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Sols 4304-4006: 12 Years, 42 Drill Holes, and Now… 1 Million ChemCam Shots!
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
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A thick torus of gas and dust surrounding a supermassive black hole is shown in this artist’s concept. The torus can obscure light that’s generated by material falling into the black hole. Observations by NASA telescopes have helped scientists identify more of these hidden black holes.NASA/JPL-Caltech An effort to find some of the biggest, most active black holes in the universe provides a better estimate for the ratio of hidden to unhidden behemoths.
Multiple NASA telescopes recently helped scientists search the sky for supermassive black holes — those up to billions of times heavier than the Sun. The new survey is unique because it was as likely to find massive black holes that are hidden behind thick clouds of gas and dust as those that are not.
Astronomers think that every large galaxy in the universe has a supermassive black hole at its center. But testing this hypothesis is difficult because researchers can’t hope to count the billions or even trillions of supermassive black holes thought to exist in the universe. Instead they have to extrapolate from smaller samples to learn about the larger population. So accurately measuring the ratio of hidden supermassive black holes in a given sample helps scientists better estimate the total number of supermassive black holes in the universe.
The new study published in the Astrophysical Journal found that about 35% of supermassive black holes are heavily obscured, meaning the surrounding clouds of gas and dust are so thick they block even low-energy X-ray light. Comparable searches have previously found less than 15% of supermassive black holes are so obscured. Scientists think the true split should be closer to 50/50 based on models of how galaxies grow. If observations continue to indicate significantly less than half of supermassive black holes are hidden, scientists will need to adjust some key ideas they have about these objects and the role they play in shaping galaxies.
Hidden Treasure
Although black holes are inherently dark — not even light can escape their gravity — they can also be some of the brightest objects in the universe: When gas gets pulled into orbit around a supermassive black hole, like water circling a drain, the extreme gravity creates such intense friction and heat that the gas reaches hundreds of thousands of degrees and radiates so brightly it can outshine all the stars in the surrounding galaxy.
The clouds of gas and dust that surround and replenish the bright central disk may roughly take the shape of a torus, or doughnut. If the doughnut hole is facing toward Earth, the bright central disk within it is visible; if the doughnut is seen edge-on, the disk is obscured.
A supermassive black hole surrounded by a torus of gas and dust is depicted in four different wavelengths of light in this artist’s concept. Visible light (top right) and low-energy X-rays (bottom left) are blocked by the torus; infrared (top left) is scattered and reemitted; and some high energy X-rays (bottom right) can penetrate the torus. NASA/JPL-Caltech Most telescopes can rather easily identify face-on supermassive black holes, though not edge-on ones. But there’s an exception to this that the authors of the new paper took advantage of: The torus absorbs light from the central source and reemits lower-energy light in the infrared range (wavelengths slightly longer than what human eyes can detect). Essentially, the doughnuts glow in infrared.
These wavelengths of light were detected by NASA’s Infrared Astronomical Satellite, or IRAS, which operated for 10 months in 1983 and was managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. A survey telescope that imaged the entire sky, IRAS was able to see the infrared emissions from the clouds surrounding supermassive black holes. Most importantly, it could spot edge-on and face-on black holes equally well.
IRAS caught hundreds of initial targets. Some of them turned out to be not heavily obscured black holes but galaxies with high rates of star formation that emit a similar infrared glow. So the authors of the new study used ground-based, visible-light telescopes to identify those galaxies and separate them from the hidden black holes.
To confirm edge-on, heavily obscured black holes, the researchers relied on NASA’s NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array), an X-ray observatory also managed by JPL. X-rays are radiated by some of the hottest material around the black hole. Lower-energy X-rays are absorbed by the surrounding clouds of gas and dust, while the higher-energy X-rays observed by NuSTAR can penetrate and scatter off the clouds. Detecting these X-rays can take hours of observation, so scientists working with NuSTAR first need a telescope like IRAS to tell them where to look.
NASA’s NuSTAR X-ray telescope, depicted in this artist’s concept, has helped astronomers get a better sense of how many supermassive black holes are hidden from view by thick clouds of gas and dust that surround them.NASA/JPL-Caltech “It amazes me how useful IRAS and NuSTAR were for this project, especially despite IRAS being operational over 40 years ago,” said study lead Peter Boorman, an astrophysicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California. “I think it shows the legacy value of telescope archives and the benefit of using multiple instruments and wavelengths of light together.”
Numerical Advantage
Determining the number of hidden black holes compared to nonhidden ones can help scientists understand how these black holes get so big. If they grow by consuming material, then a significant number of black holes should be surrounded by thick clouds and potentially obscured. Boorman and his coauthors say their study supports this hypothesis.
In addition, black holes influence the galaxies they live in, mostly by impacting how galaxies grow. This happens because black holes surrounded by massive clouds of gas and dust can consume vast — but not infinite — amounts of material. If too much falls toward a black hole at once, the black hole starts coughing up the excess and firing it back out into the galaxy. That can disperse gas clouds within the galaxy where stars are forming, slowing the rate of star formation there.
“If we didn’t have black holes, galaxies would be much larger,” said Poshak Gandhi, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom and a coauthor on the new study. “So if we didn’t have a supermassive black hole in our Milky Way galaxy, there might be many more stars in the sky. That’s just one example of how black holes can influence a galaxy’s evolution.”
More About NuSTAR
A Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, NuSTAR was developed in partnership with the Danish Technical University and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Virginia. NuSTAR’s mission operations center is at the University of California, Berkeley, and the official data archive is at NASA’s High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. ASI provides the mission’s ground station and a mirror data archive. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
For more information on NuSTAR, visit:
www.nustar.caltech.edu
News Media Contact
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
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NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) Astrophysics Black Holes Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Universe Explore More
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By NASA
Following the historic year of 1969 that saw two successful Moon landings, 1970 opened on a more sober note. Ever-tightening federal budgets forced NASA to rescope its future lunar landing plans. The need for a Saturn V to launch an experimental space station in 1972 forced the cancellation of the final Moon landing mission and an overall stretching out of the Moon landing flights. Apollo 13 slipped to April, but the crew of James Lovell, Thomas “Ken” Mattingly, and Fred W. Haise and their backups John Young, John “Jack” Swigert, and Charles Duke continued intensive training for the landing at Fra Mauro. Training included practicing their surface excursions and water egress, along with time in spacecraft simulators. The three stages of the Apollo 14 Saturn V arrived at the launch site and workers began the stacking process for that mission now planned for October 1970. Scientists met in Houston to review the preliminary findings from their studies of the lunar samples returned by Apollo 11.
Apollo Program Changes
Apollo Moon landing plans in early 1970, with blue indicating completed landings, green planned landings at the time, and red canceled landings. Illustration of the Apollo Applications Program, later renamed Skylab, experimental space station then planned for 1972. On Jan. 4, 1970, NASA Deputy Administrator George Low announced the cancellation of Apollo 20, the final planned Apollo Moon landing mission. The agency needed the Saturn V rocket that would have launched Apollo 20 to launch the Apollo Applications Program (AAP) experimental space station, renamed Skylab in February 1970. Since previous NASA Administrator James Webb had precluded the building of any additional Saturn V rockets in 1968, this proved the only viable yet difficult solution.
In other program changes, on Jan. 13 NASA Administrator Thomas Paine addressed how NASA planned to deal with ongoing budgetary challenges. Lunar landing missions would now occur every six months instead of every four, and with the slip of Apollo 13 to April, Apollo 14 would now fly in October instead of July. Apollo 15 and 16 would fly in 1971, then AAP would launch in 1972, and three successive crews would spend, 28, 56, and 56 days aboard the station. Lunar landing missions would resume in 1973, with Apollo 17, 18, and 19 closing out the program by the following year.
Top NASA managers in the Mission Control Center, including Sigurd “Sig” Sjoberg, third from left, Christopher Kraft, sitting in white shirt, and Dale Myers, third from right. Wernher von Braun in his office at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. In addition to programmatic changes, several key management changes took place at NASA in January 1970. On Nov. 26, 1969, Christopher Kraft , the director of flight operations at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, assumed the position of MSC deputy director. On Dec. 28, MSC Director Robert Gilruth named Sigurd “Sig” Sjoberg, deputy director of flight operations since 1963, to succeed Kraft. At NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight George Mueller resigned his position effective Dec. 10, 1969. To replace Mueller, on Jan. 8, NASA Administrator Paine named Dale Myers, vice president and general manager of the space shuttle program at North American Rockwell Corporation. On Jan. 27, Paine announced that Wernher von Braun, designer of the Saturn family of rockets and director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, since its establishment in 1960, would move to NASA Headquarters and assume the position of deputy associate administrator for planning.
Apollo 11 Lunar Science Symposium
Sign welcoming scientists to the Apollo 11 Lunar Science Conference. Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin addresses a reception at the First Lunar Science Conference. Between Jan. 5 and 8, 1970, several hundred scientists, including all 142 U.S. and international principal investigators provided with Apollo 11 samples, gathered in downtown Houston’s Albert Thomas Exhibit and Convention Center for the Apollo 11 Lunar Science Conference. During the conference, the scientists discussed the chemistry, mineralogy, and petrology of the lunar samples, the search for carbon compounds and any evidence of organic material, the results of dating of the samples, and the results returned by the Early Apollo Surface Experiments Package (EASEP). Senior NASA managers including Administrator Paine, Deputy Administrator Low, and Apollo Program Director Rocco Petrone attended the conference, and Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin gave a keynote speech at a dinner reception. The prestigious journal Science dedicated its Jan. 30, 1970, edition to the papers presented at the conference, dubbing it “The Moon Issue”. The Lunar Science Conference evolved into an annual event, renamed the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in 1978, and continues to attract scientists from around the world to discuss the latest developments in lunar and planetary exploration.
Apollo 12
Apollo 12 astronaut Richard Gordon riding in one of the Grand Marshal cars in the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. Actress June Lockhart, left, interviews Apollo 12 astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad, Gordon, and Alan Bean during the Rose Parade.courtesy emmyonline.com Apollo 12 astronauts and their wives visiting former President and Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson at the LBJ Ranch in Texas. On New Year’s Day 1970, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad, Richard Gordon, and Alan Bean led the 81st annual Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, as Grand Marshals. Actress June Lockhart, an avid space enthusiast, interviewed them during the TV broadcast of the event. As President Richard Nixon had earlier requested, Conrad, Gordon, and Bean and their wives paid a visit to former President Lyndon B. Johnson and First Lady Lady Bird Johnson at their ranch near Fredericksburg, Texas, on Jan. 14, 1970. The astronauts described their mission to the former President and Mrs. Johnson.
The Apollo 12 Command Module Yankee Clipper arrives at the North American Rockwell (NAR) facility in Downey, California. Yankee Clipper at NAR in Downey. A technician examines the Surveyor 3 camera returned by the Apollo 12 astronauts. Managers released the Apollo 12 Command Module (CM) Yankee Clipper from quarantine and shipped it back to its manufacturer, the North American Rockwell plant in Downey, California, on Jan. 12. Engineers there completed a thorough inspection of the spacecraft and eventually prepared it for public display. NASA transferred Yankee Clipper to the Smithsonian Institution in 1973, and today the capsule resides at the Virginia Air & Space Center in Hampton, Virginia. NASA also released from quarantine the lunar samples and the parts of the Surveyor 3 spacecraft returned by the Apollo 12 astronauts. The scientists received their allocated samples in mid-February, while after initial examination in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL) the Surveyor parts arrived at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for detailed analysis.
Apollo 13
As the first step in the programmatic rescheduling of all Moon landings, on Jan. 7, NASA announced the delay of the Apollo 13 launch from March 12 to April 11. The Saturn V rocket topped with the Apollo spacecraft had rolled out the previous December to Launch Pad 39A where workers began tests on the vehicle. The prime crew of Lovell, Mattingly, and Haise, and their backups Young, Swigert, and Duke, continued to train for the 10-day mission to land in the Fra Mauro region of the Moon.
During water recovery exercises, Apollo 13 astronauts (in white flight suits) Thomas “Ken” Mattingly, left, Fred Haise, and James Lovell in the life raft after emerging from the boilerplate Apollo capsule. Apollo 13 astronaut Lovell suits up for a spacewalk training session. Apollo 13 astronaut Haise during a spacewalk simulation. Apollo 13 prime crew members Lovell, Mattingly, and Haise completed their water egress training in the Gulf of Mexico near the coast of Galveston, Texas, on Jan. 24. With support from the Motorized Vessel Retriever, the three astronauts entered a boilerplate Apollo CM. Sailors lowered the capsule into the water, first in the Stable 2 or apex down position. Three self-inflating balloons righted the spacecraft into the Stable 1 apex up position within a few minutes. With assistance from the recovery team, Lovell, Mattingly, and Haise exited the spacecraft onto a life raft. A helicopter lifted them out of the life rafts using Billy Pugh nets and returned them to Retriever. Later that day, the astronauts returned to the MSC to examine Moon rocks in the LRL that the Apollo 12 astronauts had returned the previous November.
During their 33.5 hours on the Moon’s surface, Lovell and Haise planned to conduct two four-hour spacewalks to set up the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP), a suite of five investigations designed to collect data about the lunar environment after the astronauts’ departure, and to conduct geologic explorations of the landing site. Mattingly planned to remain in the Command and Service Module (CSM), conducting geologic observations from lunar orbit including photographing potential future landing sites. Lovell and Haise conducted several simulations of the spacewalk timelines, including setting up the ALSEP equipment, practicing taking core samples, and photographing their activities for documentation purposes. They and their backups conducted practice sessions with the partial gravity simulator, also known as POGO, an arrangement of harnesses and servos that simulated walking in the lunar one-sixth gravity. Lovell and Young completed several flights in the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV) that simulated the flying characteristics of the Lunar Module (LM) for the final several hundred feet of the descent to the surface.
A closed Apollo 13 rock box. An open rock box, partially outfitted with core sample tubes and sample container dispenser. A technician holds the American flag that flew aboard Apollo 13. In the LRL, technicians prepared the Apollo Lunar Sample Return Containers (ALSRC), or rock boxes, for Apollo 13. Like all missions, Apollo 13 carried two ALSRCs, with each box and lid manufactured from a single block of aluminum. Workers placed sample containers and bags and two 2-cm core sample tubes inside the two ALSRCs. Once loaded, technicians sealed the boxes under vacuum conditions so that they would not contain pressure greater than lunar ambient conditions. Engineers at MSC prepared the American flag that Lovell and Haise planned to plant on the Moon for stowage on the LM’s forward landing strut.
Apollo 14
Workers lower the Apollo 14 Lunar Module (LM) ascent stage onto the Command Module (CM) in a preflight docking test. Workers prepare the Apollo 14 LM descent stage for mating with the ascent stage. Workers prepare the Apollo 14 LM ascent stage for mating with the descent stage. As part of the rescheduling of Moon missions, NASA delayed the launch of the next flight, Apollo 14, from July to October 1970. The CSM and the LM had arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida late in 1969 and technicians conducted tests on the vehicles in the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building (MSOB). On Jan. 12, workers lowered the ascent stage of the LM onto the CSM to perform a docking test – the next time the two vehicles docked they would be on the way to the Moon and the test verified their compatibility. Workers mated the two stages of the LM on Jan. 20.
The first stage of Apollo 14’s Saturn V inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The second stage of Apollo 14’s Saturn V arrives at the VAB. The third stage of Apollo 14’s Saturn V arrives at KSC. The three stages of the Apollo 14 Saturn V arrived in KSC’s cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in mid-January and while workers stacked the first stage on its Mobile Launch Platform on Jan. 14, they delayed stacking the remainder of the rocket stages until May 1970. That decision proved fortunate, since engineers needed to modify the second stage engines following the pogo oscillations experienced during the Apollo 13 launch.
Apollo 14 backup Commander Eugene Cernan prepares for a vacuum chamber test in the Space Environment Simulation Lab (SESL). Apollo 14 backup crew member Joe Engle during a vacuum chamber test in the SESL. Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell and their backups Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Joe Engle continued training for their mission. In addition to working in spacecraft simulators, Shepard, Mitchell, Cernan, and Engle conducted suited vacuum chamber runs in MSC’s Space Environmental Simulation Laboratory (SESL) and completed their first familiarization with deploying their suite of ALSEP investigations.
NASA engineer William Creasy, kneeling in sport coat, and the technical team that built the Modular Equipment Transporter (MET), demonstrate the prototype to Roundup editor Sally LaMere. Apollo 14 support astronaut William Pogue tests the MET during parabolic flight. The Apollo 14 astronauts made the first use of the Modular Equipment Transporter (MET), a golf-cart like wheeled conveyance to transport their tools and lunar samples. A team led by project design engineer William Creasy developed the MET based on recommendations from the first two Moon landing crews on how to improve efficiency on the lunar surface. Creasy and his team demonstrated the MET to Sally LaMere, editor of The Roundup, MSC’s employee newsletter. Three support astronauts, William Pogue, Anthony “Tony” England, and Gordon Fullerton tested the MET prototype in simulated one-sixth lunar gravity during parabolic aircraft flights.
To be continued …
News from around the world in January 1970:
January 1 – President Richard Nixon signs the National Environmental Protection Act into law.
January 4 – The Beatles hold their final recording session at Abbey Road Studios in London.
January 5 – Daytime soap opera All My Children premieres.
January 11 – The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 in Super Bowl IV, played in Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.
January 22 – Pan American Airlines flies the first scheduled commercial Boeing-747 flight from New York to London.
January 14 – Diana Ross and the Supremes perform their final concert in Las Vegas.
January 25 – The film M*A*S*H, directed by Robert Altman, premieres.
January 26 – Simon & Garfunkel release Bridge Over Troubled Water, their fifth and final album.
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By NASA
On Jan. 9, 1990, space shuttle Columbia took off on its ninth flight, STS-32, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. Its five-person crew of Commander Daniel Brandenstein, Pilot James Wetherbee, and Mission Specialists Bonnie Dunbar, Marsha Ivins, and David Low flew a then record-breaking 11-day mission to deploy the Syncom IV-F5 communications satellite for the U.S. Navy and retrieve the Long-Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF). Astronauts aboard a shuttle mission in 1984 deployed the LDEF and scientists eagerly awaited the return of their 57 experiments to study the effects of nearly six years exposure to the low Earth orbit environment. The crew also conducted several middeck experiments in biotechnology and materials processing and used an echocardiograph to study changes in their hearts.
The STS-32 crew of Mission Specialist Bonnie Dunbar, left, Commander Daniel Brandenstein, Pilot James Wetherbee, and Mission Specialists Marsha Ivins and David Low. The STS-32 crew patch. The Long Duration Exposure Facility during its deployment on the STS-41C mission in 1984. In November 1988, NASA announced Brandenstein, Wetherbee, Dunbar, Ivins, and Low as the STS-32 crew for the flight then planned for November 1989. Brandenstein, from the Class of 1978, had flown twice before, as pilot on STS-8 in August-September 1983 and commander of STS-51G in June 1985. Dunbar, selected in 1980, had flown once before on STS-61A in October-November 1985. For Wetherbee, Ivins, and Low, all selected in 1984, STS-32 marked their first spaceflight. During the second day of their planned 10-day mission, the astronauts would deploy the Syncom IV-F5, also known as Leasat-5, communications satellite for the U.S. Navy. The main focus of the flight involved the retrieval of LDEF, deployed by the STS-41C crew in April 1984. The original plan had LDEF, containing 57 science and technology experiments, retrieved by the STS-51D crew in February 1985. Delays in the shuttle program first pushed the retrieval to STS-61I in September 1986, and then the Challenger accident delayed it to STS-32. The facility ended up staying in orbit nearly six years instead of the originally intended 10 months. The crew rounded out the mission by conducting a series of middeck science and medical experiments.
Space shuttle Columbia rolls out to its launch pad on a foggy morning. NASA scientist John Charles, at rear, trains astronauts David Low, left, and Bonnie Dunbar, supine, in the operation of a cardiovascular experiment. The STS-32 crew exits crew quarters for the ride to Launch Pad 39A. Columbia returned to KSC on Aug. 21, 1989, following STS-28’s landing at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) in California, and workers towed it to the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) the next day. They made 26 modifications to the orbiter, including the installation of the Remote Manipulator System (RMS), or robotic arm, and a fifth set of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks to extend the vehicle’s duration in space. Rollover to the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building took place on Nov. 16, where Columbia joined its External Tank and twin Solid Rocket Boosters (SRB) on refurbished Mobile Launch Platform 3, last used in 1975. Rollout took place on Nov. 28 to Launch Pad 39A, newly refurbished since its previous launch in 1986.
On Dec. 1, engineers and the astronaut crew completed the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, a dress rehearsal for the planned Dec. 18 launch. Based on that date and the mission’s planned 10-day duration, the STS-32 crew would have spent Christmas in space, only the third American crew and the first space shuttle crew to do so. However, unfinished work on Pad 39A delayed the launch into January 1990. Trajectory specialists had estimated that due to orbital decay, LDEF would reenter the Earth’s atmosphere by March 1990, so a timely launch remained crucial for mission success. The countdown began on Jan. 4 for an expected Jan. 8 launch, with the crew arriving at KSC on Jan. 5.
Liftoff of space shuttle Columbia on STS-32. The deployment of the Syncom IV-F5 satellite. Syncom following deployment. Cloudy skies scrubbed the first launch attempt on Jan. 8. Liftoff took place the next day at 7:35 a.m. EST from Launch Pad 39A, with LDEF 1,500 miles ahead of Columbia. The powered ride to space took 8.5 minutes, placing Columbia into a 215-by-38-mile orbit. A burn of the two Orbiter Maneuvering System (OMS) engines 40 minutes later changed the orbit to the desired 222-by-180-mile altitude. The crew opened the shuttle’s payload bay doors and deployed its radiators. The major activities for the first day in space involved the checkout of the RMS and the first rendezvous maneuver in preparation for the LDEF grapple three days later. The astronauts also activated four of the middeck experiments. On the mission’s second day, Low deployed the 15,000-pound Syncom satellite, releasing it in a frisbee motion out of the payload bay. The satellite extended its antenna, stabilized itself, and 40 minutes after deployment, fired its engine for the first burn to send it to its geostationary orbit.
The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) during the rendezvous. STS-32 astronaut Bonnie Dunbar has grappled LDEF with the Remote Manipulator System. Dunbar lowers LDEF into the payload bay. Following the Syncom deploy, the crew turned its attention to the rendezvous with LDEF while also continuing the middeck experiments. On Flight Day 3, they completed three rendezvous burns as they steadily continued their approach to LDEF. Soon after awakening on Flight Day 4, the astronauts spotted LDEF appearing as a bright star. After the first of four rendezvous burns, Columbia’s radar locked onto the satellite. As they continued the approach, with three more burns carried out successfully, Dunbar activated the RMS in preparation for the upcoming grapple. Brandenstein took over manual control of Columbia for the final approach and parked the shuttle close enough to LDEF for Dunbar to reach out with the 50-foot arm and grapple the satellite. Brandenstein reported, “We have LDEF.”
For the next four hours, with Wetherbee flying the orbiter and Dunbar operating the arm, Ivins performed a comprehensive photo survey of LDEF, documenting the effects of nearly six years of space exposure on the various experiments. The survey completed, Dunbar slowly and carefully lowered LDEF into the payload bay, and five latches secured it in place for the ride back to Earth. With the two major goals of their mission completed, the astronauts settled down for the remainder of their 10-day mission conducting science experiments.
With astronaut David Low acting as an operator, astronaut Bonnie Dunbar serves as a subject for a cardiovascular experiment. Astronaut Marsha Ivins with several cameras testing the effects of spaceflight on different types of film. During the mission, the STS-32 crew conducted several middeck experiments. The Protein Crystal Growth experiment used vapor diffusion to grow 120 crystals of 24 different proteins, for study by scientists following their return to Earth. The Characterization of Neurospora Circadian Rhythm experiment studied whether spaceflight affected the daily cycles of pink bread mold. The Fluid Experiment Apparatus performed materials processing research in the microgravity environment. The astronauts used the American Flight Echocardiograph (AFE) to study changes in their hearts as a result of weightlessness. The crew used the large format IMAX camera to film scenes inside the cabin as well as through the windows, such as the capture of LDEF.
Astronaut Daniel Brandenstein holds an inflatable plastic cake given to him by his crew mates in honor of his birthday. The STS-32 crew poses in Columbia’s middeck. On Jan. 17, Brandenstein celebrated his 47th birthday, the fifth American astronaut to do so in space. His crew presented him with an inflatable plastic cake including candles while controllers in Mission Control passed on their birthday wishes as did his wife and teenage daughter. On the same day, NASA announced the selection of its 13th group of astronauts. Among them, engineer Ronald Sega, Dunbar’s husband, as well as the first female shuttle pilot, Eileen Collins, and the first Hispanic woman astronaut, Ellen Ochoa.
Columbia touches down at Edwards Air Force Base in California. At the welcome home ceremony at Ellington Field in Houston, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center Aaron Cohen addresses the crowd as the STS-32 astronauts and their families listen. On Jan. 19, the astronauts awakened for their planned final day in space. However, due to fog at their landing site, Edwards AFB in California, Mission Control first informed them that they would have to spend an extra orbit in space, and finally decided to delay the landing by an entire day. With their experiments already packed, the crew spent a quiet day, looking at the Earth and using up what film still remained. As they slept that night, they passed the record for the longest space shuttle mission, set by STS-9 in 1983.
In preparation for reentry, the astronauts donned their orange spacesuits and closed the payload bay doors. A last-minute computer problem delayed reentry by one orbit, then Brandenstein and Wetherbee oriented Columbia into the deorbit attitude, with the OMS engines facing in the direction of travel. Over the Indian Ocean, they fired the two engines for 2 minutes 48 seconds to bring the spacecraft out of orbit. They reoriented the orbiter to fly with its heat shield exposed to the direction of flight as it encountered Earth’s atmosphere at 419,000 feet. The buildup of ionized gases caused by the heat of reentry prevented communications for about 15 minutes but provided the astronauts a great light show. After completing the Heading Alignment Circle turn, Brandenstein aligned Columbia with the runway, and Wetherbee lowered the landing gear. Columbia touched down and rolled to a stop, making the third night landing of the shuttle program and ending a 10-day 21-hour 1-minute flight, the longest shuttle flight up to that time, having completed 172 orbits of the Earth.
Other records set by the astronauts on this mission included Brandenstein as the new record holder for most time spent in space by a shuttle crew member – 24 days – and Dunbar accumulating the most time in space by a woman – 18 days – up to that time. Following eight hours of postflight medical testing, the astronauts boarded a jet bound for Houston’s Ellington Field, where they reunited with their families and took part in a welcome home ceremony led by Aaron Cohen, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Columbia returns to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Workers lift the Long Duration Exposure Facility from Columbia’s payload bay. Following postlanding inspections, workers placed Columbia, with LDEF still cradled in its payload bay, atop a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a modified Boeing-747, and the combination left Edwards on Jan. 25. Following a refueling stop at Monthan Davis AFB in Tucson, an overnight stay at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, and another refueling stop at Eglin AFB in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, Columbia and LDEF arrived back at KSC on Jan. 26. The next day, workers towed Columbia to the OPF and on Jan. 30 lifted LDEF out of its payload bay, in preparation for the detailed study of the effects of nearly six years in space on the 57 experiments it carried. Meanwhile, workers began to prepare Columbia for its next flight, STS-35 in December 1990.
Enjoy the crew narrate a video of the STS-32 mission. Read Brandenstein‘s and Dunbar‘s recollections of the STS-32 mission in their oral histories with the JSC History Office. For an overview of the LDEF project, enjoy this video. For detailed information on the results of the LDEF experiments, follow this link.
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By NASA
On Jan. 7, 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei peered through his newly improved 20-power homemade telescope at the planet Jupiter. He noticed three other points of light near the planet, at first believing them to be distant stars. Observing them over several nights, he noted that they appeared to move in the wrong direction with regard to the background stars and they remained in Jupiter’s proximity but changed their positions relative to one another. Four days later, he observed a fourth point of light near the planet with the same unusual behavior. By Jan. 15, Galileo correctly concluded that he had discovered four moons orbiting around Jupiter, providing strong evidence for the Copernican theory that most celestial objects did not revolve around the Earth.
Two of Galileo’s telescopes.National Geographic. Painting by Giuseppe Bertini (1858) of Galileo demonstrating his telescope to the Doge of Venice.gabrielevanin.it Page from Galileo’s notebook about his observations of Jupiter’s satellites.University of Michigan Special Collections Library. In March 1610, Galileo published his discoveries of Jupiter’s satellites and other celestial observations in a book titled Siderius Nuncius (The Starry Messenger). As their discoverer, Galileo had naming rights to Jupiter’s satellites. He proposed to name them after his patrons the Medicis and astronomers called them the Medicean Stars through much of the seventeenth century, although in his own notes Galileo referred to them by the Roman numerals I, II, III, and IV, in order of their distance from Jupiter. Astronomers still refer to the four moons as the Galilean satellites in honor of their discoverer.
In 1614, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler suggested naming the satellites after mythological figures associated with Jupiter, namely Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, but his idea didn’t catch on for more than 200 years. Scientists didn’t discover any more satellites around Jupiter until 1892 when American astronomer E.E. Barnard found Jupiter’s fifth moon Amalthea, much smaller than the Galilean moons and orbiting closer to the planet than Io. It was the last satellite in the solar system found by visual observation – all subsequent discoveries occurred via photography or digital imaging. As of today, astronomers have identified 95 moons orbiting Jupiter.
Image of Jupiter and three of its four Galilean satellites through an amateur telescope, similar to what Galileo might have seen. Hubble Space Telescope image of Jupiter and three of its four Galilean satellites during a rare triple transit. Although each of the Galilean satellites has unique features, such as the volcanoes of Io, the heavily cratered surface of Callisto, and the magnetic field of Ganymede, scientists have focused more attention on Europa due to the tantalizing possibility that it might be hospitable to life. In the 1970s, NASA’s Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft took ever increasingly detailed images of the large satellites including Europa during their flybys of Jupiter. The photographs revealed Europa to have the smoothest surface of any object in the solar system, indicating a relatively young crust, and also one of the brightest of any satellite indicating a highly reflective surface. These features led scientists to hypothesize that Europa is covered by an icy crust floating on a subsurface salty ocean. They further postulated that tidal heating caused by Jupiter’s gravity reforms the surface ice layer in cycles of melting and freezing.
Image of Europa taken by Pioneer 10 during its flyby of Jupiter in 1973. Image of Europa taken by Voyager 1 during its 1979 flyby of Jupiter. Image of Europa taken by Voyager 2 during its 1979 flyby of Jupiter. More detailed observations from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter between 1995 and 2003 and completed 11 close encounters with Europa revealed that long linear features on its surface may indicate tidal or tectonic activity. Reddish-brown material along the fissures and in splotches elsewhere on the surface may contain salts and sulfur compounds transported from below the crust and modified by radiation. Observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and re-analysis of images from Galileo revealed possible plumes emanating from beneath Europa’s crust, lending credence to that hypothesis. While the exact composition of this material is not known, it likely holds clues to whether Europa may be hospitable to life.
Global view of Europa from the Galileo spacecraft. More detailed views of varied terrain on Europa from Galileo. Cutaway illustration of Europa’s icy crust, subsurface ocean and possible vents that transport material to the surface. Future robotic explorers of Europa may answer some of the outstanding questions about this unique satellite of Jupiter. NASA’s Europa Clipper set off in October 2024 on a 5.5-year journey to Jupiter. After its arrival in 2030, the spacecraft will enter orbit around the giant planet and conduct 49 flybys of Europa during its four-year mission. Managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, Europa Clipper will carry nine instruments including imaging systems and a radar to better understand the structure of the icy crust. Data from Europa Clipper will complement information returned by the European Space Agency’s JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer) spacecraft. Launched in April 2023, JUICE will first enter orbit around Jupiter in 2031 and then enter orbit around Ganymede in 2034. The spacecraft also plans to conduct studies of Europa complementary with Europa Clipper’s. The two spacecraft should greatly increase our understanding of Europa and perhaps uncover new mysteries.
Illustration of the Europa Clipper spacecraft investigating Europa. Illustration of the JUICE spacecraft exploring Europa.European Space Agency. View the full article
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Sols 4416-4417: New Year, New Clouds
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captured this image of noctilucent clouds using its Right Navigation Camera on sol 4401 — or Martian day 4,401 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Dec. 23, 2024, at 08:57:15 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Monday, Jan. 6, 2025
After our marathon holiday plan, we’re easing back into the new year with a standard two-sol plan. We did arrive today to the news that the drive hadn’t made it as far as we wanted, but luckily the rover planners determined that we were still in a good position to do contact science on two wintry targets — “Snow Creek” and “Winter Creek.” We also packed in lots of remote science with ChemCam using LIBS on “Grapevine” and “Skull Rock,” and we are doing long-distance imaging of the Texoli and Wilkerson buttes, and Gould Mesa. Mastcam will be imaging a number of targets near and far as well including “Red Box”’ “Point Mugu,” “Stone Canyon,” “Pine Cove,” and “Hummingbird Sage,” which will examine various structures in the bedrock. We can’t forget about the atmosphere either — we have a couple dust-devil surveys to look for dust lifting, but the real star of the show (at least for me) is the cloud imaging.
While we’re just into 2025 here on Earth, we’re also near the start of a new year on Mars! A Mars year starts at the northern vernal equinox (or the start of autumn in the southern hemisphere, where Curiosity is), and Mars year 38 started on Nov. 12.
We’re about a third of the way through autumn on Mars now, and the southern Martian autumn and winter bring one thing — clouds! Near the start of the Martian year we start seeing clouds around sunset. These are noctilucent (meaning “night illuminated”) clouds. Even though the sun has set in Gale Crater, the clouds are high enough in the atmosphere that the sun still shines on them, making them seem to almost glow in the sky. You can see this with clouds on Earth, too, around twilight! Mars year 38 will be our fourth year capturing these twilight clouds, and the Navcam images (one of which you can see above) already show it’s shaping up to be another year of spectacular clouds!
Written by Alex Innanen, Atmospheric Scientist at York University
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