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Tag: ESA

  • ESA Opens Plant To Make Oxygen From Moon Dust

    ESA Opens Plant To Make Oxygen From Moon Dust

    The European Space Agency (ESA) has created a prototype oxygen plant to create oxygen from moon dust, according to a post on the agency’s site.

    Space exploration is once again front and center on the agendas of governments and corporations alike. The U.S. recently created Space Force as a sixth branch of the military, Amazon established new headquarters for its space-based initiative and a myriad of other companies are working to cash in on the new space age. Unfortunately, long-term colonization still poses a number of significant hurdles, not the least of which is oxygen.

    The ESA may be on to a solution, however, at least in the context of a future lunar base. According to their post, “samples returned from the lunar surface confirm that lunar regolith is made up of 40–45% percent oxygen by weight, its single most abundant element. But this oxygen is bound up chemically as oxides in the form of minerals or glass, so is unavailable for immediate use.”

    The method used to separate the oxygen out, salt electrolysis, was originally developed for commercial alloy and metal production. As a side benefit, the process of harvesting the oxygen “also converts the regolith into usable metal alloys.”

    The potential benefits go far beyond just having a way to produce breathable air, important though that is. The oxygen can also be used to create fuel on a lunar base, while the alloy byproducts may have a use in manufacturing, spacecraft repair and other applications.

    The current prototype has been set up in the Netherlands, and the ESA is shooting for the mid-2020s for the first technology demonstration.

  • Hubble Finds Smiley Face Comprising Two Far Away Galaxies

    Hubble Finds Smiley Face Comprising Two Far Away Galaxies

    NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has been providing humanity incredible images from space for a quarter of a century, and it might’ve just given us the happiest picture its ever captured.

    Thanks to two far away galaxies and something called “strong gravitational lensing”, the Hubble has captured something smiling at us out in space.

    What you’re looking at above is a picture of Galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849, according to the European Space Agency. Two galaxies form the “eyes”.

    And the smiley mouth? That’s strong gravitational lensing.

    From the ESA:

    Massive structures in the Universe exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they can warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them. This phenomenon, crucial to many of Hubble’s discoveries, can be explained by Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

    In this special case of gravitational lensing, a ring — known as an Einstein Ring — is produced from this bending of light, a consequence of the exact and symmetrical alignment of the source, lens and observer and resulting in the ring-like structure we see here.

    An earlier version of the image was posted to Flickr by Judy Schmidt in 2012, as part of the Hubble’s Hidden Treasure project.

    So cool. For the idiots out there (myself included), however, let’s just say the universe is smiling upon you. How can you have a bad day now?

  • Philae Gets A Google Doodle (Already)

    Philae Gets A Google Doodle (Already)

    Philae, European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Rosetta mission probe, has soft-landed on a comet. This is the first time in history this has been done.

    It didn’t take Google long to whip up a Doodle to celebrate this amazing feat.

    “Our ambitious Rosetta mission has secured a place in the history books: not only is it the first to rendezvous with and orbit a comet, but it is now also the first to deliver a lander to a comet’s surface,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA’s Director General. “With Rosetta we are opening a door to the origin of planet Earth and fostering a better understanding of our future. ESA and its Rosetta mission partners have achieved something extraordinary today.”

    “After more than 10 years travelling through space, we’re now making the best ever scientific analysis of one of the oldest remnants of our Solar System,” said Alvaro Giménez, ESA’s Director of Science and Robotic Exploration. “Decades of preparation have paved the way for today’s success, ensuring that Rosetta continues to be a game-changer in cometary science and space exploration.”

    Here’s an ESA video featuring some highlights.

    Rosetta was launched on March 2, 2014. It traveled 6.4 billion kilometers through the Solar System before arriving at the comet in August. ESA has a lot more on the mission here.

  • Huge Weather Explosions Observed on Venus

    Huge Weather Explosions Observed on Venus

    Researchers this week announced that they have uncovered a striking phenomenon on the planet Venus.

    Using the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Venus Express spacecraft, scientists have observed giant weather explosions coming from the top of Venus’ atmosphere. The explosions are called hot flow anomalies and the ones seen coming off Venus are frequent and often larger than the planet itself.

    “Not only are they gigantic,” said Glyn Collinson, lead author of a paper on the discovery published in the Journal of Geophysical Research and a space scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “But as Venus doesn’t have a magnetic field to protect itself, the hot flow anomalies happen right on top of the planet. They could swallow the planet whole.”

    Hot flow anomalies observed on Venus are so large that they were seen pulling up the outer layer of the planet’s atmosphere, called the ionosphere. The anomalies can cause events at a huge scale on Venus, sometimes even causing the ionosphere to pull away from the planet’s surface.

    Hot flow anomalies are also observed lifting out of the Earth’s atmosphere, but at a much smaller scale. According to NASA, Earth is largely protected from solar winds by its magnetosphere. Venus has no comparable atmospheric layer, meaning that pressure differences between the planet’s atmosphere and solar winds can easily be disrupted by hot flow anomalies, producing the spectacular weather events described in the new research.

    Image via NASA

  • Water Vapor Discovered on Dwarf Planet Ceres

    Astronomers today announced that water vapor has been detected around Ceres. Ceres is the largest object in our solar system’s asteroid belt and has been classified as a dwarf planet, like Pluto.

    The discovery is the first time water vapor has been detected around an object in the asteroid belt. The findings, published in the journal Nature, could provide significant data on how our solar system formed. The water vapor on Ceres was detected using the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel space observatory.

    “Herschel’s discovery of water vapour outgassing from Ceres gives us new information on how water is distributed in the Solar System,” said Göran Pilbratt, a Herschel project scientist at ESA. “Since Ceres constitutes about one fifth of the total mass of asteroid belt, this finding is important not only for the study of small Solar System bodies in general, but also for learning more about the origin of water on Earth.”

    Astronomers currently believe that Ceres has some ice on its surface, and these new observations show that nearly all of the water vapor detected on Ceres is coming from two locations on its surface. These regions are slightly darker than average for Ceres’ surface, indicating that they may absorb more sunlight, leading to water vapor through a process called sublimation. Another hypothesis holds that cryovolcanoes on Ceres’ surface may be spewing water vapor.

    “We estimate that approximately 6 kg of water vapour is being produced per second, requiring only a tiny fraction of Ceres to be covered by water ice, which links nicely to the two localised surface features we have observed,” said Laurence O’Rourke, co-author of the paper and a principal investigator for the Herschel program.

    Image via ESA/ATG medialab

  • Rosetta Spacecraft Successfully Reactivated

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that the Rosetta spacecraft has successfully reactivated. The probe has been traveling in a suspended state beyond the orbit of Jupiter since June 2011.

    Rosetta’s internal alarm functioned as planned and the spacecraft was able to reboot itself this morning before sending a signal to Earth. Later this year the spacecraft will approach comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it soars toward the sun.

    “We have our comet-chaser back,” says Alvaro Giménez, director of Science and Robotic Exploration at ESA. “With Rosetta, we will take comet exploration to a new level. This incredible mission continues our history of ‘firsts’ at comets, building on the technological and scientific achievements of our first deep space mission Giotto, which returned the first close-up images of a comet nucleus as it flew past Halley in 1986.”

    Rosetta will be the first spacecraft to attempt a landing on the surface of a comet. The spacecraft will provide data on the Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet for over one year, giving researchers plenty of data with which to uncover the objects’ mysteries.

    Rosetta is expected to rendezvous with the comet in August. In the meantime, researchers will be checking the spacecraft’s systems and readying it for a “major maneuver” that will take place in May.

    Image via ESA-C.Carreau

  • Arctic Sea Ice Volume Up 50% This Year

    Arctic Sea Ice Volume Up 50% This Year

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that the volume of Arctic sea ice measured this year is up 50% from the volume measured in 2012. The ESA’s CryoSat satellite measured 9,000 cubic km or sea ice back in October, up from the 6,000 cubic km measured in 2012.

    This new measurement bucks the declining ice measurements measured in the past few consecutive years. According to the ESA most of this year’s increase can be attributed to the growth of “multiyear ice,” or ice that makes it through the summer months without melting. Multiyear ice in 2013 was measured to be around 20% thicker than was measured in 2012.

    “One of the things we’d noticed in our data was that the volume of ice year-to-year was not varying anything like as much as the ice extent – at least in 2010, 2011 and 2012,” said Rachel Tilling, lead author of a new report on the findings and a researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling.

    These multiyear ice measurements, according to the ESA, could be a sign that the Arctic sea ice is “healthy.” However, the report’s authors are also warning that this year’s ice increase does not mean the long-term declining trend in Arctic ice volume has reversed.

    “It’s estimated that there was around 20 000 cubic kilometres of Arctic sea ice each October in the early 1980s, and so today’s minimum still ranks among the lowest of the past 30 years,” said Andrew Shepherd, a co-author of the study and a researcher at University College London.

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • Argon Hydride Detected in Crab Nebula

    Argon Hydride Detected in Crab Nebula

    Researchers this week revealed that a rare molecule has been spotted in the Crab Nebula. The molecule, Argon Hydride, was found in data collected by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory, which ran out of coolant and ended its mission this past summer.. The finding has been published in the journal Science.

    Though argon on its own is a common byproduct of supernovae, this discovery is the first time astronomers have found a noble-gas based molecule in space.

    “At first, the discovery seemed bizarre,” said Michael Barlow, lead author of the paper and an astronomer at University College London. “With hot gas still expanding at high speeds after the explosion, a supernova remnant is a harsh, hostile environment, and one of the places where we least expected to find a noble-gas based molecule.

    “But we soon realised that even in the Crab Nebula, there are places where the conditions are just right for a noble gas to react and combine with other elements.”

    Argon hydride is formed from certain molecules of Argon and hydrogen molecules. The argon hydride found in the Crab Nebula was found in the so-called transition regions separating regions where ions form and others where molecules are formed.

    Following the discovery, astronomers are planning more research into the Crab Nebula. Specifically, researchers will be searching for other molecules that may be formed from other isotopes of argon.

    “This is not only the first detection of a noble-gas based molecule in space, but also a new perspective on the Crab Nebula, said Göran Pilbratt, project scientist for Herschel at ESA. “Herschel has directly measured the argon isotope we expect to be produced via explosive nucleosynthesis in a core-collapse supernova, refining our understanding of the origin of this supernova remnant.”

    (Image courtesy ESA/Herschel/PACS/MESS Key Programme Supernova Remnant Team; NASA, ESA and Allison Loll/Jeff Hester (Arizona State University))

  • Fate of Comet ISON Still Undetermined

    Fate of Comet ISON Still Undetermined

    More than one week on from comet ISON‘s close approach to the sun, astronomers are still working hard to determine what exactly happened to the object.

    The comet approached the sun on November 28 after traveling for millions of years from outside our solar system. NASA and ESA researchers used a wide array of instruments to capture the comet’s approach, including NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. For several hours during the comet’s approach astronomers were not able to observe the object due to the sun’s brightness, and many had assumed that the comet had disintegrated due to its proximity to the sun. However, NASA and ESA instruments were able to catch a glimpse of what was left of the comet on its way out of its approach.

    Following its approach, astronomers observed a glint that was far less bright than the comet had been in the days previous to the approach. In the days since the object has faded away to almost nothing. Researchers are now trying to work out whether the remainder seen after approach was the ice core of the comet that survived or whether it was simply reduced to debris by that time.

    NASA today stated that researchers are continuing to research exactly what happened while the comet was out of view. What can be confirmed already is that the comet shrank “considerably” during its approach and that at this time it is likely only dust.

    Astronomers are hoping that the vast amount of data collected on ISON will provide new discoveries for years to come. A video of the comet’s approach and the aftermath was released this week by NASA. The footage comes from the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO):

  • ESA Names ExoMars Lander ‘Schiaparelli’

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that the landing module for its 2016 ExoMars mission has been officially named “Schiaparelli.” The name refers to 19th century astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli.

    Schiaparelli is best known for describing the surface features of the planet Mars. He was also the first astronomer to determine the relationship between comet debris and yearly meteor showers.

    “Considering the importance of Giovanni Schiaparelli’s pioneering observations of Mars, it was an easy decision to give his name to the ExoMars module that is paving the way to the further exploration of the Red Planet,” said Alvaro Giménez, director of Science and Robotic Exploration at ESA.

    The Schiaparelli landing module will be part of the ExoMars mission to Mars in 2016. The lander will test technologies developed for landing a rover on Mars in 2018. Much like NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, the Schiaparelli module will use parachutes and thrusters to control its decent to the Martian surface. The module will also collect atmospheric and local data from its landing site.

    “Schiaparelli’s dedication to planetary science and to the communication of science was recognised worldwide and, as such, we want to celebrate his achievements by naming a key part of the ExoMars mission after him,” said Rolf de Groot, Coordinator for Robotic Exploration at ESA.

    (Image courtesy ESA/AOES Medialab)

  • Satellite Falling to Earth: No Word on Location Yet

    Nobody knows where the fragments of the 2,000-pound European satellite will hit or when they will, but what we do know, is that they will begin re-entry into the atmosphere on Sunday or Monday, according to Rune Floberghagen, mission manager for the Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Explorer, better known as GOCE.

    “Quite literally GOCE is now nearly flying like an airplane without an engine,” Floberghagen said,”with the upper layer of the atmosphere providing aerodynamic stabilization.”

    The European Space Agency said on its website that the pieces will most likely fall in unpopulated areas or open water, but will be narrowed down closer to re-entry.

    So what is this satellite? According to CNN, GOCE was launched in 2009 to map variations in the Earth’s gravity in 3D.

    It was also used to provide ocean circulation patterns and make various other measurements. GOCE became the first seismometer in orbit on March of 2011. That’s when it detected sound waves from the earthquake that struck Japan.

    The satellite ran out of fuel on October 21st, which was much later than expected, and due to the lack of fuel, began to slowly fall. On November 4th, the ESA’s website stated that rate of descent will steadily increase in the coming days.

    Should you, as a citizen on the ground, be worried that satellites will suddenly start dropping from the sky? Nope. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the satellite has completed its mission, has run out of fuel like it was supposed to, and is coming to its “natural end”.

    All the money spent on GOCE was worth it, though. “We have obtained the most accurate gravity data ever available to scientists. This alone proves that GOCE was worth the effort – and new scientific results are emerging constantly,” said Volker Liebig, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programs.

    Image via ESA

  • Planck Telescope is Officially Dead

    Planck Telescope is Officially Dead

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today officially announced that the Planck space telescope has been shut off for good. The final command to the telescope was sent from the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) this afternoon. Planck researchers earlier this week had been preparing the telescope for that final moment, disconnecting its systems and burning off the remainder of its fuel to place it in a safe disposal orbit around the sun.

    “It is with much sadness that we have carried out the final operations on the Planck spacecraft, but it is also a time to celebrate an extraordinarily successful mission,” said Steve Foley, Planck operations manager ESOC.

    The Planck space telescope was launched in May 2009 to study and map the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the faint radiation left over from the big bang. Planck was able to complete five full-sky surveys of the CMB with all of its instruments before the liquid helium coolant for its high-frequency instrument ran out. The telescope continued to use its low-frequency instrument to complete three more full-sky surveys and continued gathering data until October 3.

    The end to the mission was similar to another ESA satellite named Herschel, which ran out of coolant back in April of this year and was switched off in June. Herschel was positioned near Planck in the Earth-Sun L2 Legrange point and is now orbiting the sun in a disposal orbit.

    “Planck has provided us with more insight into the evolution of the Universe than any mission has before,” said Alvaro Giménez, director of Science and Robotic Exploration at ESA. “Planck’s picture of the CMB is the most accurate ‘baby photo’ of the Universe yet, but the wealth of data still being scrutinized by our cosmologists will provide us with even more details.”

  • ESA Prepares to Shut Off the Planck Observatory

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that it has burned off the last of the Planck space observatory’s fuel. The fuel burn was made to put the satellite in a safe orbit around the sun. The Planck observatory will be shut down entirely on Wednesday, October 23 when its transmitters are switched off.

    Astronomers are currently in the process of ending the Planck mission. Science missions using the satellite were ended on October 3, and its instruments were switched off on October 19. The observatory ran out of its helium coolant for its high-frequency instrument (HFI) in January 2012, but continued to use its low-frequency instrument to survey the cosmic microwave background (CMB) for over a year.

    “At ESOC (European Space Operations Centre), our business is keeping missions alive and productive, so sending a ‘shut-down’ command is very difficult,” said Paolo Ferri, head of Mission Operations at the ESOC. “While the end of this outstanding scientific mission was always foreseen with the exhaustion of the helium coolant, it seems fitting that we have a colleague from the science team to send the final command that once and for all silences the Planck spacecraft.”

    The Planck mission launched in May 2009 to survey the cosmic microwave background – the radiation left over from the big bang that blankets the universe. The satellite completed five full-sky surveys before its HFI coolant depleted, and wen to to conduct three more with its LFI instrument.

    The shutdown of Planck is very similar to another ESA mission that concluded this year, Herschel. Herschel also ran out of its liquid helium coolant, back in April of this year. That observatory was deactivated in June and was, like Planck, sent out of its L2 Sun-Earth Lagrange Point orbit an onto a safe heliocentric disposal orbit.

    “These are the first two missions ESA has flown at the scientifically valuable L2 Lagrange point, so it’s important that we set a positive precedent as to how we dispose of missions there,” said Andreas Rudolph, head of astronomy mission operations at ESOC.

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • Rosetta Spacecraft to Wake Up In January

    Rosetta Spacecraft to Wake Up In January

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today marked a milestone in the Rosetta mission to study comets. After being launched nearly one decade ago the spacecraft is now nearing its main objective, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. In 100 days time, the Rosetta probe will awake and begin the final leg of its journey to the comet. According to the ESA, the spacecraft has been in a “deep-space hibernation” since July 2011.

    “We are very excited to have this important milestone in sight, but we will be anxious to assess the health of the spacecraft after Rosetta has spent nearly 10 years in space,” said Fred Jansen, Rosetta mission manager at ESA.

    Rosetta is expected to wake up on the morning of January 20, 2014. It will then tune-up its navigation controls, point its antenna at Earth, and report its condition to researchers. At that point, the probe will still have around 9 million km (5.6 million miles) to go before reaching its target. It is scheduled to arrive at its destination sometime near the end of May.

    Once the Rosetta probe reaches the comet, it will conduct a thorough examination of the object. In addition to thousands of pictures, the mass, shape and coma of the comet will all be examined. The surface of the comet will also be mapped extensively next fall, before Rosetta releases its Philae probe to the object’s surface in November 2014 – the first-ever comet landing attempt. The surface probe will use ice screws and harpoons to secure itself to the comet, then send back images of the surface while drilling into and analyzing the make-up of the comet’s surface.

    “For the first time we will be able to analyze a comet over an extended period of time – it is not just a flyby,” said Matt Taylor, a Rosetta project scientist at ESA. “This will give us a unique insight into how a comet ‘works’ and ultimately help us to decipher the role of comets in the formation of the Solar System,”

  • Juno Flyby to Help Scientists Reconcile Anomaly

    NASA’s Juno spacecraft is scheduled to fly close to the Earth today, coming within 350 miles of Earth and swinging around it. The probe will be accelerated on to Jupiter, where it will begin research in 2016.

    The event is a common one for spacecraft, which commonly use the gravity of celestial bodies to accelerate. This particular event, however, is of particular importance to engineers, as it could help the determine why their calculations of such events are sometimes off the mark. Tracking stations in the southern hemisphere will be recording radio signals from the spacecraft as it accelerates past the planet. If Juno’s post-flyby velocity doesn’t match what researchers have predicted, the radio data could be important for determining why that is the case.

    For over two decades, researchers have found discrepancies between the measured outcome and their predictions of how much energy spacecraft will acquire after a flyby of Earth. The discrepancies aren’t large, with the largest being NASA’s NEAR spacecraft, which ended up with a speed 13 mm per second faster than that predicted by the math. They also don’t occur during every flyby, making it difficult to track down just what may be causing the error.

    “We detected the flyby anomaly during Rosetta’s first Earth visit in March 2005,” said Trevor Morley, a flight dynamics expert at European Space Agency’s (ESA) ESOC operations centre. Morley refers to the Rosetta spacecraft, launched in 2004 on a mission to study comets. ESA dishes in Argentina and Australia will be used to gather the radio data from Juno.

    “Frustratingly, no anomaly was seen during Rosetta’s subsequent Earth flybys in 2007 and 2011. This is a real cosmic mystery that no one has yet figured out.”

    (Image courtesy NASA)

  • ESA Rover Makes Tracks in the Desert

    Last week, the European Space Agency (ESA) detailed a project to test its mission capabilities for the 2018 ExoMars project. ExoMars will be putting yet another rover on the surface of Mars, and the agency this week is testing prototypes of both the rover and some instruments to be used in the mission.

    Today the ESA announced that the Sample Acquisition Field Experiment (SAFER) is close to proceeding, with three prototype scientific instruments already installed on the test rover, which researchers have nicknamed “Bridget.” The rover has also made its first short jaunt across the desert. The test will not only be of the rover’s capabilities, but the mission team’s readiness to perform its functions as well.

    Earlier this week a drone was flown over the test site in Chile’s Atacama desert to simulate satellite imagery on Mars. Panoramic images of the location were also provided to researchers, who used them to plot a route for the rover. Once the instruments were installed on the rover, the mission team uploaded its planned route to the rover and sent it on its way.

    “The next morning, once the instruments were installed, this route was uploaded to the rover,” said Michel van Winnendael, head of the SAFER project for the ESA. “It then began its first exploration, with some debugging and manual interventions needed along the way.

    “Nevertheless, after a long working day that lasted until sunset, the data collected by the instruments were sent back to the control centre.”

    In the coming days, the prototype instruments on the rover will be used to select a sampling site filled with loose soil. The rover will then be loaded with soil by hand for testing. Researchers are using the test to find glitches or other problems that would be impossible to fix once the rover is on Mars.

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • ESA Mars Rover Being Tested in Chilean Desert

    While NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has gotten most of the headlines this past year, but a European-led rover mission will be placing another rover on the red planet within the decade. The ExoMars project (which NASA dropped out of due to budget constraints) will launch a rover bound for Mars in 2018 to search for signs of past life on the planet.

    To prepare for the mission, the European Space Agency(ESA) this week tested its mission capabilities in one of the most Mars-like locations on Earth. The agency has taken the ExoMars rover to Chile’s Atacama Desert, a super-dry, rocky landscape that’s soil even resembles the surface of Mars.

    The event will test the rover itself and three scientific instrument prototypes: a stereo 3D imaging camera, a subsurface radar, and an imager. ESA mission specialists will also be tested, treating the event as if the rover were already on Mars. The rover will be sent commands over the course of five days representing two Mars days (“sols).

    “This field trial is about optimizing the use of typical instruments and equipment aboard a Mars rover and generating a set of commands for the rover to execute the following day,” said Michel van Winnendael, head of the Sample Acquisition Field Experiment with a Rover (SAFER) project for the ESA. “Unlike satellites, planetary rovers operate in close interaction with the topography and physical properties of the planetary surface.

    “This implies limited data return from the rover during relatively short communication windows, with an inherent time delay.”

    (Image courtesy ESA)

    Using its prototype instruments, the rover will select a sample site of loose soil. It will then be hand-loaded (by human hands) with material gathered by researchers. The field test, according to the ESA, will be used to uncover any unanticipated situations that could arise in their Mars exploration scenarios.

    “Nature is very inventive in presenting situations which were not fully anticipated by those who conceived the mission,” said van Winnendael. “That’s why we find it important to do field tests in a fairly representative environment.”

  • Astronomers Find “Twist” in Cosmic Microwave Background

    Astronomers this week announced that they have found a “twist” in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation that blankets the universe. To be more specific, researchers have detected B-mode polarization in the CMB caused by gravitational lensing.

    What this means is that astronomers have discovered just how the earliest light in the universe was deflected by galaxies and dark matter as it made its way to Earth, changing its polarization along the way. A map of sorts for the light has been re-created using a new technique. Researchers believe this discovery could help cosmologists piece together just what happened in the moments following the big bang.

    The new observations were made using a combination of data from the South Pole Telescope and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel space telescope. The results have been published in a paper this week in the journal Physical Review Letters.

    “It’s an important checkpoint that we’re able to detect this small lensing B-mode signal and it bodes well for our ability to ultimately measure an even more elusive type of B-mode created during the inflationary Big Bang,” said Duncan Hanson, lead author of the paper and an astronomer at McGill University.

    The other type of B-mode polarization Hanson refers to is caused by the rapid expansion of the universe that immediately (in fractions of a second) followed after the big bang. Current hypotheses predict that collisions between matter and energy during this inflationary period created gravitational waves that could be measured through this “promordial” B-Mode polarized light.

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • Oscillating X-ray/Radio Millsecond Pulsar Spotted

    Astronomers today announced that they have found a “missing link” for pulsar research. A pulsar has been found to oscillate between emitting radio waves and X-rays while spinning extremely fast.

    Pulsars, which are the remnants of dead stars (neutron stars) that were not massive enough to become black holes, are generally classified by the type of electromagnetic emissions they create. As the super-dense objects spin, the throw out radiation such as radio waves an X-rays. Astronomers believe that neutron stars in binary star systems may be “spun up” as they take in matter from a companion star, then begin emitting X-rays as they spin more quickly.

    The newly-discovered pulsar is referred to as a “millisecond pulsar” by astronomers, spitting out pulses of radiation in just milliseconds. It also represents a pulsar in the relatively short-lived in-between state of switching between emitting radio waves and X-rays as it accretes surrounding material. Observations of the pulsar are set to be published this week in the journal Nature.

    “The search is finally over: with our discovery of a millisecond pulsar that, within only a few weeks, switched from being accretion-powered and X-ray-bright to rotation-powered and bright in radio waves, we finally have the missing link in pulsar evolution,” said Alessandro Papitto, an astronomer at the Institute of Space Sciences and lead author on the paper.

    The pulsar, currently named IGR J18245-2452, was spotted emitting X-ray pulsed earlier this year using two European Space Agency (ESA) space telescopes. However, later observations revealed that the pulsar is actually the same one that was discovered by astronomers in 2006 – when it was observed emitting radio pulses. Further observations showed that the pulsar switched again to radio pulses just weeks after its “re-discovery.”

    “At that time, it appeared to be just another millisecond radio pulsar, but now here it was shining in X-rays – this is clearly no ordinary pulsar,” said Papitto.

    The new observations help confirm current theories about the formation of pulsars and millisecond pulsars in particular. They also shed light on how binary systems might evolve through time.

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • Robot Snakes May Soon be Sent to Mars

    Robot Snakes May Soon be Sent to Mars

    The Mars Curiosity Rover has been on Mars for a little over one year now, and much has been learned during this time. One of the main things that has been learned is that maneuvering on the rocky, red planet is rough. NASA has previously lost one Mars rover, Spirit, because it got stuck in the sand.

    Norway’s SINTEF Research Institute, backed by a $85,000 grant from the European Space Agency (ESA), has proposed a solution to the locomotion issue on Mars. Their inspiration? Snakes. “Biological snakes can climb rocks and slide through small holes. Imagine if you could have a snake trained to find people in fallen down buildings,” stated Aksel Transeth, a senior research scientist at SINTEF.

    Howie Choset, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University (the college that brought us this crazy robotic snake), added more insight as to why a snake rover would be beneficial towards the mission on Mars: “The snake robot could travel to cliffs and look underneath overhangs. It could find a crevasse, crawl down it and extract a sample, which itself could tell us how Mars evolved as a planet.”

    Apparently, a snake robot could be the best thing that happened to Mars since Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, SINTEF does not plan for the snake robot to act alone on the Red Planet: “We are looking at several alternatives to enable a rover and a robot to work together. Since the rover has a powerful energy source, it can provide the snake robot with power through a cable extending between the rover and the robot. If the robot had to use its own batteries, it would run out of power and we would lose it,” stated Transeth.

    Currently, the team at SINTEF is still debating how the partnership between rover and snake would best be implemented: “One option is to make the robot into one of the vehicle’s arms, with the ability to disconnect and reconnect itself, so that it can be lowered to the ground, where it can crawl about independently.” Being able to have some form of independence would be the most advantageous implementation of the snake, seeing as mobility is the main issue the team is trying to solve with this innovation. Pål Liljebäck, a fellow research at SINTEF, added that “The connection between the robot and the rover also means that the snake robot will be able to assist the vehicle if the latter gets stuck.” This would ensure that a situation similar to the one that happened with NASA’s Spirit would not occur again.

    All of this news leaves just one question: Why in the world did we cut funding to NASA? If we hadn’t, we could all be riding super-awesome mechanical snakes everywhere, much like Paul learns to do in Dune (Except these worms weren’t mechanical….But, they were on a planet similar to Mars.)

    Image via YouTube

  • Super-Strong Magnetic Field Found Around Magnetar

    Astronomers this week revealed that one of the strongest magnetic fields ever observed has been spotted around a neutron star. The object, dubbed SGR 0418, is also a magnetar – a subset of neutron stars that have strong magnetic fields.

    Neutron stars are what is left of stars that burn up their fuel and undergo supernova but do not become black holes. The super-dense objects pack more mass than some stars into spheres smaller than the size of the Earth.

    SGR 0418 is located only 6,000 light years from our solar system. Until now, the object was mistakenly measured to have an extremely weak surface magnetic field.

    “Until very recently, all indications were that this magnetar had one of the weakest surface magnetic fields known; at 6 trillion Gauss, it was roughly a 100 times lower than for typical magnetars,” said Andrea Tiengo, lead author of the paper on the magnetar published in the journal Nature. “Understanding these results was a challenge. However, we suspected that SGR 0418 was in fact hiding a much stronger magnetic field, out of reach of our usual analytical techniques.”

    Tiengo and his colleagues developed a new technique to measure X-ray variations in more detail. The astronomers used the European Space Agency‘s XMM-Newton telescope to observe SGR 0418 and found that it has an extremely powerful magnetic field – measured at around 1 quadrillion Gauss in short spans across its surface.

    “On average, the field can appear fairly weak, as earlier results have suggested,” said Tiengo. “But we are now able to probe sub-structure on the surface and see that the field is very strong locally.”

    (Image courtesy ESA/ATG Medialab)