Liquid metal, ruby and sapphire could rain down on huge exoplanet

 

Searching for exoplanetary systems logo.

March 22, 2022

Liquid metal, ruby and sapphire could rain down on one hemisphere of blisteringly hot giant exoplanet that is tidally locked in a tight orbit around its star. That is the conclusion of astronomers who have developed a detailed 3D model of the atmosphere of WASP-121b, which is a “hot Jupiter” that is about 850 light-years from Earth. Their study also reveals how water and metal is transported between the exoplanet’s hot and cold sides.

Image above: Hot and cold: artist's impression of the exoplanet WASP-121b and its host star. Image Credits: NASA, ESA, and G Bacon (STSci).

The team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology observed WASP-121b using a spectroscopic camera aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The exoplanet is slightly more massive than Jupiter and it is so close to its host star that it completes an orbit in just 30 h, one of the shortest orbits ever detected by astronomers.

The team studied both the night side of the exoplanet – which always faces away from the star – and its blistering hot day side, which always faces the star. Their observations allowed them to model the atmosphere of the gas giant exoplanet. What is more, the team is the first to track the water cycle on a planet outside of the solar system.  Their study reveals conditions so extreme that the hot Jupiter’s night side could experience rains of liquid metal, ruby and sapphire.

Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Animation Credits: NASA/ESA

“Just measuring the day side temperature of an exoplanet yields an incomplete picture of the global climate on the planet. Understanding the night side fills in this knowledge gap,” team member Tansu Daylan tells Physics World. He adds that the team measured the spectrum of the exoplanet at all viewing angles, not just its dark side, and then inferred a temperature map.

Raining Metal

The exoplanet’s proximity to its star and the fact that it is tidally-locked results in extreme conditions, with temperatures as high as 3500 K on the day side. This is hot enough to vaporize metals. Daylan adds that previous studies have indicated the presence of metals in the day side atmosphere. This means that metal clouds would be blown across the night-side hemisphere by winds on the planet in excess of 18,000 km/h.

“Our new data gave us direct evidence for these winds because the hottest region of the day side atmosphere was slightly to the east of the ‘noon’ point right underneath the star,” says Thomas Mikal-Evans, who led the research. “This means that the gas must be getting heated up at noon but then getting blown eastwards before it has a chance to re-emit thermal radiation to space.”

Now based at The Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Mikal-Evans, says that before the team’s study, astronomers had made unusual observations of the transition line between the day and night sides of WASP-121b – a region known as the day-night terminator of the atmosphere.

“Previous observations showed that titanium was missing from the atmosphere, but its chemical cousin vanadium was present in the atmosphere, Mikal-Evans adds. “Since these two atoms are chemically similar, it seemed odd that we’d observe one but not the other”.

Mikal-Evans adds, “Our new data reveal for the first time that the temperatures on the night side hemisphere drop low enough for titanium and aluminium gas to precipitate and rain down to deeper layers of the atmosphere, whereas vanadium precipitates at lower temperatures making it harder for it to rain out”.

The fact that the temperature drops low enough for titanium and aluminium rain on the night side, combined with the absence of these metals in the gas phase at the day-night terminator, allows the team to conclude that titanium and aluminium are indeed raining down on the night side.

Droplets of ruby and sapphire

He adds that aluminium would probably condense in the form of corundum, which is an aluminium oxide. When traces of elements like chromium, iron, and titanium are included in corundum, it becomes the gems ruby and sapphire. “So, it could be raining droplets of ruby and sapphire on the nightside hemisphere.”

The team also found that WASP-121b’s powerful winds sustain a water cycle by moving water from the day side to the night side of the gas giant.

Not surprisingly, the exoplanet’s water cycle is far more dramatic and violent than that of Earth’s. Mikal-Evans describes it as “a giant conveyor belt” shipping molecules between the vastly different hemispheres of WASP-121b.

Molecules ripped apart

“We were able to observe that most of the water molecules get ripped apart on the day side because it’s so hot, while those that survive deeper in the atmosphere are glowing strongly at infrared wavelengths,” says Mikal-Evans. “The hydrogen and oxygen atoms from the disrupted water molecules then get blown around to the night side hemisphere, where the lower temperatures allow them to recombine to form water vapour once more before they are blown back around to the dayside hemisphere to repeat the cycle.”

The team has booked time on the new James Webb Space Telescope to study WASP-121b in even greater detail. They plan to observe changes in not just water vapour but also carbon monoxide, which is believed to be in the exoplanet’s atmosphere.

“As our technology continues to improve, one day we can hope to do something similar for planets that more closely resemble our own Earth,” Mikal-Evans concludes. “We’re still just taking the first steps down this long and challenging path — but we’re certainly on our way!”

The research is described in Nature Astronomy: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01592-w

Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: physicsworld/Rob Lea.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Largest matter-antimatter asymmetry observed

 

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

March 22, 2022

New results from the LHCb experiment on CP asymmetry in charmless three-body charged B meson decays include the largest CP asymmetry ever observed

The LHCb detector in 2018, opened up for extensive upgrades during LHC Long Shutdown 2. (Image: CERN)

CP asymmetry is the only non-trivial difference between matter and antimatter found so far. Its discovery in neutral kaon decays in 1964 came as a big surprise to the physics community, but today it is an essential component of the Standard Model of particle physics. Without CP asymmetry the Big Bang would have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which would all have then annihilated, leaving behind an empty Universe filled with radiation. To produce a matter-dominated Universe like the one we live in, an excess of matter must have formed and survived this annihilation. But to produce such an excess, some difference between matter and antimatter must be present: enter CP asymmetry. Unfortunately, the amount of CP asymmetry present in the Standard Model of particle physics is not enough to explain the observed composition of the Universe, driving extensive studies of this phenomenon and searches for other sources of CP asymmetry.

This week, at the Rencontres de Moriond Electroweak conference and during a seminar held at CERN, the LHCb collaboration presented new results from studies of CP asymmetry in charmless three-body decays of charged B mesons. These decays involve a charged B meson, consisting of a beauty quark and an up quark, transforming into a combination of π and K mesons. The name “charmless” refers to the absence of charm quarks in the final state:  π^± mesons (pions) contain only up and down quarks, and K^± mesons (kaons) contain a strange and an up quark. Charmless decays involve the transformation of a beauty quark into an up quark, which is an unlikely process, as the beauty quark predominantly decays into a charm quark. In this rare process the effects of CP violation are expected to be enhanced.

The new LHCb results focus on “direct” CP violation: a phenomenon where the same decay process has a different probability for a particle than for an antiparticle. The strongest global asymmetry was observed for the decay into two kaons and one pion, where the probability of a B⁺→π⁺K⁺K^- decay is about 20% higher than for the B^-→π^-K⁺K^-decay (corresponding to a measured CP asymmetry A_CP of -0.114). A global CP asymmetry has also been observed with a significance of more than five standard deviations for the first time in decays into three pions and decays into three kaons. For the final state with two pions and one kaon, CP violation is still not confirmed.

The three-particle final state can, however, be studied further in order to extract more information. The process of a B meson transforming into three particles can occur in several steps, with intermediate short-lived particles (“resonances”) forming and subsequently decaying into the pions and kaons seen in the final state. These processes can make different contributions to the CP asymmetry and can be disentangled by taking into account the momenta of the final state particles in what’s known as “phase space analysis”. One spectacular result of such an analysis is the indication of a χ_hc⁰ meson (containing a charm-anticharm quark pair) being formed during the B→πππ decay. The χ_hc⁰ was not expected to contribute to CP violation but the results show the presence of a significant asymmetry. In fact, the subset of data containing the χ_hc⁰ events features the highest CP asymmetry ever observed: the B^- meson makes an almost 7 times greater contribution to this process than its B⁺counterpart, as can be seen in the plot below.

Graphic above: Invariant mass of the three pion final state in a pre-defined phase space region. A clear signal from the B^- (left plot) and B⁺ candidates (right plot) is visible as a peak at 5.28 GeV/c2. The difference between the height of these two peaks corresponds to the CP asymmetry in the region under study. (Image: CERN)

The results presented provide important clues about the mechanism of CP asymmetry generation in the Standard Model, which is not yet fully understood. Even more detailed studies will be performed in the upcoming LHC Run 3 with the newly-upgraded LHCb detector.

Read more on the LHCb website: https://lhcb-outreach.web.cern.ch/

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 23 Member States.

Related links:

Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb): https://lhcb-public.web.cern.ch/

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

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

Image (mentioned), Graphic (mentioned), Text, Credits: CERN/By Piotr Traczyk.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Expanded Station Crew Busy with Spacewalk Preps, Space Research

 

ISS - Expedition 66 Mission patch.

March 21, 2022

The International Space Station is hosting 10 individuals after the Soyuz MS-21 crew ship arrived Friday carrying three new crew members. As the new crewmates adjust to life on the station, the rest of the Expedition 66 crew is getting ready for a spacewalk and continuing microgravity research this week.

The station’s three newest crew members are getting used to life on orbit as they begin a six-and-a-half-month mission in Earth orbit. Cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Sergey Korsakov, and Denis Matveev docked to the station’s Prichal module on Friday less than three-and-a-half hours after launching from Kazakhstan. Artemyev is starting his third mission at the orbiting lab having last visited in 2018 when he was an Expedition 55-56 Flight Engineer. Korsakov and Matveev are on their first space flight and will spend the next few days getting up to speed with station systems and safety procedures.

Image above: The Soyuz MS-21 crew ship (upper left) with three cosmonauts aboard approaches the space station for a docking on March 18. Image Credit: NASA.

Two astronauts are getting ready for a spacewalk set to begin on Wednesday at 8:50 a.m. EDT. NASA astronaut Raja Chari and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer will spend about six-and-a-half hours installing new thermal system and electronics components on the station’s U.S. segment. The duo spent Monday organizing their spacewalk tools and attaching checklists to their U.S. spacesuit cuffs.

NASA Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei and Kayla Barron were on science duty on Monday working on a pair of different experiments. Vande Hei explored how microbes grow in space to keeps crews healthy and spacecraft systems safe. Barron serviced samples for the Hicari crystal growth study that seeks to improve the development of solar cells and semiconductor-based electronics.

International Space Station (ISS). Animation Credit: NASA

NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn spent the day on a variety of orbital plumbing and life support maintenance tasks. He also joined Chari for a conference with mission controllers as they plan to return to Earth with Barron and Maurer aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance next month.

Commander Anton Shkaplerov and Flight Engineer Pyotr Dubrov continued evaluating a specialized suit, the lower body negative pressure suit, for its ability to counteract the effects of weightlessness on the human body. Doctors are studying the suit’s ability to offset space-caused head and eye pressure by drawing fluids toward the legs and feet while expanding veins and tissues.

Related links:

Expedition 66: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition66/index.html

Prichal module: https://go.nasa.gov/3cOCFx6

How microbes grow in space: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7955

Hicari crystal growth study: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=71

Lower body negative pressure suit: https://blogs.nasa.gov/ISS_Science_Blog/2015/06/02/rubber-vacuum-pants-that-suck/

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

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

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

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Cosmic Milestone: NASA Confirms 5,000 Exoplanets

 

NASA - Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) logo.

March 21, 2022

The count of confirmed exoplanets just ticked past the 5,000 mark, representing a 30-year journey of discovery led by NASA space telescopes.

Image above: What do planets outside our solar system, or exoplanets, look like? A variety of possibilities are shown in this illustration. Scientists discovered the first exoplanets in the 1990s. As of 2022, the tally stands at just over 5,000 confirmed exoplanets. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Not so long ago, we lived in a universe with only a small number of known planets, all of them orbiting our Sun. But a new raft of discoveries marks a scientific high point: More than 5,000 planets are now confirmed to exist beyond our solar system.

The planetary odometer turned on March 21, with the latest batch of 65 exoplanets – planets outside our immediate solar family – added to the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The archive records exoplanet discoveries that appear in peer-reviewed, scientific papers, and that have been confirmed using multiple detection methods or by analytical techniques.

The 5,000-plus planets found so far include small, rocky worlds like Earth, gas giants many times larger than Jupiter, and “hot Jupiters” in scorchingly close orbits around their stars. There are “super-Earths,” which are possible rocky worlds bigger than our own, and “mini-Neptunes,” smaller versions of our system’s Neptune. Add to the mix planets orbiting two stars at once and planets stubbornly orbiting the collapsed remnants of dead stars.

NASA confirms 5,000 Planets – and Counting

Video above: Astronomers have now confirmed more than 5,000 exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system. That’s just a fraction of the likely hundreds of billions in our galaxy. The cones of exoplanet discovery radiate out from planet Earth, like spokes on a wheel. Many more discoveries await. Video Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

“It’s not just a number,” said Jessie Christiansen, science lead for the archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech in Pasadena. “Each one of them is a new world, a brand-new planet. I get excited about every one because we don’t know anything about them.”

We do know this: Our galaxy likely holds hundreds of billions of such planets. The steady drumbeat of discovery began in 1992 with strange new worlds orbiting an even stranger star. It was a type of neutron star known as a pulsar, a rapidly spinning stellar corpse that pulses with millisecond bursts of searing radiation. Measuring slight changes in the timing of the pulses allowed scientists to reveal planets in orbit around the pulsar.

Finding just three planets around this spinning star essentially opened the floodgates, said Alexander Wolszczan, the lead author on the paper that, 30 years ago, unveiled the first planets to be confirmed outside our solar system.

“If you can find planets around a neutron star, planets have to be basically everywhere,” Wolszczan said. “The planet production process has to be very robust.”

Wolszczan, who still searches for exoplanets as a professor at Penn State, says we’re opening an era of discovery that will go beyond simply adding new planets to the list. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), launched in 2018, continues to make new exoplanet discoveries. But soon powerful next-generation telescopes and their highly sensitive instruments, starting with the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope, will capture light from the atmospheres of exoplanets, reading which gases are present to potentially identify tell-tale signs of habitable conditions.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, expected to launch in 2027, will make new exoplanet discoveries using a variety of methods. The ESA (European Space Agency) mission ARIEL, launching in 2029, will observe exoplanet atmospheres; a piece of NASA technology aboard, called CASE, will help zero in on exoplanet clouds and hazes.

“To my thinking, it is inevitable that we’ll find some kind of life somewhere – most likely of some primitive kind,” Wolszczan said. The close connection between the chemistry of life on Earth and chemistry found throughout the universe, as well as the detection of widespread organic molecules, suggests detection of life itself is only a matter of time, he added.

5,000 Exoplanets: Listen to the Sounds of Discovery (NASA Data Sonification)

Video above: In this animation, exoplanets are represented by musical notes played across decades of discovery. Circles show location and size of orbit, while their color indicates the detection method. Lower notes mean longer orbits, higher notes shorter orbits. Video Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo and A. Santaguida).

How to Find Other Worlds

The picture didn’t always look so bright. The first planet detected around a Sun-like star, in 1995, turned out to be a hot Jupiter: a gas giant about half the mass of our own Jupiter in an extremely close, four-day orbit around its star. A year on this planet, in other words, lasts only four days.

More such planets appeared in the data from ground-based telescopes once astronomers learned to recognize them – first dozens, then hundreds. They were found using the “wobble” method: tracking slight back-and-forth motions of a star, caused by gravitational tugs from orbiting planets. But still, nothing looked likely to be habitable.

Finding small, rocky worlds more like our own required the next big leap in exoplanet-hunting technology: the “transit” method. Astronomer William Borucki came up with the idea of attaching extremely sensitive light detectors to a telescope, then launching it into space. The telescope would stare for years at a field of more than 170,000 stars, searching for tiny dips in starlight when a planet crossed a star’s face.

That idea was realized in the Kepler Space Telescope.

Borucki, principal investigator of the now-retired Kepler mission, says its launch in 2009 opened a new window on the universe.

Image above: The more than 5,000 exoplanets confirmed in our galaxy so far include a variety of types – some that are similar to planets in our solar system, others vastly different. Among these are a mysterious variety known as “super-Earths” because they are larger than our world and possibly rocky. Video Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

“I get a real feeling of satisfaction, and really of awe at what’s out there,” he said. “None of us expected this enormous variety of planetary systems and stars. It’s just amazing.”

Related links:

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS): https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/tess/

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

Exoplanets: https://www.nasa.gov/content/the-search-for-life

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): https://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/home/index.html

Images (mentioned), Videos (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/JPL/Calla Cofield.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

A View to a Nebula

 

NASA & ESA - Hubble Space Telescope (HST) patch.

March 21, 2022

This colorful image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and published in 2018, celebrated the Earth-orbiting observatory’s 28th anniversary of viewing the heavens, giving us a window seat to the universe’s extraordinary tapestry of stellar birth and destruction.

At the center of the photo, a monster young star 200,000 times brighter than our Sun is blasting powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds, carving out a fantasy landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust.

This mayhem is all happening at the heart of the Lagoon Nebula, a vast stellar nursery located 4,000 light-years away and visible in binoculars simply as a smudge of light with a bright core.

The giant star, called Herschel 36, is bursting out of its natal cocoon of material, unleashing blistering radiation and torrential stellar winds (streams of subatomic particles) that push dust away in curtain-like sheets. This action resembles the Sun bursting through the clouds at the end of an afternoon thunderstorm that showers sheets of rainfall.

Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

For more information about Hubble, visit:

http://hubblesite.org/

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Image, Animation Credits: NASA, ESA, and STScI/Text Credits: NASA/Yvette Smith.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Hightails It to Martian Delta

 

NASA - Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover logo.

March 21, 2022

The rover’s self-driving capabilities will be put to the test this month as it begins a record-breaking series of sprints to its next sampling location.

Image above: NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover looks back at its wheel tracks on March 17, 2022, the 381th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is trying to cover more distance in a single month than any rover before it – and it’s doing so using artificial intelligence. On the path ahead are sandpits, craters, and fields of sharp rocks that the rover will have to navigate around on its own. At the end of the 3-mile (5-kilometer) journey, which began March 14, 2022, Perseverance will reach an ancient river delta within Jezero Crater, where a lake existed billions of years ago.

This delta is one of the best locations on Mars for the rover to look for signs of past microscopic life. Using a drill on the end of its robotic arm and a complex sample collection system in its belly, Perseverance is collecting rock cores for return to Earth – the first part of the Mars Sample Return campaign.

“The delta is so important that we’ve actually decided to minimize science activities and focus on driving to get there more quickly,” said Ken Farley of Caltech, Perseverance’s project scientist. “We’ll be taking lots of images of the delta during that drive. The closer we get, the more impressive those images will be.”

Perseverance’s Route to the Delta

Video above: NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover will follow the proposed route to Jezero Crater’s delta shown in this animation. The delta is one the most important locations the rover will visit as it seeks signs of ancient life on Mars. Video Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/University of Arizona.

The science team will be searching these images for the rocks they’ll eventually want to study in closer detail using the instruments on Perseverance’s arm. They’ll also hunt for the best routes the rover can take to ascend the 130-foot-high (40-meter-high) delta.

But first, Perseverance needs to get there. The rover will do this by relying on its self-driving AutoNav system, which has already set impressive distance records. While all of NASA’s Mars rovers have had self-driving abilities, Perseverance has the most advanced one yet.

“Self-driving processes that took minutes on a rover like Opportunity happen in less than a second on Perseverance,” said veteran rover planner and flight software developer Mark Maimone of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads the mission. “Because autonomous driving is now faster, we can cover more ground than if humans programmed every drive.”

How Rover Planning Works

Before the rover rolls, a team of mobility planning experts (Perseverance has 14 who trade off shifts) writes the driving commands the robotic explorer will carry out. The commands reach Mars via NASA’s Deep Space Network, and Perseverance sends back data so the planners can confirm the rover’s progress. Multiple days are required to complete some plans, as with a recent drive that spanned about 1,673 feet (510 meters) and included thousands of individual rover commands.

Some drives require more human input than others. AutoNav is useful for drives over flat terrain with simple potential hazards – for instance, large rocks and slopes – that are easy for the rover to detect and work around.

Thinking While Driving

AutoNav reflects an evolution of self-driving tools previously developed for NASA’s Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity rovers. What’s different for AutoNav is “thinking while driving” – allowing Perseverance to take and process images while on the move. The rover then navigates based on those images. Is that boulder too close? Will its belly be able to clear that rock? What if the rover wheels were to slip?

Upgraded hardware allows “thinking while driving” to happen. Faster cameras mean Perseverance can take images quickly enough to process its route in real-time. And unlike its predecessors, Perseverance has an additional computer dedicated entirely to image processing. The computer relies on a single-purpose, super-efficient microchip called a field-programmable gate array that is great for computer vision processing.

Mars Perseverance Rover. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“On past rovers, autonomy meant slowing down because data had to be processed on a single computer,” Maimone said. “This extra computer is insanely fast compared to what we had in the past, and having it dedicated for driving means you don’t have to share computing resources with over 100 other tasks.”

Of course, humans aren’t completely out of the picture during AutoNav drives. They still plan the basic route using images taken from space by missions like NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Then, they mark obstacles such as potential sand traps for Perseverance to avoid, drawing “keep out” and “keep in” zones that help it navigate.

Another big difference is Perseverance’s sense of space.

Curiosity’s autonomous navigation program keeps the rover in a safety bubble that is 16 feet (5 meters) wide. If Curiosity spots two rocks that are, say, 15 feet (4.5 meters) apart – a gap it could easily navigate – it will still stop or travel around them rather than risk passing through.

But Perseverance’s bubble is much smaller: A virtual box is centered on each of the rover’s six wheels. Mars’ newest rover has a more sensitive understanding of the terrain and can get around boulders on its own.

“When we first looked at Jezero Crater as a landing site, we were concerned about the dense fields of rocks we saw scattered across the crater floor,” Maimone said. “Now we’re able to skirt or even straddle rocks that we couldn’t have approached before.”

While previous rover missions took a slower pace exploring along their path, AutoNav provides the science team with the ability to zip to the locations they prioritize the most. That means the mission is more focused on its primary objective: finding the samples that scientists will eventually want to return to Earth.

More About the Mission

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ and https://nasa.gov/perseverance

Image (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/Karen Fox/Alana Johnson/JPL/Andrew Good.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

The only Antonov An-225 destroyed in Ukraine

 

Antonov AN-225 Mriya logo.

March 20, 2022

Antonov AN-225 Mriya

The Antonov An-225, the largest cargo plane in the world, built in a single copy, has just been destroyed by Russian strikes near kyiv. The information was confirmed on February 27, 2022 by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister.

Size and comparisons

The Antonov An225 was parked in a hangar at Hostomel airport for maintenance operations. This image, of poor quality that we could not authenticate, would show the rear of the fuselage of the An-225 on fire.

Nicknamed Mriya, "the dream" in Ukrainian, the Antonov An-225 made its first flight in the late 1980s. It was originally built to carry the Russian space shuttle Buran on its back. He did this fourteen times.

Antonov AN-225 Mriya carrying Russian space shuttle Buran

The Antonov An-225 had been used since 2001 for on-demand cargo flights. During the Covid-19 crisis, the device was in high demand. We see him here at Paris-Vatry airport in Marne in April 2020, who came to deliver 150 tonnes of masks and sanitary equipment. For loading and unloading, the nose of the aircraft rose and the fuselage lowered.

 Antonov An-225 Orbiter.ch Aerospace Tribute

Recognizable by its six reactors, its high wing, and its double empennage, the Antonov An-225 was until a few hours ago the longest and heaviest aircraft in the world: Length 84 m, Maximum take-off weight 640 tonnes.

The only Antonov An-225 destroyed in Ukraine (in French)

With a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes (705 short tons), the An-225 held several records, including heaviest aircraft ever built and largest wingspan of any aircraft in operational service. The Mriya attracted a high degree of public interest, attaining a global following due to its size and its uniqueness. People frequently visited airports to see its scheduled arrivals and departures.

Related link:

Antonov An-225 Mriya - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya

Images, Videos, Text, Credits: AviationNeews/AeroNews.TV/Wikipedia/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

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