Latest Updates from Artemis I

 

NASA / ESA - Orion Crew Vehicle patch.

Nov. 23, 2022

Artemis I – Flight Day Seven: Orion to Test Search Acquire and Track Mode, Exit Lunar Sphere of Influence

The Orion spacecraft is now on its seventh day into the Artemis I mission, a flight test around the Moon, paving the way for astronauts to fly on future missions. At 12:02 a.m. CST, Orion completed the fifth outbound trajectory correction by firing the European service module’s auxiliary engines for 5.9 seconds, which changed Orion’s velocity by 3.2 feet per second.

Flight Day 6: Orion's Optical Navigation Camera Captures Lunar Surface

The R-4D-11 auxiliary engines are a variant of the flight proven R-4D engine, which was originally developed for the Apollo program and was employed on every mission to the Moon. The engines are positioned at the bottom of the service module in four sets of two, and each provide about 100 pounds of thrust. In total, Orion’s highly capable service module has 33 engines of various sizes and serves as the powerhouse for the spacecraft, providing propulsion capabilities that enable Orion to go around the Moon and back on its exploration missions.  

The team in the White Flight Control Room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston continued testing the spacecraft’s star trackers to determine their sensitivity to thermal variations as part of planned testing, and engineers used the optical navigation system to gather additional imagery of the Moon. The star trackers and optical navigation system are part of Orion’s advanced guidance, navigation, and control system, responsible for always knowing where the spacecraft is located in space, which way it’s pointed, and where it’s going. It even controls the propulsion system to keep the spacecraft on the correct path. The optical navigation can serve later in this mission and in future missions as a backup, ensuring a safe trip home should the spacecraft lose communications.

Earth Rise as Seen from Orion Spacecraft

Overnight, flight controllers will conduct the search acquire and track (SAT) mode developmental test objective. SAT mode is an algorithm intended to recover and maintain communications with Earth after loss of Orion’s navigation state, extended loss of communications with Earth, or after a temporary power loss that causes Orion to reboot hardware. To test the algorithm, flight controllers will command the spacecraft to enter SAT mode, and after about 15 minutes, restore normal communications. Testing SAT mode will give engineers confidence it can be relied upon as the final option to fix a loss of communications when crew are aboard.

Orion will exit the lunar sphere of influence, or the gravitational pull of the Moon, at 10:31 p.m. CST and continue traveling toward distant retrograde orbit. The next live event will be NASA Television coverage of the distant retrograde orbit insertion burn, scheduled for 4:30 p.m. EST on Friday, Nov. 25. Shortly before entering the orbit, Orion will travel about 57,287 miles beyond the Moon at its farthest point from the lunar surface during the mission. View the Artemis I mission map to see Orion’s path in space. 

On Saturday, Nov. 26, Orion will pass the record set by Apollo 13 for the farthest distance traveled by a spacecraft designed for humans at 248,655 miles from Earth, and the spacecraft will reach its maximum distance from Earth of 268,552 miles Monday, Nov. 28.  

Just after 4 p.m. CST on Nov. 22, Orion was traveling over 208,000  miles from Earth and was over 36,000  miles from the Moon, cruising at over 3,000  miles per hour.   

Listen to a replay of the Twitter Spaces NASA hosted Tuesday, Nov. 22, with NASA Flight Director Gerry Griffin, Jim Geffre from Orion, Nijoud Merancy with the Artemis program and Jennifer Ross-Nazzal with the NASA history office to discuss the milestone.

Artemis I – Flight Day Eight Update: Unexpected Loss of Communication with Orion is Restored

NASA’s Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston unexpectedly lost data to and from the spacecraft at 12:09 a.m. CST for 47 minutes while reconfiguring the communication link between Orion and Deep Space Network overnight. The reconfiguration has been conducted successfully several times in the last few days, and the team is investigating the cause of the loss of signal. The team resolved the issue with a reconfiguration on the ground side. Engineers are examining data from the event to help determine what happened, and the command and data handling officer will be downlinking data recorded onboard Orion during the outage to include in that assessment. There was no impact to Orion, and the spacecraft remains in a healthy configuration.

Artemis I – Flight Day Eight: Orion Exits the Lunar Sphere Of Influence

On the eighth day of its mission, Orion continues to travel farther away from the Moon as it prepares to enter a distant retrograde orbit. The orbit is “distant” in the sense that it’s at a high altitude from the surface of the Moon, and it’s “retrograde” because Orion will travel around the Moon opposite the direction the Moon travels around Earth.

Image above: (Nov. 22, 2022) Flight Day 7, Orion’s Optical Navigation camera captured the far side of the Moon, as the spacecraft orbited 81.1 miles above the surface, heading for a Distant Retrograde Orbit. Orion uses the optical navigation camera to capture imagery of the Earth and the Moon at different phases and distances, providing an enhanced body of data to certify its effectiveness under different lighting conditions as a way to help orient the spacecraft on future missions with crew.

Orion exited the gravitational sphere of influence of the Moon Tuesday, Nov. 22, at 9:49 p.m. CST at a lunar altitude of 39,993 miles. The spacecraft will reach its farthest distance from the Moon Friday, Nov 25, just before performing the next major burn to enter the orbit. The distant retrograde orbit insertion burn is the second in a pair of maneuvers required to propel Orion into the highly stable orbit that requires minimal fuel consumption while traveling around the Moon.   

NASA’s Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston unexpectedly lost data to and from the spacecraft at 12:09 a.m. for 47 minutes while reconfiguring the communication link between Orion and Deep Space Network. Teams have resolved the issue, and the spacecraft remains in a healthy configuration while engineers analyze data to determine the cause.

While in transit to the distant retrograde orbit, engineers conducted the first part of the propellant tank slosh development flight test, called prop slosh, which is scheduled during quiescent, or less active, parts of the mission. The test calls for flight controllers to fire the reaction control system thrusters when propellant tanks are filled to different levels. Engineers measure the effect the propellant sloshing has on spacecraft trajectory and orientation as Orion moves through space. The test is performed after the outbound flyby burn and again after the return flyby burn to compare data at points in the mission with different levels of propellant onboard. 

Propellant motion, or slosh, in space is difficult to model on Earth because liquid propellant moves differently in tanks in space than on Earth due to the lack of gravity. The reaction control thrusters are located on the sides of the service module in six sets of four. These engines are in fixed positions and can be fired individually as needed to move the spacecraft in different directions or rotate it into any position. Each engine provides about 50 pounds of thrust.

As of Wednesday, Nov. 23, a total of about 3,971 pounds of propellant has been used, about 147 pounds less than prelaunch expected values. There is more than 2,000 pounds of margin available over what is planned for use during the mission, an increase of about 74 pounds from prelaunch expected values. 

Just after 1 p.m. CST on Nov. 23, Orion was traveling about 212,437 miles from Earth and was more than 48,064 miles from the Moon, cruising at 2,837 miles per hour.   

Related articles:

Artemis I – Flight Day Six: Orion Performs Lunar Flyby, Closest Outbound Approach
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-flight-day-six-orion-performs.html

Artemis powering past the Moon
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-powering-past-moon.html

Orion Successfully Completes Lunar Flyby, Re-acquires Signal with Earth
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/orion-successfully-completes-lunar.html

Artemis I – Flight Day Four: Testing WiFi Signals, Radiator System, GO for Outbound Powered Flyby
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-flight-day-four-testing-wifi.html

NASA’s Artemis I Cameras to Offer New Views of Orion, Earth, Moon
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/nasas-artemis-i-cameras-to-offer-new.html

Artemis I Liftoff! 50 years after Apollo 17, Orion on Its Way to the Moon
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-liftoff-50-years-after-apollo.html

Artemis I return for launch
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-return-for-launch.html

Related links:

Track Orion: https://www.nasa.gov/trackartemis

Artemis I: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-1

Orion spacecraft (ESA): https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Orion

Orion Spacecraft (NASA): https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/index.html

Images, Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Sandra Jones/Shaneequa Vereen/NASA TV/SciNews.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA Program Predicted Impact of Small Asteroid Over Ontario, Canada

 

Asteroid Watch.

Nov. 23, 2022

2022 WJ1 was a tiny asteroid on a collision course with Earth. But astronomers saw it coming, and NASA’s Scout impact hazard assessment system calculated where it would hit.

Image above: This time-lapse photograph was taken by astronomer Robert Weryk from near his home in London, Ontario, Canada, after NASA’s Scout system forewarned him about the entry of 2022 WJ1 on Nov. 19, 2022. The resulting fireball streaked directly overhead and continued east until it broke up. Image Credit: Robert Weryk.

In the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 19, the skies over southern Ontario, Canada, lit up as a tiny asteroid harmlessly streaked across the sky high in Earth’s atmosphere, broke up, and likely scattered small meteorites over the southern coastline of Lake Ontario. The fireball wasn’t a surprise. Roughly 1 meter (3 feet) wide, the asteroid was detected 3 ½ hours before impact, making this event the sixth time in history a small asteroid has been tracked in space before impacting Earth’s atmosphere.

NASA is tasked with the detection and tracking of much larger near-Earth objects that could survive passage through Earth’s atmosphere and cause damage on the ground, but those objects can also be detected much further in advance than small ones like the asteroid that disintegrated over southern Ontario. Such small asteroids are not a hazard to Earth, but they can be a useful test for NASA’s planetary defense capabilities for discovery, tracking, orbit determination, and impact prediction.

“The planetary defense community really demonstrated their skill and readiness with their response to this short-warning event,” said Kelly Fast, Near-Earth Object Observations program manager for the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Such harmless impacts become spontaneous real-world exercises and give us confidence that NASA’s planetary defense systems are capable of informing the response to the potential for a serious impact by a larger object.”

The asteroid was discovered by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey, which is headquartered at the University of Arizona in Tucson, on the evening of Nov. 18 during routine search operations for near-Earth objects. The observations were quickly reported to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) – the internationally recognized clearinghouse for the position measurements of small celestial bodies – and the data was then automatically posted to the Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page.

NASA’s Scout impact hazard assessment system, which is maintained by the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, automatically fetched the new data from that page and began calculating the object’s possible trajectory and chances of impact. CNEOS calculates every known near-Earth asteroid orbit to provide assessments of potential impact hazards in support of NASA’s PDCO.

Screen capture:  Eyes on Asteroids (https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/asteroids/#/asteroids) uses science data to help visualize asteroid and comet orbits around the Sun. Zoom in to travel along with your favorite spacecraft as they explore these fascinating near-Earth objects. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Seven minutes after the asteroid was posted on the confirmation page, Scout had determined it had a 25% probability of hitting Earth’s atmosphere, with possible impact locations stretching from the Atlantic Ocean off the East Coast of North America to Mexico. More observations were then provided by the astronomical community, including amateur astronomers in Kansas, to better refine the asteroid’s trajectory and possible impact location.

“Small objects such as this one can only be detected when they are very close to Earth, so if they are headed for an impact, time is of the essence to collect as many observations as possible,” said Shantanu Naidu, navigation engineer and Scout operator at JPL. “This object was discovered early enough that the planetary defense community could provide more observations, which Scout then used to confirm the impact and predict where and when the asteroid was going to hit.”

As Catalina continued to track the asteroid over the next few hours, Scout used this new data to continually update the asteroid’s trajectory and the system’s assessment of the chance of impact, posting those results on the hazard-assessment system’s webpage: https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/scout/#/

Community Effort

Many astronomers check the Scout webpage throughout the night to determine the most important asteroids to track. A group of amateur astronomers at Farpoint Observatory in Eskridge, Kansas, tracked the asteroid for more than an hour, providing critical additional data that enabled Scout to confirm a 100% impact probability and determine the expected location of atmospheric entry as being over southern Ontario at 3:27 a.m. EST (12:27 a.m. PST) Nov. 19. With more than two hours remaining before impact, there was time to alert scientists in southwestern Ontario of the bright fireball that would occur.

A total of 46 observations of the asteroid’s position were ultimately collected, the final one being made only 32 minutes before impact by the University of Hawaii 88-inch (2.2-meter) telescope on Mauna Kea.

As predicted, at 3:27 a.m. EST (12:27 a.m. PST), the asteroid streaked through Earth’s atmosphere at a shallow angle and broke up, likely producing a shower of small meteorites and leaving no reported damage on the surface. After this harmless disintegration, the Minor Planet Center designated the asteroid 2022 WJ1 to acknowledge its discovery while still in space.

Dozens of sightings were reported to the American Meteor Society, and scientists who were alerted to the Scout prediction were able to photograph the asteroid’s atmospheric entry. Videos of the fireball collected by the public were also posted online. NASA’s Meteorite Falls website also reported weather radar detections of fragments of the fireball falling as meteorites at the predicted time over Lake Ontario. Small meteorites might be found east of the town of Grimsby while larger meteorites might be nearer the town of McNab.

The first asteroid to be discovered and tracked well before hitting Earth was 2008 TC3, which entered the atmosphere over Sudan and broke up in October 2008. That 13-foot-wide (4-meter-sized) asteroid scattered hundreds of small meteorites over the Nubian Desert. Earlier this year, asteroid 2022 EB5 entered the atmosphere over the Norwegian Sea after Scout accurately predicted its location, becoming the fifth object to be detected before impact. As surveys become more sophisticated and sensitive, more of these harmless objects are being detected before entering the atmosphere, providing real exercises for NASA’s planetary defense program.

More information about CNEOS, asteroids, and near-Earth objects can be found at:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch

Related links:

Catalina Sky Survey: https://catalina.lpl.arizona.edu/

Minor Planet Center (MPC): https://minorplanetcenter.net/

Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page: https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/NEO/toconfirm_tabular.html

NASA’s Scout impact hazard assessment system: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-system-predicts-impact-of-small-asteroid

Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS): https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/

Farpoint Observatory: https://nekaal.org/doku.php?id=farpoint_observatory

University of Hawaii 88-inch (2.2-meter) telescope on Mauna Kea: https://about.ifa.hawaii.edu/facility/maunakea-telescopes/#uh88

American Meteor Society: https://fireball.amsmeteors.org/members/imo_view/event/2022/8984

NASA’s Meteorite Falls website: https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/meteorite-falls/

Next Five Asteroid Approaches: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch/next-five-approaches

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Karen Fox/Josh Handal/Alana Johnson/JPL/Ian J. O’Neill.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

SpaceX - Falcon 9 launches Eutelsat 10B

 

SpaceX - Falcon 9 / Eutelsat 10B Mission patch.

Nov 23, 2022

Falcon 9 carrying Eutelsat 10B liftoff

A SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle launched the Eutelsat 10B communications satellite from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, on 23 November 2022, at 02:57 UTC (22 November, at 21:57 EST).

Falcon 9 launches Eutelsat 10B

Falcon 9’s first stage (B1049) previously supported ten missions: Iridium-8, Telstar 18 VANTAGE and eight Starlink missions. SpaceX did not attempt to recover Falcon 9’s first stage on this mission.

Eutelsat 10B communications satellite

Related links:

SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/

Eutelsat: https://www.eutelsat.com/en/home.html

Images, Video, Text, Credits: Eutelsat/ESA/SpaceX/SciNews/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA, SpaceX Now Targeting Nov. 26 for Cargo Launch

 

SpaceX - Dragon CRS-26 Mission patch.

Nov. 22, 2022

SpaceX CRS-26: Scrubbed; NASA, SpaceX Now Targeting Nov. 26 for Launch

Image above: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the company’s Dragon cargo spacecraft atop, is raised to a vertical position at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on Nov. 21, 2022, in preparation for the 26th commercial resupply services launch to the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA.

Due to poor weather conditions in the area along Florida’s Space Coast for today’s planned launch of SpaceX’s 26th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station, SpaceX and NASA now are targeting liftoff for 2:20 p.m. EST Saturday, Nov. 26, from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Launch coverage will begin at 2 p.m. EST on NASA TV, the agency’s website, and the NASA app.

Falcon 9 aborted launch with the CRS-26 Dragon spacecraft

A launch Saturday would lead to docking Sunday, Nov. 27, for the Dragon to deliver important research, crew supplies and hardware to the crew aboard the orbiting laboratory. Docking coverage will begin at 6 a.m. with the spacecraft planned to arrive at the space station around 7:30 a.m.

Related article (NASA):

NASA Updates Coverage for Next SpaceX Resupply Launch to Space Station
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-updates-coverage-for-next-spacex-resupply-launch-to-space-station

Related articles:

NASA, SpaceX Target New Launch Date for Next Commercial Cargo Mission
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/nasa-spacex-target-new-launch-date-for.html

NASA, SpaceX Adjust Cargo Dragon Launch Date
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/nasa-spacex-adjust-cargo-dragon-launch.html

Cutting-edge Experiments Ride SpaceX’s 26th CRS Mission to Space Station
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/cutting-edge-experiments-ride-spacexs.html

Related links:

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

SpaceX Commercial Resupply: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/spacex.html

Commercial Resupply: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/index.html

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

Image (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/Linda Herridge/NASA TV/SciNews.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Artemis I – Flight Day Six: Orion Performs Lunar Flyby, Closest Outbound Approach

 

NASA / ESA - Orion Crew Vehicle patch.

Nov. 22, 2022

On its sixth day into the Artemis I mission, Orion successfully completed its fourth orbital trajectory correction burn using the auxiliary engines at 1:44 a.m. CST ahead the first of two maneuvers required to enter a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. The first three trajectory correction burns provided an opportunity to fire all three thruster types on Orion with the first using the large orbital maneuvering system engine, the second using the small reaction control system thrusters, and the third using the medium-sized auxiliary engines.

Image above: (Nov. 21, 2022) A portion of the far side of the Moon looms large just beyond the Orion spacecraft in this image taken on the sixth day of the Artemis I mission by a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays. The spacecraft entered the lunar sphere of influence Sunday, Nov. 20, making the Moon, instead of Earth, the main gravitational force acting on the spacecraft. On Monday, Nov. 21, it came within 80 miles of the lunar surface, the closest approach of the uncrewed Artemis I mission, before moving into a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. The darkest spot visible near the middle of the image is Mare Orientale. Image Credit: NASA.

Orion completed the outbound powered flyby at 6:44 a.m., passing about 81 miles above the surface at 6:57 a.m. The spacecraft speed increased from 2,128 mph before the burn to 5,102 mph after the burn. Shortly after the outbound flyby burn, the space craft passed about 1,400 miles above the Apollo 11 landing site at Tranquility Base at 7:37 a.m. Orion later flew over the Apollo 14 site at about 6,000 miles in altitude and then over the Apollo 12 site at an altitude of about 7,700 miles

“The mission continues to proceed as we had planned, and the ground systems, our operations teams, and the Orion spacecraft continue to exceed expectations, and we continue to learn along the way about this new, deep-space spacecraft,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis I mission manager, in a Nov. 21 briefing at Johnson Space Center.

Image above: (Nov. 21, 2022) – The Earth is seen setting from the far side of the Moon just beyond the Orion spacecraft in this video taken on the sixth day of the Artemis I mission by a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays. The spacecraft was preparing for the Outbound Powered Flyby maneuver which would bring it within 80 miles of the lunar surface, the closest approach of the uncrewed Artemis I mission, before moving into a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft entered the lunar sphere of influence Sunday, Nov. 20, making the Moon, instead of Earth, the main gravitational force acting on the spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA.

Orion will enter distant retrograde orbit beyond the Moon on Friday, Nov. 25 with the second maneuver, called the distant retrograde orbit insertion burn. The orbit is “distant” in the sense that it’s at a high altitude from the surface of the Moon, and it’s “retrograde” because Orion will travel around the Moon opposite the direction the Moon travels around Earth. This orbit provides a highly stable orbit where little fuel is required to stay for an extended trip in deep space to put Orion’s systems to the test in an extreme environment far from Earth. 

Orion will travel about 57,287 miles beyond the Moon at its farthest point from the Moon on Nov. 25, pass the record set by Apollo 13 for the farthest distance traveled by a spacecraft designed for humans at 248,655 miles from Earth on Saturday, Nov. 26, and reach its maximum distance from Earth of 268,552 miles Monday, Nov. 28.  

As of Monday, Nov. 21, a total of 3,715.7 pounds of propellant has been used, 76.2 pounds less than prelaunch expected values. There are 2,112.2 pounds of margin available over what is planned for use during the mission, an increase of 201.7 pounds from prelaunch expected values.

Just after 2:45 p.m. CST on Nov. 21, Orion had traveled 216,842 miles from Earth and was 13,444 miles from the Moon, cruising at 3,489 miles per hour.

Related articles:

Artemis powering past the Moon
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-powering-past-moon.html

Orion Successfully Completes Lunar Flyby, Re-acquires Signal with Earth
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/orion-successfully-completes-lunar.html

Artemis I – Flight Day Four: Testing WiFi Signals, Radiator System, GO for Outbound Powered Flyby
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-flight-day-four-testing-wifi.html

NASA’s Artemis I Cameras to Offer New Views of Orion, Earth, Moon
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/nasas-artemis-i-cameras-to-offer-new.html

Artemis I Liftoff! 50 years after Apollo 17, Orion on Its Way to the Moon
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-liftoff-50-years-after-apollo.html

Artemis I return for launch
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-return-for-launch.html

Related links:

Track Orion: https://www.nasa.gov/trackartemis

Artemis I: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-1

Orion spacecraft (ESA): https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Orion

Orion Spacecraft (NASA): https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Leah Cheshier.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA, ESA Reveal Tale of Death, Dust in Orion Constellation

 

ESA / NASA - Herschel Mission patch.

Nov 22, 2022

In a tale of cosmic proportions, the region is being transformed by the massive stars that live and die within it.

Image above: This infrared image of the Orion Nebula features plenty of dust but no stars. In these infrared wavelengths, it’s possible to see hot spots where new stars are forming, while unseen bright, massive stars have carved out caverns of empty space. Image Credits: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech.

A new image combining previously released data from three telescopes shows a region that includes the Orion Nebula, named after the mighty hunter from Greek mythology who was felled by a scorpion’s sting. But the story of how this dusty region came to be is just as dramatic.

The Orion Nebula is located in the constellation Orion, which takes the appearance of a hunter raising a club and shield at an unseen target. Three stars in a line are together known as Orion’s belt; the region shown in the image aligns with another series of stars perpendicular to the belt, known as Orion’s sword. If you could see it in the sky, the region would appear about the size of the full moon.

Dust and Drama in the Orion Nebula from NASA and ESA Images

Video above: There’s a lot to see in this fly-through of a new infrared image of the Orion Nebula, like cavities carved out by unseen massive stars and bright spots where new stars are forming. The colors represent infrared wavelengths not visible to the human eye, captured by three infrared space telescopes. Video Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Two enormous caverns that dominate the cloud were carved out by giant stars (unseen in this image) that can release up to a million times more light than our Sun. All that radiation breaks apart dust grains there, helping to create the pair of cavities. Much of the remaining dust is swept away by winds from stars or when the stars die explosive deaths as supernovae.

The blue light in these areas indicates warm dust. Observed in infrared light – a range of wavelengths outside what human eyes can detect – the views were provided by NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which now operates under the moniker NEOWISE. Spitzer and WISE were both managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Around the edge of the two cavernous regions, the dust that appears green is slightly cooler. Red indicates cold dust that reaches temperatures of about minus 440 Fahrenheit (minus 260 Celsius). The red and green light shows data from the now-retired Herschel Space Telescope, an ESA (European Space Agency) observatory that captured wavelengths of light in the far-infrared and microwave ranges, where cold dust radiates. Herschel’s large mirror provided high-resolution views of these clouds, which are full of contours, nooks, and crannies. The cold dust appears mostly on the outskirts of the dust cloud, away from the regions where stars form.  

In between the two hollow regions are orange filaments where dust condenses and forms new stars. Over time, these filaments may produce new giant stars that will once again reshape the region.

More About the Missions

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, managed Spitzer mission operations for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington until the spacecraft was retired in 2020. Science operations were conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at IPAC at Caltech. Spacecraft operations were based at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. The Spitzer data archive is housed at the Infrared Science Archive at IPAC at Caltech.

For more information about NASA’s Spitzer mission, go to:

https://www.ipac.caltech.edu/project/spitzer

Launched in 2009, the WISE spacecraft was placed into hibernation in 2011 after completing its primary mission. In September 2013, NASA reactivated the spacecraft with the primary goal of scanning for near-Earth objects, or NEOs, and the mission and spacecraft were renamed NEOWISE. The mission was selected competitively under NASA’s Explorers Program managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NEOWISE is a project of JPL and the University of Arizona and is supported by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

For more information about WISE, go to:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/main/index.html

NASA’s Herschel Project Office was based at JPL. The NASA Herschel Science Center was based at IPAC.

Related link:

Herschel Space Observatory: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/herschel/index.html

Image (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/JPL/Calla Cofield.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Webb Reveals an Exoplanet Atmosphere as Never Seen Before

 

NASA / ESA / CSA-ASC - James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) patch.

Nov. 22, 2022

The NASA/ESA/CSAJames Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical profile of a distant world’s skies.

Image above: Illustration (Artist’s Impression) of WASP-39 b and Its Star

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical portrait of a distant world’s skies. While Webb and other space telescopes, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, have previously revealed isolated ingredients of this heated planet’s atmosphere, the new readings provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clouds. The latest data also give a hint of how these clouds might look up close: broken up rather than as a single, uniform blanket over the planet.

The telescope’s array of highly sensitive instruments was trained on the atmosphere of WASP-39 b, a “hot Saturn” (a planet about as massive as Saturn but in an orbit tighter than Mercury) orbiting a star some 700 light-years away. This Saturn-sized exoplanet was one of the first examined by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope when it began regular science operations. The results have excited the exoplanet science community. Webb’s exquisitely sensitive instruments have provided a profile of WASP-39 b’s atmospheric constituents and identified a plethora of contents, including water, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, sodium and potassium.

WASP-39 b Atmospheric Composition (NIRSpec, NIRCam and NIRISS)

The findings bode well for the capability of Webb’s instruments to conduct the broad range of investigations of exoplanets — planets around other stars — hoped for by the science community. That includes probing the atmospheres of smaller, rocky planets like those in the TRAPPIST-1 system.

“We observed the exoplanet with several instruments that together cover a broad swath of the infrared spectrum and a panoply of chemical fingerprints inaccessible until JWST,” said Natalie Batalha, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who contributed to and helped coordinate the new research. “Data like these are a game changer.”

WASP-39 b Atmospheric Composition (NIRISS)

The suite of discoveries is detailed in a set of five new scientific papers, three of which are in press and two of which are under review. Among the unprecedented revelations is the first detection in an exoplanet atmosphere of sulphur dioxide, a molecule produced from chemical reactions triggered by high-energy light from the planet’s parent star. On Earth, the protective ozone layer in the upper atmosphere is created in a similar way.

“This is the first time we have seen concrete evidence of photochemistry — chemical reactions initiated by energetic stellar light — on exoplanets,” said Shang-Min Tsai, a researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and lead author of the paper explaining the origin of sulphur dioxide in WASP-39 b’s atmosphere. “I see this as a really promising outlook for advancing our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres with [this mission].”

WASP-39 b Atmospheric Composition (NIRCam)

This led to another first: scientists applying computer models of photochemistry to data that require such physics to be fully explained. The resulting improvements in modelling will help build the technological know-how needed to interpret potential signs of habitability in the future.

“Planets are sculpted and transformed by orbiting within the radiation bath of the host star,” Batalha said. “On Earth, those transformations allow life to thrive.”

WASP-39 b Atmospheric Composition (NIRSpec G395H)

The planet’s proximity to its host star — eight times closer than Mercury is to our Sun — also makes it a laboratory for studying the effects of radiation from host stars on exoplanets. Better knowledge of the star-planet connection should bring a deeper understanding of how these processes affect the diversity of planets observed in the galaxy.

Other atmospheric constituents detected by the Webb telescope include sodium (Na), potassium (K), and water vapour (H2O), confirming previous space- and ground-based telescope observations as well as finding additional fingerprints of water, at these longer wavelengths, that haven’t been seen before.

WASP-39 b Atmospheric Composition (NIRSpec PRISM)

Webb also saw carbon dioxide (CO2) at higher resolution, providing twice as much data as reported from its previous observations. Meanwhile, carbon monoxide (CO) was detected, but obvious signatures of both methane (CH4) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S) were absent from the Webb data. If present, these molecules occur at very low levels.

To capture this broad spectrum of WASP-39 b’s atmosphere, an international team numbering in the hundreds independently analysed data from four of the Webb telescope’s finely calibrated instrument modes.

“We had predicted what [the telescope] would show us, but it was more precise, more diverse and more beautiful than I think I actually believed it would be,” said Hannah Wakeford, an astrophysicist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom who investigates exoplanet atmospheres.

Having such a complete roster of chemical ingredients in an exoplanet atmosphere also gives scientists a glimpse of the abundance of different elements in relation to each other, such as the carbon-to-oxygen or potassium-to-oxygen ratios. That in turn provides insight into how this planet — and perhaps others — formed out of the disc of gas and dust surrounding the parent star in its younger years.

WASP-39 b’s chemical inventory suggests a history of smashups and mergers of smaller bodies called planetesimals to create an eventual goliath of a planet.

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) instruments

“The abundance of sulphur [relative to] hydrogen indicated that the planet presumably experienced significant accretion of planetesimals that can deliver [these ingredients] to the atmosphere,” said Kazumasa Ohno, a UC Santa Cruz exoplanet researcher who worked on Webb data. “The data also indicates that the oxygen is a lot more abundant than the carbon in the atmosphere. This potentially indicates that WASP-39 b originally formed far away from the central star.

By precisely revealing the details of an exoplanet atmosphere, the Webb telescope’s instruments performed well beyond scientists’ expectations — and promise a new phase of exploration of the broad variety of exoplanets in the galaxy.

“We are going to be able to see the big picture of exoplanet atmospheres,” said Laura Flagg, a researcher at Cornell University and a member of the international team. “It is incredibly exciting to know that everything is going to be rewritten. That is one of the best parts of being a scientist.”
More information

Webb is the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. Under an international collaboration agreement, ESA provided the telescope’s launch service, using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Working with partners, ESA was responsible for the development and qualification of Ariane 5 adaptations for the Webb mission and for the procurement of the launch service by Arianespace. ESA also provided the workhorse spectrograph NIRSpec and 50% of the mid-infrared instrument MIRI, which was designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.

Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Links:

Collection of Webb’s First Images: https://esawebb.org/initiatives/webbs-first-images/

ESA Webb Seeing Farther Interactive Brochure: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_Publications/ESA_BR-348_Webb_Seeing_farther

Release on STScI website: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2022-060

Release on NASA website: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-an-exoplanet-atmosphere-as-never-seen-before/

Science paper by L. Alderson et al.: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.10488

Science paper by Z. Rustamkulov et al.: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.10487

Science paper by E. Ahrer et al.: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.10489

Science paper by A. Feinstein et al.: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.10493

Science paper by S. Tsai et al.: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.10490

ESAWebb Site: https://esawebb.org/

Image, Animation Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Olmsted (STScI)/Text Credits: ESA/Webb/Bethany Downer/Ninja Menning.

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