Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
Astronomers Measure Precise Mass of a Binary Brown Dwarf
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
Eclipsing binary stars point the way to exoplanets and many other discoveries. Be one of the first to join the new Eclipsing Binary Patrol project and help discover them! NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Eclipsing binaries are special pairs of stars that cross in front of one another as they orbit—stars that take turns blocking one another from our view. At Eclipsing Binary Patrol, the newest NASA-funded citizen science project, you’ll have a chance to help discover these unusual pairs of objects.
In Eclipsing Binary Patrol, you’ll work with real data from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission. TESS collects a lot of information! But computers sometimes struggle to tell when the data show us something unimportant, like background noise or objects that aren’t stars. With your help, we can identify the correct targets and gain deeper insights into the behavior of double star systems.
“I’ve never worked as a professional astronomer, but being part of the Eclipsing Binary Patrol allows me to work with real data and contribute to actual discoveries,” said Aline Fornear, a volunteer from Brazil. “It’s exciting beyond words to know that my efforts are helping with the understanding of star systems so far away, and potentially new worlds, too!”
As a volunteer at Eclipsing Binary Patrol, your work will help confirm when a particular target is indeed an eclipsing binary, verify its orbital period, and ensure the target is the true source of the detected eclipses. You’ll be essential in distinguishing genuine discoveries from false signals. To get involved, visit our page on the Zooniverse platform and start sciencing!
Facebook logo @DoNASAScience @DoNASAScience Share
Details
Last Updated Sep 05, 2024 Related Terms
Astrophysics Citizen Science Explore More
6 min read NASA’s Hubble, MAVEN Help Solve the Mystery of Mars’ Escaping Water
Article
1 hour ago
5 min read NASA’s Webb Reveals Distorted Galaxy Forming Cosmic Question Mark
Article
1 day ago
3 min read NASA’s Mini BurstCube Mission Detects Mega Blast
Article
2 days ago
View the full article
-
By NASA
6 min read
Quantum Scale Sensors used to Measure Planetary Scale Magnetic Fields
Magnetic fields are everywhere in our solar system. They originate from the Sun, planets, and moons, and are carried throughout interplanetary space by solar wind. This is precisely why magnetometers—devices used to measure magnetic fields—are flown on almost all missions in space to benefit the Earth, Planetary, and Heliophysics science communities, and ultimately enrich knowledge for all humankind. These instruments can remotely probe the interior of a planetary body to provide insight into its internal composition, structure, dynamics, and even evolution based on the magnetic history frozen into the body’s crustal rock layers. Magnetometers can even discover hidden oceans within our solar system and help determine their salinity, thereby providing insight into the potential habitability of these icy worlds.
Left: The magnetic field of Jupiter provides insight into its interior composition, structure, dynamics, and even its evolutionary history. Right: Image of the first prototype 4H-SiC solid-state magnetometer sensor die (2mm by 2mm) developed by NASA-GRC. Each gold rectangle or square on the surface represents an individual sensor, the smallest being 10 microns by 10 microns. Fluxgates are the most widely used magnetometers for missions in space due to their proven performance and simplicity. However, the conventional size, weight, and power (SWaP) of fluxgate instruments can restrict them from being used on small platforms like CubeSats and sometimes limit the number of sensors that can be used on a spacecraft for inter-sensor calibration, redundancy, and spacecraft magnetic field removal. Traditionally, a long boom is used to distance the fluxgate magnetometers from the contaminate magnetic field generated by the spacecraft, itself, and at least two sensors are used to characterize the falloff of this field contribution so it can be removed from the measurements. Fluxgates also do not provide an absolute measurement, meaning that they need to be routinely calibrated in space through spacecraft rolls, which can be time and resource intensive.
An SMD-funded team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has partnered with NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio to prototype a new magnetometer called the silicon carbide (SiC) magnetometer, or SiCMag, that could change the way magnetic fields are measured in space. SiCMag uses a solid-state sensor made of a silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor. Inside the SiC sensor are quantum centers—intentionally introduced defects or irregularities at an atomic scale—that give rise to a magnetoresistance signal that can be detected by monitoring changes in the sensor’s electrical current, which indicate changes in the strength and direction of the external magnetic field. This new technology has the potential to be incredibly sensitive, and due to its large bandgap (i.e., the energy required to free an electron from its bound state so it can participate in electrical conduction), is capable of operating in the wide range of temperature extremes and harsh radiation environments commonly encountered in space.
Team member David Spry of NASA Glenn indicates, “Not only is the SiC material great for magnetic field sensing, but here at NASA Glenn we’re further developing robust SiC electronics that operate in hot environments far beyond the upper temperature limitations of silicon electronics. These SiC-based technologies will someday enable long-duration robotic scientific exploration of the 460 °C Venus surface.”
SiCMag is also very small— the sensor area is only 0.1 x 0.1 mm and the compensation coils are smaller than a penny. Consequently, dozens of SiCMag sensors can easily be incorporated on a spacecraft to better remove the complex contaminate magnetic field generated by the spacecraft, reducing the need for a long boom to distance the sensors from the spacecraft, like implemented on most spacecraft, including Psyche (see figure below).
The magnetic field lines associated with the Psyche spacecraft, modeled from over 200 individual magnetic sources. Removing this magnetic field contribution from the measurements conventionally requires the use of two fluxgate sensors on a long boom. Incorporating 4 or more SiCMag sensors in such a scenario would significantly reduce the size of the boom required, or even remove the need for a boom completely. Image Credit: This image was adopted from https://science.nasa.gov/resource/magnetic-field-of-the-psyche-spacecraft/ SiCMag has several advantages when compared to fluxgates and other types of heritage magnetometers including those based on optically pumped atomic vapor. SiCMag is a simple instrument that doesn’t rely on optics or high-frequency components, which are sensitive to temperature variations. SiCMag’s low SWaP also allows for accommodation on small platforms such as CubeSats, enabling simultaneous spatial and temporal magnetic field measurements not possible with single large-scale spacecraft. This capability will enable planetary magnetic field mapping and space weather monitoring by constellations of CubeSats. Multiplatform measurements would also be very valuable on the surface of the Moon and Mars for crustal magnetic field mapping, composition identification, and magnetic history investigation of these bodies.
SiCMag has a true zero-field magnetic sensing ability (i.e., SiCMag can measure extremely weak magnetic fields), which is unattainable with most conventional atomic vapor magnetometers due to the requisite minimum magnetic field needed for the sensor to operate. And because the spin-carrying electrons in SiCMag are tied up in the quantum centers, they won’t escape the sensor, meaning they are well-suited for decades-long journeys to the ice-giants or to the edges of the heliosphere. This capability is also an advantage of SiCMag’s optical equivalent sibling, OPuS-MAGNM, an optically pumped solid state quantum magnetometer developed by Hannes Kraus and matured by Andreas Gottscholl of the JPL solid-state magnetometry group. SiCMag has the advantage of being extremely simple, while OPuS-MAGNM promises to have lower noise characteristics, but uses complex optical components.
According to Dr. Andreas Gottscholl, “SiCMag and OPuS-MAGNM are very similar, actually. Progress in one sensor system translates directly into benefits for the other. Therefore, enhancements in design and electronics advance both projects, effectively doubling the impact of our efforts while we are still flexible for different applications.”
SiCMag has the ability to self-calibrate due to its absolute sensing capability, which is a significant advantage in the remote space environment. SiCMag uses a spectroscopic calibration technique that atomic vapor magnetometers also leverage called magnetic resonance (in the case of SiCMag, the magnetic resonance is electrically detected) to measure the precession frequency of electrons associated with the quantum centers, which is directly related to the magnetic field in which the sensor is immersed. This relationship is a fundamental physical constant in nature that doesn’t change as a function of time or temperature, making the response ideal for calibration of the sensor’s measurements. “If we are successful in achieving the sought-out sensitivity improvement we anticipate using isotopically purer materials, SiC could change the way magnetometry is typically performed in space due to the instrument’s attractive SWaP, robustness, and self-calibration ability,” says JPL’s Dr. Corey Cochrane, principal investigator of the SiCMag technology.
The 3-axis 3D printed electromagnet – no larger than the size of a US penny – is used to modulate and maintain a region of zero magnetic field around our 0.1 mm x 0.1 mm 4H-SiC solid-state sensor. NASA has been funding this team’s solid-state quantum magnetometer sensor research through its PICASSO (Planetary Instrument Concepts for the Advancement of Solar System Observations) program since 2016. A variety of domestic partners from industry and academia also support this research, including NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Penn State University, University of Iowa, QuantCAD LLC, as well as international partners such as Japan’s Quantum Materials and Applications Research Center (QUARC) and Infineon Technologies.
The SiC magnetometer team leads from JPL and GRC (left: Dr. Hannes Kraus, middle: Dr. Phillip Neudeck, right: Dr. Corey Cochrane) at the last International Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials (ICSCRM) where their research is presented annually. Acknowledgment: The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004) and the NASA Glenn Research Center.
Project Lead(s):
Dr. Corey Cochrane, Dr. Hannes Kraus, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology
Dr. Phil Neudeck, David Spry, NASA Glenn Research Center
Sponsoring Organization(s):
Science Mission Directorate PICASSO, JPL R&D fund
Share
Details
Last Updated Aug 06, 2024 Related Terms
Glenn Research Center Jet Propulsion Laboratory Planetary Science Science-enabling Technology Technology Highlights Explore More
4 min read AstroViz: Iconic Pillars of Creation Star in NASA’s New 3D Visualization
Article
20 hours ago
4 min read NASA Sends More Science to Space, More Strides for Future Exploration
Biological and physical investigations aboard the Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply mission NG-21 included experiments studying…
Article
1 day ago
5 min read NASA Scientists on Why We Might Not Spot Solar Panel Technosignatures
Article
4 days ago
View the full article
-
By NASA
5 Min Read ‘Current’ Events: NASA and USGS Find a New Way to Measure River Flows
The River Observing System (RiOS) tracking the motion of water surface features from above a section of the Sacramento River in Northern California in 2023. Credits: NASA/USGS/Joe Adams and Chris Gazoorian A team of scientists and engineers at NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collaborated to see if a small piloted drone, equipped with a specialized payload, could help create detailed maps of how fast water is flowing. Rivers supply fresh water to our communities and farms, provide homes for a variety of creatures, transport people and goods, and generate electricity. But river flows can also carry pollutants downstream or suddenly surge, posing dangers to people, wildlife, and property. As NASA continues its ongoing commitment to better understand our home planet, researchers are working to answer the question of how do we stay in-the-know about where and how quickly river flows change?
NASA and USGS scientists have teamed up to create an instrument package – about the size of a gallon of milk – called the River Observing System (RiOS). It features thermal and visible cameras for tracking the motion of water surface features, a laser to measure altitude, navigation sensors, an onboard computer, and a wireless communications system. In 2023, researchers took RiOS into the field for testing along a section of the Sacramento River in Northern California, and plan to return for a third and final field test in the fall of 2024.
The River Observing System (RiOS) tracking the motion of water surface features from above a section of the Sacramento River in Northern California in 2023. “Deploying RiOS above a river to evaluate the system’s performance in a real-world setting is incredibly important,” said Carl Legleiter, USGS principal investigator of the joint NASA-USGS StreamFlow project. “During these test flights we demonstrated that the onboard payload can be used to make calculations – do the analysis – in nearly real-time, while the drone is flying above the river. This was one of our top-tier goals: to enable minimal latency between the time we acquire images and when we have detailed information on current speeds and flow patterns within the river.”
To realize this vision for onboard computing, the team uses open-source software, combined with their own code, to produce maps of water surface velocities, or flow field, from a series of images taken over time.
“You might think that we need to be able to see discrete, physical objects – like sticks or silt or other debris as they move downstream – to estimate the flow velocity, but that’s not always the case, nor is it always possible,” said Legleiter. “Using a highly-sensitive infrared camera, we instead detect the movement of subtle differences in the temperature of water carried downstream.”
Those same tiny temperature differences also appear wherever there are undulations – like at the boundary between the air and the water or ice below. Knowing this, NASA members of the StreamFlow team used this phenomenon to their advantage when developing methods for possible future landed planetary missions to navigate at distant and hard-to-see environments, including Europa, the icy moon orbiting Jupiter.
Our technology can precisely track the static surface of icy terrain while flying over it, or a moving surface, like water, while hovering above it to keep the spacecraft safe while gathering valuable data
uland wong
Co-investigator and NASA lead of the StreamFlow Project
“Icy surfaces present challenging visual conditions such as lack of contrast,” said Uland Wong, co-investigator and NASA lead of the StreamFlow project at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. “Our technology can precisely track the static surface of icy terrain while flying over it, or a moving surface, like water, while hovering above it to keep the spacecraft safe while gathering valuable data.”
To prepare for the Sacramento River field tests, the NASA team built a robotics simulator to run thousands of virtual drone flights over the Sacramento River test site using flow fields modeled by USGS. These simulations are helping the team create intelligent software capable of selecting the best routes for the drone to fly and ensuring efficient use of limited battery power.
The next step in the partnership is for NASA to develop techniques for making the system more autonomous. The researchers want to use calculations of river flows – performed onboard in real time – to guide where the drone should fly next.
“Does the drone drop down to get better resolution data about a particular location or stay high and capture a wide-angle view,” posed Wong. “If it identifies areas that are flowing particularly fast or slow, could the drone more quickly detect areas of flooding?”
The USGS currently operates an extensive network of thousands of automated stream gauges and fixed cameras installed on bridges and riverbanks to monitor river flows in real-time across the country.
“Drones could enable us to make measurements in so many more areas, potentially allowing our network to be larger, more robust, and safer for our technicians to monitor and maintain,” said Paul Kinzel, StreamFlow co-investigator at USGS. “Drones could help keep our people and equipment out of harm’s way in addition to telling us how the environment is changing over time in as many locations as possible.”
A drone with the StreamFlow thermal mapping payload flying above the Sacramento River in Northern California.NASA/Massimo Vespignani For more information about how NASA improves life on Earth through climate and technological innovations, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/earth
The StreamFlow project is a collaboration between researchers with the USGS’s Hydrologic Remote Sensing Branch, Unmanned Aircraft Systems engineers with the USGS National Innovation Center, and scientists in the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames. The Streamflow payload concept was demonstrated through research initially seeded by a grant from the USGS National Innovation Center and is now supported by NASA’s Advanced Information Systems Technology program, which is managed by the agency’s Earth Science Technology Office. The field tests were conducted in collaboration with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Southwest Fisheries Science Center, which helped collect direct field measurements of the river’s flow velocity and granted access to the field site, which is owned by the Nature Conservancy.
Share
Details
Last Updated Aug 05, 2024 Related Terms
Earth Science Division Ames Research Center Applied Sciences Program Drones & You General USGS (United States Geological Survey) Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Ames Research Center
Earth Science – Technology
Rivers on Earth, Titan, and Mars
One of the more distinctive things about Earth among the planets is that we have plate tectonics. In other words,…
Climate Change
NASA is a global leader in studying Earth’s changing climate.
View the full article
-
By NASA
5 min read
NASA’s DART Mission Sheds New Light on Target Binary Asteroid System
The various geological features observed on Didymos helped researchers tell the story of Didymos’ origins. The asteroid’s triangular ridge (first panel from left), and the so-called smooth region, and its likely older, rougher “highland” region (second panel from left) can be explained through a combination of slope processes controlled by elevation (third panel from left). The fourth panel shows the effects of spin-up disruption that Didymos likely underwent to form Dimorphos. Credit: Johns Hopkins APL/Olivier Barnouin In studying data collected from NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, which in 2022 sent a spacecraft to intentionally collide with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, the mission’s science team has discovered new information on the origins of the target binary asteroid system and why the DART spacecraft was so effective in shifting Dimorphos’ orbit.
In five recently published papers in Nature Communications, the team explored the geology of the binary asteroid system, comprising moonlet Dimorphos and parent asteroid Didymos, to characterize its origin and evolution and constrain its physical characteristics.
“These findings give us new insights into the ways that asteroids can change over time,” said Thomas Statler, lead scientist for Solar System Small Bodies at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This is important not just for understanding the near-Earth objects that are the focus of planetary defense, but also for our ability to read the history of our Solar System from these remnants of planet formation. This is just part of the wealth of new knowledge we’ve gained from DART.”
Olivier Barnouin and Ronald-Louis Ballouz of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, led a paper that analyzed the geology of both asteroids and drew conclusions about their surface materials and interior properties. From images captured by DART and its accompanying LICIACube cubesat – contributed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the team observed the smaller asteroid Dimorphos’ topography, which featured boulders of varying sizes. In comparison, the larger asteroid Didymos was smoother at lower elevations, though rocky at higher elevations, with more craters than Dimorphos. The authors inferred that Dimorphos likely spun off from Didymos in a large mass shedding event.
There are natural processes that can accelerate the spins of small asteroids, and there is growing evidence that these processes may be responsible for re-shaping these bodies or even forcing material to be spun off their surfaces.
Analysis suggested that both Didymos and Dimorphos have weak surface characteristics, which led the team to posit that Didymos has a surface age 40–130 times older than Dimorphos, with the former estimated to be 12.5 million years and the latter less than 300,000 years old. The low surface strength of Dimorphos likely contributed to DART’s significant impact on its orbit.
“The images and data that DART collected at the Didymos system provided a unique opportunity for a close-up geological look of a near-Earth asteroid binary system,” said Barnouin. “From these images alone, we were able to infer a great deal of information on geophysical properties of both Didymos and Dimorphos and expand our understanding on the formation of these two asteroids. We also better understand why DART was so effective in moving Dimorphos.”
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that
supports HTML5 video
Based on the internal and surface properties described in Barnouin et al. (2024), this video demonstrates how the spin-up of asteroid Didymos could have led to the growth of its equatorial ridge and the formation of the smaller asteroid Dimorphos, seen orbiting the former near the end of the clip. Particles are colored according to their speeds, with the scale shown at the top, along with the continually changing spin period of Didymos. Credit: University of Michigan/Yun Zhang and Johns Hopkins APL/Olivier Barnouin Maurizio Pajola, of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Rome, and co-authors led a paper comparing the shapes and sizes of the various boulders and their distribution patterns on the two asteroids’ surfaces. They determined the physical characteristics of Dimorphos indicate it formed in stages, likely of material inherited from its parent asteroid Didymos. That conclusion reinforces the prevailing theory that some binary asteroid systems arise from shed remnants of a larger primary asteroid accumulating into a new asteroid moonlet.
Alice Lucchetti, also of INAF, and colleagues found that thermal fatigue — the gradual weakening and cracking of a material caused by heat — could rapidly break up boulders on the surface of Dimorphos, generating surface lines and altering the physical characteristics of this type of asteroid more quickly than previously thought. The DART mission was likely the first observation of such a phenomenon on this type of asteroid.
Supervised by researcher Naomi Murdoch of ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse, France, and colleagues, a paper led by students Jeanne Bigot and Pauline Lombardo determined Didymos’ bearing capacity — the surface’s ability to support applied loads — to be at least 1,000 times lower than that of dry sand on Earth or lunar soil. This is considered an important parameter for understanding and predicting the response of a surface, including for the purposes of displacing an asteroid.
Colas Robin, also of ISAE-SUPAERO, and co-authors analyzed the surface boulders on Dimorphos, comparing them with those on other rubble pile asteroids, including Itokawa, Ryugu and Bennu. The researchers found the boulders shared similar characteristics, suggesting all these types of asteroids formed and evolved in a similar fashion. The team also noted that the elongated nature of the boulders around the DART impact site implies that they were likely formed through impact processing.
These latest findings form a more robust overview of the origins of the Didymos system and add to the understanding of how such planetary bodies were formed. As ESA’s (European Space Agency) Hera mission prepares to revisit DART’s collision site in 2026 to further analyze the aftermath of the first-ever planetary defense test, this research provides a series of tests for what Hera will find and contributes to current and future exploration missions while bolstering planetary defense capabilities.
Johns Hopkins APL managed the DART mission for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office as a project of the agency’s Planetary Missions Program Office. NASA provided support for the mission from several centers, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Johnson Space Center in Houston, Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
For more information about the DART mission:
https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-defense-dart
News Media Contacts
Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov
Facebook logo @NASA@Asteroid Watch @NASA@AsteroidWatch Instagram logo @NASA Linkedin logo @NASA Share
Details
Last Updated Jul 30, 2024 Related Terms
Asteroids DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) Missions Planetary Science Planetary Science Division Science Mission Directorate The Solar System Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Planetary Science
Early Career Workshop
Asteroids
Solar System
View the full article
-
By NASA
“We have a group photo of my first project here, ASTRO-H, and that one means a lot to me because I came [to that NASA project] fresh off the street. I was super scared and intimidated. It was me and three other [technicians], who were also all new, and a handful of very seasoned scientists and engineers. And we came together.
“And we actually came in — I believe — under budget, ahead of schedule, and exceeded all expectations for our test results. That’s kind of unheard of, you know what I mean? We had such a good environment in the lab. Everybody got along so well. It was all teamwork. And everything just gelled.
“So when I look back on that photo from 14 years ago, first of all, I look really young in it. And secondly, it makes me realize how blessed and lucky I’ve been to be here for so long. It reminds me of that guy who was really nervous and still did alright. [It reminds me] to have a little confidence in myself, just be me, and do the work. It’ll all work out.
“I love looking back at that first team photo and just remembering how raw everything was at the time and how well it still came out.”
—Clifton Brown, Engineering Technician, OMES III, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Image Credit: NASA/Thalia Patrinos
Interviewer: NASA/Thalia Patrinos
Check out some of our other Faces of NASA.
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.