That growth also extends to the amateur community: In the past few years, the astroimaging scene in India has taken off — and the nation’s largest astrophotography contest reflects that. Entries are now open for the “Aperture: Indian Astrophotographer of the Year” (IAPY) contest, open to all Indian nationals.
The competition, now in its second year, is organized by Astronomads Bangla, a group of four astroimagers who met during the COVID-19 pandemic and have since hosted numerous workshops at dark-sky sites across India.
“Since the pandemic, India not only has seen a growth in quantity in the numbers of astrophotographers, but also in quality,” says group co-founder Soumyadeep Mukherjee. (Here at Astronomy, we can see that growth anecdotally, judging by the increase in submissions to our Reader Gallery inbox.) “Indian astrophotographers have been experimenting with all the different subgenres, especially in nightscape, deep-sky and planetary photography.”
All three genres are represented as categories in the IAPY contest. Submissions opened Sept. 15; within the first five days, the organizers received over 100 images, says Mukherjee. The contest is accepting entries through Oct. 29, with results to be announced Dec. 24.
The winners and shortlisted images will also be presented in an exhibition at the M. P. Birla Planetarium in Kolkata starting the first week of January 2024.
“This contest provides a platform to all the Indian astrophotographers, from vastly experienced people to the absolute newcomers,” says Mukerjee. “It is a platform to showcase their work to the world and in the process, inspiring people to take up this beautiful genre as a hobby. The contest is about making astrophotographers ‘think out of the box’ and supporting their talent.”
The contest is open to Indian nationals residing both in and outside of India, as well as Overseas Citizens of India (a form of permanent residency available to people of Indian origin).
For more information and details on how to submit images, go to: https://astronomadsbangla.com/competition. And look out for an article by Mukerjee on astroimaging in India in an upcoming issue of Astronomy.
Update: On Sept. 24, OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule separated from its parent craft and reentered the atmosphere, touching down in the Utah desert. NASA retrieved the samples and secured them in a clean room, marking a successful end to OSIRIS-REx primary mission.
Imagine arriving back at Earth after traveling through space for seven years, tirelessly transmitting images and hauling back rock samples from the diamond-shaped asteroid 101955 Bennu. Time for vacation, right? Hardly for intrepid OSIRIS-REx.
This Sunday, Sept. 24, the craft’s primary mission will culminate when it swings by Earth and drops off the largest set of samples to ever be returned from an asteroid. The pristine rocks will be a scientific boon, a window into the early solar system that could provide key clues to the origins of water and life on Earth.
But as soon as the spacecraft leaves Earth’s vicinity, it will begin an extended mission to examine a second asteroid, 99942 Apophis. The new mission promises to be a blockbuster follow-up that sheds light on one of the most menacing asteroids near Earth’s orbit. In fact, Apophis will pass only 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) from Earth’s surface on April 13, 2029 — closer than most geosynchronous satellites, nearly 10 times closer than the Moon, and visible to the naked eye for observers in the Eastern Hemisphere.
Although the OSIRIS craft will not be able to return any samples from Apophis, it will still be able to deploy its full arsenal of observational instruments during this close encounter, giving scientists key information on what may be necessary to one day spare Earth from an incoming asteroid.
Mission to Bennu
Bennu’s boulder-strewn landscape came as a surprise to the mission team. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
The OSIRIS-REx mission launched from Cape Canaveral on Sept. 8, 2016 towards Bennu. The probe performed an Earth flyby in September 2017, which is a key maneuver that allows it to reach nearby asteroids while preserving propellant. Finally, on Dec. 3, 2018, the explorer reached Bennu, revealing the dark asteroid to be a dusty and rock-covered world with a diameter nearly 1,600 ft (490 m), almost as wide as the Empire State Building is tall.
OSIRIS-REx spent the next 20 months characterizing Bennu. The asteroid didn’t disappoint and turned out to be a fascinating world.
For one, it is a carbon rich environment with water and possible amino acids — the building blocks for life on Earth. Lab analysis will confirm whether amino acids exist on Bennu after samples are delivered.
ORISIS-REx also discovering that Bennu is ejecting particles into space, expelling pebbles and dust from its surface. This is a danger to nearby spacecraft. Sensors can become smudged, leading to poor images; solar arrays can be pitted and clouded, failing to generate power; and navigational star-sensors can be tainted, disorienting the probe.
Bennu ejects particles from its surface in this composite of images taken by OSIRIS-REx. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin
As for the structure of Bennu itself, it is a porous orb, representing a collection of small rocks and boulders thrown together with dust tossed in. While astronomical images taken from afar may suggest Bennu is a solid rock, in fact it is loosely packed, with 20 to 40 percent of its volume being empty space. If a person stepped onto Bennu, they might sink into the surface as if stepping into a child’s play pit of plastic balls, the team reported in research published in July 2022.
OSIRIS-REx also discovered that Bennu’s orbit is changing. A “day” on Bennu lasts a short 4 hours and 17.8 minutes. But that’s enough to heat up the asteroid’s dayside. When that warm side rotates into the object’s nightside, it cools, giving off radiation, which acts a small thruster propelling Bennu towards the Sun by nearly 0.18 miles (0.29 km) per year.
This force is called the Yarkovsky effect, after Polish-Russian civil engineer Ivan Yarkovsky, who documented the concept in the early 1900s. This effect can cause rotating asteroids to drift over the decades, making their long-term trajectories difficult for astronomers to pin down — and also the risk of them impacting Earth. That makes measuring the Yarkovsky effect a key observation for robotic explorers with up-close views of PHAs. Per Dante Lauretta of LPL, “OSIRIS-REx played a crucial role in precisely characterizing Bennu’s orbit,” ruling out future impacts for the next 200 years.
Returning samples to Earth
From Earth-based telescopes, astronomers had believed the asteroid’s surface to be smooth, covered by dust and a few rocks. But when OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu, the team was in for a shock: The world was nearly entirely strewn with enormous boulders — a challenge for collecting samples.
Several months of close mapping highlighted only a few boulder-free zones that also presented the multitude of small stones — a few inches (several centimeters) in length — that the mission was seeking to sample. With patience and a daring approach, OSIRIS-REx successfully touched down on the surface and collected nearly 10.5 ounces (300 grams) of pebbles and dust, exceeding the mission’s stated goal of 2 ounces (60 grams).
OSIRIS-REx wrapped up observations in May 2021 and departed Bennu to return the samples to Earth. The trek required 2½ years orbiting the Sun twice inside of Venus’ orbit. On Sunday, the spacecraft will release the sample return capsule for an atmospheric reentry, parachute descent, and a landing at the Utah Test and Training Range.
OSIRIS’ next chapter
OSIRIS-REx will then change names to OSIRIS Apophis Explorer, or OSIRIS-APEX, with LPL’s Dani Della-Giustina taking over for Lauretta as principal investigator. The retiring Lauretta is elated that Della-Giustina, one of his former students, will lead OSIRIS’ next chapter, defining the asteroids aimed at our home.
Discovered in 2004, Apophis is classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) — meaning it approaches within 4.65 million miles (7.5 million km) of Earth’s orbit and is greater than 500 ft (140 meters) in diameter. It is a stony-type asteroid with some iron and nickel mixed in, though less carbon and water compared to Bennu. At nearly 1,100 feet (340 meters) in length, its shape may be like a peanut, its two lobes perhaps only loosely connected.
25143 Itokawa, a boulder-heap asteroid, was imaged in 2005 by the Hayabusa spacecraft, which was operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Apophis may share this bi-lobed appearance. The lack of impact craters indicate Itokawa is porous. Credit: JAXA
OSIRIS-APEX will rendezvous with and investigate Apophis, becoming the only mission to track the asteroid on-orbit as it approaches and flies by Earth in 2029. Its goals include observing any shifting surface features and alterations to its spin, as well as measuring Apophis’ internal structure — crucial information for a PHA.
OSIRIS’ operator, the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL), designed and built the spacecraft with the goal to characterize more than one asteroid. Currently, OSIRIS’ instruments are all operational, except for one laser altimeter.
Unfortunately, there is only one sample return capsule — the one full of rocks from Bennu that will depart for the Utah desert. However, the sampling arm on OSIRIS can poke Apophis for answers. In particular, this should test the theory that some asteroids have an outer layer, or crust, formed by the Sun’s harsh radiation. As Mike Nolan, LPL’s deputy principal investigator for APEX, puts it, Apophis has been “baked by the Sun, frozen in the darkness, and [it will be] shaken by Earth’s 2029 close encounter.”
Long-term tracking
Apophis is a particularly important PHA as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth, crossing our plaent’s path once every 324 days. Recent ground-based radar observations published in March 2021 have clarified Earth is safe for the next 100 years. But asteroids’ orbits shift over the decades due to the Yarkovsky effect. In 2020, a team of researchers led by David Tholen of the University of Hawai‘i reported that Apophis’ orbit is slowly shrinking around the Sun, most likely due to the Yarkovsky effect. Thus, Apophis and other PHAs with changing orbits are a constant threat. OSIRIS-APEX’s tracking of Apophis will not only refine its orbit, but also better measure the Yarkovsky effect.
In order to catch Apophis, OSIRIS-APEX needs to zip by the Earth four times, adjusting the probe’s orbit each pass while saving precious observation propellant. The September 2023 Bennu sample drop-off and flyby will be coupled with 2025 and 2027 flybys. OSIRIS-APEX will commence observations of Apophis on April 8, 2029, five days before its close approach of Earth.
When Apophis reaches its closest point to Earth of the flyby on April 13, 2029, OSIRIS-APEX will have the best seat in the house, trailing the asteroid from a distance of about 19,000 miles (30,000 km). Tracking and imaging will reveal the asteroid’s shape, mass, and rotation and identify any streams of pebbles strewn into space.
Phobos, one of Mars’ two moons, has grooves on its surface that could be due to stress fractures or boulders migrating. Similar features could appear on Apophis when it makes its close pass of Earth in 2029. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
The probe’s goals are to investigate how Apophis reacts to Earth’s gravitational and tidal forces. The asteroid spins about its short axis about once every 30 hours, but this could change drastically under Earth’s gravitational influence. Surface features may alter as well. There might be landslides or boulder migration. Dust may levitate and pool in low points on the surface. Perhaps signs of stress fractures may appear.
Approximately two months later, OSIRIS-APEX will rendezvous with Apophis, characterizing mineral and surface details down to 2 inches (5 cm), as well as estimating the internal structure.
The APEX mission will be more daring than Bennu in one way: With the propellant saved zooming by Earth, scientists plan to use the probe’s thrusters to actively disturb Apophis’s surface in order to examine and study the subsurface.
Understanding the internal structure of a PHA influences how best to alter an asteroid’s orbit — a mission that may be necessary to divert future threats. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission in 2022 tested kinetic impact procedures by slamming into the moonlet Dimorphos, shortening its orbital period around its host asteroid Didymos by 32 minutes. This was a shock to scientists, who had estimated a mere 5- to 10-second change. Dimorphos’ structure must be more like a heap of loose boulders, versus a solid rock; when DART created a crater, tons of dust and loose rock streamed into space, creating an additional kick that changed the asteroid’s motion more than the impact alone could have done.
OSIRIS-APEX will use spare propellant to fire its thrusters near the surface so scientists can better understand its structure and makeup.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab
Preventative measures
It is not a matter of whether we will find an asteroid with Earth’s name it, it is a matter of when — and what we can do to prevent it from striking us. Each asteroid is a world of its own. But what we learn from OSIRIS’ samples of Bennu and its observations of Apophis will help shape how we respond to a potential Earth-impactor. These and future missions can protect the Earth while shedding light on PHAs’ characteristics and orbits. Additionally, these nearby worlds may become key depots for humanity to expand outward from our home.
Doug Kapua is a space analysis and exercise planner at US STRATCOM. The views presented in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of US STRATCOM, the U.S. Air Force, DoD, or the U.S. Government.
Kombucha may be more than just a trendy drink. The fermented tea may also benefit spacefaring humans living on the Moon and Mars.
Kombucha is a combination of sugar, tea, yeast, and Symbiotic Culture Of acetic acid Bacteria, or SCOBY. The bacterium then breaks down the sugars and yeast, resulting in an acidic fizzy drink. Multicellular biofilms found in kombucha can survive in harsh environments on Earth, and scientists have been investigating whether the organisms found in the beverage could also endure extreme conditions in space.
Evidence suggests that they not only could survive these conditions, but that they also have the potential to repair their own DNA after radiation exposure. As a result, the same microorganisms found in kombucha are being considered for building materials or other components of large space settlements.
According to a press release, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Expose facility atop the International Space Station (ISS) has conducted experiments designed to test how bacteria survive in space and in simulated martian conditions. While some bacteria samples remained inside the facility, others flew outside of the ISS.
“Due to their ability to produce oxygen and function as bio-factories, this biotechnology could significantly enhance future space missions and human space exploration efforts,” said Nicol Caplin, a deep space exploration scientist for ESA, in a statement.
Kombucha’s cosmic trip
The kombucha cultures were first sent by the ESA to the ISS in 2014 for an 18-month trip in space. This experiment analyzed the organisms and their molecular structures to see how they changed or reacted to unfiltered solar light, radiation, and temperature shifts in space.
Scientists found that kombucha cultures can withstand the adverse space conditions by making cellulose-based structures to resist the high temperatures and radiation exposure. What’s more, in Earth-bound experiments, kombucha cultures are stronger when mixed with simulated Moon dust. The thick biofilm’s cellulose absorbs minerals from the soil, further protecting the culture.
Kombucha cultures – a mix of bacteria and yeast – is created by microorganisms and may be able to repair itself after exposure to radiation and high temperatures. Credit:
ESA/J. Harrod
Kombucha vs. Space
The results showed that cyanobacterium, a type of microorganism, could repair its DNA and continue cell division after exposure to radiation in space. It also resisted iron ions known to cause extensive cell damage.
Researchers suspect something called the sulA gene may be responsible for stopping cells from dividing until they have fixed their DNA damage. This gene could play a part in it by acting like a stoplight signal for cells.
Another experiment on the ISS revealed that cell clusters are a microhabitat to smaller species, suggesting that some cells can “hitchhike” through with larger groups of cells that protect the piggybacking cells. Experiments like these can help scientists learn how cell clusters and biofilms could be used as protection from the extremes of space and prevent contamination on space missions.
Using microbes as a radiation model, teams on Earth can find how to best protect astronauts against space radiation that can harm them on long-term missions. “The cultures show great potential in supporting long-term human presence on the Moon and on Mars,” says Petra Rettberg, Head of the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) astrobiology group, in a statement.
Friday, September 22 Mercury reaches greatest western elongation (18°) at 9 A.M. EDT. The solar system’s smallest planet is visible in the early-morning sky just before sunrise for the next several days, though now it will start to sink back toward the horizon earlier and earlier. If you’re up early this week, you can catch it near the hindquarters of Leo, which appear above the eastern horizon in the hour before dawn.
First Quarter Moon occurs this afternoon at 3:32 P.M. EDT. At sunset, our satellite sits just above the spout of Sagittarius’ Teapot asterism, about 1.5° above Gamma (γ) Sagittarii at the very tip of the spout. Its current position also puts the Moon near the center of the Milky Way, and the plane of our galaxy lies just to its northwest.
Now with its face half lit, the Moon is a wonderful target with binoculars or a small scope. Take your time exploring the terminator, which is the line dividing lunar night and day. This is where shadows appear sharpest, bringing out the most detail in the terrain. On the eastern, sunlit half of Luna, look for the bright, rayed crater Stevinus near the southeastern limb. Above it in the northeast are the dark blotches of the Seas of Crises, Tranquillity, and Serenity.
Sunrise: 6: 47 A.M. Sunset: 6:57 P.M. Moonrise: 2:40 P.M. Moonset: 11:26 P.M. Moon Phase: Waxing crescent (49%) *Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 12 P.M. local time from the same location.
Credit: Massimo Di Fusco/Alessandro Ravagnin (ShaRA Team)
Saturday, September 23 Earlier this month, observers saw a new “star” flare up in the galaxy NGC 1097. This is the supernova SN 2023rve, first identified on the 8th and — although now fading — still visible as a point of light in the outskirts of this barred spiral galaxy if your scope is big enough.
The best time to hunt down this transient target is early in the morning, after the Moon has set and the constellation Fornax, which houses NGC 1097, is directly south. This constellation doesn’t get very high for most U.S. observers, so try to set up on a hill or building above your surroundings and minimize any ground light and trees or buildings along your southern horizon.
Admittedly, this observation is likely for more advanced skywatchers: Although the galaxy itself is 9th magnitude and visible with even moderate scopes, the supernova is now around magnitude 15, meaning you’ll need an instrument at least capable of picking up Pluto to view it. Alternatively, long-exposure astrophotos will reveal the explosion’s faint light, as well as some detail in the galaxy’s wispy arms. You’ll find NGC 1097 just over 2° north of magnitude 4.5 Beta (β) Fornacis; the supernova is embedded in the northern arm.
The autumnal equinox occurs at 2:50 A.M. EDT. On this day, the Sun sits directly above the equator and the season of autumn begins in the Northern Hemisphere. (And in the Southern Hemisphere, it is now spring.)
Sunday, September 24 New Horizons and Hubble are teaming up this week to observe the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. NASA has put out a call for amateur astronomers to image the planets and help with the campaign.
Whether you’re an astroimager or not, the ice giants are on display this evening if you want to hunt them down for a look. Let’s start with Neptune, which just passed opposition and rises around sunset and sets at sunrise. Because it’s small and faint, though, you’ll want to give it a few hours to climb away from the horizon. Two hours after sunset, magnitude 7.7 Neptune is 25° high in the east, hanging below the Circlet of Pisces. You’ll need either binoculars or a telescope, as its light is too faint for the naked eye. The planet lies about halfway along a vertical line drawn between 4th-magnitude Iota (ι) Ceti in Cetus and 4th-magnitude Gamma Piscium in the Circlet. Once you’ve homed in on the region, you’ll find the ice giant currently sits just 20′ west of magnitude 5.5 20 Piscium. Neptune’s tiny, bluish disk is just 2″ across and will look like a “flat” star compared to 20 Psc.
Next, let’s move to Uranus. Rising around 9 P.M. local daylight time, by 11 P.M. it’s some 20° high in Aries, located to the lower left (east) of bright Jupiter. The latter is magnitude –2.8, a bright, easy naked-eye object. Uranus, though, is magnitude 5.7 — at the edge of naked-eye visibility and best picked up with optics (binoculars or any small scope will do). Uranus is about 7.8° east of Jupiter, or you can alternatively use the Pleiades star cluster (M45) in Taurus to guide you instead, as the planet is 8.5° west-southwest of this group of young suns. Once you find the planet, you’ll note its disk, too, looks like a “flat” grayish star. It’s about twice as large as Neptune, coming in at 4″ in apparent width.
Monday, September 25 Venus moves into Leo today and sits 11.2° due west of Regulus, which anchors the Sickle asterism that outlines the Lion’s head, in the predawn sky. The bright, magnitude –4.7 planet now appears to hang directly below the Beehive Cluster (M44) in Cancer, as well as (higher up) the two bright stars Castor and Pollux in Gemini. M44 is a stunning sight through binoculars or a low-powered scope; under good conditions, you may be able to make it out without optical aid whatsoever, though give it a try earlier in the morning rather than later. As twilight starts to brighten the sky, the young stars in this open cluster will fade from naked-eye view, though they’ll remain visible under magnification for longer.
Far to Venus’ lower left, also in Leo, sits magnitude –0.6 Mercury. An hour before sunrise, Venus is more than 25° high in the east, while Mercury is just 5° high, much closer to the horizon. Compare the two through a telescope: Venus is a whopping 35″ across, with only 32 percent of its face lit. Mercury is just 7″ across but shows off a 62-percent-lit face. The tiny planet sits nestled close to 5th-magnitude Chi (χ) Leonis, just 3′ northwest of this star early this morning.
Tuesday, September 26 The Moon passes 3° south of Saturn at 9 P.M. EDT, an event visible from most of the U.S., though how high or low the pair appears in the sky will depend on your location. They appear together in southern Aquarius, the Moon now a bright waxing gibbous that hangs between Skat to the east and Deneb Algedi in Capricornus to the west. North of the Moon is magnitude 0.5 Saturn, which will be best seen through binoculars or, better yet, a telescope, thanks to the bright background light thrown out by our satellite.
You may still be able to spot Titan, which lies 2.5′ due east of the planet tonight. Although several fainter moons cluster closer to the rings and disk, their 10th-magnitude glow may be lost amid the moonlight. If you can catch them, Tethys, Dione, and Rhea lie (in that order) in an east-west line, with Tethys to Saturn’s east and Rhea and Dione to the west. The planet’s disk is 19″ across, dwarfed by its 43″-wide ring system, which is tilted 8° to our line of sight, putting slightly more of Saturn’s northern regions than its southern pole on display.
The young, bright star Fomalhaut in Piscis Austrinus lies below the Saturn-Moon pair, much closer to the horizon for those in the U.S. This 1st-magnitude star is surrounded by a huge, planet-forming debris disk that was recently imaged in great detail by JWST.
Wednesday, September 27 The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point to Earth in its orbit, at 8:59 P.M. EDT. At that time, our satellite will sit 223,269 miles (359,317 kilometers) away.
With the Moon brightening in the sky — it’s nearly Full and may even look Full to the untrained eye — we’ll have to concentrate on brighter targets. Today, look north after dark to spot Cassiopeia the Queen, whose constellation often looks like an exaggerated W or M in the sky. We’re looking in the Queen’s far northwestern regions for M52, a 7th-magnitude open cluster of stars about 6° northwest of magnitude 2.3 Caph, also cataloged as Beta Cassiopeiae.
M52 houses some 200 stars, though not many of them are particularly bright. Through binoculars, the cluster will look more like a misty cloud, while a telescope will start to resolve its suns into individual points of light. The cluster spans about 13′ and lies some 5,000 light-years away, though the distance is not well constrained. Some observers note that it has a fan shape reminiscent of the letter V.
M52 is located just over half a degree northeast of the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635), though the latter requires a larger (8 inches or more) telescope to pick up. The Bubble’s low surface brightness may be hard to see with the Moon throwing out plenty of background light, so if you can’t spot it even in your large scope, make a note to come back during Luna’s waning phases to try to capture this delicate and diffuse structure of gas under darker conditions with better contrast.
Thursday, September 28 The Moon passes 1.4° south of Neptune at 1 P.M. EDT. Recall the ice giant is in Pisces and visible all night, from shortly after sunset to shortly before sunrise, though you’ll need binoculars or a telescope to pick it up and the bright Moon nearby will certainly complicate your ability to spot it. If you do want to try for the distant planet, check out Sunday’s entry for more details on how to find it.
Early risers can enjoy the tableau of well-known winter constellations rising above the horizon before dawn. Some two hours before sunrise, the sky is still quite dark and Canis Major with its bright nose, Sirius, stands in the southeast looking up toward its master, Orion the Hunter, who aims his bow at Taurus the Bull.
Sirius is the brightest star in the sky. If you drop your gaze southeast, you’ll be among the stars that make up the hindquarters of the Big Dog, which is where our target this morning lies: 145 Canis Majoris, also known as h3945 or the Winter Albireo.
What is the “regular” Albiero? This is a bright, beautiful double star in Cygnus the Swan. The pair is revered for its contrasting colors of yellow-orange and blue, which signify the stars’ different temperatures. Hotter stars appear blue-white, while cooler stars appear orange-red, with yellow stars falling in the middle of the temperature spectrum.
Located about 10° southeast of Sirius and 3.5° north-northeast of Wezen (Delta [δ] Cma), 145 Cma is another double star with stunning color contrast. The two suns lie just 27″ apart, challenging (but not impossible) in smaller binoculars but easy with larger ones or any small telescope. The brighter star is magnitude 5 and has a yellow hue, while the fainter companion is magnitude 5.9 but glows a much hotter blue.
Iapetus sits far west of Saturn early in September. But near the end of the month, the moon lies just 17″ south of the disk. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly
Friday, September 29 Full Moon occurs at 5:58 A.M. EDT. Also known as the Harvest Moon, this Full Moon is also a Super Moon, thanks to the phase occurring while our satellite is near perigee. It is the last Super Moon of the year, as the lunar phase and orbital period finally start to diverge enough that by next month the Full phase will no longer coincide closely enough with perigee to meet the definition for a Super Moon.
The Full Moon rises as the Sun sets and remains visible all night, dominating the sky with its bright light. Despite that light, you might want to try catching Saturn’s moon Iapetus as it sits near the ringed planet’s disk late tonight when it reaches superior conjunction. The two-faced moon is brightest (10th magnitude) at western elongation, then fades nearly two magnitudes by the time it makes it to eastern elongation. Around midnight EST (earlier in the night in western time zones), Iapetus lies just 17″ south of Saturn, halfway along its journey and roughly magnitude 11. It will likely be difficult to catch visually, but easier for astrophotographers and those with large scopes. Even if you can’t spot Iapetus, you may see slightly brighter Titan, still about 2.5′ east of the planet.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently imaged Supernova 1987A (also called SN 1987A), revealing a keyhole structure at its center. The supernova resides within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), about 168,000 light-years from Earth, and was first noticed when researchers saw a new source of light in the LMC created by the death of a massive star. (The star initially exploded in 165,000 B.C. but its light did not arrive at Earth until 1987.)
Supernovae and their remnants are also known as “pollinators of the universe” — these chaotic explosions spew elements like iron, calcium, carbon, and more, which are ultimately incorporated into future stars and planets. SN 1987A’s new portrait kicks off JWST’s observations of the renowned supernova. The findings provide clues into how a supernova’s development over time shapes its remnant.
Decades of portraiture
Since its appearance, SN 1987A has been a hotspot for study. In the last 36 years, scientists have continuously imaged and kept tabs on the brightening ring around the supernova. Its flashy light show and its proximity to Earth give astrophysicists a unique opportunity to understand the phases before, during, and after the death of a star. For example, images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope between 1994 and 2016 reveal that the dense ring of gas glows in optical light. This ring was present at least 20,000 years before the star died; when the star exploded, the energetic ultraviolet light it released excited the gas, creating a glowing effect observed for decades.
Observations taken by the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory have also revealed other features over the years. Between 1999 to 2013, data collected from Chandra found a brightening, expanding region of X-ray emission. In recent years, the ring has stopped brightening, suggesting that the explosion’s blast energy has moved from the initial ring into an area with less gas.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), and P. Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
New details emerge
The new JWST image, taken with the Near-infrared camera (NIRCam), reveals the remnant’s central structure. Its center is filled with clumpy gas and dust thrown out by the supernova explosion. In fact, the dust in that area is so dense that infrared light can’t penetrate it, which is why there appears to be a dark “hole” in the middle. JWST also found small, crescentlike structures in the central region. These are thought to be from outer layers of gas pushed out from the explosion, though their bright appearance may also be due to the angle at which we are viewing them.
JWST’s new photo also shows SN 1987A’s equatorial ring, which connects the two faint arms that create its Venn diagram or hourglass shape. The brighter spots within and beyond the ring are caused by shock waves smacking into the material as they expand.
Observers have been trying to uncover SN 1987A’s secrets for decades, but more remain — such as evidence of a black hole or a neutron star that should have formed in the blast’s aftermath. As JWST continues its mission, it will also continue to watch and note changes to the supernova remnant over time.
In roughly 5 billion years, the Sun will run out of energy and drastically alter the solar system. Oceans will be baked dry. Entire planets will be consumed. And long-icy worlds will finally enjoy their day in the Sun.
Our star is powered by nuclear fusion, and it turns hydrogen into helium in a process that converts mass into energy. Once the fuel supply is gone, the Sun will start growing dramatically. Its outer layers will expand until they engulf much of the solar system, as it becomes what astronomers call a red giant.
And what will happen to the planets once the Sun enters the red giant phase? The solar system’s denouement is still a subject of debate among scientists. Exactly how far the dying Sun will expand, and how conditions will change, aren’t yet clear. But a few things seem likely.
The slow death will kill off life on Earth, but it may also create habitable worlds in what’s currently the coldest reaches of the solar system.
Any humans left around might find refuge on Pluto and other distant dwarf planets out in the Kuiper Belt, a region past Neptune packed with icy space rocks. As our Sun expands, these worlds will suddenly find themselves with the conditions necessary for the evolution of life.
These are the “delayed gratification habitable worlds,” says planetary scientist Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute.
“Late in the life of the Sun — in the red giant phase — the Kuiper Belt will be a metaphorical Miami Beach,” Stern says.
Let’s take a quick jaunt through our solar system in the last days of the Sun.
The life cycle of the sun takes it from the life-giving star we know today into a swelling red giant and, eventually, a planetary nebula surrounding a tiny white dwarf.
ESO/S. Steinhöfel
Mercury
Throughout solar system history, the innermost planet has been baked by the Sun. But even today, Mercury still clings to some icy patches. As our star ages, it will vaporize those remaining volatiles before eventually vaporizing the entire planet in a slow-motion version of Star Wars’ Death Star.
Venus
Venus is sometimes called “Earth’s twin” because the neighboring worlds are so similar in size and composition. But Venus’ hellish surface shares little in common with Earth’s Goldilocks-perfect conditions. As the Sun expands, it will burn up Venus’ atmosphere. Then, it too will be consumed by the Sun.
Earth
While the Sun may have 5 billion years left before it runs out of fuel, life on Earth will likely be wiped out long before that happens. That’s because the Sun is actually already growing brighter.By some estimates, it could be as little as a billion years before the Sun’s radiation becomes too much for life on Earth to handle.
That might sound like a long time. But, in comparison, life has already existed on this planet for well over 3 billion years.
And, when the Sun does turn into a red giant, the Earth will also be vaporized —perhaps just a few million years after Mercury and Venus have been consumed. All the rocks and fossils and remains of the creatures that have lived here will be gobbled up by the Sun’s growing orb, wiping out any lingering trace of humanity’s existence on Earth.
But not all scientists agree with this interpretation. Some suspect the Sun will stop growing just before fully engulfing our planet. Other scientists have suggested schemes formoving Earth deeper into the solar system by slowly increasing its orbit. Thankfully, this debate is still purely academic for all of us alive today.
Mars
Even our young Sun’s radiation was too much for Mars to hold onto an atmosphere capable of protecting complex life. However, recent evidence has shown that Mars may still have water lurking just beneath its surface. Mars may escape the Sun’s actual reach — it’s at the borderline — but that water will likely all be gone by the time the red giant star takes over the inner solar system.
The gas giant planets
As our red giant Sun engulfs the inner planets, some of their material will likely get thrown deeper into the solar system, to be assimilated into the bodies of the gas giants.
Here, the ringed planet shows a side never visible from Earth. Cassini took 96 backlit photos for this mosaic on April 13, 2017. Because the sun shines through the rings, the thinnest parts glow brightest, and the thicker rings are dark.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Jan Regan)
However, the approaching boundary of our star will also vaporize Saturn’s beloved rings, which are made of ice. The same fate likely awaits today’s icy ocean worlds, like Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus, whose thick blankets of ice would be lost to the void.
The new habitable zone?
Once our Sun has become a red giant, Pluto and its cousins in the Kuiper Belt — plus Neptune’s moon Triton — may be the most valuable real estate in the solar system.
Today, these worlds hold abundant water ice and complex organic materials. Some of them could even hold oceans beneath their icy surfaces — or at least did in the distant past. But surface temperatures on dwarf planets like Pluto commonly sit at an inhospitable hundreds of degrees below freezing.
But by the time Earth is a cinder, the temperatures on Pluto will be similar to our own planet’s average temperatures today.
Pluto as imaged by the New Horizons mission. The distant, icy world could one day be a balmy refuge.
NASA/JHU-APL/SwRI
“When the Sun becomes a red giant, the temperatures on Pluto’s surface will be about the same as the average temperatures on Earth’s surface now,” Stern says. Inresearch published in the journal Astrobiology in 2003, he looked at the prospects of life in the outer solar system after the Sun enters its red giant phase.
Earth will be toast, but Pluto will be balmy and brimming with the same sorts of complex organic compounds that existed when life first evolved on our own planet. Stern says Pluto will likely have a thick atmosphere and a liquid-water surface. Collectively, the worlds — from cometlike space rocks to dwarf planets like Eris and Sedna — in this new habitable zone will have three times as much surface area as all four of the inner solar system planets combined.
This might seem like an academic discussion only relevant to our distant descendants — if they’re lucky enough to survive billions of years from now. However, as Stern points out, there are around 1 billion red giant stars in the Milky Way galaxy today. That’s a lot of places for living beings to evolve — and then perish as their stars consume them.
The most common features on the surfaces of most of the solar system’s rocky bodies are impact craters. Many measure hundreds of kilometers across and have remained relatively unchanged for several billion years. On Earth, however, the majority of ancient impact sites have disappeared due to plate tectonics and the erosive effects of wind, water, and ice. In fact, no impact structures from the first half of Earth’s history have yet been discovered.
To test the possibility that such craters could still be around, a team of researchers led by planetary scientist Matthew S. Huber of the University of Western Cape in South Africa decided to collect and analyze rock samples from a 2-billion-year-old impact site located southwest of Johannesburg in South Africa.
A Deep, Wide Basin
The Vredefort impact structure is the world’s largest known impact site, spanning 300 km across. It formed when an asteroid with a diameter of at least 20 km slammed into the bedrock. Unlike smaller impacts that create bowl-shaped indentations, the Vredefort impact formed a deep basin consisting of multiple terraces. The impact and resulting shockwave produced a vast array of vaporized, melted, and fractured rocks, many of which were buried under massive amounts of falling ejecta.
Since the impact, 10 km of erosion has scraped away much of the crater, leaving a stretch of low hills known as the Vredefort Dome, and some small amounts of the melt rocks that have been preserved in several dikes.
“We were walking on rocks that were once buried below the surface when the impact formed,” says Huber of a recent visit. The team extracted 11 rock samples along a 22 km transect from the center of the impact to the dome hills.
A Closer Look
In these rock samples, found at the Vredefort site, scientists look at crystalline structures caused by impacts to Earth’s surface. Credit: Matthew S. Huber, E. Kovaleva, A. S. P. Rae, N. Tisato, S. P. S. Gulick
After analyzing the minerals inside the rock samples, the team discovered that each had microscopic fractures and deformities in their crystalline structures due to the blast’s shock wave. In addition, two of the rock samples consisted of melted rocks that had not yet been eroded.
But when the team performed geophysical surveys to measure and compare the densities and porosities of the rock samples relative to deeper rock layers not affected by the impact, they found no differences. This is because the exposed rocks at Vredefort are from very deep in the impact structure where they were originally squeezed together by the ejecta from the impact that buried them. “It’s as if the rocks had healed and didn’t experience the impact,” says Huber.
By contrast, the similarly-sized Chicxulub impact structure left behind by the asteroid that struck the Yucatán Peninsula 66 million years ago — which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs — hasn’t been eroded at all. Hence, rocks close to the surface haven’t carried the weight of overlying layers and are still less dense and more porous than surrounding rocks, due to the impact.
Considering that most impact structures have been discovered inadvertently, and that analyzing mineralogical evidence for impacts is only performed when other indicators such as geophysical surveys show that an impact site could exist, the chances of discovering the remnants of very old impact craters is remote.
“The team makes a good point that it’s likely that much of the record of the Archean or older craters has been removed by erosion,” says Steven Jaret, a planetary geologist at the American Museum of Natural History and The City University of New York. Jaret was not involved in the current study.
An elongated impact crater 48 miles (78 kilometers) long and almost a mile deep, found on the martian surface. Credit:
ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
Defying the Odds
If geologists discovered an impact structure from the first half of Earth’s history, the rocks within it could help answer questions about what the early solar system was like, including Earth’s early history. For example, many craters on the Moon and Mars are believed to have formed during periods of more frequent and intense impacts known as the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB). These pulses are thought to have begun about 3.8 billion years ago, possibly caused by the scattering of asteroids by giant planets, most notably Jupiter. But planetary scientists still disagree over the role the LHB played. The discovery of older craters on Earth could help resolve lingering questions.
“Vredefort could have happened on the tail end of some versions of the LHB or perhaps it was one of relatively infrequent big impacts,” says Huber. “Right now, we just don’t know.”
Ancient craters could also provide insight into the processes that shaped Earth’s surface and mantle. Before plate tectonics, asteroid impacts would have been the dominant process that changed the surface. “Impacts might have even played a role in creating early continental crust,” says Jaret.
And although the chances that the remnants of ancient craters are still around isn’t likely, surprises could lie in the future. Jaret says that if such craters do exist, they might be in places that have experienced limited erosion or where they were buried by thick layers of sediments that wind, water, or ice would have had to work through before significant erosion could occur.
“There are lots of craters on Mars that were subsequently filled with sediment and re-exposed, so you never know,” says Jaret.
When 17 people were in orbit around the Earth all at the same time on May 30, 2023, it set a record. With NASA and other federal space agencies planning more manned missions and commercial companies bringing people to space, opportunities for human space travel are rapidly expanding.
However, traveling to space poses risks to the human body. Since NASA wants to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s, scientists need to find solutions for these hazards sooner rather than later.
As a kinesiologist who works with astronauts, I’ve spent years studying the effects space can have on the body and brain. I’m also involved in a NASA project that aims to mitigate the health hazards that participants of a future mission to Mars might face.
Space radiation
The Earth has a protective shield called a magnetosphere, which is the area of space around a planet that is controlled by its magnetic field. This shield filters out cosmic radiation. However, astronauts traveling farther than the International Space Station will face continuous exposure to this radiation – equivalent to between 150 and 6,000 chest X-rays.
This radiation can harm the nervous and cardiovascular systems including heart and arteries, leading to cardiovascular disease. In addition, it can make the blood-brain barrier leak. This can expose the brain to chemicals and proteins that are harmful to it – compounds that are safe in the blood but toxic to the brain. The blood-brain barrier keeps compounds flowing through your circulatory system out of your brain.
NASA is developing technology that can shield travelers on a Mars mission from radiation by building deflecting materials such as Kevlar and polyethylene into space vehicles and spacesuits. Certain diets and supplements such as enterade may also minimize the effects of radiation. Supplements like this, also used in cancer patients on Earth during radiation therapy, can alleviate gastrointestinal side effects of radiation exposure.
Gravitational changes
Astronauts have to exercise in space to minimize the muscle loss they’ll face after a long mission. Missions that go as far as Mars will have to make sure astronauts have supplements such as bisphosphonate, which is used to prevent bone breakdown in osteoporosis. These supplements should keep their muscles and bones in good condition over long periods of time spent without the effects of Earth’s gravity.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, pictured here, is wearing the Chibis lower body negative pressure suit, which may help counteract the negative effects of gravity-caused fluid shifts in the body. NASA
Microgravity also affects the nervous and circulatory systems. On Earth, your heart pumps blood upward, and specialized valves in your circulatory system keep bodily fluids from pooling at your feet. In the absence of gravity, fluids shift toward the head.
My work and that of others has shown that this results in an expansion of fluid-filled spaces in the middle of the brain. Having extra fluid in the skull and no gravity to “hold the brain down” causes the brain to sit higher in the skull, compressing the top of the brain against the inside of the skull.
These fluid shifts may contribute to spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome, a condition experienced by many astronauts that affects the structure and function of the eyes. The back of the eye can become flattened, and the nerves that carry visual information from the eye to the brain swell and bend. Astronauts can still see, though visual function may worsen for some. Though it hasn’t been well studied yet, case studies suggest this condition may persist even a few years after returning to Earth.
Scientists may be able to shift the fluids back toward the lower body using specialized “pants” that pull fluids back down toward the lower body like a vacuum. These pants could be used to redistribute the body’s fluids in a way that is more similar to what occurs on Earth.
Mental health and isolation
While space travel can damage the body, the isolating nature of space travel can also have profound effects on the mind.
Imagine having to live and work with the same small group of people, without being able to see your family or friends for months on end. To learn to manage extreme environments and maintain communication and leadership dynamics, astronauts first undergo team training on Earth.
Researchers are studying how to best monitor and support behavioral mental health under these extreme and isolating conditions.
While space travel comes with stressors and the potential for loneliness, astronauts describe experiencing an overview effect: a sense of awe and connectedness with all humankind. This often happens when viewing Earth from the International Space Station.
Earthrise, a famous image taken during an Apollo mission, shows the Earth from space. While seeing the Earth from afar, many astronauts report feeling an awed ‘overview effect.’ NASA
Learning how to support human health and physiology in space also has numerous benefits for life on Earth. For example, products that shield astronauts from space radiation and counter its harmful effects on our body can also treat cancer patients receiving radiation treatments.
Understanding how to protect our bones and muscles in microgravity could improve how doctors treat the frailty that often accompanies aging. And space exploration has led to many technological achievements advancing water purification and satellite systems.
Researchers like me who study ways to preserve astronaut health expect our work will benefit people both in space and here at home.
The New Horizons spacecraft is perhaps most famous for revealing the icy world Pluto in 2015, flying by the distant dwarf planet and sending back stunning imagery of a dynamic world. But the spacecraft’s mission was far from over. This week, New Horizons and the Hubble Space Telescope are teaming up to observe Uranus and Neptune, the two least-visited worlds in our solar system. And NASA wants your help with the task: The agency is asking amateur astronomers to submit their own observations of these planets this week and next week to help with this historic undertaking to better understand the distant worlds.
Uranus and Neptune have been visited — briefly — by spacecraft only once, when Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in January 1986 and Neptune in August 1989. Since then, our observations of the worlds have been limited to ground-based and Earth-orbiting telescopes — a challenging task, given their vast distances of 1.67 billion miles (Uranus; 2.7 billion kilometers) and 2.7 billion miles (Neptune; 4.3 billion km) from Earth.
New views
New Horizons can provide something unique: a backward-looking view of the planets from its vantage point deep in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune, where Pluto and many other icy worlds reside. So, while Hubble will be looking at the planets’ illuminated sides as the they appear with Earth between them and the Sun, New Horizons will snap photos of their dark “backsides” with the Sun in the distance, as the planets sit between our star and the spacecraft. The geometry works out so well because Neptune reaches opposition today (Sept. 19), while Uranus is close, reaching opposition in two months, on Nov. 13.
In a press release, NASA highlights the need for amateur observations, which can track characteristics such as bright features in the ice giants’ atmospheres. With New Horizons and Hubble concentrating on seeing the finest details possible, the more global views provided by amateur scopes remain vital to painting a complete picture of the planets. Additionally, observing time with New Horizons and Hubble is extremely limited. Amateurs can continue recording data long after the two spacecraft, further improving our understanding of current conditions.
How to contribute
So, what does the team need from amateur observers? If you’ve got a good-sized scope and photography capabilities, NASA is asking you to post your images of Uranus and Neptune taken this week and next week online, either on X (formerly known as Twitter) or Facebook, and use the hashtag #NHIceGiants. Make sure to include information such as the date, time, and filter bandpass used to take each image.
Alternatively, those who don’t use social media can submit their images here. Similarly, make sure to include date, time, and bandpass details for each image, either in the filename or as a “readme” file in either text or Excel format.
Where and when to view the ice giants
Uranus and Neptune are currently visible most of the night, with the former rising and setting later than the latter.
Uranus lies in Aries, between Jupiter and the Pleiades. Credit: Alison Klesman (via TheSkyX)
Let’s start with Uranus, now glowing at magnitude 5.7 in the constellation Aries. Rising around 9 P.M. local daylight time, you’ll want to give it a few hours to climb higher above the horizon. Around local midnight, Uranus stands some 30° high. You can use two brighter objects — Jupiter to its west and the Pleiades (M45) to its east — to locate it. Uranus sits just south of a point roughly halfway between these targets, some 7.8° east of Jupiter (also in Aries) and 8.5° west-southwest of the Pleiades (in Taurus). Its tiny, blue-gray disk appears just 4″ across. You can follow Uranus all night long and into the predawn hours, as it sets well after sunrise.
You’ll find Neptune in Pisces, near the star 20 Piscium. Credit: Alison Klesman (via TheSkyX)
Neptune, meanwhile, rises around sunset and sets at sunrise because it’s at opposition. You can start observing it before Uranus but again, consider waiting a few hours after sunset so it can climb up out of the thicker, more turbulent air near the horizon. At magnitude 7.7, Neptune can’t be seen with the naked eye under any conditions. You’ll find it in southwestern Pisces, beneath the Circlet asterism and some 4.7° south-southeast of magnitude 4.5 Lambda (λ) Piscium. It also currently lies about ¼° west of magnitude 5.5 20 Piscium and is traveling slowly southwestward over the next week. The planet’s bluish disk is even smaller, thanks to its greater distance, and appears 2″ wide.
Observing the solar system’s most distant planets is challenging but a worthy endeavor to undertake. You can find additional details on viewing these planets this month either on our Sky This Month page or on the New Horizons’ team’s page. The latter page also has details about the New Horizons and Hubble observations of each planet.
Founded in 1843, the Cincinnati Observatory is dedicated to both preserving the history of astronomy in the U.S. and the inspiration of future generations of skywatchers, astronomers, and scientists. Now, the observatory is seeking a new astronomer to serve as a resident expert and science communicator.
The position is responsible for leading observatory programming, informal science education, and engaging the community in person and through social media. The observatory is looking for someone who has studied astronomy and enjoys communicating science to the public in a variety of settings. The new hire will also work with the observatory’s executive director and other staff and partners to develop and maintain professional relationships and collaborations.
Known as the birthplace of American astronomy, the Cincinnati Observatory was the western hemisphere’s first public observatory. Today, the facility maintains one of the world’s oldest working telescopes as an educational tool to introduce visitors to the wonders of the universe.
You can find the full job description, as well as details to contact the observatory’s executive director by November 1 about the position, on the observatory’s website.
On Sept. 14, 2023, NASA announced plans to take a more prominent role in investigating unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) — better known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. The agency will appoint a team of experts to collect data and develop scientific explanations of UAP. The team will be led by Mark McInerney, who had previously been NASA’s liaison to the Department of Defense on UAP.
The action comes in response to a report, also released Sept. 14, that was authored by an independent panel that NASA convened. The report’s purpose was not to conduct a comprehensive review or analysis of UAP, but to issue recommendations to NASA on how the agency can leverage its expertise to shed light on the nature of UAP with scientific methods.
At a press conference, members of the independent panel were adamant that they found no evidence for an extraterrestrial origin of UAP. Many sightings of UAP, they noted, have mundane explanations, like weather balloons or camera artifacts. However, there are still many incidents involving objects that remain unidentified due to a lack of data.
At the press conference, NASA announced it would appoint a director of UAP research to lead the team, but didn’t announce who would fill the role. The agency issued an updated statement later that day naming McInerney. NASA officials told reporters that the reason behind the initial secrecy was that some members of the independent panel had received threats, according to Politico.
“NASA’s new Director of UAP Research will develop and oversee the implementation of NASA’s scientific vision for UAP research, including using NASA’s expertise to work with other agencies to analyze UAP and applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to search the skies for anomalies. NASA will do this work transparently for the benefit of humanity,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement.
From sensationalism to science
UAP are observations of events in the sky that can’t be explained or identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena. Interest in UAP has resurged in recent years following the release of videos taken from U.S. military planes and ships. Unclassified footage from infrared cameras aboard Navy F/A-18 fighter jets released by the Pentagon in 2020 appears to show tic-tac shaped objects that pilots say could accelerate at rates beyond the capabilities of known aircraft. (Others have pointed out that a combination of image artifacts and optical illusions can cause conventional aircraft to appear to behave similarly.) And in July of this year at a congressional hearing, former Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch alleged in testimony that the U.S. government is withholding information regarding UAP.
NASA aims to improve the quality of UAP data to move the scientific understanding of them forward. “We want to shift the conversation on UAPs from sensationalism,” Nelson said during the press briefing.
To do so, it will implement recommendations from the independent report, which was authored by 16 experts with diverse backgrounds including astronomy, planetary science, space exploration, artificial intelligence, aerospace safety, and journalism. When NASA announced the panel last June, it stated that understanding UAP is of interest to national security and aviation safety.
Over the past year, the team met periodically to identify untapped sources of UAP data and develop a roadmap for NASA to use scientific tools to analyze them. In crafting their recommendations, the team relied on openly available data, including unclassified data from civilian government agencies and data from commercial sources. “Using unclassified data was essential for our team’s fact-finding, open-communication collaboration, and for upholding scientific rigor to produce this report for NASA,” said David Spergel, a theoretical astrophysicist at Princeton University and chair of the UAP independent study team, in a statement. “The team wrote the report in conjunction with NASA’s pillars of transparency, openness, and scientific integrity to help the agency shed light on the nature of future UAP incidents.”
Leveraging expertise
One focus of the report was on NASA’s expertise in calibrating sensors. Many UAP have only been documented with grainy footage from sensors not designed for scientific observations. Techniques that NASA has developed for handling data from sensors in telescopes and Earth-observing satellites could be useful in studying UAP. “We found that NASA can help the whole-of-government UAP effort through systematic data calibration, multiple measurements, and ensuring thorough sensor metadata to create a dataset that is both reliable and extensive for future UAP study,” said Spergel.
The report highlighted the importance of gathering UAP data systematically and using sophisticated analysis techniques like artificial intelligence and machine learning. It also specifically recommended that NASA use its Earth-science satellites to study the local conditions in which UAP appear. This could help researchers identify any environmental factors that produce UAP sightings.
As for collecting data on UAP themselves, the panel urged NASA to consider developing a crowdsourcing platform, such as a smartphone app, that would allow users to submit UAP reports. The panel also recommended that NASA leverage its activities in aeronautics — the first “A” in “NASA”. The agency already runs an FAA-funded accident reporting system for commercial pilots that could also be used to collect reports of UAP. And NASA’s extensive research in air traffic management could be extended to develop systems that detect UAP in real time and reroute aircraft to ensure their safety.
A striking image made with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveals intricate details of Herbig-Haro 211 (HH 211), the gaseous outflow surrounding a very young star in its earliest stages. The object is about 1,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Perseus. The image shows a gaseous outflow from a young sun that is no more than a few tens of thousands of years old. The star has a mass a mere 8 percent that of the Sun. The gas cloud that makes up HH 211 intrigues astronomers because it provides a look at star system that is still in the latter stages of its formation.
Herbig-Haro objects form when stellar winds or gas jets spew from newborn stars and collide with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. In the new image, a series of bow shocks at lower left and upper right are visible in pinkish-orange colors. Jets of gas expelled by the young, intense star are visible as they slam into the surrounding interstellar medium and light up outflows, according to a NASA press release.
JWST’s ability to use infrared imaging reveals these features in unprecedented detail and is a powerful tool with which to study newborn stars and their outflows. The jet in the image travels at supersonic speeds through space.
Curiously, the protostar captured by JWST may be an unresolved binary star. Scientists have found that the protostar’s outflow is slower than those of other evolved protostars with similar types of flows. They have calculated velocities for the innermost outflow structures visible in the image at 48 to 60 miles (77 to 97 kilometers) per second. Researchers also found that the outflows from younger stars like the one in HH 211 primarily consist of molecules because low shock wave velocities are not powerful enough to disassociate the molecules into atoms and ions.
As a protostar rotates, it generates a powerful magnetic field. The magnetic field also fuels a robust protostellar wind, creating a large outflow of particles into space. Eventually, the protostar will become a main sequence star when its core temperature exceeds 18 million degrees Fahrenheit (10 million degrees Celsius). How long the process takes depends on the mass of the protostar. The more massive the star, the faster it will commence hydrogen fusion. For a star like the Sun, it takes about 50 million years, but the ignition of a high-mass protostar may take only a million years. Stars less massive than the Sun can take over a hundred million years to transform.
