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Tag: ESA

  • Spacewalk Cut Short by Wardrobe Malfunction

    Spacewalk Cut Short by Wardrobe Malfunction

    Early this morning, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy exited the International Space Station to conduct assembly and maintenance on the spacecraft. The spacewalk was scheduled to last around 6.5 hours and was being streamed live by the space agencies. The mission was cut short, however, by a malfunction in one astronaut’s spacesuit.

    Shortly into the spacewalk Parmitano reported that there was water floating in his spacesuit helmet, and that the back of his head was wet. NASA’s flight director quickly called an end to the spacewalk, and Parmitano and Cassidy made their way back into the space station.

    The cancellation made today’s spacewalk the second shortest in the history of the International Space Station. Engineers are now searching for the cause of the suspected leak in Parmitano’s helmet. NASA has stated that Parmitano was never in any danger and that none of the tasks he and Cassidy were scheduled to complete were urgent or would put the crew of the station in danger. In addition to routine maintenance, the astronauts were rigging cables to prepare for the arrival of a new Russian laboratory module.

    The relevant NASA footage of the spacewalk can be seen below. Parmitano can be heard at around the 1:50 mark confirming that the liquid in his helmet is not sweat.

  • Large Antarctic Lake Suddenly Drained, Shows Study

    There are only a few places on Earth where ecosystems have been allowed to evolve for thousands of years in isolated conditions. One of those places in underneath the thick ice of Antarctica, where researchers have uncovered ancient microbes in isolated glacial lakes. This week, a new study has shown that sudden flooding has eliminated one of those lakes.

    The European Space Agency’s CryoSat satellite has located a large “crater” in the midst of Antarctica. Researchers believe the crater was left empty after a lake buried under 3 km (around 1.8 miles) of ice suddenly disappeared. Using data from CryoSat and NASA’s ICESat, European scientists have now been able to map the crater. The research has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

    “Thanks to CryoSat, we can now see fine details that were not apparent in older satellite data records,” said Malcolm McMillan, lead author of the study and an environmental researcher at the University of Leeds.

    The new data shows that six cubic kilometers (1.5 trillion gallons) of water drained from the crater from 2007 to 2008. With the ESA describing this volume as roughly the amount of water in Loch Ness, the event is the largest of its kind ever recorded. Though the lake has been refilling since 2008, researchers have stated it could take decades for the lake to refill completely.

    “It seems likely that the flood water – and any microbes or sediments it contained – has been flushed into the Southern Ocean, making it difficult to imagine that life in this particular lake has evolved in isolation,” said Andrew Shepherd, a co-author of the study and a professor of Earth observation at the University of Leeds.

    (Image via ESA/AOES Medialab)

  • One Last Look at Herschel as it Flies Away

    One Last Look at Herschel as it Flies Away

    Back at the end of April, the European Space Agency’s Herschel space observatory ran out of its liquid helium coolant. The coolant was used to cool the telescope’s instruments to near absolute zero, enabling it to observe infrared light coming in from deep space. With the coolant gone, the telescope’s science mission has now ended, though researchers still used the satellite’s final days to stress test some of its hardware components. Finally, on June 17 Herschel was given its final command and moved into a heliocentric “disposal orbit.”

    Today, the ESA released what is likely to be the last ground-based photo of the Herschel observatory. The picture shows Herschel, pointed out by the two black lines, flying away from Earth against the backdrop of a star field (the black streaks). The satellite is now in a heliocentric orbit, and will not pass by Earth again for another 13 years.

    It’s a poignant goodbye for one of the most advanced tools in modern astronomy, as well as a glimpse into the sentimental nature of astronomers. The picture was taken using the Faulkes Telescope North at the Remanzacco Observatory in Hawaii. Since Herschel’s orbit was altered by the ESA’s final commands, astronomers at the observatory used precious time to search the sky for the now-doomed infrared telescope.

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • Herschel Telescope Given its Final Command

    Over one month ago, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that the Herschel space observatory had run out of liquid helium coolant. The coolant was necessary to cool the telescope’s instruments to near absolute zero. As planned, the powerful infrared observatory quickly became useless as an astronomy tool.

    Today, the ESA announced that mission controllers have sent their the very last command to Herschel. The command was the final step in moving the satellite out of its L2 Sun-Earth Lagrange Point orbit. Over the past month the observatory has been given complex flight commands designed to deplete its fuel while maneuvering it into a safe heliocentric disposal orbit. On May 13 and 14, Herschel completed a record 7-hour and 45-minute thruster burn as part of these commands.

    While maneuvering the satellite into this safe orbit and depleting its fuel, researchers were also using the defunct observatory to conduct software and hardware tests.

    “Normally, our top goal is to maximise scientific return, and we never do anything that might interrupt observations or put the satellite at risk,” said Micha Schmidt, spacecraft operations manager for Herschel at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. “But the end of science meant we had a sophisticated spacecraft at our disposal on which we could conduct technical testing and validate techniques, software and the functionality of systems that are going to be reused on future spacecraft. This was a major bonus for us.”

    Other ESA teams, such as the ExoMars rover team and the Euclid Dark Universe Mission, used Herschel to test components that will also be a part of their missions.

    “Herschel has not only been an immensely successful scientific mission, it has also served as a valuable flight operations test platform in its final weeks of flight,” said Paolo Ferri, the ESA’s head of Mission Operations. “This will help us increase the robustness and flexibility of future missions operations.”

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • Herschel Telescope Runs Out of Coolant, Ends Mission

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that the Herschel space observatory has run out of liquid helium coolant. The coolant is necessary to cool the telescope’s instruments to near absolute zero.

    Herschel’s ground station in Western Australia this afternoon found that the temperature in all of the telescope’s instruments is rising, confirming that the helium has run out. The depletion of the coolant was expected, as the 2300 litres of liquid helium inside the observatory had been evaporating since Herschel’s launch in 2009.

    “Herschel has offered us a new view of the hitherto hidden Universe, pointing us to a previously unseen process of star birth and galaxy formation, and allowing us to trace water through the Universe from molecular clouds to newborn stars and their planet-forming discs and belts of comets,” said Göran Pilbratt, a Herschel Project Scientist at the ESA.

    The telescope has been gazing into space for over three years. In just the past few months data from Herschel has been used to find starburst galaxies, examine a near-earth asteroid, discover massive comet belts, and link the 1994 Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact to water on Jupiter.

    “Herschel has exceeded all expectations, providing us with an incredible treasure trove of data that that will keep astronomers busy for many years to come,” said Alvaro Giménez Cañete, Director of Science and Robotic Exploration at the ESA.

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • Water on Jupiter Linked to Shoemaker-Levy Impact

    Water on Jupiter Linked to Shoemaker-Levy Impact

    It appears that the mystery of how water got into the atmosphere of Jupiter has finally been solved.

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that the water in the Jovian planet’s upper atmosphere has been linked to the 1994 Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts. The comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke up and collided with Jupiter in July of 1994. The week-long event, which was the first directly-seen extraterrestrial collision in the Solar System, was observed by astronomers around the world.

    Though astronomers suspected the Shoemaker-Levy impacts were the source of the water, the ESA’s Herschel space observatory has now been able to map the vertical and horizontal distribution of the water in Jupiter’s atmosphere. The observatory’s infrared imaging was able to discern that there is two to three times more water in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere than in the northern hemisphere. Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter’s southern hemisphere, and Herschel has found “most” of the water is concentrated around the impact sites. The findings have been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

    “Only Herschel was able to provide the sensitive spectral imaging needed to find the missing link between Jupiter’s water and the 1994 impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9,” said Thibault Cavalié, lead author of the paper and an astrophysicist at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux. “The asymmetry between the two hemispheres suggests that water was delivered during a single event and rules out icy rings or moons as candidate sources.

    “According to our models, as much as 95% of the water in the stratosphere is due to the comet impact.”

    (Image courtesy ESA/Herschel/T. Cavalié et al./NASA/ESA/Reta Beebe)

  • NASA Measures Fast-Spinning, Supermassive Black Hole

    NASA Measures Fast-Spinning, Supermassive Black Hole

    NASA today revealed that it has teamed up with the European Space Agency (ESA) to, for the first time, measure the spin rate of a supermassive black hole.

    Using NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the ESA’s XMM-Newton, astronomers were able to observe the black hole that lies at the center of the galaxy NGC 1365. The object was found to be spinning nearly as fast as physics will allow, providing researchers with new information about how black holes behave.

    “This is hugely important to the field of black hole science,” said Lou Kaluzienski, a NuSTAR program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

    The measurements, to be published in the journal Nature, also provide clear evidence for Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The data shows that X-rays around the black hole are being warped by the object’s high gravity.

    “We can trace matter as it swirls into a black hole using X-rays emitted from regions very close to the black hole,” said Fiona Harrison, coauthor of a new study, NuSTAR principal investigator of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The radiation we see is warped and distorted by the motions of particles and the black hole’s incredibly strong gravity.”

    Both the NuSTAR and XMM-Newton telescopes were needed to penetrate the gas clouds that obscure NGC 1365’s center. NuSTAR detects high-energy X-ray radiation, while the XMM-Newton detects lower-energy X-rays. By simultaneously observing the X-rays emitted by iron in the black hole’s accretion disc, the telescopes were able to determine that the X-ray distortion was coming from the black hole instead of gas clouds. This means that astronomers can now use iron signature distortions to measure black hole spin rates.

    “If I could have added one instrument to XMM-Newton, it would have been a telescope like NuSTAR,” said Norbert Schartel, XMM-Newton Project Scientist at the European Space Astronomy Center. “The high-energy X-rays provided an essential missing puzzle piece for solving this problem.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • Russian Meteor Blast Explained by NASA [VIDEO]

    Russian Meteor Blast Explained by NASA [VIDEO]

    On February 15, when the world’s astronomers were busy watching Asteroid 2012 DA14 make a close flyby of Earth, a different space rock entered Earth’s atmosphere and broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia. The shockwave following the meteor’s destruction shattered windows and damaged property throughout the Russian town.

    Later that week, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that it was studying the event, which it predicted may happen every “several of tens to 100 years. The object was found to have been around 17 meters wide and was found to have exploded with a force of nearly 30 times that of the bomb that detonated over Hiroshima, Japan.

    This week, NASA has announced that it is also analyzing the event. The agency has released a video detailing everything known about the meteor to date.

    In addition to information already disclosed by the ESA, the NASA video reveals that astronomers have been able to devise the meteor’s orbit based on the trajectory of its fireball. The object is now thought to have come from the asteroid belt beyond Mars. Reports of the makeup of the meteor’s debris seem to confirm it was made of stone and a bit of iron, which is common for objects in the asteroid belt.

  • Russia Meteor Blast Being Assessed by the ESA

    Last week, as astronomers around the world turned their attention toward the passing asteroid 2012 DA14, a meteorite entered Earth’s atmosphere and broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia. The blast shattered windows and injured hundreds in the small town.

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that it is studying the event, which isn’t quite as rare as humans might hope. Astronomers predict an event of this sort may happen every “several of tens to 100 years.”

    This particular meteorite was around 17 meters wide when it entered Earth’s atmosphere, traveling at around 18 kilometers per second (around 40,000 miles per hour). It exploded around 15 to 20 kilometers above the planets surface with the force of a 500 kiloton bomb. That’s around 30 times the energy released by the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima.

    In a statement, Detlef Koschny, head of the Near-Earth Object activity division of the ESA’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) program, said that the meteorite was unrelated to the passing of 2012 DA14. This was determined due to the trajectory of the meteorite and the time of its impact in relation to the passing asteroid.

    “The terminal part of the explosion probably likely occurred almost directly over Chelyabinsk. This was perhaps the single greatest contributor to the blast damage,” said Koschny. “As the explosion and fireball progressed along a shallow trajectory, the cylindrical blast wave would have propagated directly to the ground and would have been intense.”

    Koschny stated that the airburst was the likely cause of most of the damage seen, and that window damage is expected starting at air pressures of 10 to 20 times normal air pressure.

    (Image courtesy Eumetsat/ESA)

  • Meteorite Falls in Russia, Lights Up the Sky [VIDEO]

    A meteorite only a few meters long fell to Earth above Chelyabinsk, Russia early this morning. The shockwave caused by the object shattered windows and caused hundreds of injuries.

    A video of the event has quickly become one of the most-watched videos on YouTube today. It shows the object appear in the sky over the Russian city and break up in a flash of bright light.

    While astronomers today were watching asteroid 2012 da14 as it made its close miss of the Earth, the object depicted in the video was too small for scientists to have predicted today’s event.

    “Current information, which is not yet complete nor confirmed, points to a small asteroid,” said Detlef Koschny, head of Near-Earth Object activity at the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Space Situational Awareness (SSA) program. “There is no way it could have been predicted with the technical means available today. What can be said with near certainty is that this object has no connection with asteroid 2012 DA14.”

    The SSA program, along with NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations Program (“Spaceguard”) are both searching the sky for objects that could pose a danger to Earth in the future. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx program will launch a probe in 2016 that will visit an asteroid that has a 1 in 2,400 chance of hitting the planet in the late 22nd century.

    “Today’s event is a strong reminder of why we need continuous efforts to survey and identify near-Earth objects,” said Thomas Reiter, ESA’s director of Human Spaceflight and Operations. “Our SSA programme is developing a system of automated optical telescopes that can detect asteroids and other objects in solar orbits.”

    (Image courtesy Eumetsat/ESA)

  • Arctic Sea Ice Volume Declining, Shows Satellite Data

    A new European Space Agency (ESA) study has shown that Arctic sea ice has declined significantly since 2003.

    The study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, has confirmed that Arctic ice volume is declining, rather than just sea ice coverage. The paper shows that the ice has declined by (36%) during the fall months and 9% during winter since 2003. The decline in sea ice during summer, though, was shown to be the greatest.

    “The data reveal that thick sea ice has disappeared from a region to the north of Greenland, the Canadian Archipelago and to the northeast of Svalbard,” said Katharine Giles, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) in the U.K.

    The data used in the study was collected using the NASA’s ICESat satellite and the ESA’s CryoSat satellite, which uses its high-resolution radar altimeter to fire microwave pulses at the arctic. The pulses bounce off of both the surface ice and the water below, giving researchers a measurement with which to estimate volume.

    “Other satellites have already shown drops in the area covered by Arctic sea ice as the climate has warmed, but CryoSat allows scientists to estimate the volume of sea ice – a much more accurate indicator of the changes taking place in the Arctic,” said Tommaso Parrinello, CryoSat mission manager.

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  • Space Laser Could Detect Counterfeit Foods, Past Life on Mars

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today revealed that a laser developed to measure carbon on Mars could soon be used to detect counterfeit food.

    The device, called a laser isotope ratio-meter, was developed from bulkier laser techniques that needed samples to be collected and brought to them. The new device, developed by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in England, is small enough that it could be used in space to detect trace gasses in small samples.

    “You take a laser, whose optical frequency or ‘color’ can be continuously adjusted, beam it at a gas sample, and detect the level passing through the gas,” said Damien Weidmann, Laser Spectroscopy Team Leader at RAL Space. “Each molecule, and each of its isotopic forms, has a unique fingerprint spectrum. If, on the other hand, you know what you are looking for, you can simply set the laser to the appropriate frequency.”

    Through an ESA program, Weidmann and his colleagues have been able to demonstrate that the laser can quickly detect counterfeit food. Fake honey made using sugar, for example, would be detected by the laser by scanning the carbon dioxide released from burning only a few milligrams of the product. Likewise, counterfeit olive oil and chocolate could also be detected.

    Though Weidmann said it was important for his project to attract interest from industry, sending the laser to Mars is his real goal.

    “I wanted to develop this to help gather evidence as to whether or not there was life on Mars,” said Weidmann.

    Weidmann stated that using the laser to measure carbon isotopic ratios in methane on Mars could help determine where the hydrocarbon came from.

    “If it’s bacterial in origin, it would mean a form of life occurred on Mars.”

  • Antarctic Ozone Could be Returning, Shows New Images

    New satellite imagery has shown that the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is shrinking. In 2012, the hole was the smallest it has been in the past ten years.

    The images were taken by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) MetOp satellite, which has a ozone sensor. The satellite monitors atmospheric ozone over the Antarctic.

    Since the 1980s, the ozone layer over the Antarctic developed a hole – a decrease in ozone concentration of up to 70% – that stays from September to November. The depletion is noticeable in Antarctica because of high winds that cause a vortex of cold air, causing low temperatures. These conditions make it easier for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to deplete the ozone. The arctic does not see this effect because the northern hemisphere’s landmasses prevent circumpolar winds.

    Since the mid-1990s CFC concentrations have been falling as a result of international agreements. The ESA states, however, that it could take until the mid-21st century for the ozone to recover to 1960s levels.

    “Unusual” weather and atmospheric conditions can also greatly affect the behavior of the ozone. ESA scientists are using data from satellites and other sensors, along with atmospheric models to predict the future of the ozone. The ESA Climate Change Initiative is generating ozone climate data records that have predicted the ozone layer hole could close “in the next decades.”

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  • Space Life Weakens Immune Systems, Shows Study

    Space Life Weakens Immune Systems, Shows Study

    A new study performed aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has shown that being in space weakens astronauts’ immune systems. Researchers hope the findings can help prevent disease for those of us still on the planet.

    European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Reiter performed the experiments while on the ISS, as seen in the video below. Human immune cells were allowed to float freely in microgravity while others were placed in a centrifuge that simulated gravity. The cells in the centrifuge were found to be more healthy than those left to float.

    Analysis showed that a transmitter called the Rel/NF-kB pathway stopped working in microgravity, preventing immune cells from working correctly.

    “Normally, when our bodies sense an invasion, a cascade of reactions occur that are controlled by the information held in our genes, similar to an instruction book,” said Isabelle Walther, a researcher with the Space Biology Group in Zurich, Switzerland. “Finding which gene does what is like looking for the right key to fit a keyhole, without having found the keyhole yet.”

    Researchers stated that these findings could help disease research in two ways. First, being able to deactivate genes associated with the immune system could help patients who suffer from autoimmune diseases. Second, drugs could be developed to target genes that fight specific diseases.

    “We are working towards a finer control of disease,” said Millie Hughes-Fulford, a NASA astronaut and an investigator on the research. “If you imagine our immune system responding to diseases as a waterfall, up until now we have been fighting disease at the bottom of the waterfall. In the future we could target the raindrops before they have a chance to cascade into waterfalls. We live in exciting times.”

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  • The First Moon Base May Be Constructed With 3D Printers

    A moon base has always been the pipe dream of space agencies around the world, but the prohibitive cost always ensured that such a move would never happen anytime soon. That all may be changing sooner than later as the European Space Agency has an idea that’s just crazy enough to work.

    The ESA announced on Thursday that it’s hard at work on a technology that would allow them to make lunar bases with 3D printers. Unlike normal 3D printers that use plastic, the ESA’s 3D printer would make use of local materials (i.e. moon rock) to create structures. The basic concept has already been used multiple times in the past with 3D printers that create structures with sand, concrete and even synthetic moon soil.

    The ESA’s early experiments in 3D printing structures have already shown promising results. The team created a 1.5 tonne building block with a “hollow closed-cell structure” that should provide a “good combination of strength and weight.”

    First Moon Base May Be Constructed With 3D Printers

    The above block was created using a D-Shape 3D printer with a six meter frame. It works by spraying a binding solution onto the lunar soil. Currently, the printer can only print at a rate of two meters an hour, but future printers will be able to print out slabs at 3.5 meters an hour. With that speed, the ESA says it can complete a building within a week.

    There is of course one little problem. All of the current 3D printing experiments have taken place on Earth where the environment is more suited to such projects. What happens when the 3D printer actually gets into space? Giovanni Cesaretti of Italian space research firm Alta SpA explains a potential workaround:

    “The process is based on applying liquids but, of course, unprotected liquids boil away in vacuum. So we inserted the 3D printer nozzle beneath the regolith layer. We found small 2 mm-scale droplets stay trapped by capillary forces in the soil, meaning the printing process can indeed work in vacuum.”

    So, when will we start seeing 3D printers making their way into space? Well, the ESA has already moved past the concept stage, but it will probably be a while before they actually start sending 3D printers to the moon. Until then, NASA will be using 3D printers of its own to create orbiting satellites.

  • Late Planet-Forming Star Spotted by Herschel

    Late Planet-Forming Star Spotted by Herschel

    NASA and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Herschel Space Telescope has spotted a planet-forming star that wasn’t thought to be possible.

    The star, named TW Hydrae, is estimated to be 10 million years old – older than the age at which stars are thought to be able to produce planets. However, the star still has an accretion disc massive enough to possiblly produce planets. The new findings appear in a paper published recently in the journal Nature.

    “We didn’t expect to see so much gas around this star,” said Edwin Bergin, lead on the new research and an astronomer at the University of Michigan. “Typically stars of this age have cleared out their surrounding material, but this star still has enough mass to make the equivalent of 50 Jupiters,”

    The new TW Hydrae data comes out of a new technique for estimating the mass of planet-forming discs. Researchers used the Herschel telescope to analyze the light coming from the star and pick out hydrogen deuteride gas, which emits light at the longer infrared wavelengths that Herschel can detect. The measurements have provided the most precise measurement of the disc’s mass to date.

    “Before, we had to use a proxy to guess the gas quantity in the planet-forming disks,” said Paul Goldsmith, project scientist for Herschel at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory(JPL). “This is another example of Herschel’s versatility and sensitivity yielding important new results about star and planet formation.”

    The researchers stated that knowing the mass of a star’s gas disc is “crucial” to understanding how planets may form around it. Though they don’t know what TW Hydrae’s massive disc will mean for the system’s future, the astronomers stated that the new data has helped define “a range” of possible future planet configurations.

    “The new results are another important step in understanding the diversity of planetary systems in our universe,” said Bergin. “We are now observing systems with massive Jupiters, super-Earths, and many Neptune-like worlds. By weighing systems at their birth, we gain insight into how our own solar system formed with just one of many possible planetary configurations.”

    (Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

  • Comet-Like Ionosphere Seen on Venus

    Comet-Like Ionosphere Seen on Venus

    New observations of Venus have shown that the planet’s ionosphere on its night side resembles a comet’s tail. The observations were made by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Venus Express satellite.

    The ionosphere is the region of electrically charged gas high in a planet’s atmosphere. The shape and density of an ionosphere are determined, in part, by the internal magnetic field of its planet. Earth has a strong internal magnetic field, which makes its ionosphere stable. Venus, on the other hand, does not have an internal magnetic field. Its ionosphere has now been found to be shaped by interactions with solar wind.

    The new data was obtained in August 2010, when solar wind density dropped to only 0.1 particles per cubic centimeter for around 18 hours. Researchers were able to use this window to observe Venus’ ionosphere balloon out towards its nightside.

    “The teardrop-shaped ionosphere began forming within 30–60 minutes after the normal high pressure solar wind diminished. Over two Earth days, it had stretched to at least two Venus radii into space,” said Yong Wei, lead author of a paper on the new research and a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

    Before now, researchers had debated how solar wind could affect the way ionospheric plasma moves from one side of Venus to the other. The plasma normally flows from the dayside to the nightside of Venus in a thin channel in the ionosphere. Until now, it was unknown whether in low solar wind conditions the flow would increase due to reduced pressure or decrease due to reduced force pushing plasma through the channel.

    “We now finally know that the first effect outweighs the second, and that the ionosphere expands significantly during low solar wind density conditions,” said Markus Fraenz, co-author of the paper.

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • NASA Joins Euclid Dark Universe Mission

    NASA Joins Euclid Dark Universe Mission

    NASA announced this week that it has joined the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid mission. The mission will investigate dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe.

    In 2020, the mission will launch the Euclid space telescope, which will spend six years mapping and measuring as many as 2 billion galaxies that cover one-third of the sky. The hope is that Euclid will be able to provide insight into the evolution of the universe and the influence of dark matter and dark energy.

    “ESA’s Euclid mission is designed to probe one of the most fundamental questions in modern cosmology, and we welcome NASA’s contribution to this important endeavor, the most recent in a long history of cooperation in space science between our two agencies,” said Alvaro Gimenez, ESA’s Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.

    Though NASA’s part in the Euclid mission is still being developed, the agency will be providing 16 infrared detectors and four spare detectors for one of Euclid’s science instruments.

    The Euclid spacecraft will be launched into orbit around the sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, a point where the gravitational pull of the sun and Earth can help the satellite maintain a stationary position behind the Earth. The spacecraft will map dark matter, using precise measurements of distant galaxies.

    Dark Matter makes up around 85% of the universe. It is called dark matter because it does not interact with light, and is made up of unknown particles. It does, however, interact with known matter through gravity, binding galaxies together. Dark energy, on the other hand, is accelerating the expansion of the universe. Even less about dark energy is known than about dark matter.

    (Image courtesy ESA/C. Carreau)

  • New Satellite Search and Rescue System Turned On

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that it has switched-on a search and rescue (SAR) package on its Galileo navigation satellites. The milestone is a “major” expansion of the Cospas-Sarsat (Space System for the Search of Vessels in Distress and Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking) network, which receives distress calls from air and sea vessels.

    “At this stage, our main objective is to check the repeater has not been damaged by launch,” said Igor Stojkovic, the ESA’s Galileo SAR engineer. “The first day was a matter of turning the repeater on and checking its temperature and power profiles were as predicted. The following day involved sending a signal to the repeater using the UHF antenna at ESA’s Redu Centre in Belgium, then picking up the reply from our L-band antenna.”

    The two Galileo navigation satellites that are the first to host the SAR repeaters were launched in October of last year. Once they reached 23,222 kilometer orbits, researchers began a “rigorous test campaign.” The SAR repeater on the third Galileo satellite was activated on January 17. Further testing of the new system will soon be completed.

    The international Cospas-Sarsat tracking system has been working for over 30 years. According to the ESA, it has saved an estimated 31,000 lives during that time.

    (Image courtesy ESA)

  • Fake Mars Mission Revealed Sleep Pattern Difficulties

    A little over one year ago, six fake astronauts returned to the real world after spending 520 days in isolation. They were part of the Mars500 experiment, created to simulate a manned mission to the planet Mars. During their stay in the simulated spaceship near Moscow, the volunteers lived in cramped spaces without fresh food sunlight, or air.

    Today, the European Space Agency (ESA) revealed that Mars 500 revealed that astronauts on such a long mission will need their schedules and diet to be rigidly maintained. The fake astronauts, living without sunlight, began letting their sleep patterns slip.

    “Although there was an issue with sleeping patterns getting out of phase, it is amazing that the human body can adapt to a total lack of Sun,” said Diego Urbina, one of the six “marsonauts” in the Mars500 experiment.

    The ESA is currently looking into ways to help curb sleep troubles for future astronauts. An ESA astronaut will be measuring hormones linked to sleep during a six-month tour of the International Space Station (ISS) this year, and the crew at the Concordia Antarctic base will have its sleep patterns monitored during the polar winter. The research, stated the ESA, could also help those on Earth who keep odd schedules or those who have issues with sleep.

    Another finding of the Mars500 research was that humans do not absorb salt constantly. Instead, the fake astronauts’ kidneys were found to process salt on a weekly cycle.

    “These results are showing why we participated in the Mars500 study.” said Jennifer Ngo-Anh, the ESA’s study manager. “We expect even more interesting results now that researchers have had a year to analyse data from this unique long study.”

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    (Image courtesy ESA/IBMP)

  • Doomsday Asteroid Deflection Mission Tests Concepts

    The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that it is appealing for research ideas that could help develop a future mission to deflect life-threatening asteroids. It is asking for both ground and space-based ideas to improve scientist’s understanding of high-speed collisions between man-made and natural objects.

    No asteroids are currently on a collision course with Earth (though some are coming close), but the ESA is working with the U.S. to study how the deflection of a “doomsday” asteroid might be accomplished.

    The project is called the Asteroid Impact and Deflection mission (AIDA). The low-budget partnership proposes two small spacecraft be sent to intercept a binary asteroid (two asteroids that orbit a common center of mass). One spacecraft, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will impact the smaller asteroid while the other spacecraft, the Asteroid Impact Monitor (AIM), will monitor the event.

    “The advantage is that the spacecraft are simple and independent,” said Andy Cheng, U.S. AIDA project lead Johns Hopkins University. “They can both complete their primary investigation without the other one.”

    Scientists expect the collision to change the rate at which the asteroids orbit each other. The data from the AIM spacecraft will be able to confirm whether their predictions are true.

    “Both missions become better when put together – getting much more out of the overall investment,” said Andrés Gálvez, ESA AIDA study manager. “And the vast amounts of data coming from the joint mission should help to validate various theories, such as our impact modelling.”

    (Image courtesy ESA)