, powered by a supermassive black hole with a big appetite.
New observations of PDS 456 have revealed a bubble of gas moving outward, away from the black hole. Using NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and ESA’s (European Space Agency) XMM-Newton, the authors of the new research imaged the galaxy on five separate occassions in 2013 and 2014. The researchers say they can show that the photons of light emitted by the in-falling matter are pushing on nearby gas, creating the wind.
Scientists have studied these cosmic winds before, but the authors of the new research say their work goes a step further.
"It tells us that the shape of the wind is not just a narrow beam pointed in our direction. It is really a wind that is flowing in every direction away from the black hole," said Emanuele Nardini, a postdoctoral researcher at Keele University in Staffordshire, England. "With a spherical wind, the amount of mass it carries out is much larger than just a narrow beam."
According to a statement from NASA, galaxy PDS 456 "sustains winds that carry more energy every second than is emitted by more than a trillion suns." Such powerful winds could change the entire landscape of PDS 456, the researchers say. First, the wind will blow through the disk of matter surrounding the black hole — this disk currently serves as the black hole's food supply. The cosmic wind created by the black hole's appetite could significantly reduce or destroy the disk. In other words, the black hole cannot have its cake and eat it, too.

Bright young things

With no matter left to fall into the black hole, the radiation would cease as well. The brilliant center of the quasar will dim. By diminishing the black hole's food supply, they may turn quasars and other "active galaxies" like PDS 456 into quiescent galaxies like the Milky Way. Theorists have proposed that cosmic winds could explain why there are more young active galaxies than old active galaxies.
"We know that in almost every galaxy, a supermassive black hole resides in the center," said Nardini. "But, most of the galaxies we see today are quiescent, they are not active in any way. The fact that galaxies today are quiescent — we have to find an explanation for that in something that happened a long time ago."
In addition to quenching the radiation from an active black hole, these cosmic winds may slow down star formation in galaxies. The cosmic wind could blow through regions thick with gas and dust, where young stars form, and thin out the fertile stellar soil.
"If you have a black hole with this kind of wind, in millions of years [the winds] will be able to quench star formation and create a galaxy like our own," Nardini said. Stars will still form in the Milky Way, but not at the high rate of many young galaxies.
It's possible that these cosmic winds are a central reason why most galaxies go from being brightly burning active youngsters to quiet middle-agers.

Mysterious Plumes on Mars Have Scientists Stumped

by Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer   |   February 17, 2015 12:31pm ET

Scientists are puzzled by a mysterious plume that erupted off the surface of Mars in 2012. On the right, the location of the plume is identified in the yellow circle. On the left, close-up views of the changing plume morphology in images taken by W. Jaeschke and D. Parker on March 21, 2012. The background is a region on Mars known as Terra Cimmeria, where the plume formed. (Image source NOAA). Credit: Grupo Ciencias Planetarias (GCP) - UPV/EHU View full size image

A mystery is brewing on Mars: Amateur astronomers spotted enormous plumes erupting off the Red Planet's surface, leaving scientists puzzled.
More than 155 miles (250 kilometers) high and hundreds of miles across, the baffling plumes were spotted by amateur astronomers in the spring of 2012. The plumes reflect sunlight, which means they could be made of water ice, carbon dioxide ice or dust. But clouds made of those materials would be hard to explain with current models of the Martian atmosphere, scientists say.
Images of Mars from the last 20 years reveal that shorter plumes, reaching heights of about 62 miles (100 km), occasionally flare up from the planet's surface. An image by the Hubble Space Telescope from 1997 revealed another abnormally high plume, similar to the one seen in 2012, according to a statement from the European Space Agency (ESA).
 

Scientists at the Universidad del Pais Vasco in Spain studied the images of the plumes and confirmed that they reach heights of more than 155 miles (250 km) above the surface, and cover an area of up to 310 by 620 miles (500 by 1,000 km).

Caption: An image captured by amateur astronomer W. Jaeschke in 2012 revealed a mysterious plumelike feature (marked with yellow arrow) at the limb of the Red Planet. The image is shown with the North Pole toward the bottom and the South Pole to the top.
Credit: W. Jaeschke

View full size image

"At about 250 km, the division between the atmosphere and outer space is very thin, so the reported plumes are extremely unexpected," says Agustín Sánchez-Lavega of the Universidad del País Vasco, lead author of the new research.
The features developed in less than 10 hours and remained visible for about 10 days, but changed their structure from day to day, ESA officials wrote in a statement. None of the spacecraft orbiting Mars were in a position to see the plumes, due to their locations around the planet and light conditions at the time.
Analysis of the images from 2012 and of past images of plumes erupting from the surface of Mars haven't helped the researchers determine what caused the plumes or what they are made of.
"One idea we've discussed is that the features are caused by a reflective cloud of water-ice, carbon dioxide-ice or dust particles, but this would require exceptional deviations from standard atmospheric circulation models to explain cloud formations at such high altitudes,"  Sánchez-Lavega said in a statement.
It's possible the plumes are somehow caused by Martian auroras, according to the authors of the new research. These brilliant light displays are known on Earth as the northern and southern lights, and are caused by the interaction of high- energy particles and a planet's magnetic field.

A plumelike feature was observed on Mars on May 17, 1997, by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is similar to the features detected by amateur astronomers in 2012, although it appeared in a different location. 

"Another idea is that they are related to an auroral emission, and indeed auroras have been previously observed at these locations, linked to a known region on the surface where there is a large anomaly in the crustal magnetic field," Antonio Garcia Muñoz, a research fellow at ESA's ESTEC and co-author of the study, said in a statement.
The ESA statement reports that "further insights should be possible following the arrival of ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter at the Red Planet, scheduled for launch in 2016."

Interesting Facts About Planet Mars

by Elizabeth Howell on February 13, 2015

The Planet Mars. Image credit: NASA

Mars is a constant point of discussion for space explorers around the world. We’ve sent dozens of spacecraft there to study it. Some want to land astronauts on it. The planet is just far away to make that dream difficult, but just close enough to spark our imagination. So what are some of the most important things to learn about the Red Planet?

1. Mars had water in the ancient past.
We’ve been debating for centuries about whether Mars had life or not. In fact, the astronomer Percival Lowell misinterpreted observations of “canali” — the Italian word for channels — on the planet as evidence of alien-made canals. It turned out Lowell’s observations were hampered by poor telescope optics of his day, and the canals he saw were optical illusions. That said, several spacecraft have spotted other signs of ancient water — channels grooved in the terrain and rocks that only could have formed in the presence of water, for example.
2. Mars has frozen water today.
We’re very interested in the question of water because it implies habitability; simply put, life as we know it is more likely to exist with water there. In fact, the Curiosity rover’s mandate on Mars right now is to search for habitable environments (in the past or present). Mars has a thin atmosphere that does not allow water to flow or remain in large quantities on the surface, but we know for sure that there is ice at the poles — and possibly frosty locations elsewhere on the planet. The question is if the ice is capable of melting enough water in the summer long enough to support any microbes.

Mars Express Data from Mars South Pole. Credits: ESA/ Image Courtesy of F. Altieri (IFSI-INAF) and the OMEGA team

3. Mars used to have a thicker atmosphere.
For water to flow in the past, the Red Planet needs more atmosphere. So something must have changed in the past few billion years. What? It is thought that the Sun’s energy striking the atmosphere must have “stripped” the lighter forms of hydrogen from the top, scattering the molecules into space. Over long periods of time, this would lessen the amount of atmosphere near Mars. This question is being investigated in more detail with NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft.
4. Mars has some extreme highs and lows in terrain.
The surface gravity of Mars is only 37% of what you would find on Earth, which makes it possible for volcanoes to be taller without collapsing. This is why we have Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano known on a planet in the Solar System. It’s 16 miles (25 kilometers) high and its diameter is approximately the same as the state of Arizona, according to NASA. But Mars also has a deep and wide canyon known as Valles Marineris, after the spacecraft (Mariner 9) that discovered it. In some parts, the canyon is 4 miles (7 kilometers) deep. According to NASA, the valley is as wide as the United States and is about 20% of the Red Planet’s diameter.

Valles Marineris as seen in this mosaic of Viking orbiter images. Noctis Labyrinthus at the left, Melas Chasma in the middle, Hebes Chasma just left of top center, Eos Chasma at lower right and Ganges Chasma just above center right. Credit: NASA/JPL

5. Mars has two moons — and one of them is doomed.
The planet has two asteroid-like moons called Phobos and Deimos. Because they have compositions that are similar to asteroids found elsewhere in the Solar System, according to NASA, most scientists believe the Red Planet’s gravity snatched the moons long ago and forced them into orbit. But in the life of the Solar System, Phobos has a pretty short lifetime. In about 30 million to 50 million years, Phobos is going to crash into Mars’ surface or rip apart because the tidal force of the planet will prove too much to resist.
6. We have pieces of Mars on Earth
Remember the low gravity on Mars that we talked about? In the past, the planet has been hit by large asteroids — just like Earth. Most of the debris fell back on the planet, but some of it was ejected into space. That sparked an incredible journey where the debris moved around the Solar System and in some cases, landed on Earth. The technical name for these meteorites is called SNC (Shergottites, Nakhlites, Chassignites — types of geologic composition). Gases trapped in some of these meteorites has been practically identical to what NASA’s Viking landers sampled on the Red Planet in the 1970s and 1980s.

Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons, with the Stickney crater seen on the right side. Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

7. Mars would kill an unprotected astronaut quickly.
There are a lot of unpleasant scenarios for somebody who took of their helmet. First, Mars is usually pretty cold; its average temperature is -50 degrees Fahrenheit (-45 degrees Celsius) at the mid-latitudes. Second, it has practically no atmosphere. The air pressure on Mars is only 1% of what we have (on average) on the Earth’s surface. And third, even if it did have atmosphere, the composition is not compatible with the nitrogen-oxygen mix humans require. Specifically, Mars has about 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen, 1.6% argon and a few other elements in its atmosphere.
8. In the early Space Age, we thought Mars was like the moon.
The early NASA probes that flew by the Red Planet all, coincidentally, happened to image spots on the planets that had craters. This led some scientists to (mistakenly) believe that Mars has an environment similar to the moon: cratered and practically unchanging. This all changed when Mariner 9 arrived at the planet for an orbital mission in November 1971 and discovered the planet engulfed in a global dust storm. What’s more, odd features were poking out above the dust — features that turned out to be dormant volcanoes. And as mentioned earlier, Mariner 9 found the vast Valles Marineris. It changed our view of the planet forever.

Top: Map of methane concentrations in Autumn (first martian year observed). Peak emissions fall over Tharsis (home to the Solar System\’s largest volcano, Olympus Mons), the Arabia Terrae plains and the Elysium region, also the site of volcanos. Bottom: True colour map of Mars. Credit: NASA/Università del Salento

9. Mars has methane in its atmosphere, but we don’t know how much.
Methane can be interpreted as a sign of biological activity — microbes emit it — or even of geologic activity. And active planets, it is thought, are more likely to have life on them. So the question of methane on Mars is one that scientists are trying to figure out. The consensus? There is no consensus. Telescopic observations have had wildly different measurements over the years, and few spacecraft have been designed to probe for the element in detail. The Curiosity rover has detected tenfold spikes in methane in its area, but we don’t know where it came from and why the fluctuations are happening.
10. Mars is a popular spacecraft destination.
There have been so many spacecraft that attempted a Martian mission that it’s hard to pick notable ones in a short article. NASA’s Vikings were the first landers in 1976; in fact, NASA is the only agency that has managed to land on the planet so far. Some of its other missions include Pathfinder-Sojourner (the first lander-rover combination) in 1997, the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity in 2004, and the Curiosity rover of 2012. And this doesn’t even mention the fleet of orbiters that have mapped Mars over the years from the Soviet Union, NASA, the European Space Agency and India. And there are many more spacecraft to come in the next decade.

Rosetta’s Comet Really “Blows Up” in Latest Images

by Jason Major on February 9, 2015

Jet activity on Comet 67P/C-G imaged on Jan. 31 and Feb. 3, 2015. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0. Edit by Jason Major.

First off: no, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is not about to explode or disintegrate. But as it steadily gets nearer to the Sun the comet’s jets are getting more and more active and they’re putting on quite a show for the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft! Click the image for a jeterrific hi-res version.
The images above were captured by Rosetta’s NavCam on Jan. 31 and Feb. 3 from a distance of about 28 km (17 miles). Each is a mosaic of four separate NavCam acquisitions and they have been adjusted and tinted in Photoshop by yours truly to further enhance the jets’ visibility. (You can view the original image mosaics and source frames here and here.)
These dramatic views are just a hint at what’s in store; 67P’s activity will only be increasing in the coming weeks and months and, this weekend, Rosetta will be swooping down for an extreme close pass over its surface!

Detail of 67P from the Feb. 3 NavCam image

This Saturday, Feb. 14, Rosetta will be performing a very close pass of the comet’s nucleus, soaring over the Imhotep region at an altitude of only 6 km (3.7 miles) at 12:41 UTC. This will allow the spacecraft to closely image the comet’s surface, as well as investigate the behavior of its jets and how they interact with its developing coma.
“The upcoming close flyby will allow unique scientific observations, providing us with high-resolution measurements of the surface over a range of wavelengths and giving us the opportunity to sample – taste or sniff – the very innermost parts of the comet’s atmosphere,” said Rosetta project scientist Matt Taylor.
Read more about Rosetta’s Valentine’s Day close pass here and watch an animation of how it will be executed below.
Source: ESA

You’ve Never Seen the Phases of the Moon from This Perspective: The Far Side

by David Dickinson on February 6, 2015

A crescent Earth and Moon: an unfamiliar view of familiar worlds. Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

Sometimes, it seems to be a cosmic misfortune that we only get to view the universe from a singular vantage point.
Take the example of our single natural satellite. As the Moon waxes and wanes through its cycle of phases,  we see the familiar face of the lunar nearside. This holds true from the day we’re born until the day we die. The Romans and Paleolithic man saw that same face, and until less than a century ago, it was anyone’s guess as to just what was on the other side.
Enter the Space Age and the possibility to finally get a peek at the universe from different perspective via our robotic ambassadors. This week, the folks over at NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio released a unique video simulation that utilized data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to give us a view unseen from Earth. This perspective shows just what the phases of the Moon would look like from the vantage point of the lunar farside:
You can see the Moon going through the synodic 29.5 day period a familiar phases, albeit with an unfamiliar face. Note that the Sun zips by, as the lunar farside wanes towards New. And in the background, the Earth can be seen, presenting an identical phase and tracing out a lazy figure eight as it appears and disappears behind the lunar limb.

The lunar nearside: A familiar view. Credit: Stephen Rahn.

What’s with the lunar-planetary game of peek-a-boo? Well, the point of view for the video assumes that your looking at down at the lunar farside from a stationary point above the Moon. Note that the disk of the Moon stays fixed in place. The Moon actually ‘rocks’ or nods back and forth and side-to-side in motions referred to as libration and nutation, and you’re seeing these expressed via the motion of the Earth in the video.  This assures that we actually get a peek over the lunar limb and see a foreshadowed extra bit of the lunar farside, with grand 59% of the lunar surface visible from the Earth. Such is the wacky motion of our Moon, which gave early astronomers an excellent crash course in celestial mechanics 101.
Now, to dispel some commonly overheard lunar myths:
Myth #1: The moon doesn’t rotate. Yes, it’s tidally locked from our perspective, meaning that it keeps one face turned Earthward. But it does turn on its axis in lockstep as it does so once every 27.3 days, known as a sidereal month.
Myth #2:  The Farside vs. the Darkside. (Cue Pink Floyd) We do in fact see the dark or nighttime side of the Moon just as much as the daytime side. Despite popular culture, the farside is only synonymous with the darkside of the Moon during Full phase.
Humanity got its first glimpse of the lunar farside in 1959, when the Soviet Union’s Luna 3 spacecraft looked back as it flew past the Moon and beamed us the first blurry image. The Russians got there first, which is why the lunar farside now possesses names for features such as the “Mare Moscoviense”.

Our evolving view of the lunar farside over 60 years… Credit: NASA/LRO.

Think we’ve explored the Moon? Thus far, no mission – crewed or otherwise – has landed on the lunar farside. The Apollo missions were restricted to nearside landing sites at low latitudes with direct line of sight communication with the Earth. The same goes for the lunar poles: the Moon is still a place begging for further exploration.

China’s Chang’e 5 T1 pathfinder mission looks back at the Earth and the lunar farside. Credit: Xinhua/SASTIND.

Why go to the lunar farside? Well, it would be a great place to do some radio astronomy, as you have the bulk of the Moon behind you to shield your sensitive searches from the now radio noisy Earth. Sure, the dilemmas of living on the lunar farside might forever outweigh the benefits, and abrasive lunar dust will definitely be a challenge to lunar living… perhaps an orbiting radio astronomy observatory in a Lissajous orbit at the L2 point would be a better bet?

An artist’s conception of LRO in lunar orbit. Credit: NASA/LRO.

And exploration of the Moon continues. Earlier this week, the LRO team released a finding suggesting that surface hydrogen may be more abundant on the poleward facing slopes of craters that litter the lunar south pole region. Locating caches of lunar ice in permanently shadowed craters will be key to a ‘living off of the land’ approach for future lunar colonists… and then there’s the idea to harvest helium-3 for nuclear fusion (remember the movie Moon?) that’s still science fiction… for now.
Perhaps the Moonbase Alpha of Space: 1999 never came to pass… but there’s always 2029!

Rare Images of Red Sprites Captured at ESO

by Jason Major on February 3, 2015

Red sprites (right) captured from ESO’s VLT platform by Petr Horálek. (P. Horálek/ESO)

At the ESO’s observatories located high in the Atacama Desert of Chile, amazing images of distant objects in the Universe are captured on a regular basis. But in January 2015, ESO photo ambassador Petr Horálek captured some amazing photos of much closer phenomena: red sprites flashing in the atmosphere high above distant thunderstorms.

The photo above was captured from ESO’s Paranal Observatory. A few days earlier during the early morning hours of Jan. 20 Petr captured another series of sprites from the La Silla site, generated by a storm over Argentina over 310 miles (500 km) away.

Sprites spotted from ESO’s La Silla observatory by Petr Horálek (left horizon)

So-named because of their elusive nature, sprites appear as clusters of red tendrils above a lighting flash, often extending as high as 55 miles (90 km) into the atmosphere. The brightest region of a sprite is typically seen at altitudes of over 40-45 miles (65-75 km).
Because they occur high above large storms, only last for fractions of a second and emit light in the portion of the spectrum to which our eyes are the least sensitive, observing sprites is notoriously difficult.
Read more: On the Hunt for High-Speed Sprites
These furtive atmospheric features weren’t captured on camera until 1989. Continuing research has since resulted in more images, including some from the International Space Station. When they are spotted, sprites – and their lower-altitude relatives blue jets – can appear as bright as moderate aurorae and have also been found to emit radio noise. It has even been suggested that looking for sprite activity on other planets could help identify alien environments that are conducive to life.
Find out more about sprite research from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and check out the PBS NOVA program “At the Edge of Space” below about a sprite hunt in the skies over Denver, CO conducted by a team of American scientists and Japanese filmmakers.
Source: ESO