The James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Fomalhaut's Disk In Unprecedented Detail
The latest jaw dropping space view courtesy of the James Webb Space Telescope.
Fomalhaut, a bright, young star 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, illuminates a disk of planet-forming debris. Such debris disks contain clues about exoplanets and even smaller bodies that would otherwise remain hidden.
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Previously, Hubble, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and other telescopes have shown a far-out debris ring surrounding Fomalhaut that’s akin to the Kuiper Belt in our solar system. Analysis of the system’s brightness at different wavelengths had also suggested the presence of a dusty inner disk. Now, the new JWST images reveal unprecedented detail, including a new belt inside the first, an extended inner disk, and a gap between the two. They also show what might be a dust cloud in the outer, previously detected ring.
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"UAE spacecraft takes close-up photos of Mars’ little moon"
The United Arab Emirates' Amal spacecraft flew within 62 miles (100 kilometers) of Deimos last month and the close-up shots were released Monday. Amal — Arabic for Hope — got a two-for-one when Mars photobombed some of the images. It was the closest a spacecraft has been to Deimos in almost a half-century.
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Binary Star Sundial
An absolutely fascinating and well executed project to explore the idea of how a sundial would work in a binary star system.
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"The mission to discover if Jupiter’s moons support life"
But the biggest surprise was the amount of water that the theoreticians needed to account for the signals: more than twice the amount of water found in all of Earth’s oceans. Because Europa is only a quarter of Earth’s diameter, the water must be spread around the moon in a global ocean, 25 to 95 miles deep, beneath a 10- to 15-mile-thick ice crust.
A fascinating read. The idea of living on a moon of Jupiter's is still probably science fiction, but it's fascinating to learn more. And what we learn impact our ability to live on other planets as well.
I had no idea about the amount of water on Europa!
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"First Native American woman in space steps out on spacewalk"
The first Native American woman in space ventured out on a spacewalk Friday to prep the International Space Station for more solar panels.
NASA astronaut Nicole Mann emerged alongside Japan's Koichi Wakata, lugging an equipment bag. Their job was to install support struts and brackets for new solar panels launching this summer, part of a continuing effort by NASA to expand the space station's power grid.
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Mark your calendars for a very rare comet sighting
"We don't have an estimate for the furthest it will get from the Earth yet — estimates vary — but if it does return it won't be for at least 50,000 years," she said. "...Some predictions suggest that the orbit of this comet is so eccentric it's no longer in an orbit-so it's not going to return at all and will just keep going."
Now, the recently discovered E3 comet, which has been seen with a bright greenish coma and "short broad" dust tail, is set to make its closest approach to the sun on January 12. It will make its closest approach to Earth on February 2.
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ICON weather satellite is out of contact and in deepening orbit
On Nov. 25, 2022, NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) team lost contact with the spacecraft. The ICON spacecraft is equipped with a built-in onboard command loss timer that will power cycle or reset the spacecraft after contact is lost for eight days. On Dec. 5, after the power cycle was complete, the team was still unable to acquire a downlink signal from the spacecraft. The team is currently still working to establish a connection.
As it turns out, it was launched for a two-year mission, which it completed. They were still running and using it, but it was in overtime regardless. It is always notable to me to hear about equipment, especially satellites, suddenly failing. A reminder that engineers of all sorts are fallible.
We don't yet build indestructible machines (despite what the plucky Mars Rover might lead us to believe.)
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The European Space Agency has hired its first astronaut with a physical disability
British Paralympic athlete and surgeon John McFall will join the ESA's latest cohort of space travel candidates as a "parastronaut," the agency announced last week.
McFall, who is 41, had his right leg amputated after a motorcycle crash when he was 19 years old. Following his recovery, he learned how to run again and became a professional track and field athlete in 2005. Representing Great Britain and Northern Ireland, McFall competed as a Paralympic sprinter and went on to win numerous awards, including a bronze medal at the Paralympic Games in Beijing in 2008.
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"Artemis I Sparks A New Space Age"
Holden Culotta does a great write-up that goes over the history that brought us to last night's Artemis launch, from the last lunar mission, to the bureaucratic journey NASA has undergone.
Artemis I signals that the space program is beginning to find its footing in the 21st century with a clear plan and a successful launch.
The U.S. is now more serious about its journey beyond Earth than it has been in decades. Should that interest unlock new investments that allow the program to flourish, the country will benefit culturally and in terms of its own national interest.
A common perception among Gen Z Americans is that the U.S. has done little to cheer for in recent decades. However, a successful landing of the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon will redefine the nature of modern Americans' struggle with their national identity.
The Artemis program promises to reshape America's identity and culture in ways that cannot yet be specifically predicted. The cultural impact of landing Americans on the Moon who were never offered the opportunity during the Apollo era is not something that can be quantified. A daring and patriotic mission to the frontier of humanity's reach may serve to rekindle our ancestors' ideals of what their country meant to them.
For those dispirited by the culture war that dominates America's national identity today, Artemis I is a beacon of hope in our future.
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Low Earth Orbit visualizer
Turns out, there are a lot of things which orbit this planet of ours. Pretty insane to see it visualized in this way.
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A look at the Milky Way's Galactic Underworld
A fascinating look at new research which is identifying and looking at the dead stars which fall out and fall below the Milky Way.
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Next week NASA will attempt to deflect an asteroid with the DART mission
For decades, scientists around the world have been scanning the sky, searching for potentially hazardous asteroids in the vicinity of Earth. And as astronomers discover near-Earth asteroids in ever greater numbers, attention is now turning toward how we might protect Earth should an asteroid on a collision course be discovered. One technique is brute force, and to test it, DART will collide with the 560-foot-wide (170 m) Dimorphos at 7:14 p.m. EDT (2314 GMT) on Sept. 26.
Dimorphos is a member of a binary system with another asteroid, the 2,600-foot-wide (780 m) Didymos, making it the ideal target with which to measure our deflection capabilities. DART's so-called "kinetic impact" will alter Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos, and because the two rocks are gravitationally bound, there's no chance that the impact could send Dimorphos accidentally careening across space.
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A good breakdown of NASA's Artemis program
NASA's new moon program is poised to smash all kinds of records for human spaceflight. Named for the Greek goddess Artemis, Apollo's twin sister, this initiative will put the first woman and first person of color on the moon. If all goes as scheduled, in 2025, these astronauts will become the first humans to step on the lunar regolith—or dusty moon soil—since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt walked there in December 1972.
In addition, the Artemis program will establish the first long-term human presence on the moon, by putting a space station in orbit and constructing a base camp on the lunar surface. These measures will lay the groundwork for yet another first in the future: sending astronauts to Mars.
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Europe launches first software-defined satellite
I can't help but read this as "satellite purpose made for hackers now in operation."
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"JWST has released a striking new image of the strange Cartwheel galaxy"
Simply stunning and fascinating to see.
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