Space News Updatespaceodyssey.dmns.org/media/57199/snu_04292014.pdf · August 2012. She has taken over 143,000 images. The sedimentary foothills of Mount Sharp, which reaches 3.4

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Space News Update — April 29, 2014 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1:

Curiosity Reaches Out to Scrutinize Next Martian Drill Target at Mount

Remarkable

Story 2:

What Steps Are Needed To Find More Earths?

Story 3:

NASA Seeks External Concepts for Mission to Oceanic Jovian Moon

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

NASA-TV Highlights

Space Calendar

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1.0 Curiosity Reaches Out to Scrutinize Next Martian Drill Target at Mount Remarkable

To Drill or not to Drill? That’s the momentous question posed by the international team of scientists and engineers who commanded NASA’s SUV sized Curiosity rover to reach out with her high tech robotic

arm this weekend (Apr 25-27) and gather critical science measurements for high powered scrutiny of an outcrop on a Martian butte named Mount Remarkable. Via a combination of laser shots, images, brushings and spectrometry the team is pondering new data streaming back daily across hundreds of millions of kilometers of interplanetary space to Earth to determine whether to bore into a sandstone slab being evaluated as the target for the missions third drilling campaign. The team deployed the arm this weekend onto a rock target called “Windjana,” after a gorge in Western Australia. After confirming that the 1 ton robot was in a stable position, the team commanded study observations on Saturday, Sol 612, using the APXS spectrometer and MAHLI camera on the terminus of the arm’s turret. “The observation will document its chemical composition and morphology before drilling,” says science team member Ken Herkenoff in a mission update. She also brushed off the potential ‘Windjana’ drill target with the wire-bristle Dust Removal Tool (DRT) to clear away obscuring Red Planet dirt and dust hindering the data collections. The rover is also conducting continuing remote sensing observations with the ChemCam, Mastcam and Navcam cameras mounted on the Mast. Today, April 27, Sol 613, “MAHLI will take another selfie of the rover” according to Herkenhoff.

In early April, the six wheeled rover pulled into a scientifically enticing science destination known as “The Kimberley Waypoint” in hopes of carrying out the next drilling operation into alien Martian terrain in search of further clues about ancient Martian environments that may have been favorable for life. “We are officially in ‘The Kimberley’ now,” Curiosity Principal Investigator John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, told me at that time. Since arriving in the Kimberley region, Curiosity’s earth bound handlers have been maneuvering the 1 ton robot around to thoroughly survey destination “Kimberley” in choosing the best drill site. Why was Kimberley chosen as a science destination ? “The Kimberley” has interesting, complex stratigraphy,” Grotzinger told me. If Windjana meets the required criteria, Curiosity will bore into the sandstone rock, and then pulverize and filter it prior to delivery to the two onboard miniaturized chemistry labs – SAM and CheMin. Windjana would be the first sandstone drill target, if selected. The first two drill locations at ‘John Klein’ and ‘Cumberland’ inside Yellowknife Bay were mudstone.

Curiosity departed the ancient lakebed at the Yellowknife Bay region in July 2013 where she discovered a habitable zone with the key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that could have supported microbial life billions of years ago – and thereby accomplished the primary goal of the mission. “We want to learn more about the wet process that turned sand deposits into sandstone here,” said Grotzinger, in a NASA statement. “What was the composition of the fluids that bound the grains together? That aqueous chemistry is part of the habitability story we’re investigating.” “Understanding why some sandstones in the area are harder than others also could help explain major shapes of the landscape where Curiosity is working inside Gale Crater. Erosion-resistant sandstone forms a capping layer of mesas and buttes. It could even hold hints

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about why Gale Crater has a large layered mountain, Mount Sharp, at its center,” NASA elaborated in the statement.

To date, Curiosity’s odometer totals 3.8 miles (6.1 kilometers) since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. She has taken over 143,000 images. The sedimentary foothills of Mount Sharp, which reaches 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the Martian sky, is the 1 ton robots ultimate destination inside Gale Crater because it holds caches of water altered minerals. Such minerals could possibly indicate locations that sustained potential Martian life forms, past or present, if they ever existed. Curiosity has some 4 kilometers to go to reach the base of Mount Sharp sometime later this year.

Source: Universe Today Return to Contents

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2. What Steps Are Needed To Find More Earths?

It wasn’t so long ago that we found out there is an Earth-sized planet in a habitable zone of a star. But how many others are out there, and do we know if planets like this are truly habitable? “Looking towards the future, what we really want to do eventually is transform our knowledge from planets in the habitable zone to [characterizing] planetary environments,” said Natalie Batalha, a co-investigator on NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, in a webcast presentation today (April 28). This means that astronomers will be able to, from a distance, look at “biosignatures” of life in the atmosphere. What a biosignature would be is still being characterized, but it could be something like an unusually high proportion of oxygen — as long as abiotic processes are not accounted for, of course. Batalha identified these parameters for finding other Earths in a presentation at the “Habitable Worlds Across Time and Space” conference presented by the Space Telescope Science Institute:

- The telescope must be sensitive to an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of a G, K or M-type star (which are stars that are like the sun);

- A uniform and reliable detection catalog with well-understood sizes, orbital periods and insolation fluxes (energy received from the sun);

- Knowledge of Kepler’s detection efficiency and the planetary catalog’s reliability;

What would also be helpful to planetary scientists is learning more about how a planet forms in the habitable region of its star. In a presentation at the same conference, the University of Toronto’s Diana Valencia (an astrophysicist) pointed out there is no single predictor for how large a planet will get. It depends on how close a planetesimal disc is to its star, the rate of accretion in the area and dust opacity, among other factors. She also gave a brief overview of processes that demonstrate how hard it is to predict habitability. Earth had at least two atmospheres in its past, presentation slides said, with the first atmosphere lost and the second built from volcanism and impacts. Valencia also pointed to complexities involving the Earth’s mantle and plate tectonics. The University of Puerto Rico keeps a list of potentially habitable planets on its website, which as of this writing stands at 21.

Universe Today Return to Contents

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3. NASA Seeks External Concepts for Mission to Oceanic Jovian Moon

NASA has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to science and engineering communities for ideas for a mission to Europa that could address fundamental questions of the enigmatic moon and the search for life beyond Earth. The RFI's focus is for concepts for a mission to Europa that costs less than $1 billion, excluding the launch vehicle that can meet as many of the science priorities as possible recommended by the National Research Council's 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey for the study of Europa. "This is an opportunity to hear from those creative teams that have ideas on how we can achieve the most science at minimum cost," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "Europa is one of the most interesting sites in our solar system in the search for life beyond Earth. The drive to explore Europa has stimulated not only scientific interest but also the ingenuity of engineers and scientists with innovative concepts." NASA has studied a variety of mission designs and concepts in previous years and currently is funding the development of technologies that will be needed for the science instruments for a Europa mission. Congress appropriated $80 million for this work in Fiscal Year 2014, and the Fiscal Year 2015 budget proposal requests an additional $15 million. Previous scientific findings point to the existence of a liquid water ocean located under the moon's icy crust. This ocean covers Europa entirely and contains more liquid water than all of Earth's oceans combined. The Decadal Survey deemed a mission to the Jupiter moon as among the highest priority scientific pursuits for NASA. It lists five key science objectives in priority order that are necessary to improve our understanding of this potentially habitable moon. The mission will need to: • Characterize the extent of the ocean and its relation to the deeper interior • Characterize the ice shell and any subsurface water, including their heterogeneity, and the nature of surface-ice-ocean exchange • Determine global surface, compositions and chemistry, especially as related to habitability • Understand the formation of surface features, including sites of recent or current activity, identify and characterize candidate sites for future detailed exploration • Understand Europa's space environment and interaction with the magnetosphere.

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Although Europa and Jupiter's other moons have been visited by other spacecraft, they were each limited to a single distant flyby of these satellites. NASA's Galileo spacecraft, launched in 1989 by the space shuttle, was the only mission to make repeated visits to Europa, passing close by the moon fewer than a dozen times. In December 2013, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope observed water vapor above the moon's frigid south polar region. This provided the first strong evidence of water plumes erupting off the moon's surface, although researchers are still working to verify the existence of these plumes. Any mission to Europa must take into account the harsh radiation environment that would require unique protection of the spacecraft and instruments. In addition, spacecraft must meet planetary protection equirements intended to protect Europa's potentially habitable ocean. These requirements are very strict and involve ensuring that a viable Earth organism is not introduced into the Europa Ocean. The RFI is not a request for proposal or formal procurement and therefore is not a solicitation or commitment by the government. Deadline to submit the mission concepts is May 30.

NASA JPL Return to Contents

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The Night Sky

Tuesday, April 29 New Moon (exact at 2:14 a.m. on this date EDT). A partial eclipse of the Sun occurs for Australia, and the eclipse is annular on the horizon for a bit of Antarctica. Map and details.The thin waxing crescent returns to the evening sky, passing through Taurus. Wednesday, April 30 Can you see the hairline Moon yet in the west in twilight? It's about a fist-width to the lower right of Aldebaran for North American skywatchers. Binoculars will help. How about the departing Pleiades? Thursday, May 1 Look for Aldebaran now below the waxing crescent Moon in twilight. Farther to the Moon's left, Orion is sinking away. Friday, May 2 How soon after sunset can you see the first stars and planets coming out? The brightest is Jupiter. Look for it high in the west, almost two fist-widths at arm's length above or upper left of the Moon. The second brightest is Sirius, sinking in the southwest. Saturday, May 3 The waxing crescent Moon shines below Jupiter in the west at dusk. Above Jupiter are Pollux and Castor.

Source: Sky 2& Telescope Return to Contents

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ISS Sighting Opportunities For Denver:

Date Visible Max Height Appears Disappears No Sighting Opportunities

Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Daylight Time)

April 29, Tuesday

10:20 a.m. - ISS Expedition 39 In-Flight Event for “Destination Station” in Indianapolis, IN - JSC (All

Channels)

12:30 - 3 p.m. - Live coverage of NASA Exploration Forum: The Human Path to Mar – HQ (All Channels)

May

May 2, Friday

12:30 p.m. - ISS Expedition 39 In-Flight Program for a Music Day Event with the Digital Learning Network

(in-flight interview with ISS Commander Koichi Wakata for the event occurs at 12:55 p.m. EDT) - JSC (All

Channels) Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website. Return to Contents

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Space Calendar

Apr 29 - [Apr 22] Annular Solar Eclipse Apr 29 - Comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy) Closest Approach To Earth (1.464 AU) Apr 29 - Comet 274P/Tombaugh-Tenagra At Opposition (2.730 AU) Apr 29 - Comet C/2013 G3 (PANSTARRS) At Opposition (3.494 AU) Apr 29 - Comet 198P/ODAS At Opposition (3.705 AU)

Apr 29 - [Apr 23] Comet 229P/LINEAR At Opposition (4.327 AU) Apr 29 - Comet C/2013 G9 (Tenagra) At Opposition (4.671 AU)

Apr 29 - [Apr 25] Asteroid 2014 HV2 Near-Earth Flyby (0.003 AU)

Apr 29 - [Apr 26] Asteroid 2014 HE5 Near-Earth Flyby (0.025 AU) Apr 29 - Asteroid 2013 JX28 Near-Earth Flyby (0.084 AU) Apr 29 - Asteroid 388945 (2008 TZ3) Near-Earth Flyby (0.089 AU) Apr 30 - KazEOSat 2 (DZZ-HR) Vega Launch Apr 30 - Comet P/2014 E1 (Larson) Closest Approach To Earth (1.143 AU) Apr 30 - Asteroid 2014 FR52 Near-Earth Flyby (0.043 AU) Apr 30 - Asteroid 2044 Wirt Closest Approach To Earth (1.594 AU) May 01 - 10th Anniversary (2004), Genesis, Earth Flyby May 01 - 65th Anniversary (1949), Gerard Kuiper's Discovery of Neptune Moon Nereid May 02 - Comet C/2013 P2 (PANSTARRS) Closest Approach To Earth (2.273 AU) May 02 - Asteroid 101955 Bennu Closest Approach To Earth (1.635 AU) May 02 - Asteroid 6336 Dodo Closest Approach To Earth (1.697 AU) May 02 - Asteroid 2101 Adonis Closest Approach To Earth (2.263 AU) May 03 - Asteroid 2 Pallas Occults 2UCAC 35935783 (11.9 Magnitude Star) May 03 - Asteroid 4034 Vishnu Closest Approach To Earth (0.486 AU) May 03 - Asteroid 9957 Rafaellosanti Closest Approach To Earth (1.342 AU)

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

Pair of supermassive black holes in an ordinary galaxy

A pair of supermassive black holes in orbit around one another have been discovered by an international research team including Stefanie Komossa from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. This is the first time such a pair could be found in an ordinary galaxy. They were discovered because they ripped apart a star when ESA's space observatory XMM-Newton happened to be looking in their direction. The findings are published in the May 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal, and appeared online today at the astrophysics preprint server. Most massive galaxies in the universe are thought to harbor at least one supermassive black hole at their center. Two supermassive black holes are the smoking gun that the galaxy has merged with another. Thus, finding binary supermassive black holes can tell astronomers about how galaxies evolved into their present-day shapes and sizes. To date, only a few candidates for close binary supermassive black holes have been found. All are in active galaxies where they are constantly ripping gas clouds apart, in the prelude to crushing them out of existence. In the process of destruction, the gas is heated so much that it shines at many wavelengths, including X-rays. This gives the galaxy an unusually bright center, and leads to it being called active. The new discovery, reported by Fukun Liu from Peking University in China, and colleagues, is important because it is the first to be found in a galaxy that is not active. "There might be a whole population of quiescent galaxies that host binary black holes in their centers," says co-author Stefanie Komossa, Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany. But finding them is a difficult task because in quiescent galaxies, there are no gas clouds feeding the black holes, and so the cores of these galaxies are truly dark. The only hope that the astronomers have is to be looking in the right direction at the moment one of the black holes goes to work, and rips a star to pieces. Such an occurrence is called a 'tidal disruption event.' As the star is pulled apart by the gravity of the black hole, it gives out a flare of X-rays. In an active galaxy, the black hole is continuously fed by gas clouds. In a quiescent galaxy, the black hole is fed by tidal disruption events that occur sporadically and are impossible to predict. So, to increase the chances of catching such an event, researchers use ESA's X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton, in a novel way.

Usually, the observatory collects data from designated targets, one at a time. Once it completes an observation, it slews to the next. The trick is that during this movement, XMM-Newton keeps the instruments turned on and recording. Effectively this surveys the sky in a random pattern, producing data that can be

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analyzed for unknown or unexpected sources of X-rays. On 10 June 2010, a tidal disruption event was spotted by XMM-Newton in galaxy SDSS J120136.02+300305.5, approximately 2 billion light-years away. Komossa and her colleagues were scanning the data for such events and scheduled follow-up observations just days later with XMM-Newton and NASA's Swift satellite. The galaxy was still spilling X-rays into space. It looked exactly like a tidal disruption event caused by a supermassive black hole but as they tracked the slowly fading emission day after day something strange happened. The X-rays fell below detectable levels between days 27 and 48 after the discovery. Then they re-appeared and continued to follow a more expected fading rate, as if nothing had happened. Now, thanks to Fukun Liu, this behavior can be explained. "This is exactly what you would expect from a pair of supermassive black holes orbiting one another," says Liu. Liu had been working on models of black hole binary systems that predicted a sudden plunge to darkness and then the recovery because the gravity of one of the black holes disrupted the flow of gas onto the other, temporarily depriving it of fuel to fire the X-ray flare. He found that two possible configurations were possible to reproduce the observations of J120136.

In the first, the primary black hole contained 10 million solar masses and was orbited by a black hole of about a million solar masses in an elliptical orbit. In the second solution, the primary black hole was about a million solar masses in a circular orbit. In both cases, the separation between the black holes was relatively small: 0.6 milliparsec, or about 2 thousandths of a light-year. This is about the width of our solar system. Being this close, the fate of this newly discovered black hole pair is sealed. They will radiate their orbital energy away, gradually spiraling together, until in about two million years time they will merge into a single black hole.

Now that astronomers have found this first candidate for a binary black hole in a quiescent galaxy, the search is inevitably on for more. XMM-Newton will continue its slew survey. This detection will also spur interest in a network of telescopes that search the whole sky for tidal disruption events. "Once we have detected thousands of tidal disruption events, we can begin to extract reliable statistics about the rate at which galaxies merge," says Stefanie Komossa. When binary black holes merge, they are predicted to release a massive burst of energy into the universe but not mostly in X-rays. "The final merger is expected to be the strongest source of gravitational waves in the universe," states Fukun Liu. "The innovative use of XMM-Newton's slew observations made the detection of this binary supermassive black hole system possible," concludes Norbert Schartel, ESA's XMM-Newton Project Scientist. "This demonstrates the important role that long-lasting space observatories have in detecting such rare events that can potentially open new areas in astronomy."

Spaceflight Now Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

SuitSat-1: A Spacesuit Floats Free`

Image Credit: ISS Expedition 12 Crew, NASA

Explanation: A spacesuit floated away from the International Space Station eight years ago, but no

investigation was conducted. Everyone knew that it was pushed by the space station crew. Dubbed Suitsat-1,

the unneeded Russian Orlan spacesuit filled mostly with old clothes was fitted with a faint radio transmitter and

released to orbit the Earth. The suit circled the Earth twice before its radio signal became unexpectedly weak.

Suitsat-1 continued to orbit every 90 minutes until it burned up in the Earth's atmosphere after a few weeks.

Pictured above, the lifeless spacesuit was photographed in 2006 just as it drifted away from space station.

Source: APOD Return to Contents