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DART impact might have reshaped Hera's target asteroid
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By NASA
Illustration of the main asteroid belt, orbiting the Sun between Mars and JupiterNASA NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope includes asteroids on its list of objects studied and secrets revealed.
A team led by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge repurposed Webb’s observations of a distant star to reveal a population of small asteroids — smaller than astronomers had ever detected orbiting the Sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The 138 new asteroids range from the size of a bus to the size of a stadium — a size range in the main belt that has not been observable with ground-based telescopes. Knowing how many main belt asteroids are in different size ranges can tell us something about how asteroids have been changed over time by collisions. That process is related to how some of them have escaped the main belt over the solar system’s history, and even how meteorites end up on Earth.
“We now understand more about how small objects in the asteroid belt are formed and how many there could be,” said Tom Greene, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and co-author on the paper presenting the results. “Asteroids this size likely formed from collisions between larger ones in the main belt and are likely to drift towards the vicinity of Earth and the Sun.”
Insights from this research could inform the work of the Asteroid Threat Assessment Project at Ames. ATAP works across disciplines to support NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office by studying what would happen in the case of an Earth impact and modeling the associated risks.
“It’s exciting that Webb’s capabilities can be used to glean insights into asteroids,” said Jessie Dotson, an astrophysicist at Ames and member of ATAP. “Understanding the sizes, numbers, and evolutionary history of smaller main belt asteroids provides important background about the near-Earth asteroids we study for planetary defense.”
Illustration of the James Webb Space TelescopeNASA The team that made the asteroid detections, led by research scientist Artem Burdanov and professor of planetary science Julien de Wit, both of MIT, developed a method to analyze existing Webb images for the presence of asteroids that may have been inadvertently “caught on film” as they passed in front of the telescope. Using the new image processing technique, they studied more than 10,000 images of the star TRAPPIST-1, originally taken to search for atmospheres around planets orbiting the star, in the search for life beyond Earth.
Asteroids shine more brightly in infrared light, the wavelength Webb is tuned to detect, than in visible light, helping reveal the population of main belt asteroids that had gone unnoticed until now. NASA will also take advantage of that infrared glow with an upcoming mission, the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor. NEO Surveyor is the first space telescope specifically designed to hunt for near-Earth asteroids and comets that may be potential hazards to Earth.
The paper presenting this research, “Detections of decameter main-belt asteroids with JWST,” was published Dec. 9 in Nature.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
For news media:
Members of the news media interested in covering this topic should reach out to the NASA Ames newsroom.
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By NASA
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft captured this image of Vesta as it left the giant asteroid’s orbit in 2012. The framing camera was looking down at the north pole, which is in the middle of the image.NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA Known as flow formations, these channels could be etched on bodies that would seem inhospitable to liquid because they are exposed to the extreme vacuum conditions of space.
Pocked with craters, the surfaces of many celestial bodies in our solar system provide clear evidence of a 4.6-billion-year battering by meteoroids and other space debris. But on some worlds, including the giant asteroid Vesta that NASA’s Dawn mission explored, the surfaces also contain deep channels, or gullies, whose origins are not fully understood.
A prime hypothesis holds that they formed from dry debris flows driven by geophysical processes, such as meteoroid impacts, and changes in temperature due to Sun exposure. A recent NASA-funded study, however, provides some evidence that impacts on Vesta may have triggered a less-obvious geologic process: sudden and brief flows of water that carved gullies and deposited fans of sediment. By using lab equipment to mimic conditions on Vesta, the study, which appeared in Planetary Science Journal, detailed for the first time what the liquid could be made of and how long it would flow before freezing.
Although the existence of frozen brine deposits on Vesta is unconfirmed, scientists have previously hypothesized that meteoroid impacts could have exposed and melted ice that lay under the surface of worlds like Vesta. In that scenario, flows resulting from this process could have etched gullies and other surface features that resemble those on Earth.
To explore potential explanations for deep channels, or gullies, seen on Vesta, scientists used JPL’s Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments, or DUSTIE, to simulate conditions on the giant asteroid that would occur after meteoroids strike the surface.NASA/JPL-Caltech But how could airless worlds — celestial bodies without atmospheres and exposed to the intense vacuum of space — host liquids on the surface long enough for them to flow? Such a process would run contrary to the understanding that liquids quickly destabilize in a vacuum, changing to a gas when the pressure drops.
“Not only do impacts trigger a flow of liquid on the surface, the liquids are active long enough to create specific surface features,” said project leader and planetary scientist Jennifer Scully of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the experiments were conducted. “But for how long? Most liquids become unstable quickly on these airless bodies, where the vacuum of space is unyielding.”
The critical component turns out to be sodium chloride — table salt. The experiments found that in conditions like those on Vesta, pure water froze almost instantly, while briny liquids stayed fluid for at least an hour. “That’s long enough to form the flow-associated features identified on Vesta, which were estimated to require up to a half-hour,” said lead author Michael J. Poston of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
Launched in 2007, the Dawn spacecraft traveled to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to orbit Vesta for 14 months and Ceres for almost four years. Before ending in 2018, the mission uncovered evidence that Ceres had been home to a subsurface reservoir of brine and may still be transferring brines from its interior to the surface. The recent research offers insights into processes on Ceres but focuses on Vesta, where ice and salts may produce briny liquid when heated by an impact, scientists said.
Re-creating Vesta
To re-create Vesta-like conditions that would occur after a meteoroid impact, the scientists relied on a test chamber at JPL called the Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments, or DUSTIE. By rapidly reducing the air pressure surrounding samples of liquid, they mimicked the environment around fluid that comes to the surface. Exposed to vacuum conditions, pure water froze instantly. But salty fluids hung around longer, continuing to flow before freezing.
The brines they experimented with were a little over an inch (a few centimeters) deep; scientists concluded the flows on Vesta that are yards to tens of yards deep would take even longer to refreeze.
The researchers were also able to re-create the “lids” of frozen material thought to form on brines. Essentially a frozen top layer, the lids stabilize the liquid beneath them, protecting it from being exposed to the vacuum of space — or, in this case the vacuum of the DUSTIE chamber — and helping the liquid flow longer before freezing again.
This phenomenon is similar to how on Earth lava flows farther in lava tubes than when exposed to cool surface temperatures. It also matches up with modeling research conducted around potential mud volcanoes on Mars and volcanoes that may have spewed icy material from volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Europa.
“Our results contribute to a growing body of work that uses lab experiments to understand how long liquids last on a variety of worlds,” Scully said.
Find more information about NASA’s Dawn mission here:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dawn/
News Media Contacts
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-287-4115
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2024-178
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Last Updated Dec 20, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
When it comes to NASA’s ASTRO CAMP®, the numbers – and impact – of the initiative to help students across the nation and world learn about NASA and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) just continue to grow and grow and grow.
As in recent years, the NASA ASTRO CAMP® Community Partners (ACCP) program surpassed previous milestone marks in fiscal year 2024 by partnering with 373 community sites, including 50 outside the United States, to inspire youth, families, and educators. Participants included students from various population segments, focusing on students from underrepresented groups, accessibility for differently-abled students, and reaching under-resourced urban and rural settings.
“This year has been extremely impactful for the students at ACCP collaborating partner sites,” said Kelly Martin-Rivers, principal investigator for NASA’s ACCP. “A particular highlight was being a part of NASA’s focus on the solar eclipses of 2024, supporting over 42,000 students at 52 NASA ACCP events. Supporting more and more exciting research and activities by the Science Activation grantees and Globe citizen scientists also continues to bring hands-on experiences directly to students across the country and around the world.”
NASA’s ASTRO CAMP® continued its success in fiscal year 2024 as students across the nation and world learn about NASA and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The NASA ASTRO CAMP® Community Partners program partnered with 323 sites in 29 states and the District of Columbia. It also reached beyond the borders to partner with 50 sites in six countries, including Mexico, India, Turkey, Canada, Spain, and Ukraine.NASA ASTRO CAMP® NASA’s ASTRO CAMP® continued its success in fiscal year 2024 as students across the nation and world learn about NASA and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The NASA ASTRO CAMP® Community Partners program partnered with 323 sites in 29 states and the District of Columbia. It also reached beyond the borders to partner with 50 sites in six countries, including Mexico, India, Turkey, Canada, Spain, and Ukraine.NASA ASTRO CAMP® NASA’s ASTRO CAMP® continued its success in fiscal year 2024 as students across the nation and world learn about NASA and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The NASA ASTRO CAMP® Community Partners program partnered with 323 sites in 29 states and the District of Columbia. It also reached beyond the borders to partner with 50 sites in six countries, including Mexico, India, Turkey, Canada, Spain, and Ukraine.NASA ASTRO CAMP® NASA’s ASTRO CAMP® continued its success in fiscal year 2024 as students across the nation and world learn about NASA and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The NASA ASTRO CAMP® Community Partners program partnered with 323 sites in 29 states and the District of Columbia. It also reached beyond the borders to partner with 50 sites in six countries, including Mexico, India, Turkey, Canada, Spain, and Ukraine.NASA ASTRO CAMP® NASA’s ASTRO CAMP® continued its success in fiscal year 2024 as students across the nation and world learn about NASA and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The NASA ASTRO CAMP® Community Partners program partnered with 323 sites in 29 states and the District of Columbia. It also reached beyond the borders to partner with 50 sites in six countries, including Mexico, India, Turkey, Canada, Spain, and Ukraine.NASA ASTRO CAMP® NASA’s ASTRO CAMP® continued its success in fiscal year 2024 as students across the nation and world learn about NASA and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The NASA ASTRO CAMP® Community Partners program partnered with 323 sites in 29 states and the District of Columbia. It also reached beyond the borders to partner with 50 sites in six countries, including Mexico, India, Turkey, Canada, Spain, and Ukraine.NASA ASTRO CAMP® In the most recent year, the NASA ACCP partnered with 323 sites in 29 states and the District of Columbia. It also reached beyond the borders to partner with 50 sites in six countries, including Mexico, India, Turkey, Canada, Spain, and Ukraine. Overall, almost 150,000 students took part in the program, a 30% increase from fiscal year 2023. In addition, almost 107,000 students took part in special STEM activities, an increase of 43.6% from the previous year’s total of more than 74,000. ACCP trained 1,454 facilitators during Educator Professional Development sessions as well, representing an increase of 25.3% from the prior year.
Taken together, the total NASA ACCP impact exceeded a quarter of a million (257,765) people.
As part of the NASA Science Mission Directorate Science Activation program, ACCP continues to make strides in bridging disparities and breaking barriers in STEM. Demographically, the initiative reached a range of ethnic and multiethnic groups. One-third of participants were African American, with another 13% identified as Hispanic. Participants were almost equally divided between male (52%) and female (48%).
In terms of age, 38% of participants were elementary school students. Another 30% were middle school aged, with the remaining 38% high school students. In a final breakdown, more than 42,000 of the participants were impacted during 52 NASA ACCP solar eclipse events in the spring of 2024.
ACCP activities offer real-world opportunities for students to enhance scientific understanding and contribute to NASA science missions, while also inspiring lifelong learning. The ACCP theme was “NASA Science … Fire to Water to Ice and Beyond!” The program featured materials and activities related to NASA science missions, astrophysics, heliophysics, Earth science, and planetary science.
The unique methodology teaches students to work collaboratively to complete missions and provides trained community educators to implement the themed NASA modules, developed by the ACCP team, seated at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
ASTRO CAMP began at NASA Stennis as a single one-week camp in the 1990s. Since then, it has developed into several adaptable models for schools, museums, universities, libraries, and youth service organizations, enabling a worldwide expansion.
For more information about becoming a NASA ASTRO CAMP Collaborative Community Partner, contact: Kelly Martin-Rivers at kelly.e.martin-rivers@nasa.gov or 228-688-1500; or Maria Lott at maria.l.lott@nasa.gov or 228-688-1776.
For more on the ASTRO CAMP Collaborative Community Partner Program, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/stennis/stem-engagement-at-stennis/nasa-accp/.
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Last Updated Dec 06, 2024 EditorNASA Stennis CommunicationsContactC. Lacy Thompsoncalvin.l.thompson@nasa.gov / (228) 688-3333LocationStennis Space Center Related Terms
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A prototype of a robot designed to explore subsurface oceans of icy moons is reflected in the water’s surface during a pool test at Caltech in September. Conducted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the testing showed the feasibility of a mission concept for a swarm of mini swimming robots.NASA/JPL-Caltech In a competition swimming pool, engineers tested prototypes for a futuristic mission concept: a swarm of underwater robots that could look for signs of life on ocean worlds.
When NASA’s Europa Clipper reaches its destination in 2030, the spacecraft will prepare to aim an array of powerful science instruments toward Jupiter’s moon Europa during 49 flybys, looking for signs that the ocean beneath the moon’s icy crust could sustain life. While the spacecraft, which launched Oct. 14, carries the most advanced science hardware NASA has ever sent to the outer solar system, teams are already developing the next generation of robotic concepts that could potentially plunge into the watery depths of Europa and other ocean worlds, taking the science even further.
This is where an ocean-exploration mission concept called SWIM comes in. Short for Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers, the project envisions a swarm of dozens of self-propelled, cellphone-size swimming robots that, once delivered to a subsurface ocean by an ice-melting cryobot, would zoom off, looking for chemical and temperature signals that could indicate life.
Dive into underwater robotics testing with NASA’s futuristic SWIM (Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers) concept for a swarm of miniature robots to explore subsurface oceans on icy worlds, and see a JPL team testing a prototype at a pool at Caltech in Pasadena, California, in September 2024. NASA/JPL-Caltech “People might ask, why is NASA developing an underwater robot for space exploration? It’s because there are places we want to go in the solar system to look for life, and we think life needs water. So we need robots that can explore those environments — autonomously, hundreds of millions of miles from home,” said Ethan Schaler, principal investigator for SWIM at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Under development at JPL, a series of prototypes for the SWIM concept recently braved the waters of a 25-yard (23-meter) competition swimming pool at Caltech in Pasadena for testing. The results were encouraging.
SWIM Practice
The SWIM team’s latest iteration is a 3D-printed plastic prototype that relies on low-cost, commercially made motors and electronics. Pushed along by two propellers, with four flaps for steering, the prototype demonstrated controlled maneuvering, the ability to stay on and correct its course, and a back-and-forth “lawnmower” exploration pattern. It managed all of this autonomously, without the team’s direct intervention. The robot even spelled out “J-P-L.”
Just in case the robot needed rescuing, it was attached to a fishing line, and an engineer toting a fishing rod trotted alongside the pool during each test. Nearby, a colleague reviewed the robot’s actions and sensor data on a laptop. The team completed more than 20 rounds of testing various prototypes at the pool and in a pair of tanks at JPL.
“It’s awesome to build a robot from scratch and see it successfully operate in a relevant environment,” Schaler said. “Underwater robots in general are very hard, and this is just the first in a series of designs we’d have to work through to prepare for a trip to an ocean world. But it’s proof that we can build these robots with the necessary capabilities and begin to understand what challenges they would face on a subsurface mission.”
Swarm Science
A model of the final envisioned SWIM robot, right, sits beside a capsule holding an ocean-composition sensor. The sensor was tested on an Alaskan glacier in July 2023 through a JPL-led project called ORCAA (Ocean Worlds Reconnaissance and Characterization of Astrobiological Analogs). The wedge-shaped prototype used in most of the pool tests was about 16.5 inches (42 centimeters) long, weighing 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms). As conceived for spaceflight, the robots would have dimensions about three times smaller — tiny compared to existing remotely operated and autonomous underwater scientific vehicles. The palm-size swimmers would feature miniaturized, purpose-built parts and employ a novel wireless underwater acoustic communication system for transmitting data and triangulating their positions.
Digital versions of these little robots got their own test, not in a pool but in a computer simulation. In an environment with the same pressure and gravity they would likely encounter on Europa, a virtual swarm of 5-inch-long (12-centimeter-long) robots repeatedly went looking for potential signs of life. The computer simulations helped determine the limits of the robots’ abilities to collect science data in an unknown environment, and they led to the development of algorithms that would enable the swarm to explore more efficiently.
The simulations also helped the team better understand how to maximize science return while accounting for tradeoffs between battery life (up to two hours), the volume of water the swimmers could explore (about 3 million cubic feet, or 86,000 cubic meters), and the number of robots in a single swarm (a dozen, sent in four to five waves).
In addition, a team of collaborators at Georgia Tech in Atlanta fabricated and tested an ocean composition sensor that would enable each robot to simultaneously measure temperature, pressure, acidity or alkalinity, conductivity, and chemical makeup. Just a few millimeters square, the chip is the first to combine all those sensors in one tiny package.
Of course, such an advanced concept would require several more years of work, among other things, to be ready for a possible future flight mission to an icy moon. In the meantime, Schaler imagines SWIM robots potentially being further developed to do science work right here at home: supporting oceanographic research or taking critical measurements underneath polar ice.
More About SWIM
Caltech manages JPL for NASA. JPL’s SWIM project was supported by Phase I and II funding from NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program under the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The program nurtures visionary ideas for space exploration and aerospace by funding early-stage studies to evaluate technologies that could transform future NASA missions. Researchers across U.S. government, industry, and academia can submit proposals.
How the SWIM concept was developed Learn about underwater robots for Antarctic climate science See NASA’s network of ready-to-roll mini-Moon rovers News Media Contact
Melissa Pamer
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-314-4928
melissa.pamer@jpl.nasa.gov
2024-162
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Last Updated Nov 20, 2024 Related Terms
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