From “EarthSky” And The SETI Institute: “Frank Drake – SETI visionary born on this date”

From “EarthSky”

And

The SETI Institute

5.28.23
Kelly Kizer Whitt
Deborah Byrd

Astronomer Frank Drake speaking at Cornell University in October 2017. Image via Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Astronomer Frank Drake

May 28, 2023, would be the 93rd birthday of astronomer Frank Drake. Sadly, he passed away recently, on September 2, 2022. Drake was an early visionary in the search for other civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy.

In 1960, Drake spearheaded Project Ozma, the first modern attempt to listen for radio transmissions from otherworldly intelligences.

Previously, owned by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Green Bank Observatory’s second 85-foot telescope (85-2) was, like its predecessor, the Howard E. Tatel Telescope, was built from a kit by the Blaw-Knox Corporation. Completed in February 1964, the 85-2 paired with the Tatel to form the NRAO’s first array, the Green Bank Interferometer (GBI). The GBI was changeable, because the 85-2 telescope sat on its own set of 64 wheels, and tractors could haul it up and down this stretch of road leading from the Tatel. In fact, the D7 Bulldozer in the foreground right was used as a pulling truck. Changing the distance between the 85-footers changed the resolution of the array’s combined view: farther equals higher resolution. An early computer combined the data from the two telescopes, and the cable tray for the signals runs along the far left of this photo. Today, there are three 85-foot dish antenna’s that for the GBI.

Then, on November 1, 1961, Drake, Carl Sagan and other astronomers met at the site of the Green Bank Telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia. And at that meeting, Drake presented what has become known as the Drake equation.

NASA
__________________________________________________________________

Green Bank Observatory

Green Bank Radio Telescope, West Virginia now the center piece of the Green Bank Observatory being cut loose by the National Science Foundation, supported by Breakthrough Listen Project, West Virginia University, and operated by the nonprofit Associated Universities, Inc.

__________________________________________________________________

Scientists and others found the Drake equation fascinating then … and they still do. The Drake equation is a tool for contemplating how many intelligent civilizations might be capable of communicating with us from elsewhere in the galaxy. From Drake’s formulation of the equation – and the 1961 meeting in Green Bank – the field of research and scientific organization known as SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, was born.

What is the Drake equation?

The Drake equation is a mathematical formula for thinking about how many civilizations beyond Earth might be able to communicate with us. Nowadays when you hear astronomers speak of life beyond Earth, they might be focused on biosignatures. That’s where they are looking for evidence of life, but for simple or multicellular life. For example, possible life forms under rocks on Mars or in the atmosphere of Venus. However, the Drake equation focuses on something different. In fact, it’s the search for advanced and communicating civilizations.

Thus, here is the Drake equation: N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L

Breaking down the Drake equation

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible.
R* = the average rate of star formation in our galaxy.
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets.
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets.
fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point.
fi = the fraction of planets with civilizations that actually go on to develop intelligent life.
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

As originally formulated, the Drake equation is less a true mathematical formula and more a way to start a conversation. So the value of N – the number of civilizations with which we might communicate – is difficult to determine if you don’t have solid numbers on all the factors that need to be considered.

So do astronomers know the rate of star formation in our Milky Way? Yes, approximately. The rate of star formation is somewhere around 3 solar masses per year. Next, do they know how many stars form planets? Of course, we didn’t know that number in 1961, but now we do. In fact, the answer is thought to be that most, if not all, of them form planets.

But, as you go onward in the equation, the state of our knowledge begins to falter. First, we don’t know the mean number of planets that could support life per star with planets. Second, we don’t know the fraction of life-supporting planets that develop life. And so on.

Drake equation revisited

Additionally, a wonderful thing about the Drake equation, is it continues to inspire fresh thinking about extraterrestrial life among astronomers. So in 2016, Adam Frank and Woodruff Sullivan put their heads together to publish a paper in the journal Astrobiology [below] in which they presented the Drake equation in a new light. Then they noted that technological advancements in astronomy had made better estimates possible of two Drake equation factors:

The fraction of stars with planets, fp, is now estimated to be 1.0, meaning all stars have planets

The number of planets per star where conditions are suitable for life, ne, is now estimated to be 0.2, meaning one in five planets can support life

A case for rewriting the Drake equation

In May 2021, John Gertz made a case for rewriting the Drake equation in a paper accepted for publication by the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society [below]. Here are Gertz’s thoughts on the Drake equations variables:

R*, the mean rate of star formation changes over the history of our galaxy. Plus, what about other galaxies? The rate of star formation would be different. In his May 2021 paper, Gertz suggested changing R* to Ns. That’s for the number of candidate stars in the Milky Way that fall within our field of view. He pointed out that 80% of these stars would be stars not so very different from our sun.

Fp, the fraction of stars that have planets, is no longer a big unknown. That’s because we now know that planets around stars are quite common.

Ne, the number of rocky planets in a star’s habitable zone, is too limiting. Plus the presence of an atmosphere and water are important considerations. But so are the countless moons where life could exist around planets outside a star’s habitable zone. So Gertz recommends replacing this variable with Ntb. That stands for the total number of bodies that could support life on or beneath their surfaces.

Currently, Fl, the fraction of planets that develop life, is unknowable. Also, it’s still not understood the origin of life on Earth, much less how common or rare it is in the universe.

Fi, the fraction of planets with life that develop intelligence, is also unknowable. If we don’t know how common life may be in the universe, we don’t know how common intelligent life may be.

More of Gertz’s suggested revisions

Fc, the fraction of intelligent civilizations technologically capable and actively trying to communicate with us, doesn’t take into consideration the vast expanses that communication would have to travel between our home worlds. But we could also unintentionally stumble across a signal (perhaps the Wow! signal?).

“Wow! signal” from Ohio State Big Ear Radio Telescope Aug. 15, 1977.

Ohio State Big Ear Radio Telescope, Construction of the Big Ear began in 1956 and was completed in 1961, and it was finally turned on for the first time in 1963, disassembled in 1998 having operated for over 30 years.

Then a better variable, Gertz says, is Fd, the fraction of technological life that is detectable by any means. However, the problem may not be the civilization sending us a message. Instead, the problem could be that we aren’t advanced enough to detect or receive it.

L, the length of time a civilization is communicative, depends on how long they can sustain themselves before they either self-destruct or something external (asteroid, supernova or the like) takes them out. We don’t know the answer, either for ourselves or for an alien civilization. This variable is the one that Carl Sagan considered most uncertain. Gertz’s ideas about L mesh nicely with Avi Loeb’s assertion that ‘Oumuamua is of alien origin. Gertz commented:

“The Drake equation was predicated upon the notion that there is a finite number of currently existing alien civilizations ensconced among the stars, some of whom will be signaling their presence to us using radio or optical lasers. However, this ignores another school of thought which holds that ET’s far better strategy would be to send physical probes to our solar system to surveil and ultimately make contact with us. Such probes could represent information from innumerable civilizations, many of whom may have long ago perished. If this is the case, Drake’s L is irrelevant, since the probe might far outlive its progenitor, and his N reduces to one, the single probe that makes its presence known to us through which alone we might communicate with the rest of the galaxy.”

Gertz’s final version of the Drake equation

What’s left is John Gertz’s updated take on the Drake equation: N = ns • fp • ntb • fl • fi • fd • L

ns is the number of spots on the sky within our field of view.
fp is the fraction of stars with planets.
ntb is the average number of bodies within each that could engender life.
fl is the fraction of those that actually do give birth to life.
fi is the fraction of systems with life that evolves technological intelligence.
fd is the fraction of technological life that is detectable by any means.
L is the duration of detectability.

Where do SETI researchers go from here?

The plan is for radio wave and visible-light observations, combined with technological advances that will eventually let scientists survey one million nearby stars, the entire galactic plane and 100 nearby galaxies. Dedicated wide-field telescopes are one of the items on Gertz’s wish list for SETI.

Breakthrough Listen, a project Gertz is currently involved in, is a good start.

___________________________________________________________________
Breakthrough Listen Project

UC Observatories Lick Automated Planet Finder fully robotic 2.4-meter optical telescope at Lick Observatory, situated on the summit of Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose, California

Green Bank Radio Telescope, West Virginia, now the center piece of the Green Bank Observatory, being cut loose by the National Science Foundation, supported by Breakthrough Listen Project, West Virginia University, and operated by the nonprofit Associated Universities, Inc.

CSIRO-Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU) Parkes Observatory [ Murriyang, the traditional Indigenous name] , located 20 kilometres north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia, 414.80m above sea level.

SKA SARAO Meerkat telescope(SA) 90 km outside the small Northern Cape town of Carnarvon, SA.

Newly added

University of Arizona Veritas Four Čerenkov telescopes A novel gamma ray telescope under construction at the CfA Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, Mount Hopkins, Arizona, altitude 2,606 m 8,550 ft. A large project known as the Čerenkov Telescope Array, composed of hundreds of similar telescopes to be situated at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory [Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias ](ES) in the Canary Islands and Chile at European Southern Observatory Cerro Paranal(EU) site. The telescope on Mount Hopkins will be fitted with a prototype high-speed camera, assembled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and capable of taking pictures at a billion frames per second. Credit: Vladimir Vassiliev. ___________________________________________________________________
It is the largest-ever scientific research program aimed at finding evidence of civilizations beyond Earth. Breakthrough Listen scans the radio spectrum with the world’s most powerful instruments. Gertz said:

“Breakthrough Listen is a game-changer. Because of it, more SETI is accomplished in a single day than was ever before accomplished in a full year.”

Funding will be the key to continued searches, and, with a lot of planning and maybe a little luck, to future success in finding an intelligent civilization in the wider universe.

The Drake Equation After Sixty Years | Part 1

The Birth-Death Drake Equation | Part 2

Astrobiology 2016
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 2021

https://www.semanticscholar.org

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

SETI Institute
About The SETI Institute
What is life? How does it begin? Are we alone? These are some of the questions we ask in our quest to learn about and share the wonders of the universe. At the SETI Institute we have a passion for discovery and for passing knowledge along as scientific ambassadors.

The SETI Institute is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit scientific research institute headquartered in Mountain View, California. We are a key research contractor to NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), and we collaborate with industry partners throughout Silicon Valley and beyond.

Founded in 1984, the SETI Institute employs more than 130 scientists, educators, and administrative staff. Work at the SETI Institute is anchored by three centers: the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe (research), the Center for Education and the Center for Outreach.

The SETI Institute welcomes philanthropic support from individuals, private foundations, corporations and other groups to support our education and outreach initiatives, as well as unfunded scientific research and fieldwork.

A Special Thank You to SETI Institute Partners and Collaborators
• Campoalto, Chile, NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Headquarters, National Science Foundation, Aerojet Rocketdyne,SRI International

Frontier Development Lab Partners
• Breakthrough Prize Foundation, The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganisation](EU), Google Cloud, IBM, Intel, KBRwyle. Kx Lockheed Martin, NASA Ames Research Center, Nvidia, SpaceResources Luxembourg, XPrize
In-kind Service Providers
• Gunderson Dettmer – General legal services, Hello Pilgrim – Website Design and Development Steptoe & Johnson – IP legal services, Danielle Futselaar

SETI/Allen Telescope Array situated at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, 290 miles (470 km) northeast of San Francisco, California, USA, Altitude 986 m (3,235 ft), the origins of the Institute’s search.

March 23, 2015
By Hilary Lebow
The NIROSETI instrument saw first light on the Nickel 1-meter Telescope at Lick Observatory on March 15, 2015. (Photo by Laurie Hatch.)

Astronomers are expanding the search for extraterrestrial intelligence into a new realm with detectors tuned to infrared light at UC’s Lick Observatory. A new instrument, called NIROSETI, will soon scour the sky for messages from other worlds.

Alumna Shelley Wright, now an assistant professor of physics at UC San Diego, discusses the dichroic filter of the NIROSETI instrument, developed at the U Toronto Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (CA) and brought to UCSD and installed at the UC Santa Cruz Lick Observatory Nickel Telescope. (Photo by Laurie Hatch)

Shelley Wright of UC San Diego with NIROSETI, developed at U Toronto Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (CA) at the 1-meter Nickel Telescope at Lick Observatory at UC Santa Cruz

NIROSETI team from left to right Rem Stone UCO Lick Observatory Dan Werthimer, UC Berkeley; Jérôme Maire, U Toronto; Shelley Wright, UCSD; Patrick Dorval, U Toronto; Richard Treffers, Starman Systems. (Image by Laurie Hatch).

Laser SETI

LaserSETI observatory installation at Haleakala Observatory in Maui, Hawai’I, aimed East.

There is also an installation at Robert Ferguson Observatory, Sonoma, CA aimed West for full coverage [no image available].

SETI Institute – 189 Bernardo Ave., Suite 100
Mountain View, CA 94043
Phone 650.961.6633 – Fax 650-961-7099
Privacy Policy – Questions and Comments

Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. “Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers,” she says.

From “EarthSky” And The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope: “News from Enceladus via Webb – A huge water plume!”

From “EarthSky”

And

National Aeronautics Space Agency/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/ Canadian Space Agency [Agence Spatiale Canadienne](CA) James Webb Infrared Space Telescope annotated, finally launched December 25, 2021, ten years late.

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope

5.25.23
Paul Scott Anderson

Artist’s illustration of the water vapor plumes on Enceladus. These active jets erupt from large cracks in the ice at the south pole of Enceladus. Now, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has observed the largest plume seen yet. Image via NASA/ JPL/ SSI.

The Cassini spacecraft – which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017 – captured this image of plumes of water vapor from Saturn’s moon Enceladus on November 21, 2009.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/ASI Italian Space Agency [Agenzia Spaziale Italiana](IT) Cassini Spacecraft.

Saturn’s moon Enceladus is famous for its huge, active plumes of water vapor. They erupt like geysers at this little moon’s south pole. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft discovered them in 2005. And scientists quickly surmised that the plumes originate from a global ocean below the surface of Saturn’s moon. That subsurface ocean might be inhabited by living things. So the plumes might contain evidence of life. In May 2023, we began to hear that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has now taken a new close look at Enceladus. Webb has observed a new, much larger plume.

The water vapor plumes on Enceladus can be huge, generally speaking. They tower above the moon’s icy surface. Consider that Enceladus itself is only about 314 miles (505 km) wide. The plumes spotted by Cassini were known to be at least as tall as the moon’s diameter. But this new plume – observed by Webb – is the biggest one ever seen, many times the diameter of Enceladus itself. As Sara Faggi, a planetary astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said:

“It’s immense.”

Biggest water plume on Enceladus ever seen

We haven’t seen a statement from scientists about the new plume. And we haven’t seen the Webb image. It apparently hasn’t been released yet.

But Alexandra Witze wrote about the new plume in Nature [below] on May 18, 2023.

And Faggi mentioned the plume and the Webb observations at a conference at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 17.

While few details were presented at the conference, Faggi said that a new paper will be coming out soon.

Many times Enceladus’ diameter

The water vapor erupts through large cracks in Enceladus’ icy surface. Scientists call these cracks tiger stripes.

The venting was known for sending the water vapor and other particles it contains a long way from Enceladus, out into space. But this newest eruption sent spray from the moon’s interior even farther out, up to many times Enceladus’ diameter of 314 miles (505 km).

Webb was able to observe this plume on November 22, 2022, and scientists have been studying the data sent back ever since.

Cassini analyzed particles in the plume that were relatively close to Enceladus itself. But Webb has the advantage of being able to look at plume particles that travel much farther away from the little moon. The ability to study both will help scientists better understand the plumes and the rich variety of ingredients they contain.

New analysis of Enceladus’ plumes

The analysis of the plume material, to be presented in the forthcoming paper, should be quite interesting. Cassini previously found that the plumes contain water vapor, ice particles, salts, silica, carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane and organic molecules.

Webb observed the plume for only 4.5 minutes, but that was ample time to obtain the data needed. The analysis will provide more details about how much water vapor the plume contained and the temperature. This plume, however, since it is so spread out away from Enceladus, is likely much more diffuse than the plumes Cassini saw (and actually flew through!). That may make it more difficult to determine what kinds of organic molecules were in the plume. Cassini did find a variety of both simple and complex organic molecules during its mission, however. As Witze wrote:

“But the plume is likely to be of low density, more like a diffuse, cold cloud than a damp spray. That’s not great news for anyone looking to grab samples from the plume and hoping to find life, because the signs of life might be too sparse to detect. Ice grains seen by Cassini much closer to Enceladus are more likely to have high concentrations of organic particles, says Shannon MacKenzie, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.”

With that in mind, Webb did find an abundance of intriguing chemicals in the plume. Witze wrote:

“JWST also analyzed the spectrum of sunlight reflecting off Enceladus and found evidence of many chemicals, including water and possibly other compounds that could hint at geological or biological activity in the moon’s ocean.”

What are they? We’ll have to wait to find out, but as Faggi noted:

“We have many more surprises.”

Life on Enceladus?

The plumes are of special interest to science because they might contain clues about possible life in Enceladus’ subsurface ocean. The ingredients found so far are tantalizing, although not proof yet that the ocean harbors living organisms.

Cassini did also find evidence suggesting that there are hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. If so, they could possibly be a source of heat and nutrients, just as they are in oceans on Earth.

Future missions

As of now, there are no confirmed missions going back to Enceladus. But there are ideas on the drawing boards, such as a combination of orbiter and lander called Orbilander. Read the concept study here. A return mission will be essential to find out whether life ever has existed on Enceladus, or still does.

Nature
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has spotted Saturn’s moon Enceladus spraying out a huge plume of water vapour, much bigger than any previously seen there. This enormous cloud might contain the chemical ingredients of life, escaping from beneath the moon’s icy surface.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. Webb was finally launched December 25, 2021, ten years late. Webb will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.

Webb is the world’s largest, most powerful, and most complex space science telescope ever built. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.

Webb was formerly known as the “Next Generation Space Telescope” (NGST); it was renamed in Sept. 2002 after a former NASA administrator, James Webb.

Webb is an international collaboration between National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center managed the development effort. The main industrial partner is Northrop Grumman; the Space Telescope Science Institute operates Webb.

Several innovative technologies have been developed for Webb. These include a folding, segmented primary mirror, adjusted to shape after launch; ultra-lightweight beryllium optics; detectors able to record extremely weak signals, microshutters that enable programmable object selection for the spectrograph; and a cryocooler for cooling the mid-IR detectors to 7K.

There are four science instruments on Webb: The Near InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), The Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRspec), The Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), and The Fine Guidance Sensor/ Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (FGS-NIRISS).

Webb’s instruments are designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range. It will be sensitive to light from 0.6 to 28 micrometers in wavelength.
National Aeronautics Space Agency Webb NIRCam.

NASA Webb NIRSpec

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Webb MIRI schematic.

Canadian Space Agency [Agence Spatiale Canadienne](CA)Webb Fine Guidance Sensor-Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph FGS/NIRISS.

Webb has four main science themes: The End of the Dark Ages: First Light and Reionization, The Assembly of Galaxies, The Birth of Stars and Protoplanetary Systems, and Planetary Systems and the Origins of Life.

Dark Ages and Re-ionization of the Universe Credit: The European Southern Observatory [La Observatorio Europeo Austral][Observatoire européen austral][Europäische Südsternwarte](EU)(CL).

Epoch of Reionization and first stars. Credit: California Institute of Technology.

Launch was December 25, 2021, ten years late on an Ariane 5 rocket. The launch was from Arianespace’s ELA-3 launch complex at European Spaceport located near Kourou, French Guiana. Webb is located at the second Lagrange point, about a million miles from the Earth.

LaGrange Points map. NASA.

Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. “Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers,” she says.

From The University of Maryland And AURA – The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy And The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Via “EarthSky” : “Weird comet in asteroid belt targeted by Webb”

From The University of Maryland

And

AURA – The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy

And

National Aeronautics Space Agency/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/ Canadian Space Agency [Agence Spatiale Canadienne](CA) James Webb Infrared Space Telescope annotated, finally launched December 25, 2021, ten years late.

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope

Via

“EarthSky”

5.24.23
Paul Scott Anderson

This is an artist’s illustration of what weird Comet Read (238P/Read) might look like up close. Image via NASA/ ESA.

Comets are rare in the asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter. But some comets do reside there, including Comet Read (238P/Read). Asteroids tend to be rocky or metallic. Unlike them, Comet Read – an icy body – sometimes looks fuzzy, displaying, like other comets, a coma and a tail. On May 15, 2023, NASA said the Webb space telescope has taken a close look at Comet Read. Webb confirmed water vapor, a first for a comet in the asteroid belt. More unexpected was what Webb didn’t find. It found no sign of carbon dioxide, a gas expected and observed in most comets.

A team of scientists in the U.S. published the peer-reviewed results on May 15, 2023, in Nature [below].

Weird comet 238P/Read

Comets are typically rich in water vapor and water ice, as well as gas and dust. Scientists think they may even have brought much of Earth’s original water to our planet billions of years ago. But when it comes to the rarer comets in the main asteroid belt, proof of water vapor or ice has been hard to come by … until now.

For the first time, water vapor has been definitively detected on a comet – Comet Read – in the main asteroid belt. Lead author Michael Kelley of the University of Maryland said:

“In the past, we’ve seen objects in the main belt with all the characteristics of comets, but only with this precise spectral data from Webb can we say yes, it’s definitely water ice that is creating that effect. With Webb’s observations of Comet Read, we can now demonstrate that water ice from the early solar system can be preserved in the asteroid belt.”

Missing carbon dioxide

There was, however, another result that surprised scientists. Webb found no carbon dioxide (CO2) on the comet. The paper stated:

“…Here, we present JWST [James Webb Space Telescope] observations which clearly show that main-belt comet 238P/Read has a coma of water vapor, but lacks a significant CO2 gas coma….”

Carbon dioxide tends to compose about 10% of the volatile material in comets. So why is it missing in Comet Read?

The researchers pose two possible scenarios to explain the missing carbon dioxide. The first possibility is that the comet did have it a long time ago but ended up losing it because of the warmer temperatures in the asteroid belt. (Comets generally reside and originate in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, out past Neptune). As Kelley explained:

“Being in the asteroid belt for a long time could do it; carbon dioxide vaporizes more easily than water ice, and could percolate out over billions of years.”

The other theory is that Comet Read originated in a warmer region of the solar system where there was no carbon dioxide to begin with.

Spectra comparison of Comet Read and Comet Hartley 2. Comet Hartley 2 shows the “bumps” in the spectra for both water and carbon dioxide. Comet Read, however, only shows a bump for water … no carbon dioxide. Credit: Joseph Olmsted (STScI); Image via NASA/ ESA/ CSA.

Additional observations and maybe even a mission?

The results are interesting, but do they represent asteroid-belt comets in general, or is Comet Read simply unusual? To find out, astronomers will now use Webb to look at other comets in that part of the solar system as well. This will be part of Webb’s Guaranteed Time Observations. Co-author Heidi Hammel is with the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA). She said:

“These objects in the asteroid belt are small and faint, and with Webb we can finally see what is going on with them and draw some conclusions. Do other main-belt comets also lack carbon dioxide? Either way it will be exciting to find out.”

There is even the possibility of sending a robotic spacecraft mission out to one of these comets. Co-author Stefanie Milam, Webb deputy project scientist for planetary science, surmised:

“Now that Webb has confirmed there is water preserved as close as the asteroid belt, it would be fascinating to follow up on this discovery with a sample-collection mission and learn what else the main belt comets can tell us.’

The findings show how comets aren’t all alike as much as we might tend to think. The differences, and similarities, between comets in various parts of the solar system can provide valuable clues as to how they – and the solar system overall – first formed. And maybe even how life first originated on Earth, and perhaps elsewhere in our sun’s family of worlds.

Nature

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. Webb was finally launched December 25, 2021, ten years late. Webb will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.

Webb is the world’s largest, most powerful, and most complex space science telescope ever built. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.

Webb was formerly known as the “Next Generation Space Telescope” (NGST); it was renamed in Sept. 2002 after a former NASA administrator, James Webb.

Webb is an international collaboration between National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center managed the development effort. The main industrial partner is Northrop Grumman; the Space Telescope Science Institute operates Webb.

Several innovative technologies have been developed for Webb. These include a folding, segmented primary mirror, adjusted to shape after launch; ultra-lightweight beryllium optics; detectors able to record extremely weak signals, microshutters that enable programmable object selection for the spectrograph; and a cryocooler for cooling the mid-IR detectors to 7K.

There are four science instruments on Webb: The Near InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), The Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRspec), The Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), and The Fine Guidance Sensor/ Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (FGS-NIRISS).

Webb’s instruments are designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range. It will be sensitive to light from 0.6 to 28 micrometers in wavelength.
National Aeronautics Space Agency Webb NIRCam.

NASA Webb NIRSpec

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Webb MIRI schematic.

Canadian Space Agency [Agence Spatiale Canadienne](CA)Webb Fine Guidance Sensor-Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph FGS/NIRISS.

Webb has four main science themes: The End of the Dark Ages: First Light and Reionization, The Assembly of Galaxies, The Birth of Stars and Protoplanetary Systems, and Planetary Systems and the Origins of Life.

Dark Ages and Re-ionization of the Universe Credit: The European Southern Observatory [La Observatorio Europeo Austral][Observatoire européen austral][Europäische Südsternwarte](EU)(CL).

Epoch of Reionization and first stars. Credit: California Institute of Technology.

Launch was December 25, 2021, ten years late on an Ariane 5 rocket. The launch was from Arianespace’s ELA-3 launch complex at European Spaceport located near Kourou, French Guiana. Webb is located at the second Lagrange point, about a million miles from the Earth.

LaGrange Points map. NASA.

The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) is a consortium of 42 US institutions and 5 international affiliates that operates world-class astronomical observatories. AURA’s role is to establish, nurture, and promote public observatories and facilities that advance innovative astronomical research. In addition, AURA is deeply committed to public and educational outreach, and to diversity throughout the astronomical and scientific workforce. AURA carries out its role through its astronomical facilities.

Our mission

“To promote excellence in astronomical research by providing access to information about the universe from state-of-the-art facilities, surveys, and archives”

Our facilities

National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the international Gemini Observatory a facility of NSF NRC–Canada, Gemini Argentina | Argentina.gob.ar, ANID–Chile, Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications [Ministério da Ciência, Tecnolgia, Inovação e Comunicações](BR), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute[알림사항])(KR).

NSF NOIRLab NOAO Gemini South telescope Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory(CL) campus near La Serena, Chile, at an altitude of 7200 feet on the summit of Cerro Pachon.

NSF NOIRLab NOAO Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory(CL) approximately 80 km to the East of La Serena, Chile, at an altitude of 2200 meters.

NSF NOIRLab’s Gemini North Frederick C Gillett telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory Hawai’i (Altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

Mauna Kea Observatories Hawai’i altitude 4,213 m (13,822 ft).

The National Science Foundation NOIRLab National Optical Astronomy Observatory Vera C. Rubin Observatory [LSST] Telescope currently under construction on the El Peñón peak at Cerro Pachón Chile, a 2,682-meter-high mountain in Coquimbo Region, in northern Chile, alongside the Gemini South Telescope and Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope.

LSST/Camera, built at the DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, DKIST, atop the Haleakala volcano on the Pacific island of Maui, Hawai’i at an altitude of 3,084 m (10,118 ft).

The University of Maryland is a public land-grant research university. Founded in 1856, The University of Maryland is the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland. It is also the largest university in both the state and the Washington metropolitan area, with more than 41,000 students representing all fifty states and 123 countries, and a global alumni network of over 388,000. Its twelve schools and colleges together offer over 200 degree-granting programs, including 92 undergraduate majors, 107 master’s programs, and 83 doctoral programs. The University of Maryland is a member of The Association of American Universities and competes in intercollegiate athletics as a member of the Big Ten Conference.

The University of Maryland’s proximity to the nation’s capital has resulted in many research partnerships with the federal government; faculty receive research funding and institutional support from agencies such as The National Institutes of Health (US), The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, The National Institute of Standards and Technology, The Food and Drug Administration, The National Security Agency, and The Department of Homeland Security. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity” and is labeled a “Public Ivy”, denoting a quality of education comparable to the private Ivy League. The University of Maryland is ranked among the top 100 universities both nationally and globally by several indices, including its perennially top-ranked criminology and criminal justice department.

In 2016, the University of Maryland-College Park and The University of Maryland- Baltimore formalized their strategic partnership after their collaboration successfully created more innovative medical, scientific, and educational programs, as well as greater research grants and joint faculty appointments than either campus has been able to accomplish on its own. According to The National Science Foundation, the university spent a combined $1.1 billion on research and development in 2019, ranking it 14th overall in the nation and 8th among all public institutions. As of 2021, the operating budget of the University of Maryland is approximately $2.2 billion.

On March 6, 1856, the forerunner of today’s University of Maryland was chartered as the Maryland Agricultural College. Two years later, Charles Benedict Calvert (1808–1864), a future U.S. Representative (Congressman) from the sixth congressional district of Maryland, 1861–1863, during the American Civil War and descendant of the first Lord Baltimores, colonial proprietors of the Province of Maryland in 1634, purchased 420 acres (1.7 km^2) of the Riversdale Mansion estate nearby today’s College Park, Maryland. Later that year, Calvert founded the school and was the acting president from 1859 to 1860. On October 5, 1859, the first 34 students entered the Maryland Agricultural College. The school became a land grant college in February 1864.

Following the Civil War, in February 1866, the Maryland legislature assumed half ownership of the school. The college thus became in part a state institution. By October 1867, the school reopened with 11 students. In 1868, the former Confederate admiral Franklin Buchanan was appointed President of the school, and in his tenure of just over a year, he reorganized it, established a system of strict economy in its business transactions, applied some of its revenues for the paying off of its debts, raised its standards, and attracted patrons through his personal influence: enrollment grew to 80 at the time of his resignation, and the school’s debt was soon paid off. In 1873, Samuel Jones, a former Confederate Major General, became president of the college.

Twenty years later, the federally funded Agricultural Experiment Station was established there. During the same period, state laws granted the college regulatory powers in several areas—including controlling farm disease, inspecting feed, establishing a state weather bureau and geological survey, and housing the board of forestry. Morrill Hall (the oldest instructional building still in use on campus) was built the following year.

The state took control of the school in 1916, and the institution was renamed Maryland State College. That year, the first female students enrolled at the school. On April 9, 1920, the college became part of the existing University of Maryland, replacing St. John’s College, Annapolis as the university’s undergraduate campus. In the same year, the graduate school on the College Park campus awarded its first PhD degrees and the university’s enrollment reached 500 students. In 1925 the university was accredited by The Association of American Universities.

By the time the first black students enrolled at the university in 1951, enrollment had grown to nearly 10,000 students—4,000 of whom were women. Prior to 1951, many black students in Maryland were enrolled at The University of Maryland-Eastern Shore.

In 1957, President Wilson H. Elkins made a push to increase academic standards at the university. His efforts resulted in the creation of one of the first Academic Probation Plans. The first year the plan went into effect, 1,550 students (18% of the total student body) faced expulsion.

On October 19, 1957, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom attended her first and only college football game at the University of Maryland after expressing interest in seeing a typical American sport during her first tour of the United States. The Maryland Terrapins beat the North Carolina Tar Heels 21 to 7 in the historical game now referred to as “The Queen’s Game”.

Phi Beta Kappa established a chapter at UMD in 1964. In 1969, the university was elected to The Association of American Universities. The school continued to grow, and by the fall of 1985 reached an enrollment of 38,679. Like many colleges during the Vietnam War, the university was the site of student protests and had curfews enforced by the National Guard.

In a massive restructuring of the state’s higher education system in 1988, the school was designated as the flagship campus of the newly formed University of Maryland System (later changed to the University System of Maryland in 1997), and was formally named the University of Maryland-College Park. All of the five campuses in the former network were designated as distinct campuses in the new system. However, in 1997 the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation allowing the University of Maryland-College Park to be known simply as The University of Maryland, recognizing the campus’ role as the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland.

The other University System of Maryland institutions with the name “University of Maryland” are not satellite campuses of the University of Maryland-College Park. The University of Maryland-Baltimore, is the only other school permitted to confer certain degrees from the “University of Maryland”.

In 1994, the National Archives at College Park completed construction and opened on a parcel of land adjoining campus donated by the University of Maryland, after lobbying by President William Kirwan and congressional leaders to foster academic collaboration between the institutions.

In 2004, the university began constructing the 150-acre (61 ha) “M Square Research Park,” which includes facilities affiliated with The Department of Defense , Food and Drug Administration, and the new National Center for Weather and Climate Prediction, affiliated with The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In May 2010, ground was broken on a new $128-million, 158,068-square-foot (14,685.0 m^2) Physical Science Complex, including an advanced quantum science laboratory.

The university’s Great Expectations campaign from 2006 to 2012 exceeded $1 billion in private donations.

The university suffered multiple data breaches in 2014. The first resulted in the loss of over 300,000 student and faculty records. A second data breach occurred several months later. The second breach was investigated by the FBI and Secret Service and found to be done by David Helkowski. Despite the attribution, no charges were filed. As a result of the data breaches, the university offered free credit protection for five years to the students and faculty affected.

In 2012, the University of Maryland-College Park and the University of Maryland- Baltimore united under the MPowering the State initiative to leverage the strengths of both institutions. The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Act of 2016 officially formalized this partnership.

The University of Maryland’s University District Plan, developed in 2011 under President Wallace Loh and the College Park City Council, seeks to make the City of College Park a top 20 college town by 2020 by improving housing and development, transportation, public safety, local pre-K–12 education, and supporting sustainability projects. As of 2018, the university is involved with over 30 projects and 1.5 million square feet of development as part of its Greater College Park Initiative, worth over $1 billion in public-private investments. The university’s vision is to revitalize the campus to foster a dynamic and innovative academic environment, as well as to collaborate with the surrounding neighborhoods and local government to create a vibrant downtown community for students and faculty

In October 2017, the university received a record-breaking donation of $219.5 million from the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation, ranking among the largest philanthropic gifts to a public university in the country.

As of February 12, 2020, it has been announced that Darryll J. Pines will be the 34th President of the University of Maryland-College Park effective July 1, 2020. Darryll J. Pines is the dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering and the Nariman Farvardin Professor of Aerospace Engineering since January 2009. Darryll J. Pines has been with the University of Maryland College Park for 25 years since he arrived in 1995 and started as an assistant professor.

In 2021, the university announced it had achieved its record goal of $1.5 billion raised in donations since 2018 as part of its Fearless Ideas: The Campaign for Maryland for investments in faculty, students, research, scholarships, and capital projects.

The university hosts “living-learning” programs which allow students with similar academic interests to live in the same residential community, take specialized courses, and perform research in those areas of expertise. An example is the Honors College, which is geared towards undergraduate students meeting high academic requirements and consists of several of the university’s honors programs. The Honors College welcomes students into a community of faculty and undergraduates. The Honors College offers seven living and learning programs: Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students, Design Cultures and Creativity, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Honors Humanities, Gemstone, Integrated Life Sciences, and University Honors.

Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES), started in 2013, is directed by Michel Cukier and run by faculty and graduate students. ACES students are housed in Prince Frederick Hall and take a 14 credit, two year curriculum that educates future leaders in the field of cybersecurity. ACES also offers a complementary two-year minor in cybersecurity.

Design Cultures and Creativity (DCC), started in 2009, is directed by artist Jason Farman and run by faculty and graduate students. The DCC program encourages students to explore the relationship between emerging media, society, and creative practices. DCC students are housed in Prince Frederick residence hall together and take a 16 credit, two year interdisciplinary curriculum which culminates in a capstone.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program (EIP) is a living and learning program for Honors College freshmen and sophomores, helping build entrepreneurial mindsets, skill sets, and relationships for the development of solutions to today’s problems. Through learning, courses, seminars, workshops, competitions, and volunteerism, students receive an education in entrepreneurship and innovation. In collaboration with faculty and mentors who have launched new ventures, all student teams develop an innovative idea and write a product plan.

Honors Humanities is the honors program for beginning undergraduates with interests in the humanities and creative arts. The selective two-year living-learning program combines a small liberal arts college environment with the resources of a large research university.

Gemstone is a multidisciplinary four-year research program for select undergraduate honors students of all majors. Under guidance of faculty mentors and Gemstone staff, teams of students design, direct and conduct research, exploring the interdependence of science and technology with society.

Integrated Life Sciences (ILS) is the honors program for students interested in all aspects of biological research and biomedicine. The College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences has partnered with the Honors College to create the ILS program, which offers nationally recognized innovations in the multidisciplinary training of life science and pre-medical students. The objective of the ILS experience is to prepare students for success in graduate, medical, dental, or other professional schools.

University Honors (UH) is the largest living-learning program in the Honors College and allows students the greatest independence in shaping their education. University Honors students are placed into a close-knit community of the university’s faculty and other undergraduates, committed to acquiring a broad and balanced education. Students choose from over 130 seminars exploring interdisciplinary topics in three broad areas: Contemporary Issues and Challenges, Arts and Sciences in Today’s World, and Using the World as a Classroom.

The College Park Scholars programs are two-year living-learning programs for first- and second-year students. Students are selected to enroll in one of 12 thematic programs: Arts; Business, Society, and the Economy; Environment, Technology, and Economy; Global Public Health; International Studies; Life Sciences; Media, Self, and Society; Public Leadership; Science and Global Change; Science, Discovery, and the Universe; Science, Technology, and Society. Students live in dormitories in the Cambridge Community on North Campus.

The nation’s first living-learning entrepreneurship program, Hinman CEOs, is geared toward students who are interested in starting their own business. Students from all academic disciplines live together and are provided the resources to explore business ventures.

The QUEST (Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams) Honors Fellows Program engages undergraduate students from business, engineering, and computer, mathematical, and physical sciences. QUEST Students participate in courses focused on cross-functional collaboration, innovation, quality management, and teamwork. The Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) has also been long considered an outstanding engineering division of the university since its inception in 1908.

Other living-learning programs include: CIVICUS, a two-year program in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences based on the five principles of civil society; Global Communities, a program that immerses students in a diverse culture (students from all over the world live in a community), and the Language House, which allows students pursuing language courses to live and practice with other students learning the same language.

The Mock Trial Team engages in intercollegiate mock trial competition. The team, which first began competing in 1990, has won five national championships (2008, 2000, 1998, 1996, 1992), which ranks the most of any university, and was also the national runner-up in 1992 and 1993.

Research

On October 14, 2004, the university added 150 acres (61 ha) in an attempt to create the largest research park inside the Washington, D.C., Capital Beltway, formerly known as “M Square,” and now known as the “Discovery District”.

Many of the faculty members have funding from federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Security Agency. These relationships have created numerous research opportunities for the university including:

Taking the lead in the nationwide research initiative into the transmission and prevention of human and avian influenza.
Creating a new research center to study the behavioral and social foundations of terrorism with funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Launching the joint NASA-University of Maryland Deep Impact spacecraft in early January 2005.

The University of Maryland Libraries provide access to scholarly information resources required to meet the missions of the university.

The University of Maryland is an international center for the study of language, hosting the largest community of language scientists in North America, including more than 200 faculty, researchers, and graduate students, who collectively comprise the Maryland Language Science Center. Since 2008 the university has hosted an NSF-IGERT interdisciplinary graduate training program that has served as a catalyst for broader integrative efforts in language science, with 50 participating students and contributions from 50 faculty. The University of Maryland is also home to two key ‘migrator’ centers that connect basic research to critical national needs in education and national security: the Center for Advanced Study of Language (CASL) and the National Foreign Language Center.

The Center for American Politics and Citizenship provides citizens and policy-makers with research on issues related to the United States’ political institutions, processes, and policies. CAPC is a non-partisan, non-profit research institution within the Department of Government and Politics in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences.

The Space Systems Laboratory researches human-robotic interaction for astronautics applications, and includes the only neutral buoyancy facility at a university.

The Joint Quantum Institute conducts theoretical and experimental research on quantum and atomic physics. The institute was founded in 2006 as a collaboration between the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The Center for Technology and Systems Management (CTSM) aims to advance the state of technology and systems analysis for the benefit of people and the environment. The focus is on enhancing safety, efficiency and effectiveness by performing reliability, risk, uncertainty or decision analysis studies.

The Joint Global Change Research Institute was formed in 2001 by the University of Maryland and the DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The institute focuses on multidisciplinary approaches of climate change research.

The Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) was formed in 1985 at the University of Maryland. CALCE is dedicated to providing a knowledge and resource base to support the development of electronic components, products and systems.

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) launched in 2005 as one of the Centers of Excellence supported by the Department of Homeland Security in the United States. START is focused on the scientific study of the causes and consequences of terrorism in the United States and around the world.

The university is tied for 58th in the 2021 U.S. News & World Report rankings of “National Universities” across the United States, and it is ranked tied for 19th nationally among public universities. The Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked Maryland as 43rd in the world in 2015. The 2017–2018 Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed Maryland 69th in the world. The 2016/17 QS World University Rankings ranked Maryland 131st in the world.

The university was ranked among Peace Corps’ 25 Top Volunteer-Producing Colleges for the tenth consecutive year in 2020. The University of Maryland is ranked among Teach for America’s Top 20 Colleges and Universities, contributing the greatest number of graduating seniors to its 2017 teaching corps. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance ranked the University 10th for in-state students and 16th for out-of-state students in its 2019 Best College Value ranking. Money Magazine ranked the university 1st in the state of Maryland for public colleges in its 2019 Best College for Your Money ranking.

For the fourth consecutive year in 2015, the university is ranked 1st in the U.S. for the number of Boren Scholarship recipients – with 9 students receiving awards for intensive international language study. The university is ranked as a Top Producing Institution of Fulbright U.S. Students and Scholars for the 2017–2018 academic year by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

In 2017, the University of Maryland was ranked among the top 50 universities in the 2018 Best Global Universities Rankings by U.S. News & World Report based on its high academic research performance and global reputation.

In 2021, the university was ranked among the top 10 universities in The Princeton Review’s annual survey of the Top Schools for Innovation & Entrepreneurship; this was the sixth consecutive such ranking.

WMUC-FM (88.1 FM) is the university non-commercial radio station, staffed by UMD students and volunteers. WMUC is a freeform radio station that broadcasts at 10 watts. Its broadcasts can be heard throughout the Washington metropolitan area. Notable WMUC alumni include Connie Chung, Bonnie Bernstein, Peter Rosenberg and Aaron McGruder.

From “EarthSky” : “Sun activity – A classic lightbulb CME”

From “EarthSky”

5.23.23
C. Alex Young
Raúl Cortés
Armando Caussade

The sun unleashed this light bulb-shaped coronal mass ejection on Aug. 20, 2012. Photos of the eruption were snapped by the sun-watching Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. (Image credit: NASA/SOHO)

At 18:52UT, magnetically complex sunspot group NOAA 1936 produced a strong M9.9 flare. It highlighted the increase in flaring activity which was already ongoing for several days (including an M3 flare on 29 December and an M6 flare on 31 December). The accompanying CME was not particularly significant and was mostly directed away from Earth.

Sun activity for May 22-23, 2023. An animated sequence of images, with SDO 304 at the center surrounded by SOHO LASCO C2 and C3 coronagraphs. Near the beginning, a classic lightbulb shaped CME launches northward from a filament eruption near the northwest limb and pole. Image via SDO, SOHO, and jhelioviewer

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Solar Dynamics Observatory.

ESA/NASA SOHO.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. “Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers,” she says.

From “EarthSky” : “How many red dwarf stars in nearby space?”

From “EarthSky”

5.23.23
Guy Ottewell

Astronomer Guy Ottewell uses 2 charts – showing 2 different volumes of space – to contemplate and question the density of red dwarf stars in our Milky Way.

From Guy Ottewell’s Astronomical Companion, here’s an illustration of the nearest stars to our sun. It shows a sphere of space with a radius of 16 light-years, in contrast to the radius of our Milky Way galaxy of some 50,000 light-years. When it comes to counting small red dwarf stars – at more and more distant points from our sun – can we extrapolate from the region around our sun to larger volumes of space? Image via Guy Ottewell. Used with permission by EarthSky.

British astronomer and EarthSky friend Guy Ottewell originally published this piece about star density on his website on May 20, 2023. Reprinted here with permission. Edits by EarthSky.

“How many red dwarfs?

Huge stars are rare. And tiny stars (mostly red dwarfs) are numerous in our Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers believe this is true. But it’s based on an assumption … that what we see in nearby space holds true in larger volumes of space, and perhaps throughout the galaxy. We don’t know for sure because we can’t see tiny stars at great distances from our sun. Far from our sun, only the luminous giant stars are noticeable.

Meanwhile, most of the unaided-eye stars we see in our sky – most of the familiar stars for which we have names – are relatively large in contrast to red dwarfs. They are distant and not typical of the total range of star masses and sizes, thought to exist in our Milky Way. A section on the Nearest Stars in my book Astronomical Companion labors this point. So … how many red dwarf stars are there? And is the neighborhood around our sun typical?

It occurred to me that I could illustrate star masses by showing the Astronomical Companion‘s nearest-stars picture. You will see that picture above. It shows a sphere of space with radius 16 light-years. Now compare the image above with the illustration below. The second illustration shows a somewhat more-distant shell of space, 90 light-years in radius.

So … above we have an illustration showing a sphere of space 16 light-years in radius. And below we have a disk-shaped block of space 90 light-years in radius and 10 light-years thick.

Does the density of small red dwarf stars hold true for both?

A view from galactic north: looking down on the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. We’re not looking at the galaxy’s mid-plane here, but the plane in which our sun lies. We see stars out to 90 light-years from us, within 5 light-years north or south of this plane. So we are looking at a disk-shaped block of space 90 light-years in radius and 10 light-years thick. Image by Guy Ottewell. Used with permission by EarthSky.

Plotting the data: How we know

European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) Hipparcos satellite.

The European Space Agency’s Hipparcos satellite – which flew from 1989 to 1993 (I had to buy it on disks from the Netherlands) – must come close to containing all the stars that inhabit the 90-light-year volume of space, illustrated above.

So by plotting all of the stars measured by Hipparcos, not just those above a certain visibility, we would show the density of stars in our nearby space. And we’d see if the ratio of rare giants to teeming midgets holds as true for a region with a 90-light-year radius, as for a region with a 16-light-year radius.

The difficulty in plotting this was that a picture of the same kind, with stalks connecting each star to a plane so that we can see how they are arranged in space, would be an unintelligible forest of stalks. So – instead of making the same sort of illustration for both 16 and 90 light-years – I tried a view from galactic north, with stars limited to a wedge in declination – included only if within 10° of the celestial equator.

Eventually, the picture evolved to the chart you see above.

It’s a view from galactic north: looking down on the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Not actually the mid-plane, but the plane in which the sun lies (which is an uncertain distance, maybe 30 light-years, north of the galaxy’s real median plane). We see stars out to 90 light-years from us, but only those that are within 5 light-years north or south of this sun’s plane.

So we are looking at a disk-shaped block of space 90 light-years in radius and 10 light-years thick.

Comparing the 2 charts: What we see

The density of stars does look consistent between the two charts on this page: similar in our closer neighborhood and in the more distant parts. But there are differences.

Consider that – in the 90-light-year-radius chart – the dots for the stars are sized for their absolute magnitudes – their true brightnesses – not their apparent magnitudes as seen from Earth. Colored pink are those that actually look fainter to us: those of apparent magnitude 6 or dimmer. Most of the stars in the outer rings are too dim for the unaided eye. But, in the inner region, we do see the few stars that are among the brightest in our sky because they are nearby and are of about the sun’s size or larger: Sirius, Procyon, Alpha Centauri, Altair.

In the outer regions of the 90-light-year-radius chart, it’s hard to find any named stars; I had to lower the magnitude threshold for them to 5 before finding any even with names of the unfamiliar kind that aren’t really used – Kaffaljidhm is a star in Cetus, Keid is in Eridanus, Alshain is in Aquila.

Do the charts reflect the reality?

So does the 90-light-year illustration really show the density of stars in our part of the galaxy? It’s an approach, but probably an understatement.

My program told me it had plotted 187 stars. The Hipparcos satellite produced two sets of data, called Hipparcos and Tycho. Tycho goes down to about three magnitudes dimmer, and has entries for nearly 9 times as many stars, though with shorter lines of information about each. If I make my program read the Tycho set instead, it takes minutes longer, and packs the picture with 19,164 stars!

Are there really so many more faint stars relatively close around us? I’ll probably be returning to this.”

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. “Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers,” she says.

From The University of British Columbia (CA) Via “EarthSky” : “Saturn’s moon count grows by 62 for a record 145 satellites”

From The University of British Columbia (CA)

Via

“EarthSky”

5.17.23
Kelly Kizer Whitt

Saturn’s moon family just got a lot larger! Saturn previously had 83 known satellites, but now astronomers have discovered 62 more. On March 13, 2006, the Cassini spacecraft captured this incredible view of Saturn, one of its rings, and some of its larger moons. Image via NASA-JPL/Caltech; Space Science Institute.

Saturn’s moon count is at 145

In the battle for moon dominance, Saturn is once again on top. New discoveries by a team of astronomers added 62 new moons to Saturn’s existing 83, bringing its total to 145. That tops Jupiter’s 95 recognized moons. Therefore, Saturn is the first planet known to have more than 100 moons. On May 11, 2023, the University of British Columbia (UBC) announced that increasingly sensitive techniques have allowed astronomers to detect fainter and smaller moons around the ringed planet.

This graphic shows the ring moons inspected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in super-close flybys. The rings and moons depicted are not to scale. Image via NASA-JPL/Caltech.

Edward Ashton, formerly of the UBC and now at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, led a team that used the shift and stack method to find the newest moons. The press release explained how this method works:

“Shifting a set of sequential images at the rate that the moon is moving across the sky results in enhancement of the moon’s signal when all the data are combined, allowing moons that were too faint to be seen in individual images to become visible in the stacked image.”

Ashton said:

“Tracking these moons makes me recall playing the kid’s game Dot-to-Dot, because we have to connect the various appearances of these moons in our data with a viable orbit … But with about 100 different games on the same page and you don’t know which dot belongs to which puzzle.”

Moons down to 1.5 miles

The team made their discoveries using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawai’i.

CFHT, near the summit of Mauna Kea on Hawai’i’s Big Island, 4207 m 13802 ft above sea level. Credit: Gordon W Myers.

They used the shift and stack method on data from 2019 to 2021 to spot moons down to about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) in diameter. It takes years’ worth of data to confirm that these objects were moons and not just stray asteroids in the images.

Irregular moons

The new moons all belong to the irregular category. This designation means that their orbits are large, elliptical, and at a different inclination compared to Saturn’s regular moons. Their odd orbits lead astronomers to think that Saturn’s gravitational well captured these moons as opposed to them forming along with the giant planet.

The irregular moons tend to orbit together in clumps. Astronomers know of three such clumps around Saturn, which they’ve named for Inuit, Gallic and Norse mythologies. The Norse group has the largest population of moons. The new discoveries all fell within these three groups, and it was no surprise that the Norse group was home to most of them.

The scientists believe that collisions created these clumpy lunar groups. They said the many small moons in retrograde orbits are probably the result of the breakup of a larger moon. These moonlets can provide insight into the history of Saturn. As team member Brett Gladman of UBC explained:

“As one pushes to the limit of modern telescopes, we are finding increasing evidence that a moderate-sized moon orbiting backward around Saturn was blown apart something like 100 million years ago.”

This artist’s concept shows some of Saturn’s largest and best-known moons. Image via David Seal/ ESA/ NASA/ JPL-Caltech.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The University of British Columbia (CA) is a global centre for research and teaching, consistently ranked among the 40 best universities in the world. Since 1915, UBC’s West Coast spirit has embraced innovation and challenged the status quo. Its entrepreneurial perspective encourages students, staff and faculty to challenge convention, lead discovery and explore new ways of learning. At UBC, bold thinking is given a place to develop into ideas that can change the world.

The University of British Columbia is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, UBC is British Columbia’s oldest university. The university ranks among the top three universities in Canada. With an annual research budget of $600 million, UBC funds over 8,000 projects a year.

The Vancouver campus is situated adjacent to the University Endowment Lands located about 10 km (6 mi) west of downtown Vancouver. UBC is home to TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, which houses the world’s largest cyclotron. In addition to the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and Stuart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, UBC and the Max Planck Society (DE) collectively established the first Max Planck Institute in North America, specializing in quantum materials. One of the largest research libraries in Canada, the UBC Library system has over 9.9 million volumes among its 21 branches. The Okanagan campus, acquired in 2005, is located in Kelowna, British Columbia.

Eight Nobel laureates, 71 Rhodes scholars, 65 Olympians, ten fellows in both American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Society, and 273 fellows to the Royal Society of Canada [Société royale du Canada](CA) have been affiliated with UBC. Three Canadian prime ministers, including Canada’s first female prime minister Kim Campbell and current prime minister Justin Trudeau have been educated at UBC.

Research

The University of British Columbia is a member of Universitas 21, an international association of research-led institutions and the only Canadian member of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, a consortium of 42 leading research universities in the Pacific Rim. In 2017, the University of British Columbia had the second-largest sponsored research income out of any Canadian university, totalling C$577 million. In the same year, the university’s faculty averaged a sponsored research income of $249,900, the eighth highest in the country, while graduate students averaged a sponsored research income of $55,200.

The university has been ranked on several bibliometric university rankings, which uses citation analysis to evaluate the impact a university has on academic publications. In 2019, the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities ranked UBC 27th in the world and second in Canada. The University Ranking by Academic Performance 2018–19 rankings placed the university 27th in the world and second in Canada.

The university operates and manages a number of research centres:

In 1972, a consortium of the University of British Columbia and four other universities from Alberta and British Columbia established the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre. Located on Vancouver Island, the centre provides year-round research facilities and technical assistance for biologists, ecologists and oceanographers.
The Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies is an interdisciplinary research institute for fundamental research in the Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities.
The UBC Farm is a 24-hectare (59-acre) learning and research farm in UBC’s South Campus area. It features Saturday Farm Markets from early June until early October, selling organic produce and eggs to the community.
TRIUMF, a laboratory specializing in particle and nuclear physics, is also situated at the university. The name was formerly an acronym for Tri-University Meson Facility, but TRIUMF is now owned and operated by a consortium of eleven Canadian universities. The consortium runs TRIUMF through a contribution of funds from the National Research Council of Canada [Conseil national de recherches Canada] (CA) and makes TRIUMF’s facilities available to Canadian scientists and to scientists from around the world.
BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) and UBC have established Professorships in Cannabis Science in 2018 following Canada’s legalization of cannabis.
The Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions is a research institute for the teaching and study of innovation in democratic practice and institutions. Established in 2002, the centre conducts research and teaching in cooperation with scholars, public officials, NGOs and students. The centre is formally housed in the UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA), and operates in association with faculty in the UBC Department of Political Science. It was initially funded from the Merilees Chair through a donation by Gail and Stephen Jarislowsky.
The Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, one of three Canadian research institutes focused on quantum materials and technology research, was established in 2015 with the support of the Canada First Excellence Research Fund and a donation from Stewart Blusson.

In 2017, UBC inked a $3 million research agreement with Huawei for big data and fuel cell technology. The university refused to release the agreement without an access to information request.

From “EarthSky” : “New supernova! Closest in a decade”

From EarthSky

5.20.23
Kelly Kizer Whitt

Eliot Herman used the Utah Remote Desert Observatories to capture this image of the new supernova in Messier 101 – the Pinwheel Galaxy – just hours after its discovery on May 19, 2023. See the bright spot by the yellow arrowhead? This is the closest supernova to us in more than a decade. Eliot commented: “There will be many weeks to watch this one evolve.”

A new, close supernova

A new supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy, aka Messier 101, is the closest to Earth in a decade. Amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki discovered it on May 19, 2023. The supernova should continue to brighten for a few days. It should remain visible to amateur astronomers with backyard telescopes for a few months. The supernova – named 2023ixf – lies in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major, near the end of the handle of the Big Dipper.

The last supernova in Messier 101 was in 2011. Andy Howell, an astronomer at the University of California-Santa Barbara, explained on Twitter that the 2011 explosion resulted from a white dwarf that underwent a thermonuclear supernova. Andy said that the new supernova is most likely from a different cause, from a core collapse of a massive star at the end of its life. While observers won’t be able to see this supernova with the unaided eye, amateurs should be able to catch it backyard telescopes. As Andy said:

“… this new supernova will increase in brightness over the coming days. You should be able to see it with backyard telescopes, for a few months, though it will just be a point of light….”

How close is the closest in a decade?

Messier 101 is 21 million light-years away. So even though it just appeared to us on Earth Friday, it occurred 21 million years ago. And even though it’s the closest in a decade, it’s still quite far away. In fact, for a supernova to have an effect on Earth, it would have to be within 50 light-years of our planet. You can rest assured that the new supernova won’t harm Earth. Instead, we get to watch a relatively rare event as scientists gather information on the new supernova.

Eliot Herman shared this 1-day comparison of the supernova in Messier 101 with EarthSky. The image on the left is from May 20 and the image on the right is from May 21. Note how much the supernova has risen in brightness. Eliot wrote: “As you can see it is much brighter after 2 days.”

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. “Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers,” she says.

From “EarthSky” : “Supernova X-rays zap planet atmospheres 160 light-years away”

From “EarthSky”

4.25.23
Paul Scott Anderson

Artist’s illustration of an Earth-like planet near an exploding star, or supernova. Scientists now say that supernova X-rays can damage planet atmospheres up to 160 light-years away. Image via NASA/ CXC/ University of Illinois/ I. Brunton et al.; Illustration via NASA/ CXC/ M. Weiss.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Chandra X-ray telescope.

A supernova – or exploding star – is one of our galaxy’s most cataclysmic events. It’s long been known that supernovae can obliterate super-close planets, if there are any. Now, scientists have released new findings showing that supernovae can be dangerous to habitable planets farther away, too. Chandra X-ray Observatory said this month (April 20, 2023) that the newly identified threat involves a phase of intense X-rays that can damage the atmospheres of planets up to 160 light-years away.

[See https://sciencesprings.wordpress.com/2023/04/22/from-the-national-aeronautics-and-space-administration-chandra-x-ray-telescope-supernova-survey-new-stellar-danger-to-planets-identified-by-nasas-chandranew-stellar-danger-to-planets-identif/ ]

“Damage the atmospheres.” That means that, for any habitable or even inhabited planets, a nearby supernova could dramatically alter life’s prospects. Lucky for Earth that no potential supernova progenitors within 160 light-years.

On the other hand, Earth might have experienced this kind of X-ray exposure in the past.

The researchers who discovered this detail are with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other X-ray telescopes. The Astrophysical Journal published the team’s peer-reviewed results on April 19, 2023 [referenced above].

Supernova known dangers

Until now, astronomers knew about two particular kinds of danger from supernovae to planets orbiting nearby stars. The first is the intense radiation produced by a supernova blast. That radiation can last for days or months, after the initial explosion.

Energetic particles are the second danger. Since – unlike the radiation mentioned just above – the particles don’t travel at the speed of light, there’s a delay for planets receiving this. The energetic particles might hit a nearby planet hundreds or thousands of years after the supernova blast. The new research paper says:

“The spectacular outbursts of energy associated with supernovae … have long motivated research into their potentially hazardous effects on Earth and analogous environments. Much of this research has focused primarily on the atmospheric damage associated with the prompt arrival of ionizing photons within days or months of the initial outburst, and the high-energy cosmic rays that arrive thousands of years after the explosion.”

And, now, researchers point to a third danger: X-rays. They knew supernovae produce X-rays. But new evidence from the X-ray telescopes shows the X-rays can be larger and more lethal than once thought.

How does it happen? When the blast wave from a supernova hits a cloud of dense gas, it can produce a larger dose of X-rays. The effects of the X-rays can last for decades. This intense dose of X-rays can affect planets orbiting stars up to 160 light-years away.

Quick Look: New Stellar Danger to Planets Identified by NASA’s Chandra.

Observations from multiple X-ray telescopes

The researchers made the discovery using NASA’s Chandra above], Swift and NuSTAR space telescopes, as well as ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) XMM-Newton.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Penn State Neil Gehrels Swift X-ray, and UV/Visible light Observatory.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Technical University of Denmark [Danmarks Tekniske Universite](DK)/ASI Italian Space Agency [Agenzia Spaziale Italiana](IT) NuSTAR X-ray telescope.

The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU) XMM Newton X-ray Telescope.

They observed 31 supernovae for the new study.

So the X-rays from supernovae could significantly damage a planet’s atmosphere up to a 160 light-year distance. And, the scientists said, the damage would be especially bad for habitable planets. If the damage to the planet’s atmosphere were extensive enough, it could cause an extinction event for any life already dwelling there. Lead author Ian Brunton of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign commented:

“If a torrent of X-rays sweeps over a nearby planet, the radiation would severely alter the planet’s atmospheric chemistry.

For an Earth-like planet, this process could wipe out a significant portion of ozone, which ultimately protects life from the dangerous ultraviolet radiation of its host star.”

Is Earth in danger from supernovae?

Is Earth in danger? The researchers say no, because there are no stars near enough that would be expected to explode. Co-author Connor O’Mahoney, also from the University of Illinois, reassured people, saying:

“The Earth is not in any danger from an event like this now, because there are no potential supernovae within the X-ray danger zone. However, it may be the case that such events played a role in Earth’s past.”

The scientists pointed to supernovae occurring between 2 and 8 million years ago, between about 65 and 500 light-years of Earth. The stars exploded as supernova then would have been much closer to Earth similar stars are now.

That’s good news for us now. But it wasn’t good news for any living creatures on Earth, millions of years ago.

An earlier study, released in 2021, had suggested we’d need to be within 50 light-years of a supernova to feel its effects.

But, even before that, a study from 2016 had shown that supernovae less than 300 light-years away once showered Earth with radioactive debris. Scientists estimate the debris hit Earth between 3.2 and 1.7 million years ago.

Supernovae such as these could also shrink the Galactic Habitable Zone. Those are the regions, collectively, where planets would be safe enough for life to flourish.

These are 4 of the supernovae out of the 31 observed in the new study. They are SN 1979C, SN 1987A, SN 2010 JL and SN 1994 I. Image via NASA/ CXC/ Univ. of Illinois/ I. Brunton et al. [From “chandra-x-ray-telescope-supernova-survey” cited above.]

As always more research needed

The new findings provide important data about supernovae and their effects on their surroundings. But more observations are needed, as co-author Brian Fields of the University of Illinois noted:

“Further research on X-rays from supernovae is valuable not just for understanding the life cycle of stars, but also has implications for fields like astrobiology, paleontology and the earth and planetary sciences.”

The paper further explained:

“We urge follow-up X-ray observations of interacting SNe for months and years after the explosion to shed light on the physical nature and full-time evolution of the emission and to clarify the danger that these events pose for life in our galaxy and other star-forming regions.”

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. “Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers,” she says.

From “EarthSky” : “Is there a space race between the United States and China?”

From “EarthSky”

4.16.23
Svetla Ben-Itzhak | Air University

Is the US in a space race against China? This image is from November 28, 2022, when an uncrewed Orion spacecraft – part of NASA’s Artemis moon program – reached its maximum distance from the Earth of 268,563 miles (432,210 km). Recently, NASA announced the 4 astronauts who will be part of the 2024 Artemis 2 mission to fly around the moon. But China has been focusing on the moon, too. Image via NASA.

[Read Chip War by Chris Miller.]

Headlines proclaiming the rise of a new “space race” between the U.S. and China have become common in news coverage following many of the exciting launches in recent years. Experts have pointed to China’s rapid advancements in space as evidence of an emerging landscape where China is directly competing with the U.S. for supremacy.

This idea of a space race between China and the U.S. sounds convincing given the broader narrative of China’s rise. But how accurate is it? As a professor who studies space and international relations, my research aims to quantify the power and capabilities of different nations in space. When I look at various capacities, the data paints a much more complex picture than a tight space race between the U.S. and China. At least for now, the reality looks more like what I call a complex hegemony. One state, the U.S., is still dominating in key space capabilities. And this lead is further amplified by a strong network of partners.

A clear leader makes for a boring space race

Calling the current situation a race implies that the U.S. and China have roughly equal capabilities in space. But in several key areas, the U.S. is far ahead not only of China, but of all other spacefaring nations combined.

Starting with spending: In 2021, the U.S. space budget was roughly $59.8 billion. China has been investing heavily in space and rocket technology over the last decade. It’s doubled its spending in the last five years. But with an estimated budget of $16.18 billion in 2021, it is still spending less than a third of the U.S. budget.

The U.S. also leads significantly in the number of active satellites. Currently, there are 5,465 total operational satellites in orbit around Earth. The U.S. operates 3,433, or 63% of those. In contrast, China has 541.

Similarly, the U.S. has more active spaceports than China. With seven operational launch sites at home and abroad and at least 13 additional spaceports in development, the U.S. has more options to launch payloads into various orbits. In contrast, China has only four operational spaceports with two more planned, all located within its own territory.

Parity with nuance

While the U.S. may have a clear advantage over China in many areas of space, in some measures, the differences between the two countries are more nuanced.

In 2021, for instance, China attempted 55 orbital launches, four more than the U.S.‘s 51. The total numbers may be similar, but the rockets carried very different payloads to orbit. The vast majority – 84% – of Chinese launches had government or military payloads intended mostly for electronic intelligence and optical imaging. Meanwhile, in the U.S., 61% of launches were for nonmilitary, academic or commercial use, predominantly for Earth observation or telecommunications.

Space stations are another area where there are important differences hiding beneath the surface. Since the 1990s, the U.S. has worked with 14 other nations, including Russia, to operate the International Space Station.

NASA.

The ISS is quite large, with 16 modules, and has driven technological and scientific breakthroughs. But the ISS is now 24 years old, and participating nations are planning to retire it in 2030.

Construction of China’s Tiangong space station began in 2021. The small, 3-module station opened for research in December 2022. Image via Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Chinese Tiangong space station is the new kid on the block. Construction was only completed in late 2022, and it is much smaller – with only three modules. China has built and launched all of the different parts and remains the sole operator of the station, despite having invited others to join.

China is undoubtedly expanding its space capabilities. In a report published in August 2022, the Pentagon predicted that China would surpass U.S. capabilities in space as early as 2045. However, it is unlikely that the U.S. will remain stagnant, as it continues to increase funding for space.

Joining forces in the space race

A major point of difference between the U.S. and China is the nature and number of international collaborations.

For decades, NASA has been fruitfully cultivating international and commercial partnerships in everything from developing specific space technologies to flying humans into space. The U.S. government has also signed 169 space data sharing agreements with 33 states and intergovernmental organizations, 129 with commercial partners and seven with academic institutions.

China also has allies that help with space. Most notably Russia and members of the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization, including Iran, Pakistan, Thailand and Turkey. China’s collaborators are, however, fewer in number and have far less developed space capabilities.

Shooting for the moon

Efforts to return to the surface of the moon excellently highlight this difference in ally support and synergy. Both the U.S. and China have plans to send people to the surface of the moon and to establish lunar bases in the near future. These competing lunar aims are often cited as evidence of the space race. But they are very different in terms of partnerships and scope.

In 2019, Russia and China agreed to jointly go to the moon by 2028. Russia is contributing its Luna landers and Oryol crewed orbiters, while China is improving its Chang’e robotic spacecraft. Their future International Lunar Research Station is open to all interested parties and international partners, but, to date, no additional countries have committed to the Chinese and Russian effort.

In contrast, since 2020, 24 nations have joined the U.S.-led Artemis Accords. This international agreement outlines shared principles of cooperation for future space activity. And, through the Artemis Program, it specifically aims to return people to the moon by 2025 and establish a moon base and lunar space station soon after.

In addition to the broad international participation, the Artemis Program has contracted with a staggering number of private companies to develop a range of technologies, from lunar landers to lunar construction methods and more.

China is not the only game in town

While China may seem like the main competitor of the U.S. in space, other countries have space capabilities and aspirations that rival those of China.

India spends billions on space and plans to return to the moon, possibly with Japan, in the near future. South Korea, Israel, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Germany and the European Union are also planning independent lunar missions. Japan has developed impressive technological space capabilities. The capabilities include rendezvous proximity technology to send a spacecraft to an asteroid and bring samples back to Earth. Its capabilities rival and even surpass those of China.

In the past, the space race was about who could reach the stars first and return home. Today, the goal has shifted to surviving and even thriving in the harsh environment of space. I believe it is not surprising that, despite its decisive lead, the U.S. has partnered with others to go to the moon and beyond. China is doing the same, but on a smaller scale. The picture that emerges is not of a “race” but of complex system with the U.S. as a leader working closely with extensive networks of partners.The Conversation

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. “Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers,” she says.

From “EarthSky” : “What is a neutron star? How do they form?”

From “EarthSky”

3.28.23
Andy Briggs

Neutron Star emitting high-energy beams from its north and south magnetic poles. Credit: Astronomy.com

Meet G292.0+01.8. It’s a supernova remnant, the remains of a star that exploded long ago. The inset shows what remains of the star. It’s a neutron star – seen from Earth as a speedy pulsar – now known to be moving at more than a million miles per hour (1.6 million km/h). Image via NASA/ Chandra.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Chandra X-ray telescope.

When a massive star explodes as a supernova at the end of its life, its core can collapse into a tiny and superdense object with not much more than our sun’s mass. These small, incredibly dense cores of exploded stars are neutron stars. They’re among the most bizarre objects in the universe.

A typical neutron star has about 1.4 times our sun’s mass. And they can range up to about two solar masses. Now consider that our sun has over 100 times Earth’s diameter. In a neutron star, all that mass is squeezed into a sphere that’s only about 12-25 miles (20-40 km) across, or about the size of an earthly city.

So perhaps you can see that neutron stars are very, very dense! A tablespoon of a neutron star material would weigh more than 1 billion U.S. tons (900 billion kg). That’s more than the weight of Mount Everest, Earth’s highest mountain.

This illustration compares the size of a neutron star to Manhattan Island in New York, which is about 13 miles (21 km) long. Image via NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center.

Here’s how a neutron star forms.

Throughout much of their lives, stars maintain a delicate balancing act. Gravity tries to compress the star while the star’s internal pressure exerts an outward push. And nuclear fusion at the star’s core causes the outer pressure. In fact, this fusion burning is the process by which stars shine.

In a supernova explosion, gravity suddenly and catastrophically gets the upper hand in the war it has been waging with the star’s internal pressure for millions or billions of years.

SN 1987A remnant, imaged by ALMA. The inner region is contrasted with the outer shell, lacy white and blue circles, where the blast wave from the supernova is colliding with the envelope of gas ejected from the star prior to its powerful detonation. Image credit: ALMA / European Southern Observatory [La Observatorio Europeo Austral] [Observatoire européen austral][Europäische Südsternwarte] (EU) / National Astronomical Observatory of Japan [国立天文台](JP) / National Radio Astronomy Observatory / Alexandra Angelich, NRAO / Associated Universities Inc / National Science Foundation.

The European Southern Observatory [La Observatorio Europeo Austral] [Observatoire européen austral][Europäische Südsternwarte](EU)(CL)/National Radio Astronomy Observatory/National Astronomical Observatory of Japan(JP) ALMA Observatory (CL).

With its nuclear fuel exhausted and the outward pressure removed, gravity suddenly compresses the star inward. A shock wave travels to the core and rebounds, blowing the star apart. This whole process takes perhaps a couple of seconds.

But gravity’s victory is not yet complete. With most of the star blown into space, the core remains, which may only be twice our sun’s mass. Gravity continues to compress it, to a point where the atoms become so compacted and so close together that electrons are violently thrust into their parent nuclei, combining with the protons to form neutrons.

Thus the neutron star gets its name from its composition. What gravity has created is a superdense, neutron-rich material – called neutronium – in a city-sized sphere. The exact internal structure of this sphere is the subject of much debate. Current thinking is that the star possesses a thin crust of iron, perhaps a mile or so thick. Under that, the composition is largely neutrons, taking various forms the further down in the neutron star they are located.

It’s all about mass.

If, after the supernova, the core of the star has enough mass, scientists believe that the gravitational collapse will continue, and a black hole will form instead of a neutron star.

This now iconic computer-simulated image of a supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy. Credit D. Coe, J. Anderson. National Aeronautics Space Agency, The European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea] [Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU).

In terms of mass, the dividing line between neutron stars and black holes varies by sources. Typically, astronomers consider the mass of a neutron star to range from 1.4 to 2.9 solar masses. Then, if the collapsed core has more than three solar masses it becomes a black hole.

What is a Neutron Star? Credit: GSFC/NASA.

What are the properties of a neutron star?

Because neutron stars are so dense they have intense gravitational and magnetic fields. The gravity of a neutron star is about a thousand billion times stronger than that of the Earth. Thus the surface of a neutron star is exceedingly smooth; gravity does not permit anything tall to exist. Neutron stars may have “mountains”, but they are only inches tall.

Neutron stars with abnormally strong magnetic fields are known as magnetars.

Iconic depiction of Magnetar in Westerlund 1 Credit: L. Calçada/ The European Southern Observatory [La Observatorio Europeo Austral] [Observatoire européen austral][Europaiche Sûdsternwarte] (EU)(CL).

The origin of these abnormal stars with ultra-powerful magnetic fields is unknown.

Unimaginably violent neutron star collisions, one of which was detected in 2017 by the LIGO gravitational wave observatories, are thought to be where heavy elements like gold and platinum are created.

Caltech /MIT Advanced aLigo. Credit: Caltech.

Scientists may have detected violent collision between neutron star and a black hole, “All the Gold in the Universe” from The University of California-Santa Cruz 2017.

And that’s because normal supernovae are not thought to generate the requisite pressures and temperatures.

Neutron stars are also thought to be responsible for several little-understood phenomena, including the mysterious Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) and the so-called Soft Gamma Repeaters (SGRs).

FRB Fast Radio Bursts from NAOJ Subaru, Mauna Kea, Hawai’i

NAOJ/Subaru optical/infrared Telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawai’i, altitude 4207 m (13802 ft) above sea level.

Soft Gamma-Ray Repeater Light Echoes Captured by Swift Satellite 2009.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Penn State Neil Gehrels Swift X-ray, and UV/Visible light Observatory.

A neutron star does not generate any light or heat of its own after its formation. Over millions of years its latent heat will gradually cool from an initial 600,000 degrees Kelvin (1 million degrees Fahrenheit), eventually ending its life as the cold, dead remnant of a once-glorious star. It’s estimated there are more than a hundred million neutron stars in our Milky Way galaxy, but many will be too old and cold to be easily detected.

Pulsars: How we know about neutron stars.

X-ray picture of Crab pulsar, taken by NASA/Chandra.

Artist’s concept of a pulsar. Pulsars are neutron stars oriented in a particular way with respect to Earth, so that we see them “pulse” at regular intervals. Image via NRAO.

Although neutron stars were long predicted in astrophysical theory, it wasn’t until 1967 that the first was discovered, as a pulsar, by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell, discovered pulsars with radio astronomy. Jocelyn Bell at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, University of Cambridge (UK), taken for the Daily Herald newspaper in 1968. Denied the Nobel.

Since then, we know of hundreds more, including the famous pulsar at the heart of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant observed by the Chinese in 1054.

The Crab Nebula, Messier 1 by the Hubble Space Telescope – among the largest ever produced image with the Earth-orbiting observatory – gives the most detailed view so far of the. The Crab is arguably the single most interesting object, as well as one of the most studied, in all of astronomy. The image is the largest ever taken with Hubble’s WFPC2 workhorse camera. This composite image of the Crab Nebula was assembled by combining data from five telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum. Credit: G. Dubner (University of Buenos Aires [Universidad de Buenos Aires] (AR)) National Aeronautics Space Agency, European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU), National Radio Astronomy Observatory /Associated Universities IncNational Science Foundation.

On a neutron star, intense magnetic fields focus radio waves into two beams firing into space from its magnetic poles, much like the beam of a lighthouse. If the neutron star is oriented precisely so that these beams become visible from our earthly viewpoint, we see flashes of radio light at regular and extremely exact intervals. Neutron stars are, in fact, the celestial timekeepers of the cosmos, their accuracy rivaling that of atomic clocks.

Neutron stars rotate extremely rapidly, and we can use the radio beams of a pulsar to measure just how fast. The fastest-rotating neutron star yet discovered rotates an incredible 716 times per second, which is about a quarter of the speed of light.

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Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Today, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this website. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. “Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers,” she says.