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Salt Lake City UT (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
Is our home galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, a special place? A team of scientists started a journey to answer this question more than a decade ago. Commenced in 2013, the Satellites Around Galactic Analogs (SAGA) Survey studies galaxy systems like the Milky Way. Now, the SAGA Survey just published three new research articles that provide us with new insights into the uniqueness of our own Milky Wa

Boston MA (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
Mars wasn't always the cold desert we see today. There's increasing evidence that water once flowed on the Red Planet's surface, billions of years ago. And if there was water, there must also have been a thick atmosphere to keep that water from freezing. But sometime around 3.5 billion years ago, the water dried up, and the air, once heavy with carbon dioxide, dramatically thinned, leaving only

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Sep 27, 2024
A team of Chinese scientists has conducted a detailed study of the first lunar samples retrieved from the Moon's farside by the Chang'e-6 mission. These groundbreaking samples mark a key achievement in lunar exploration, offering new insights into the Moon's geological history. The research was published in the 'National Science Review' on September 17, 2024.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 27, 2024
Veteran Ventures Capital (VVC), a firm focused on investing in dual-use national security technology companies led by veterans, announced a strategic investment in Agile Space Industries. Agile specializes in developing advanced chemical propulsion systems for satellites and spacecraft, including thrusters and rocket engines, which are designed, 3D printed, and tested in-house. This investment i

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 26, 2024
NASA has awarded Starfish Space a Phase III Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract to advance the Small Spacecraft Propulsion and Inspection Capability (SSPICY) mission. Based in Seattle, Washington, Starfish Space will receive $15 million over the next three years to complete the mission, which aims to enable commercial inspection of defunct satellites in low Earth orbit - a key ste

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 27, 2024
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has successfully completed the integration and testing of its second Pioneer spacecraft for Varda Space Industries, Inc. ("Varda"). Varda is pioneering in-space pharmaceutical processing and hypersonic re-entry logistics. This follows the first successful mission of Rocket Lab's Pioneer spacecraft for Varda in June 2023. During that mission, Varda crysta

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 27, 2024
BlackSky Technology Inc. (NYSE: BKSY) has been awarded a U.S. Navy research contract to explore the use of advanced optical intersatellite link terminals on its Gen-3 imaging satellites. This project will help deliver real-time satellite imagery to military personnel during critical operations around the world. The contract supports the Navy's Project Overmatch and the Department of Defense's Jo

Rochester NY (SPX) Sep 27, 2024
RIT has been selected to lead the United States Space Force University Consortium/Space Strategic Technology Institute 3 (SSTI) research regarding advanced space power and propulsion, which includes $9.9 million in funding. The research is in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory and will enable game-changing space power and propulsion technology that will transition to the U.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 27, 2024
Viasat, Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT), a global provider of satellite communications, announced its collaboration with CYSEC, a European cybersecurity company, under Viasat's ELEVATE program. The partnership aims to deliver advanced cybersecurity services for satellite communications. CYSEC, based in France and Switzerland, is a leader in cybersecurity for the space internet. The company offers robu

4 Min Read Unique NASA Partnerships Spark STEM Learning on Global Scale NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn reading “Goodnight Moon” aboard station for Crayola’s “Read Along, Draw Along” Credits: NASA

NASA offers a world of experiences and opportunities to engage young explorers around the globe in the excitement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement collaborates with experts throughout the agency, the U.S. government, and a variety of global partners to spark inspiration in Artemis Generation students everywhere.

Partnerships with the agency reach new audiences. Here are some of the ways NASA and its partners are making exciting STEM learning resources and opportunities available globally.

• NASA and Minecraft collaborated to bring NASA missions to life.
• NASA and Crayola partnered on a series of virtual engagements to encourage students and families to participate in science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics content – for example, the annual Crayola Creativity Week.
• NASA partnered with LEGO Education on educational resources to introduce STEM concepts and careers with students, teachers, and families.
• NASA joined forces with Discovery Education to provide curriculum support resources, videos, and events through their online platform.
• NASA recently signed an agreement with Arizona State University’s Milo Space Science Institute to create new opportunities for students to engage in STEM workforce development through 12-week academies using NASA data sets, information from NASA subject matter experts as well as information on the agency’s missions and careers. 
• NASA partnered with Code.org on the development of computer science and coding resources for teachers and students.
• NASA collaborated with LabXchange to develop free online resources for teachers and students on topics such as solar eclipses, Mars, astrobiology, and Artemis missions, with more than 700 resources available to date.

Representative LEGO minifigures in front of European Service Module that will power the Orion spacecraft on Artemis II. Four LEGO minifigures will fly on Artemis I as part of the official flight kit, which carries mementos for educational outreach and posterity.
Credit: NASA/Radislav Sinyak There’s More to Explore With NASA

International educators and students can find even more ways to engage with NASA’s missions and content through these resources, available online to all.

• For the youngest explorers, NASA Kids Club offers STEM-based games for students ages 3-9.
• The agency’s Artemis Camp Experience features hands-on activities designed to introduce K-12 students to the systems that will enable NASA astronauts to return to the Moon with Artemis.
• NASA’s “First Woman” graphic novel series tells the fictional story of Callie Rodriguez, the first woman to explore the Moon. Created for students in grades 5-12, “First Woman” includes graphic novels in English and Spanish along with accompanying videos, activities, and more.
• Through the agency’s internship opportunities, students gain authentic experience while being part of the agency’s work.
• Student challenges available internationally include the Human Exploration Rover Challenge, in which student teams create and test human-powered rovers, and the Space Apps Challenge, a hackathon that aims to solve real-world challenges on Earth and in space.
• NASA’s ASTRO CAMP Community Partners Program shares NASA STEM content and experiences through youth organizations and informal learning institutions such as museums and libraries, including nearly 30 international partner sites.
• Citizen scientists anywhere can contribute their local observations through the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Observer app, part of the GLOBE program sponsored by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Science Foundation, and Youth Learning as Citizen Environmental Scientists.
• Look up! Use the Spot the Station mobile app and website to know when the International Space Station will pass overhead.
• NASA is much more than astronauts and rocket scientists. The Surprisingly STEM video series highlights unexpected careers with linked hands-on activities.
• STEM resources for educators and students can be found anytime on NASA’s Learning Resources website.
• The agency offers video on demand through NASA+ with unique STEM programming, live coverage of NASA missions, and more.

Students put their human-powered rover to the test in NASA’s Human Exploration Rover Challenge.
Credit: NASA Get NASA STEM Updates via Email

NASA STEM’s e-newsletters deliver the latest updates to email inboxes around the world. The NASA EXPRESS weekly e-newsletter offers the latest NASA STEM content and opportunities, while the monthly Earthrise e-newsletter offers themed resources to elevate Earth and climate science in the classroom.

Learn more about how NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement is inspiring Artemis Generation explorers at: https://www.nasa.gov/stem

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Details Last Updated Oct 02, 2024 Related Terms

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Showcase your creative side and your research!   

They say, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” This year’s ASGSR conference will include an art competition, inviting researchers to bring their science to life through art.  

Consider submitting an entry for yourself or encourage your students to enter, too!  Entries will be displayed at the 2024 ASGSR conference. Awards will be announced at the 2024 ASGSR Banquet on December 7, 2024. 

Suggested subjects or themes: Your investigations or an interpretation of “Thriving in Space,” the National Academies’ Decadal Survey title. 

Award categories: 

• Cover of the ASGSR’s 2025 Open-Access journal Gravitational and Space Research, selected by the GSR Editorial Board 

• Artistic Merit award, as voted by ASGSR conference attendees  

• Technical Merit, as voted by ASGSR conference attendees 

Criteria: 

• To participate, at least one of the artists is required to be a registered attendee at the meeting and the art must be physically displayed during the meeting.  

• We recommend you mount your art with a rigid backing or frame, so it stands up on the provided easel, with a maximum size no greater than 25 x 16 inches.  If traveling by air, please make sure to consider luggage size. 

• The display should include a title of the piece, artists/affiliations and a brief explanation (a few sentences). Voting will be by Title, so please try to use a concise and catchy title that is easy to write on the ballot.   

• Similar to what one would see in an art gallery, the quality of printing, use of border, frames, 3D effects, etc., can significantly enhance the visual and professional appeal of your artwork. 

• Eligible entries for the GSR Journal Cover and Technical Merit must be original scientific imagery. 

• Eligible entries for Artistic Merit can include images (photographs or computer-generated), paintings, drawings, or sketches of gravitational and space research phenomena.  

• Rearrangement, assembly, or other creative mixing of images into an art-form is appropriate and encouraged only for the Artistic Merit category, whereas the GSR Journal Cover entries must be original imagery.  

Additional information: 

• You are expected to set up your display at the meeting site at the start of the conference and remove it by the end of the meeting. ASGSR will provide easels for your art displays. 

• ASGSR cannot guarantee the security of your artwork while on display at the hotel.   

• Submission indicates your permission for your artwork to be displayed on the ASGSR website.  

• “Thriving in Space” entries may be featured in NASA communications products. Submission indicates permission for use of your art without compensation. 

• Each registered attendee will receive an art ballot as part of the registration package.   

The peer voting will occur throughout the conference until noon Saturday, December 7, 2024.  We plan to announce the winners at the banquet. 

How to submit your entry: Electronically submit a high-resolution image with a title, list of contributing artists and their affiliations, and brief explanation of your submission to Kelly Bailey at Art.ASGSR@gmail.com  by November 8, 2024.  

 We encourage you to submit an entry and look forward to a very successful event! 

3 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA astronaut Kate Rubins takes Apollo 17 Lunar Module Pilot Harrison “Jack” Schmitt on a ride on NASA’s rover prototype at Johnson Space Center in Houston.NASA/James Blair

When astronauts return to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis campaign, they will benefit from having a human-rated unpressurized LTV (Lunar Terrain Vehicle) that will allow them to explore more of the lunar surface, enabling diverse scientific discoveries.

As crewed Artemis missions near, engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston are designing an unpressurized rover prototype, known as the Ground Test Unit. The test unit will employ a flexible architecture to simulate and evaluate different rover concepts for use beginning with Artemis V.

In April 2024, as part of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services contract, NASA selected three vendors — Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab — to supply rover capabilities for use by astronauts on the lunar surface. While the test unit will never go to the Moon, it will support the development of additional rover prototypes that will enable NASA and the three companies to continue making progress until one of the providers comes online. Additionally, data provided from GTU testing helps inform both NASA and the commercial companies as they continue evolving their rover designs as it serves as an engineering testbed for the LTV providers to test their technologies on crew compartment design, rover maintenance, and payload science integration, to name a few.

“The Ground Test Unit will help NASA teams on the ground, test and understand all aspects of rover operations on the lunar surface ahead of Artemis missions,” said Jeff Somers, engineering lead for the Ground Test Unit. “The GTU allows NASA to be a smart buyer, so we are able to test and evaluate rover operations while we work with the LTVS contractors and their hardware.” 

Suited NASA engineers sit on the rover prototype during testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.NASA/Bill Stafford A suited NASA engineer sits on the agency’s rover prototype during testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.NASA/Bill Stafford Suited NASA engineers sit on the rover prototype during testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.NASA/Bill Stafford

The LTVS contractors have requirements that align with the existing GTU capabilities. As with the test unit, the vendor-developed, LTV should support up to two crewmembers, have the ability to be operated remotely, and can implement multiple control concepts such as drive modes, self-leveling, and supervised autonomy. Having a NASA prototype of the vehicle we will drive on the Moon, here on Earth, allows many teams to test capabilities while also getting hands-on engineering experience developing rover hardware.

NASA has built some next generation rover concept vehicles following the successes of the agency’s Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle in the 1970s, including this iteration of the GTU. Crewed test vehicles here on Earth like the GTU help NASA learn new ways that astronauts can live and work safely and productively on the Moon, and one day on the surface of Mars. As vendor designs evolve, the contracted LTV as well as the GTU allow for testing before missions head to the Moon. The vehicles on the ground also allow NASA to reduce some risks when it comes to adapting new technologies or specific rover design features.

Human surface mobility helps increase the exploration footprint on the lunar surface allowing each mission to conduct more research and increase the value to the scientific community. Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts – including the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut – to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, technology evolution, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for future crewed missions to Mars. 

Learn about the rovers, suits, and tools that will help Artemis astronauts to explore more of the Moon: 

https://go.nasa.gov/3MnEfrB

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Details Last Updated Oct 02, 2024 Related Terms

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Explore More 2 min read Mariachi and Moonshots: Melissa Moreno Orchestrates Gateway Communications   Article 2 days ago 2 min read Station Science Top News: Sept. 27, 2024 Article 2 days ago 5 min read Aerospace Medicine Clerkship Article 2 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA

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Sols 4321-4322: Sailing Out of Gediz Vallis This image was taken by Front Hazard Avoidance Camera (Front Hazcam) aboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4319 — Martian day 4,319 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Sept. 29, 2024 at 21:31:07 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Earth planning date: Monday, Sept. 30, 2024

For the past few plans, Curiosity has been wrapping up its science campaign within Gediz Vallis. Over the weekend, the rover completed analyses on white stones encountered while departing the channel, before continuing along the western margin of Gediz Vallis. As we exit the channel, a metaphorical red buoy to our left, uncharted terrain lay ahead.

Today’s two-sol plan commenced with APXS and MAHLI completing a thorough sounding of the target “Flat Note Lake,” the seemingly brighter rock in the left-middle of the image just below a darker cobble and on the margin of swell-like sand ripples. Curiosity also focused ChemCam’s telescope on several key beacons in the landscape. The first target, “Cactus Point,” received a number of laser shots from ChemCam, akin to signaling with a lighthouse to assess its elemental message back to the ship. ChemCam’s RMI captured high-definition mosaics of key formations including rugged yardangs, formations that would not take too kindly to contact with a vessel’s hull. Mastcam complemented these observations with its own survey of the local area, capturing targets that included “Tombstone Ridge,” “Balloon Dome,” “Pinnacle Ridge,” “Clyde Spires,” “Confusion Lake” and “Pilot Peak” in addition to Cactus Point. A lengthy DAN passive measurement was completed in parallel, akin to a depth sounder probing the terrain beneath our hull.  With the scientific reconnaissance of the first sol complete, Curiosity tested its metaphorical rigging in the form of trying out some Feed-Extended Sample Transfer arm activities in parallel with a telecommunications window before setting course out of the channel. This is similar to the test we did sols 4311-4313, and will hopefully help us become more efficient in the future.

The second sol of the plan was primarily focused on gathering environmental data and performing post-departure imaging in preparation for Wednesday’s plan, analogous to a ship trimming its sails and adjusting the helm as it exits a sheltered cove. ChemCam completed a calibration activity, fine-tuning its sextant in preparation for its next round of observations. Environmental monitoring and a SAM activity rounded out the second sol of the plan. 

Written by Scott VanBommel, Planetary Scientist at Washington University

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Details Last Updated Oct 02, 2024 Related Terms

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Explore More 2 min read Sols 4318-4320: One Last Weekend in the Channel Article 3 days ago 4 min read Sols 4316-4317: Hunting for Sulfur Article 5 days ago 3 min read Sols 4314-4315: Wait, What Was That Back There? Article 1 week ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…

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Via NASA Plane, Scientists Find New Gamma-ray Emission in Storm Clouds Tropical thunderstorm with lightning, near the airport of Santa Marta, Colombia. Credit: Oscar van der Velde

There’s more to thunderclouds than rain and lightning. Along with visible light emissions, thunderclouds can produce intense bursts of gamma rays, the most energetic form of light, that last for millionths of a second. The clouds can also glow steadily with gamma rays for seconds to minutes at a time.

Researchers using NASA airborne platforms have now found a new kind of gamma-ray emission that’s shorter in duration than the steady glows and longer than the microsecond bursts. They’re calling it a flickering gamma-ray flash. The discovery fills in a missing link in scientists’ understanding of thundercloud radiation and provides new insights into the mechanisms that produce lightning. The insights, in turn, could lead to more accurate lightning risk estimates for people, aircraft, and spacecraft.

Researchers from the University of Bergen in Norway led the study in collaboration with scientists from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and multiple universities in the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, and Europe. The findings were described in a pair of papers in Nature, published Oct. 2.

The international research team made their discovery while flying a battery of detectors aboard a NASA ER-2 research aircraft. In July 2023, the ER-2 set out on a series of 10 flights from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. The plane flew figure-eight flight patterns a few miles above tropical thunderclouds in the Caribbean and Central America, providing unprecedented views of cloud activity.

The scientific payload was developed for the Airborne Lightning Observatory for Fly’s Eye Geostationary Lightning Mapper Simulator and Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (ALOFT) campaign. Instrumentation in the payload included weather radars along with multiple sensors for measuring gamma rays, lightning flashes, and microwave emissions from clouds. 

NASA’s high-flying ER-2 airplane carries instrumentation in this artist’s impression of the ALOFT mission to record gamma rays (colored purple for illustration) from thunderclouds.Credit: NASA/ALOFT team

The researchers had hoped ALOFT instruments would observe fast radiation bursts known as terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs). The flashes, first discovered in 1992 by NASA’s Compton Gamma Ray Observatory spacecraft, accompany some lightning strikes and last only millionths of a second. Despite their high intensity and their association with visible lightning, few TGFs have been spotted during previous aircraft-based studies.  

“I went to a meeting just before the ALOFT campaign,” said principal investigator Nikolai Østgaard, a space physicist with the University of Bergen. “And they asked me: ‘How many TGFs are you going to see?’ I said: ‘Either we’ll see zero, or we’ll see a lot.’ And then we happened to see 130.” 

However, the flickering gamma-ray flashes were a complete surprise.

“They’re almost impossible to detect from space,” said co-principal investigator Martino Marisaldi, who is also a University of Bergen space physicist. “But when you are flying at 20 kilometers [12.5 miles] high, you’re so close that you will see them.” The research team found more than 25 of these new flashes, each lasting between 50 to 200 milliseconds. 

The abundance of fast bursts and the discovery of intermediate-duration flashes could be among the most important thundercloud discoveries in a decade or more, said University of New Hampshire physicist Joseph Dwyer, who was not involved in the research. “They’re telling us something about how thunderstorms work, which is really important because thunderstorms produce lightning that hurts and kills a lot of people.” 

More broadly, Dwyer said he is excited about the prospects of advancing the field of meteorology. “I think everyone assumes that we figured out lightning a long time ago, but it’s an overlooked area … we don’t understand what’s going on inside those clouds right over our heads.” The discovery of flickering gamma-ray flashes may provide crucial clues scientists need to understand thundercloud dynamics, he said.

Turning to aircraft-based instrumentation rather than satellites ensured a lot of bang for research bucks, said the study’s project scientist, Timothy Lang of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. 

“If we had gotten one flash, we would have been ecstatic — and we got well over 100,” he said. This research could lead to a significant advance in our understanding of thunderstorms and radiation from thunderstorms. “It shows that if you have the right problem and you’re willing to take a little bit of risk, you can have a huge payoff.”

By James Riordon
NASA’s Earth Science News Team

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Details Last Updated Oct 02, 2024 EditorJenny MarderContactJames RiordonLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms

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  Comets: Unpredictable, But Irresistible

A new comet is passing through the inner solar system! Time will tell if it’s the brightest of the year, once it appears in twilight after about October 14.

Skywatching Highlights

• All month – Planet visibility report: Look for Venus low in the west just after sunset; Saturn can be seen toward the southeast as soon as it gets dark; Mars rises around midnight; and Jupiter rises in the first half of the night (rising earlier as the month goes on).
• October 2 – New moon
• October 11 – Europa is easily observable to one side of Jupiter by itself this morning using binoculars.
• October 14-31 – Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) becomes visible low in the west following sunset. If the comet’s tail is well-illuminated by sunlight, it could be visible to the unaided eye. The first week and a half (Oct. 14-24) is the best time to observe, using binoculars or a small telescope.
• October 13-14 – After dark both nights, look for the nearly full Moon with Saturn toward the southeast.
• October 17 – Full moon
• October 20 – The Moon rises near Jupiter, with the giant planet looking extremely bright. You should be able to find them low in the east after around 10 pm.
• October 23-24 – Early risers will be able to spot Mars together with the Moon, high overhead in the south both mornings.
• October 25 – Europa is easily observable to one side of Jupiter by itself this morning using binoculars.

Transcript

What’s Up for October?

This month’s viewing tips for Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. When’s the best time to observe the destination of NASA’s next deep space mission? And how you can see a (potentially bright) comet this month?

And watch our video ’till the end for photos of highlights from last month’s skies.

Sky chart showing Mars near the Moon on October 23. The pair appear quite high overhead, along with Jupiter.NASA/JPL-Caltech

Up first, we look at the visibility of the planets in October. Look for Venus low in the west just after sunset. It’s setting by the time the sky is fully dark. Saturn is visible toward the southeast as soon as it gets dark out, and sets by dawn. Mars rises around midnight all month. By dawn it has climbed quite high into the south-southeastern sky, appearing together with Jupiter. Now, Jupiter is rising in the first half of the night. In early October you’ll find it high in the south as dawn approaches, and later in the month it’s progressed farther over to the west before sunrise.

And, speaking of Jupiter, NASA plans to launch its latest solar system exploration mission to one of the giant planet’s moons this month. Europa Clipper is slated to blast off as early as October 10th. It’s thought that Europa holds an enormous ocean of salty liquid water beneath its icy surface. That makes this the first mission dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth. Europa Clipper is designed to help us understand whether this icy moon could support some form of life, and along the way it’ll teach us more about the conditions that make a world habitable.

Now, if you’ve ever pointed binoculars or a telescope at Jupiter, you know the thrill of seeing the little star-like points of light next to it that are its four large moons, which were first observed by Galileo in 1610.

There are two mornings in October, the 11th and the 25th, when you can most easily observe Europa. These are times when the moon is at its greatest separation from the planet as seen from here on Earth, and it’s all by itself to one side of Jupiter. So be sure to have your own peek at Jupiter’s moon Europa this month, as a new NASA mission begins its journey to explore an ocean in the sky.

Now a look at Moon and planet pair-ups for October. On the 13th and 14th after dark, look for the nearly full Moon with Saturn toward the southeast. Then on the evening of October 20th, the Moon rises near Jupiter, with the giant planet looking extremely bright.
You should be able to find them low in the east after around 10 pm that night. Then, in the morning of Oct. 23rd and 24th, early risers will be able to spot Mars together with the Moon, high overhead in the south.

Sky chart showing the location of Comet C/2023 A3 between Oct. 14 and Oct 24 following sunset. The comet climbs higher each evening, but also grows fainter. NASA/JPL-Caltech

October offers a chance to observe what could be the brightest comet of the year. Earlier this year we got a look at Comet 12P, which was visible with binoculars but not super bright. Now another of these ancient and icy dust balls is streaking through our neighborhood on an 80,000-year orbit from the distant reaches of the Oort Cloud. The comet, known as C/2023 A3, aka Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, is currently speeding through the inner solar system. It passed its closest to the Sun in late September, and will be at its closest to Earth on October 13th. And after that time, through the end of the month, will be the best time to look for it. This is when the comet will become visible low in the western sky beginning during twilight.

It will quickly rise higher each subsequent evening, making it easier to observe, but it’ll also be getting a little fainter each night. As with all comets, predictions for how bright it could get are uncertain. If the comet’s tail is brilliantly illuminated by the Sun, predictions show that it could become bright enough to see with the unaided eye. But comets have a way of surprising us, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Your best shot at seeing it will be from around October 14th through the 24th, with binoculars or a small telescope, and a reasonably clear view toward the west. So good luck, and clear skies, comet hunters!

Watch our video for views of what some of the highlights we told you about in last month’s video actually looked like.

The phases of the Moon for October 2024.NASA/JPL-Caltech

And here are the phases of the Moon for October. Stay up to date on all of NASA’s missions exploring the solar system and beyond at science.nasa.gov. I’m Preston Dyches from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that’s What’s Up for this month.

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Explore the Night Sky

Watch how the three stars in the system called TIC 290061484 eclipse each other over about 75 days. The line at the bottom is the plot of the system’s brightness over time, as seen by TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The inset shows the system from above.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Professional and amateur astronomers teamed up with artificial intelligence to find an unmatched stellar trio called TIC 290061484, thanks to cosmic “strobe lights” captured by NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). 

The system contains a set of twin stars orbiting each other every 1.8 days, and a third star that circles the pair in just 25 days. The discovery smashes the record for shortest outer orbital period for this type of system, set in 1956, which had a third star orbiting an inner pair in 33 days.

“Thanks to the compact, edge-on configuration of the system, we can measure the orbits, masses, sizes, and temperatures of its stars,” said Veselin Kostov, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. “And we can study how the system formed and predict how it may evolve.”

A paper, led by Kostov, describing the results was published in The Astrophysical Journal Oct. 2.

This artist’s concept illustrates how tightly the three stars in the system called TIC 290061484 orbit each other. If they were placed at the center of our solar system, all the stars’ orbits would be contained a space smaller than Mercury’s orbit around the Sun. The sizes of the triplet stars and the Sun are also to scale.NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Flickers in starlight helped reveal the tight trio, which is located in the constellation Cygnus. The system happens to be almost flat from our perspective. This means the stars each cross right in front of, or eclipse, each other as they orbit. When that happens, the nearer star blocks some of the farther star’s light.

Using machine learning, scientists filtered through enormous sets of starlight data from TESS to identify patterns of dimming that reveal eclipses. Then, a small team of citizen scientists filtered further, relying on years of experience and informal training to find particularly interesting cases.

These amateur astronomers, who are co-authors on the new study, met as participants in an online citizen science project called Planet Hunters, which was active from 2010 to 2013. The volunteers later teamed up with professional astronomers to create a new collaboration called the Visual Survey Group, which has been active for over a decade.

“We’re mainly looking for signatures of compact multi-star systems, unusual pulsating stars in binary systems, and weird objects,” said Saul Rappaport, an emeritus professor of physics at MIT in Cambridge. Rappaport co-authored the paper and has helped lead the Visual Survey Group for more than a decade. “It’s exciting to identify a system like this because they’re rarely found, but they may be more common than current tallies suggest.” Many more likely speckle our galaxy, waiting to be discovered.

Partly because the stars in the newfound system orbit in nearly the same plane, scientists say it’s likely very stable despite their tight configuration (the trio’s orbits fit within a smaller area than Mercury’s orbit around the Sun). Each star’s gravity doesn’t perturb the others too much, like they could if their orbits were tilted in different directions.

But while their orbits will likely remain stable for millions of years, “no one lives here,” Rappaport said. “We think the stars formed together from the same growth process, which would have disrupted planets from forming very closely around any of the stars.” The exception could be a distant planet orbiting the three stars as if they were one.

As the inner stars age, they will expand and ultimately merge, triggering a supernova explosion in around 20 to 40 million years.

In the meantime, astronomers are hunting for triple stars with even shorter orbits. That’s hard to do with current technology, but a new tool is on the way.

This graphic highlights the search areas of three transit-spotting missions: NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), and the retired Kepler Space Telescope. Kepler found 13 triply eclipsing triple star systems, TESS has found more than 100 so far, and astronomers expect Roman to find more than 1,000.NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Images from NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be much more detailed than TESS’s. The same area of the sky covered by a single TESS pixel will fit more than 36,000 Roman pixels. And while TESS took a wide, shallow look at the entire sky, Roman will pierce deep into the heart of our galaxy where stars crowd together, providing a core sample rather than skimming the whole surface.

“We don’t know much about a lot of the stars in the center of the galaxy except for the brightest ones,” said Brian Powell, a co-author and data scientist at Goddard. “Roman’s high-resolution view will help us measure light from stars that usually blur together, providing the best look yet at the nature of star systems in our galaxy.”

And since Roman will monitor light from hundreds of millions of stars as part of one of its main surveys, it will help astronomers find more triple star systems in which all the stars eclipse each other.

“We’re curious why we haven’t found star systems like these with even shorter outer orbital periods,” said Powell. “Roman should help us find them and bring us closer to figuring out what their limits might be.”

Roman could also find eclipsing stars bound together in even larger groups — half a dozen, or perhaps even more all orbiting each other like bees buzzing around a hive.

“Before scientists discovered triply eclipsing triple star systems, we didn’t expect them to be out there,” said co-author Tamás Borkovits, a senior research fellow at the Baja Observatory of The University of Szeged in Hungary. “But once we found them, we thought, well why not? Roman, too, may reveal never-before-seen categories of systems and objects that will surprise astronomers.”

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission managed by NASA Goddard and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes, and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

NASA’s citizen science projects are collaborations between scientists and interested members of the public and do not require U.S. citizenship. Through these collaborations, volunteers (known as citizen scientists) have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries. To get involved with a project, visit NASA’s Citizen Science page.

Download additional images and video from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.

By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
301-286-1940
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Details Last Updated Oct 02, 2024 Related Terms

• TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite)
• Astrophysics
• Binary Stars
• Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
• Science & Research
• Stars
• The Universe

7 Min Read NASA’s Webb Reveals Unusual Jets of Volatile Gas from Icy Centaur 29P An artist’s concept of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1’s outgassing activity as seen from the side. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, L. Hustak (STScI)

Inspired by the half-human, half-horse creatures that are part of Ancient Greek mythology, the field of astronomy has its own kind of centaurs: distant objects orbiting the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has mapped the gases spewing from one of these objects, suggesting a varied composition and providing new insights into the formation and evolution of the solar system.

Centaurs are former trans-Neptunian objects that have been moved inside Neptune’s orbit by subtle gravitational influences of the planets in the last few million years, and may eventually become short-period comets. They are “hybrid” in the sense that they are in a transitional stage of their orbital evolution: Many share characteristics with both trans-Neptunian objects (from the cold Kuiper Belt reservoir), and short-period comets, which are objects highly altered by repeated close passages around the Sun.

Image A: Illustration An artist’s concept of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1’s outgassing activity as seen from the side. While prior radio-wavelength observations showed a jet of gas pointed toward Earth, astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to gather additional insight on the front jet’s composition and noted three more jets of gas spewing from Centaur 29P’s surface.NASA, ESA, CSA, L. Hustak (STScI)

Since these small icy bodies are in an orbital transitional phase, they have been the subject of various studies as scientists seek to understand their composition, the reasons behind their outgassing activity — the loss of their ices that lie underneath the surface — and how they serve as a link between primordial icy bodies in the outer solar system and evolved comets.

A team of scientists recently used Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument to obtain data on Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 (29P for short), an object that is known for its highly active and quasi-periodic outbursts. It varies in intensity every six to eight weeks, making it one of the most active objects in the outer solar system. They discovered a new jet of carbon monoxide (CO) and previously unseen jets of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas, which give new clues to the nature of the centaur’s nucleus.

“Centaurs can be considered as some of the leftovers of our planetary system’s formation. Because they are stored at very cold temperatures, they preserve information about volatiles in the early stages of the solar system,” said Sara Faggi of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and American University in Washington, DC, lead author of the study. “Webb really opened the door to a resolution and sensitivity that was impressive to us — when we saw the data for the first time, we were excited. We had never seen anything like this.”

Webb and the Jets

Centaurs’ distant orbits and consequent faintness have inhibited detailed observations in the past. Data from prior radio wavelength observations of Centaur 29P showed a jet pointed generally toward the Sun (and Earth) composed of CO. Webb detected this face-on jet and, thanks to its large mirror and infrared capabilities, also sensitively searched for many other chemicals, including water (H2O) and CO2. The latter is one of the main forms in which carbon is stored across the solar system. No indication of water vapor was detected in the atmosphere of 29P, which could be related to the extremely cold temperatures present in this body.

The telescope’s unique imaging and spectral data revealed never-before-seen features: two jets of CO2 emanating in the north and south directions, and another jet of CO pointing toward the north. This was the first definitive detection of CO2 in Centaur 29P.

Image B: IFU Graphic A team of scientists used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s spectrographic capabilities to gather data on Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1, one of the most active objects in the outer solar system. The Webb data revealed never-before-seen features: two jets of carbon dioxide spewing in the north and south directions, and a jet of carbon monoxide pointing toward north.NASA, ESA, CSA, L. Hustak (STScI), S. Faggi (NASA-GSFC, American University)

Based on the data gathered by Webb, the team created a 3D model of the jets to understand their orientation and origin. They found through their modeling efforts that the jets were emitted from different regions on the centaur’s nucleus, even though the nucleus itself cannot be resolved by Webb. The jets’ angles suggest the possibility that the nucleus may be an aggregate of distinct objects with different compositions; however, other scenarios can’t yet be excluded.

Video A: Zoom and Spin An artist’s concept of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1’s outgassing activity as seen from the side. While prior radio-wavelength observations showed a jet of gas pointed toward Earth, astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to gather additional insight on the front jet’s composition and noted three more jets of gas spewing from Centaur 29P’s surface.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, L. Hustak (STScI)

“The fact that Centaur 29P has such dramatic differences in the abundance of CO and CO2 across its surface suggests that 29P may be made of several pieces,” said Geronimo Villanueva, co-author of the study at NASA Goddard. “Maybe two pieces coalesced together and made this centaur, which is a mixture between very different bodies that underwent separate formation pathways. It challenges our ideas about how primordial objects are created and stored in the Kuiper Belt.”

Persisting Unanswered Questions (For Now)

The reasons for Centaur 29P’s bursts in brightness, and the mechanisms behind its outgassing activity through the CO and CO2 jets, continue to be two major areas of interest that require further investigation.

In the case of comets, scientists know that their jets are often driven by the outgassing of water. However, because of the centaurs’ location, they are too cold for water ice to sublimate, meaning that the nature of their outgassing activity differs from comets.

“We only had time to look at this object once, like a snapshot in time,” said Adam McKay, a co-author of the study at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. “I’d like to go back and look at Centaur 29P over a much longer period of time. Do the jets always have that orientation? Is there perhaps another carbon monoxide jet that turns on at a different point in the rotation period? Looking at these jets over time would give us much better insights into what is driving these outbursts.”

The team is hopeful that as they increase their understanding of Centaur 29P, they can apply the same techniques to other centaurs. By improving the astronomical community’s collective knowledge of centaurs, we can simultaneously better our understanding on the formation and evolution of our solar system.

These findings have been published in Nature.

The observations were taken as part of General Observer program 2416.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

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Media Contacts

Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Rob Gutro – rob.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Abigail Major – amajor@stsci.edu, Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

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Details Last Updated Oct 02, 2024 EditorMarty McCoyContactLaura Betzlaura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms

• Asteroids
• Astrophysics
• Comets
• Goddard Space Flight Center
• James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
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