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By NASA
This artist’s illustration represents the results from a new study that examines the effects of X-ray and other high-energy radiation unleashed on potential exoplanets from Wolf 359, a nearby red dwarf star. Researchers used Chandra and XMM-Newton to study the impact of steady X-ray and energetic ultraviolet radiation from Wolf 359 on the atmospheres of planets that might be orbiting the star. They found that only a planet with greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in its atmosphere and at a relatively large distance away from Wolf 359 would have a chance to support life as we know it.X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/S.Wolk, et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/SAO/M.Weiss; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk Planets around other stars need to be prepared for extreme weather conditions, according to a new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) XMM-Newton that examined the effects of X-rays on potential planets around the most common type of stars.
Astronomers found that only a planet with greenhouse gases in its atmosphere like Earth and at a relatively large distance away from the star they studied would have a chance to support life as we know it around a nearby star.
Wolf 359 is a red dwarf with a mass about a tenth that of the Sun. Red dwarf stars are the most common stars in the universe and live for billions of years, providing ample time for life to develop. At a distance of only 7.8 light-years away, Wolf 359 is also one of the closest stars to the solar system.
“Wolf 359 can help us unlock the secrets around stars and habitability,” said Scott Wolk of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), who led the study. “It’s so close and it belongs to such an important class of stars – it’s a great combination.”
Because red dwarfs are the most prevalent types of stars, astronomers have looked hard to find exoplanets around them. Astronomers have found some evidence for two planets in orbit around Wolf 359 using optical telescopes, but those conclusions have been challenged by other scientists.
“While we don’t have proof of planets around Wolf 359 yet, it seems very possible that it hosts multiple planets,” Wolk added. “This makes it an excellent test bed to look at what planets would experience around this kind of star.”
Wolk and his colleagues used Chandra and XMM to study the amounts of steady X-rays and extreme ultraviolet (UV) radiation – the most energetic type of UV radiation – that Wolf 359 would unleash on the possible planets around it.
They found that Wolf 359 is producing enough damaging radiation that only a planet with greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in its atmosphere – and located at a relatively large distance from the star – would likely be able to sustain life.
“Just being far enough away from the star’s harmful radiation wouldn’t be enough to make it habitable,” said co-author Vinay Kashyap, also of CfA. “A planet around Wolf 359 would also need to be blanketed in greenhouse gases like Earth is.”
To study the effects of energetic radiation on the habitability of the planet candidates, the team considered the star’s habitable zone – the region around a star where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface.
The outer limit of the habitable zone for Wolf 359 is about 15% of the distance between Earth and the Sun, because the red dwarf is much less bright than the Sun. Neither of the planet candidates for this system is located in Wolf 359’s habitable zone, with one too close to the star and the other too far out.
“If the inner planet is there, the X-ray and extreme UV radiation it is subjected to would destroy the atmosphere of this planet in only about a million years,” said co-author Ignazio Pillitteri of CfA and the National Institute for Astrophysics in Palermo, Italy.
The team also considered the effects of radiation on as-yet undetected planets within the habitable zone. They concluded that a planet like the Earth in the middle of the habitable zone should be able to sustain an atmosphere for almost two billion years, while one near the outer edge could last indefinitely, helped by the warming effects of greenhouse gases.
Another big danger for planets orbiting stars like Wolf 359 is from X-ray flares, or occasional bright bursts of X-rays, on top of the steady, everyday output from the star. Combining observations made with Chandra and XMM-Newton resulted in the discovery of 18 X-ray flares from Wolf 359 over 3.5 days.
Extrapolating from these observed flares, the team expects that much more powerful and damaging flares would occur over longer periods of time. The combined effects of the steady X-ray and UV radiation and the flares mean that any planet located in the habitable zone is unlikely to have a significant atmosphere long enough for multicellular life, as we know it on Earth, to form and survive. The exception is the habitable zone’s outer edge if the planet has a significant greenhouse effect.
These results were presented at the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in National Harbor, Maryland, and are being prepared for publication in a journal. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
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Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
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Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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By NASA
This graphic shows a three-dimensional map of stars near the Sun. The blue haloes represent stars observed with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton. Astronomers are using these X-ray data to determine how habitable exoplanets may be based on whether they receive lethal radiation from the stars they orbit. This research will help guide observations with the next generation of telescopes aiming to make the first images of planets like Earth. Researchers used almost 10 days of Chandra observations and 26 days of XMM observations to examine the X-ray behavior of 57 nearby stars, some of them with known planets. Results were presented at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, by Breanna Binder (California State Polytechnic University in Pomona). To view the full article, visit: https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2024/exoplanets/.
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By NASA
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Movie: Cal Poly Pomona/B. Binder; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss This graphic shows a three-dimensional map of stars near the Sun. These stars are close enough that they could be prime targets for direct imaging searches for planets using future telescopes. The blue haloes represent stars that have been observed with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton. The yellow star at the center of this diagram represents the position of the Sun. The concentric rings show distances of 5, 10, and 15 parsecs (one parsec is equivalent to roughly 3.2 light-years).
Astronomers are using these X-ray data to determine how habitable exoplanets may be based on whether they receive lethal radiation from the stars they orbit, as described in our latest press release. This type of research will help guide observations with the next generation of telescopes aiming to make the first images of planets like Earth.
Researchers examined stars that are close enough to Earth that telescopes set to begin operating in the next decade or two — including the Habitable Worlds Observatory in space and Extremely Large Telescopes on the ground — could take images of planets in the stars’ so-called habitable zones. This term defines orbits where the planets could have liquid water on their surfaces.
There are several factors influencing what could make a planet suitable for life as we know it. One of those factors is the amount of harmful X-rays and ultraviolet light they receive, which can damage or even strip away the planet’s atmosphere.
Based on X-ray observations of some of these stars using data from Chandra and XMM-Newton, the research team examined which stars could have hospitable conditions on orbiting planets for life to form and prosper. They studied how bright the stars are in X-rays, how energetic the X-rays are, and how much and how quickly they change in X-ray output, for example, due to flares. Brighter and more energetic X-rays can cause more damage to the atmospheres of orbiting planets.
The researchers used almost 10 days of Chandra observations and about 26 days of XMM observations, available in archives, to examine the X-ray behavior of 57 nearby stars, some of them with known planets. Most of these are giant planets like Jupiter, Saturn or Neptune, while only a handful of planets or planet candidates could be less than about twice as massive as Earth.
These results were presented at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, by Breanna Binder (California State Polytechnic University in Pomona).
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge, Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/chandra-x-ray-observatory/
Visual Description:
This video shows a three-dimensional map of stars near the Sun on the left side of our screen and a dramatic illustration of a star with a planet orbiting around it on the right side.
The star map on the left shows many circular dots of different colors floating within an illustrated three-sided box. Each wall of the box is constructed in a grid pattern, with straight lines running horizontally and vertically like chicken wire. Dots that are colored blue represent stars that have been observed with NASA’s Chandra and ESA’s XMM-Newton.
Suspended in the box, at about the halfway point, is a series of three concentric circles surrounding a central dot that indicates the placement of our Sun. The circles represent distances of 5, 10, and 15 parsecs. One parsec is equivalent to roughly 3.2 light-years.
In the animation, the dot filled, chicken wire box spins around slowly, first on its X axis and then on its Y axis, providing a three-dimensional exploration of the plotted stars.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, Ala.
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By NASA
3 Min Read Student Teams to Help Fill the Inflatable Void with Latest Student Challenge
This year will be a “BIG” year for several college and university teams as they research, design, and demonstrate novel inflatable systems configured for future lunar operations through a NASA-sponsored engineering competition.
NASA’s Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge asked student innovators to propose novel inflatable component and system concepts that could benefit future Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond.
The Inflatable Systems for Lunar Operations theme allowed teams to submit various technology concepts such as soft robotics, deployable infrastructure components, emergency shelters or other devices for extended extravehicular activities, pressurized tunnels and airlocks, and debris shields and dust protection systems. Inflatable systems could greatly reduce the mass and stowed volume of science and exploration payloads, critical for lowering costs to deep-space destinations.
Award values vary between ~$100,000 and $150,000 and are based on each team’s prototype and budget.
The 2024 BIG Idea Challenge awardees are:
Arizona State UniversityTempe, ArizonaAegis – Inflatable Lunar Landing Pad SystemAdvisors: Tyler Smith, Dr. James Bell, James Rice, Josh ChangBrigham Young University Provo, UtahUntethered and Modular Inflatable Robots for Lunar OperationsAdvisors: Dr. Nathan Usevitch, Dr. Marc KillpackCalifornia Institute of Technology, with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Cislune and VJ TechnologiesPasadena, CaliforniaPILLARS: Plume-deployed Inflatable for Launch and Landing Abrasive Regolith ShieldingAdvisors: Dr. Soon-Jo Chung, Kalind CarpenterNorthwestern University, with National Aerospace CorporationEvanston, Illinois METALS: Metallic Expandable Technology for Artemis Lunar StructuresAdvisors: Dr. Ian McCue, Dr. Ryan TrubyUniversity of Maryland College Park, MarylandAuxiliary Inflatable Wheels for Lunar RoverAdvisor: Dr. David AkinUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor, MichiganCargo-BEEP (Cargo Balancing Expandable Exploration Platform)Advisor: Dr. John Shaw
Once funded, finalist teams continue designing, building, and testing their concepts, which could lead to NASA innovations that augment technology currently in development. Work performed by the teams culminates in a final technical paper, prototype demonstration, and potential opportunity to present in front of a diverse panel of NASA and industry experts.
As a program affiliated with NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative (LSII), the BIG Idea Challenge incubates new ideas from the future workforce. Through the challenge, student teams aid LSII’s mission to advance transformative capabilities for lunar surface exploration across NASA’s Space Technology portfolio.
We truly love engaging with the academic community and incorporating the students’ novel ideas into our approaches to technology development. We need cutting-edge and groundbreaking technologies for successful space exploration missions, so it’s important that we continue to push the envelope and ignite innovation. I can’t think of a better way to do that than collaborating with bright, creative minds who will comprise our future workforce.
Niki Werkheiser
Director of Technology Maturation at NASA
Since its inception in 2016, the challenge has invited students to think critically and creatively about several defined aerospace topics, including extreme terrain robotics, lunar metal production, Mars greenhouse development, and more. Each year, the theme is tied directly to a current aerospace challenge NASA is working on.
Through the BIG Idea Challenge, we enhance the university experience by providing students and faculty with more opportunities to engage in meaningful NASA projects. This not only enables a multitude of networking opportunities for the students but also gives them a real sense of accomplishment and lets them know that their ideas are important.
Through the BIG Idea Challenge, we enhance the university experience by providing students and faculty with more opportunities to engage in meaningful NASA projects. This not only enables a multitude of networking opportunities for the students but also gives them a real sense of accomplishment and lets them know that their ideas are important.
Tomas Gonzalez-Torres
NASA’s Space Grant project manager
The BIG Idea Challenge is one of several Artemis student challenges sponsored through NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development (GCD) program and the agency’s Office of STEM Engagement Space Grant Project. It is managed by a partnership between the National Institute of Aerospace and The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
BIG Idea supports GCD’s efforts to rapidly mature innovative and high-impact capabilities and technologies for possible infusion in future NASA missions, while creating a rewarding student and faculty experience. The 16-month intensive project-based program supports innovations initiated and furthered by the student teams that can possibly be adopted by NASA, and it works to endeavor ambitious new missions beyond Earth.
Learn more about this year’s BIG Idea Challenge
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By NASA
5 Min Read The CUTE Mission: Innovative Design EnablesObservations of Extreme Exoplanets from a SmallPackage
Fig 1: Artist’s concept of the CUTE mission on-orbit. CUTE has been operating in a 560 km sun-synchronous orbit since September 2021. Credits:
NASA Of the approximately 5,500 exoplanets discovered to date, many have been found to orbit very close to their parent stars. These close-in planets provide a unique opportunity to observe in detail the phenomena critical to the development and evolution of our own solar system, including atmospheric mass loss and interactions with the host star. NASA’s Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment (CUTE) mission, launched in September 2021, employed a new design that enabled exploration of these processes using a small spacecraft for the first time. CUTE provides unique spectral diagnostics that trace the escaping atmospheres of close-in, ultra-hot, giant planets. In addition, CUTE’s dedicated mission architecture enables the survey duration required to characterize atmospheric structure and variability on these worlds.
Atmospheric escape is a fundamental process that affects the structure, composition, and evolution of many planets. It has operated on all of the terrestrial planets in our solar system and likely drives the demographics of the short-period planet population characterized by NASA’s Kepler mission. In fact, atmospheric escape ultimately may be the determining factor when predicting the habitability of temperate, terrestrial exoplanets. Escaping exoplanet atmospheres were first observed in the hydrogen Lyman-alpha line (121nm) in 2003. However, contamination by neutral hydrogen in both the intervening interstellar medium and Earth’s upper atmosphere makes obtaining high-quality Lyman-alpha transit measurements for most exoplanets very challenging. By contrast, a host star’s near-ultraviolet (NUV; 250 – 350 nm) flux is two to three orders of magnitude higher than Lyman-alpha, and transit light curves can be measured against a smoother stellar surface intensity distribution.
This knowledge motivated a team led by Dr. Kevin France at the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics to design the CUTE mission (Fig 1). The team proposed the CUTE concept to NASA through the ROSES/Astrophysics Research and Analysis (APRA) Program in February 2016 and NASA funded the project in July 2017. The CUTE instrument pioneered use of two technologies on a small space mission: a novel, rectangular Cassegrain telescope (20cm × 8cm primary mirror) and a miniature, low-resolution spectrograph operating from approximately 250 – 330 nm. The rectangular telescope was fabricated to accommodate the unique instrument volume of the 6U CubeSat form factor, an adaptation that delivers approximately three times the collecting area of a traditional, circular aperture telescope. The compact spectrograph meets the spectral resolution requirements of the mission while using scaled down component technology adapted from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Fig 2 – Image of the CUTE science instrument, including rectangular telescope and miniaturized spectrograph, mounted to the spacecraft bus. Credit: CUTE Team, University of Colorado This novel instrument design enables CUTE to measure NUV with similar precision as larger missions even in the more challenging thermal and pointing environment experienced by a CubeSat. In addition, the CUTE instrument’s NUV bandpass enables it to measure iron and magnesium ions from highly extended atmospheric layers that ground-based instruments cannot access. The CUTE science instrument is incorporated into a 6U Blue Canyon Technologies spacecraft bus that provides power, command and data handling, attitude control, and communications. This CubeSat platform enables CUTE to observe numerous transits of a given planet. The spectrogram from the CUTE instrument is recorded on a UV-optimized commercial off-the-shelf charge-coupled device (CCD), onboard data processing is performed, and data products are relayed to a ground station at the University of Colorado.
Fig 3 –Graduate student Arika Egan (center) and electrical engineer Nicholas DeCicco (left) install CUTE into the LANDSAT-9 secondary payload dispenser at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Credit: CUTE Team, University of Colorado CUTE was launched as a secondary payload on NASA’s LANDSAT-9 mission on September 27, 2021 into a Sun-synchronous orbit with a 560 km apogee. CUTE deployed from the payload dispenser (Fig 2) approximately two hours after launch and then deployed its solar arrays. Spacecraft beacon signals were identified by the amateur radio community on the first orbit and communications were established with the ground station at the University of Colorado the following day. On-orbit commissioning of the spacecraft and instrument concluded in February 2022 and the mission has been conducting science operations since that time.
As of February 2024, CUTE is actively acquiring science and calibration data (Fig 3), and has observed between 6 and 11 transits of seven different exoplanetary systems. Data downlink efficiency is the primary factor limiting the number of targets observed over the course of the mission. CUTE light curves and transit spectroscopy are revealing extended NUV atmospheres on some planets (Fig 4) and potential time variability in the atmospheric transmission spectra of others. For example, observations of the ultra-hot exoplanet, Jupiter WASP-189b, indicate a highly extended atmosphere. Magnesium ions are observed to be gravitationally unbound from the planet, which is evidence for active escape of heavy elements in this system. CUTE data are being archived by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI).
Fig 4 – Flight data from CUTE showing raw CCD observations (top) and calibrated one-dimensional spectra (bottom). Image credit: France et al (2023) Fig 5 – CUTE NUV transit light curve of the ultra-hot exoplanet, Jupiter WASP-189b. This light curve was created from three separate transit visits to the planet. Image credit: Sreejith, et al (2023) CUTE successfully demonstrated the use of a non-circular telescope and miniature spectrograph design for small space missions, an approach that has been subsequently adopted by several NASA and international mission designs, including NASA’s new Monitoring Activity from Nearby sTars with uv Imaging and Spectroscopy (MANTIS) mission. CUTE’s demonstration of sub-1% NUV precision has shown that the precision achieved by large UV astronomy missions can also be achieved by a CubeSat. In addition, student training and early-career mentorship have been key ingredients to CUTE’s mission success. So far, over 20 early career students and professionals have trained and participated in CUTE activities—ranging from science to engineering to operations.
PROJECT LEAD
Professor Kevin France, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics/University of Colorado
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION
Astrophysics Division Astrophysics Research and Analysis Program
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