ATLAS observes light scattering off light

CERN - ATLAS Experiment logo.

19 March, 2019

The ATLAS Collaboration has reported the observation of light-by-light scattering with a significance beyond eight standard deviations 

Image above: An ATLAS event with energy deposits of two photons in the electromagnetic calorimeter (green) on opposite sides and no other activity in the detector, a clean signature of light-by-light scattering. The Feynman diagram of this process is also shown (Image: CERN).

Light-by-light scattering is a very rare phenomenon in which two photons – particles of light – interact, producing again a pair of photons. This process was among the earliest predictions of quantum electrodynamics (QED), the quantum theory of electromagnetism, and is forbidden in classical physics (such as Maxwell’s theory of electrodynamics).

Direct evidence for light-by-light scattering at high energy had proven elusive for decades, until the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) began its second data-taking period (Run 2). Collisions of lead ions in the LHC provide a uniquely clean environment to study light-by-light scattering. The bunches of lead ions that are accelerated to very high energy are surrounded by an enormous flux of photons. When two lead ions pass close by each other at the centre of the ATLAS detector, but with a distance greater than twice the lead-ion radius, those photons can still interact and scatter off one another without any further interaction between the lead ions, as the reach of the (much stronger) strong force is bound to the radius of a single proton. These interactions are known as ultra-peripheral collisions.

Yesterday, at the Rencontres de Moriond conference (La Thuile, Italy), the ATLAS collaboration reported the observation of light-by-light scattering with a significance of 8.2 standard deviations. The result uses data from the most recent heavy-ion operation of the LHC, which took place in November 2018. This new measurement opens the door to further study the light-by-light scattering process, which is not only interesting in itself as a manifestation of an extremely rare QED phenomenon, but may be sensitive to contributions from particles beyond the Standard Model. It allows for a new generation of searches for hypothetical light and neutral particles.

Read more on the ATLAS website: https://atlas.cern/updates/physics-briefing/atlas-observes-light-scattering-light

Note:

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 22 Member States.

Related links:

Large Hadron Collider (LHC): https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider

ATLAS detector: https://home.cern/science/experiments/atlas

Rencontres de Moriond: http://moriond.in2p3.fr/2019/EW/

Observation of light-by-light scattering: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/2667214

For more information about European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Visit: https://home.cern/

Image (mentioned), Text, Credit: European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Human Research and Spacewalk Computer Training on Orbital Lab

ISS - Expedition 59 Mission patch.

March 19, 2019

The Expedition 59 crew continued gearing up for Friday’s spacewalk amid a variety of human research activities today. Meanwhile, the three newest International Space Station crewmembers found time to get up to speed on lab systems and life in space.

Friday’s spacewalkers will be NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nick Hague. The duo started the day getting tools ready and using 3-D computer software to review spacewalk procedures and robotics maneuvers. Flight Engineers David Saint-Jacques and Christina Koch joined McClain and Hague at the end of the day for an hour-long conference with spacewalk experts in Mission Control.

Image above: NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Anne McClain and Christina Koch (right) work on U.S. spacesuit maintenance in the Quest airlock of the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA.

The spacewalkers will work for about six hours on the Port-4 truss structure swapping batteries and installing adapter plates. Friday’s spacewalk to upgrade the station’s power storage capacity begins at 8:05 a.m. EDT. NASA TV’s live spacewalk coverage begins at 6:30 a.m.

Life science continued full-speed ahead today despite the spacewalk preparations and a new crew getting used to microgravity. Hague, Koch and Saint-Jacques drew their blood samples throughout Tuesday and stowed them in science freezers for later analysis.

Image above: Sunrise over Gulf of Bengal, Suyuz MS-12 illuminated on the dark sky, seen by EarthCam on ISS, speed: 27'612 Km/h, altitude: 406,68 Km, image captured by Roland Berga (on Earth in Switzerland) from International Space Station (ISS) using ISS-HD Live application with EarthCam's from ISS on March 19, 2019 at 23:08 UTC. Image Credits: Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Koch also spent a couple of hours in the Columbus lab module on the Vection study exploring how microgravity affects her perception. Saint-Jacques prepared Marrow experiment gear for return on an upcoming SpaceX Dragon cargo mission.

Flight Engineers Alexey Ovchinin, Hague and Koch spent each about an hour familiarizing themselves with station facilities today. The new trio will orbit Earth for at least six-and-a-half months.

Related links:

Expedition 59: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition59/index.html

Port-4 truss structure: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/truss-structure

Life science: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

Columbus lab module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/europe-columbus-laboratory

Vection: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7484

Marrow: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1673

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA’s Fermi Satellite Clocks ‘Cannonball’ Pulsar Speeding Through Space

NASA - Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope logo.

March 19, 2019

Astronomers found a pulsar hurtling through space at nearly 2.5 million miles an hour — so fast it could travel the distance between Earth and the Moon in just 6 minutes. The discovery was made using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA).

Pulsars are superdense, rapidly spinning neutron stars left behind when a massive star explodes. This one, dubbed PSR J0002+6216 (J0002 for short), sports a radio-emitting tail pointing directly toward the expanding debris of a recent supernova explosion.

“Thanks to its narrow dart-like tail and a fortuitous viewing angle, we can trace this pulsar straight back to its birthplace,” said Frank Schinzel, a scientist at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Socorro, New Mexico. “Further study of this object will help us better understand how these explosions are able to ‘kick’ neutron stars to such high speed.”

NASA's Fermi Satellite Clocks a "Cannonball" Pulsar

Video above: New radio observations combined with 10 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have revealed a runaway pulsar that escaped the blast wave of the supernova that formed it. Image Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Schinzel, together with his colleagues Matthew Kerr at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, and NRAO scientists Dale Frail, Urvashi Rau and Sanjay Bhatnagar presented the discovery at the High Energy Astrophysics Division meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Monterey, California. A paper describing the team’s results has been submitted for publication in a future edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Pulsar J0002 was discovered in 2017 by a citizen-science project called Einstein@Home, which uses time on the computers of volunteers to process Fermi gamma-ray data. Thanks to computer processing time collectively exceeding 10,000 years, the project has identified 23 gamma-ray pulsars to date.

Located about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia, J0002 spins 8.7 times a second, producing a pulse of gamma rays with each rotation.

The pulsar lies about 53 light-years from the center of a supernova remnant called CTB 1. Its rapid motion through interstellar gas results in shock waves that produce the tail of magnetic energy and accelerated particles detected at radio wavelengths using the VLA. The tail extends 13 light-years and clearly points back to the center of CTB 1.

Image above: CTB 1, seen here in a deep exposure that highlights visible light from hydrogen gas, is the expanding wreckage of a massive star that exploded some 10,000 years ago. The pulsar formed in the center of the collapsing star is moving so fast it has completely exited the faint shell. Image Credit: Scott Rosen.

Using Fermi data and a technique called pulsar timing, the team was able to measure how quickly and in what direction the pulsar is moving across our line of sight.

“The longer the data set, the more powerful the pulsar timing technique is,” said Kerr. “Fermi’s lovely 10-year data set is essentially what made this measurement possible.”

The result supports the idea that the pulsar was kicked into high speed by the supernova responsible for CTB 1, which occurred about 10,000 years ago.

J0002 is speeding through space five times faster than the average pulsar, and faster than 99 percent of those with measured speeds. It will eventually escape our galaxy.

At first, the supernova’s expanding debris would have moved outward faster than J0002, but over thousands of years the shell’s interaction with interstellar gas produced a drag that gradually slowed this motion. Meanwhile, the pulsar, behaving more like a cannonball, steadily raced through the remnant, escaping it about 5,000 years after the explosion.

Image above: The CTB 1 supernova remnant resembles a ghostly bubble in this image, which combines new 1.5 gigahertz observations from the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope (orange, near center) with older observations from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory’s Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (1.42 gigahertz, magenta and yellow; 408 megahertz, green) and infrared data (blue). The VLA data clearly reveal the straight, glowing trail from pulsar J0002+6216 and the curved rim of the remnant’s shell. CTB 1 is about half a degree across, the apparent size of a full Moon. Image Credits: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from NRAO/F. Schinzel et al., DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS.

Exactly how the pulsar was accelerated to such high speed during the supernova explosion remains unclear, and further study of J0002 will help shed light on the process. One possible mechanism involves instabilities in the collapsing star forming a region of dense, slow-moving matter that survives long enough to serve as a “gravitational tugboat,” accelerating the nascent neutron star toward it.

The team plans additional observations using the VLA, the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Fermi was developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.

Related links:

Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA): https://science.nrao.edu/facilities/vla

Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA): https://public.nrao.edu/telescopes/vlba/

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory: http://chandra.harvard.edu/

Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Rob Garner/Goddard Space Flight Center, by Francis Reddy.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA Mission Reveals Asteroid Has Big Surprises

NASA - OSIRIS-REx Mission patch.

March 19, 2019

Image above: This view of asteroid Bennu ejecting particles from its surface on January 19 was created by combining two images taken on board NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Other image processing techniques were also applied, such as cropping and adjusting the brightness and contrast of each image. Image Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin.

A NASA spacecraft that will return a sample of a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu to Earth in 2023 made the first-ever close-up observations of particle plumes erupting from an asteroid’s surface. Bennu also revealed itself to be more rugged than expected, challenging the mission team to alter its flight and sample collection plans, due to the rough terrain.

Bennu is the target of NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission, which began orbiting the asteroid on Dec. 31. Bennu, which is only slightly wider than the height of the Empire State Building, may contain unaltered material from the very beginning of our solar system.

“The discovery of plumes is one of the biggest surprises of my scientific career,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “And the rugged terrain went against all of our predictions. Bennu is already surprising us, and our exciting journey there is just getting started.”

Shortly after the discovery of the particle plumes on Jan. 6, the mission science team increased the frequency of observations, and subsequently detected additional particle plumes during the following two months. Although many of the particles were ejected clear of Bennu, the team tracked some particles that orbited Bennu as satellites before returning to the asteroid’s surface.

The OSIRIS-REx team initially spotted the particle plumes in images while the spacecraft was orbiting Bennu at a distance of about one mile (1.61 kilometers). Following a safety assessment, the mission team concluded the particles did not pose a risk to the spacecraft. The team continues to analyze the particle plumes and their possible causes.

Bennu is an active asteroid

Video above: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned the first scientific observations, revealing that asteroid Bennu is an active active asteroid. OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) is the first U.S. mission to sample an asteroid (near-Earth asteroid Bennu), retrieve surface material and return it to Earth for study in September 2023. Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator, explained the findings in a media teleconference.  Video Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Arizona State University/Lockheed Martin/SciNews.

“The first three months of OSIRIS-REx’s up-close investigation of Bennu have reminded us what discovery is all about — surprises, quick thinking, and flexibility,” said Lori Glaze, acting director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We study asteroids like Bennu to learn about the origin of the solar system. OSIRIS-REx’s sample will help us answer some of the biggest questions about where we come from.”

OSIRIS-REx launched in 2016 to explore Bennu, which is the smallest body ever orbited by spacecraft. Studying Bennu will allow researchers to learn more about the origins of our solar system, the sources of water and organic molecules on Earth, the resources in near-Earth space, as well as improve our understanding of asteroids that could impact Earth.

The OSIRIS-REx team also didn’t anticipate the number and size of boulders on Bennu’s surface. From Earth-based observations, the team expected a generally smooth surface with a few large boulders. Instead, it discovered Bennu’s entire surface is rough and dense with boulders.

The higher-than-expected density of boulders means that the mission’s plans for sample collection, also known as Touch-and-Go (TAG), need to be adjusted. The original mission design was based on a sample site that is hazard-free, with an 82-foot (25-meter) radius. However, because of the unexpectedly rugged terrain, the team hasn’t been able to identify a site of that size on Bennu. Instead, it has begun to identify candidate sites that are much smaller in radius.

The smaller sample site footprint and the greater number of boulders will demand more accurate performance from the spacecraft during its descent to the surface than originally planned. The mission team is developing an updated approach, called Bullseye TAG, to accurately target smaller sample sites.

OSIRS-REx orbiting Bennu

“Throughout OSIRIS-REx’s operations near Bennu, our spacecraft and operations team have demonstrated that we can achieve system performance that beats design requirements,” said Rich Burns, the project manager of OSIRIS-REx at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Bennu has issued us a challenge to deal with its rugged terrain, and we are confident that OSIRIS-REx is up to the task.”

The original, low-boulder estimate was derived both from Earth-based observations of Bennu’s thermal inertia — or its ability to conduct and store heat — and from radar measurements of its surface roughness. Now that OSIRIS-REx has revealed Bennu’s surface up close, those expectations of a smoother surface have been proven wrong. This suggests the computer models used to interpret previous data do not adequately predict the nature of small, rocky, asteroid surfaces. The team is revising these models with the data from Bennu.

The OSIRIS-REx science team has made many other discoveries about Bennu in the three months since the spacecraft arrived at the asteroid, some of which were presented Tuesday at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Conference in Houston and in a special collection of papers issued by the journal Nature.

The team has directly observed a change in the spin rate of Bennu as a result of what is known as the Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack (YORP) effect. The uneven heating and cooling of Bennu as it rotates in sunlight is causing the asteroid to increase its rotation speed. As a result, Bennu's rotation period is decreasing by about one second every 100 years. Separately, two of the spacecraft’s instruments, the MapCam color imager and the OSIRIS-REx Thermal Emission Spectrometer (OTES), have made detections of magnetite on Bennu’s surface, which bolsters earlier findings indicating the interaction of rock with liquid water on Bennu’s parent body.

Goddard provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator, and the University of Arizona also leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

To find out more about the OSIRIS-REx mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

Image, Animation, Text, Credits: NASA/Dwayne Brown/JoAnna Wendel/Sean Potter/GSFC/Nancy Neal Jones/University of Arizona/Erin Morton.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

An meteor explosion like ten times Hiroshima goes unnoticed

Asteroid Watch logo.

March 19, 2019

A stone 10 meters in diameter shook the Earth in an uninhabited region on December 18. Measuring instruments inherited from the cold war indicate this late.

On December 18, 2018, at 11:48 in the morning, 25.6 kilometers above the Bering Sea, a large space rock streaking straight to Earth at 32 kilometers per second exploded upon entering the atmosphere, consuming itself in a gigantic fireball.

Image above: Some color views of the meteor that flew over the North Pacific in December 2018, taken by Japan's Himawari satellite.

Below, only the fish may have witnessed the event. But US military satellites have seen the explosion and the Air Force has informed NASA, which has added the event in its database of fireballs since 1988. The phenomenon was described Monday at a Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas.

More than 10 times the Hiroshima explosion

The energy released by the explosion is estimated at 173 kilotons by NASA's Center for Near-Earth Objects. By comparison, the atomic bomb that razed Hiroshima was 15 kt.

Image above: Some color views of the meteor that flew over the North Pacific in December 2018, taken by Japan's Himawari satellite. The meteor is really clear here - bright orange fireball against the blue + white background!

This is the most powerful explosion in the sky since the 440 kt Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 that had 1,500 injured by shattered windows including. A meteor is the luminous phenomenon resulting from the entry into the atmosphere of an asteroid or other celestial body. It's a shooting star. If everything does not vaporize in the atmosphere and a piece lands, we speak of meteorite.

Animation above: A animation showing the smoke from the Meteor over the Bering Strait last December, produced using data from JMA_kishou's Himawari satellite. The orange meteor trail in the middle, shadow above-left.

When Simon Proud, meteorologist and satellite data specialist at Oxford University, heard about the meteor by a BBC article on Monday, he had the idea to check the image archive collected by the Japanese weather satellite. Himawari and recorded by his center permanently, he said Tuesday to AFP.

Himawari satellite

Bingo: the satellite was at the right time, in the right place. Simon Proud published the image on Twitter: there is a small fireball above the clouds and the sea.

Ten meters in diameter

Three other civilian satellites, two from NASA (MODIS and VIIRS) and one European (SLSTR), also saw the explosion, according to Proud, but the images are less clear. "It does not surprise me" that such a powerful meteor occurred, soberly reacted Patrick Michel, director of research at the CNRS, the Observatory of the Côte d'Azur, specialist in asteroids.

"It really reminds us that there are lots of things going on above our heads and that it would be good to worry about it," he said. "It reminds us that even though it is the least likely natural risk for us, it is a risk that exists and over the long term it will eventually materialize," he continues.

Near Earth Asteroids. Image Credit: ESA

This rock was about ten meters in diameter. The most important threat concerns objects over 150 meters. "Nothing very unusual," said Rüdiger Jehn, head of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Global Defense Office. "We were lucky that it was over the ocean."

"You have to invest a little money to predict these things," he added. ESA will ask its members for money to create a better protection system at a ministerial meeting in November. "The meteor explosion ensures the perfect promotion of our program, and it's free," he said.

Revisiting the passage of the Cheliabisnk meteorite, in Russia, on February 15, 2013, with a power thirty times greater than the energy released by the atomic bomb of Hiroshima.

Related article:

Russia asteroid impact: ESA update and assessment‏
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2013/02/russia-asteroid-impact-esa-update-and.html

Images, Animation, Text, Credits: AFP/JAXA/Himawari satellite/ESA/Günter Space Page/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

New Trio Gets Used to Station Life before First of Three Spacewalks

ISS - Expedition 59 Mission patch.

March 18, 2019

The Expedition 59 crew is getting ready for the first of three spacewalks just days after the arrival of three new crew members to the International Space Station last week. All six crewmates also reviewed emergency procedures today while the new trio becomes accustomed to life on the orbital lab.

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nick Hague will exit the space station Friday for a six-hour spacewalk beginning at 8:05 a.m. EDT live on NASA TV. The duo will continue the ongoing work to upgrade the station’s power storage capacity. McClain and Hague will replace older nickel-hydrogen batteries with new lithium-ion batteries and install new adapter plates on the space lab’s Port-4 truss structure.

Image above: The Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft that launched three new Expedition 59-60 crew members to the International Space Station is pictured docked to the Rassvet module. Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin from Roscosmos commanded the Soyuz crew ship flanked by NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch during the five-hour, 47-minute trip that began at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Image Credit: NASA.

The crew will be readying spacesuits and tools and reviewing spacewalk procedures all week long. This morning, Hague joined Flight Engineers David Saint-Jacques and Christina Koch and sized U.S. spacesuits in the Quest airlock. McClain verified the functionality of the spacesuit SAFER jet packs, also known as Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue.

At the end of the day, all six crew members gathered together to coordinate their actions in the unlikely event of an emergency aboard the station. The crew reviewed escape paths to their Soyuz lifeboats and safe havens for access to safety gear and a breathable atmosphere.

Image above: Astronauts (from left) Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques are pictured in between a pair of spacesuits that are stowed and serviced inside the Quest airlock where U.S. spacewalks are staged. Image Credit: NASA.

In the midst of the spacewalk preparations and the safety training, the three new flight engineers are also familiarizing themselves with station systems. Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin is beginning his second mission aboard the orbital lab since March 2016. Hague and Koch, both members of NASA’s 2013 class of astronauts, are each on their first mission aboard the space station.

NASA Television to Air Three Upcoming Spacewalks, Preview Briefing:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-television-to-air-three-upcoming-spacewalks-preview-briefing

Related links:

Expedition 59: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition59/index.html

NASA TV: https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Port-4 truss structure: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/truss-structure

Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/shuttle/f_saferspacewalk.html

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Space Station Science Highlights: Week of March 11, 2019

ISS - Expedition 58 Mission patch.

March 18, 2019

The Expedition 58 crew of the International Space Station had days off on Monday and Friday last week, resting up from several very busy previous weeks that included arrival and departure of the SpaceX Demo-1 craft, preparations for upcoming space walks, receiving new crew members, and conducting science experiments.

Image above: The Expedition 59 crew, including Commander Alexey Ovchinin and Flight Engineers Nick Hague and Christina Koch arrived at the space station this week. Image Credit: NASA.

On Friday, March 14, at 3:14 pm EDT, the Expedition 59 crew, including Commander Alexey Ovchinin and Flight Engineers Nick Hague and Christina Koch, launched to the space station, docking there approximately six hours later.

Read more about some of the science conducted on the space station during the week of March 11:

Protecting computers from space radiation

Crew replaced a power inverter for Spaceborne Computer, a yearlong experiment testing high-performance, off-the-shelf computer systems on the space station. The investigation verifies that lowering their power and, therefore, speed can enable these systems to continue to operate correctly during high radiation events. This may help scientists identify ways to use software rather than expensive, time-consuming or bulky protective shielding to protect computers from space radiation.

Salads in space

Image above: Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques plants seeds for the Veg-03H investigation. Image Credit: NASA.

The crew performed several activities for Veg-03-H, a plant growth experiment using plant pillows containing Wasabi Mustard Green and Extra Dwarf Pak Choi seeds. Future crews need to be able to grow their own food on long-duration space missions, and understanding how plants respond to microgravity is an important step toward that goal. Veg-03-H uses the Veggie plant growth facility and harvests plants on-orbit.

Resetting the biological clock of astronauts

To conclude the current experiment run of Circadian Rhythms, crew removed, cleaned and stowed the equipment. This investigation looks at the role of circadian or daily rhythms and how they change during long-duration spaceflight, when astronauts experience a cycle of light and dark that does not conform to the usual 24 hours on Earth.

International Space Station (ISS). Image Credit: NASA

Other investigations on which the crew performed work:

- The Actiwatch waterproof, nonintrusive, sleep-wake activity monitor worn on the wrist of a crewmember collects data to help determine if space travel has an impact on the sleep-wake patterns of crewmembers: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=362

- Time Perception in Microgravity quantifies the subjective changes in time perception that people experience during and after long-duration exposure to microgravity: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7504

- A virtual reality film documenting daily life aboard the space station, ISS Experience educates a variety of audiences about life aboard the orbiting lab and science conducted there: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7877

- The Team Task Switching investigation examines whether crew members have difficulty switching tasks and determines the effects of these switches in order to both reduce any negative consequences and improve individual and team motivation and effectiveness: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7538

- The Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR) includes an optics bench, combustion chamber, fuel and oxidizer control, and five different cameras for performing combustion investigations in microgravity: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=317

Space to Ground: Fire in the Sky:03/15/2019

Related links:

Expedition 58: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition58/index.html

Expedition 59: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition59/index.html

Spaceborne Computer: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=2037

Veg-03-H: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1159

Veggie: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=374

Circadian Rhythms: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=869

Spot the Station: https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Video (NASA), Text, Credits: NASA/Michael Johnson/Jorge Sotomayor, Lead Increment Scientist Expeditions 58/59.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch