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Artist's Illustration of Beta Pictoris Gas Disk
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By European Space Agency
According to recent research, Europe’s net greenhouse gas emissions have decreased by around 25% since the 1990s. While this is good news, the study also revealed a weakening in the capacity of land and vegetation to absorb and store atmospheric carbon.
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By NASA
This artist’s concept depicts one of the Carbon Mapper Coalition’s Tanager satellites, the first of which launched on Aug. 16. Tanager-1 will use imaging spectrometer technology developed at JPL to measure greenhouse gas point-source emissions.Planet Labs PBC Developed by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the imaging spectrometer will provide actionable data to help reduce emissions that contribute to global warming.
Tanager-1, the Carbon Mapper Coalition’s first satellite, which carries a state-of-the-art, NASA-designed greenhouse-gas-tracking instrument, is in Earth orbit after lifting off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 11:56 a.m. PDT Friday, Aug. 16. Ground controllers successfully established communications with Tanager-1 at 2:45 p.m. PDT the same day.
The satellite will use imaging spectrometer technology developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to measure methane and carbon dioxide point-source emissions, down to the level of individual facilities and equipment, on a global scale. Tanager-1 was developed as part of a philanthropically funded public-private coalition led by the nonprofit Carbon Mapper. Planet Labs PBC, which built Tanager-1, and JPL are both members of the Carbon Mapper Coalition and plan to launch a second Tanager satellite equipped with a JPL-built imaging spectrometer at a later date.
“The imaging spectrometer technology aboard Tanager-1 is the product of four decades of development at NASA JPL and truly in a class of its own,” said JPL Director Laurie Leshin. “The data that this public-private partnership provides on sources of greenhouse gas emissions will be precise and global, making it beneficial to everyone.”
Once in operation, the spacecraft will scan about 50,000 square miles (130,000 square kilometers) of Earth’s surface per day. Carbon Mapper scientists will analyze data from Tanager-1 to identify gas plumes with the unique spectral signatures of methane and carbon dioxide — and pinpoint their sources. Plume data will be publicly available online at the Carbon Mapper data portal.
Methane and carbon dioxide are the greenhouse gases that contribute most to climate change. About half of methane emissions worldwide result from human activities — primarily from the fossil fuel, agriculture, and waste management industries. Meanwhile, there is now 50% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there was in 1750, an increase largely due to the extraction and burning of coal, oil, and gas.
“The Carbon Mapper Coalition is a prime example of how organizations from different sectors are uniting around a common goal of addressing climate change,” said Riley Duren, Carbon Mapper CEO. “By detecting, pinpointing, and quantifying super-emitters and making this data accessible to decision-makers, we can drive significant action around the world to cut emissions now.”
The imaging spectrometer aboard the satellite measures hundreds of wavelengths of light that are reflected by Earth’s surface. Different compounds in the planet’s atmosphere — including methane and carbon dioxide — absorb different wavelengths of light, leaving spectral “fingerprints” that the imaging spectrometer can identify. These infrared fingerprints can enable researchers to pinpoint and quantify strong greenhouse gas emissions, potentially accelerating mitigation efforts.
Tanager-1 is part of a broader effort to make methane and carbon dioxide data accessible and actionable. That effort includes using measurements provided by NASA’s EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation), an imaging spectrometer developed by JPL and installed on the International Space Station.
More About Carbon Mapper
Carbon Mapper is a nonprofit organization focused on facilitating timely action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Its mission is to fill gaps in the emerging global ecosystem of methane and carbon dioxide monitoring systems by delivering data at facility scale that is precise, timely, and accessible to empower science-based decision making and action. The organization is leading the development of the Carbon Mapper constellation of satellites supported by a public-private partnership composed of Planet Labs PBC, JPL, the California Air Resources Board, the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and RMI, with funding from High Tide Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, and other philanthropic donors.
News Media Contacts
Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov
Kelly Vaughn
Carbon Mapper, Pasadena, Calif.
970-401-0001
kelly@carbonmapper.org
2024-109
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Last Updated Aug 16, 2024 Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
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By NASA
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Credits: NASA NASA and the Hudson Square Business Improvement District are launching an open call to New York-based artists and artist teams to design and install a large-scale, space-themed neighborhood mural. The NASA x Hudson Square partnership was developed to inspire the surrounding Manhattan Hudson Square community by showcasing NASA’s work and missions.
Artists are encouraged to submit proposals for the project and detail how their mural will illustrate the impact of NASA’s priorities, such as the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope, climate science and innovation, and the Artemis campaign exploring the Moon. Applications are due by Friday, June 28.
The selected project will receive a $20,000 award for design fees, materials, labor, and equipment, with a portion of funds provided by NASA and matched by Hudson Square Business Improvement District. The mural installation is expected to be complete by September.
NASA continues to seek opportunities to inspire the next generation of explorers – the Artemis Generation – through collaborations with partners like the Hudson Square Business Improvement District. Details about submitting project proposals are available on the Hudson Square web page. For questions about applying to the NASA x Hudson Square mural project, contact PublicArt@HudsonSquareBID.org.
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By NASA
6 Min Read NASA’s Webb Discovers Dusty ‘Cat’s Tail’ in Beta Pictoris System
This image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the star system Beta Pictoris. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, C. Stark and K. Lawson (NASA GSFC), J. Kammerer (ESO), and M. Perrin (STScI). Beta Pictoris, a young planetary system located just 63 light-years away, continues to intrigue scientists even after decades of in-depth study. It possesses the first dust disk imaged around another star — a disk of debris produced by collisions between asteroids, comets, and planetesimals. Observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope revealed a second debris disk in this system, inclined with respect to the outer disk, which was seen first. Now, a team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to image the Beta Pictoris system (Beta Pic) has discovered a new, previously unseen structure.
The team, led by Isabel Rebollido of the Astrobiology Center in Spain, used Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to investigate the composition of Beta Pic’s previously detected main and secondary debris disks. The results exceeded their expectations, revealing a sharply inclined branch of dust, shaped like a cat’s tail, that extends from the southwest portion of the secondary debris disk.
Image: Star System Beta Pictoris
This image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the star system Beta Pictoris. An edge-on disk of dusty debris generated by collisions between planetesimals (orange) dominates the view. A hotter, secondary disk (cyan) is inclined by about 5 degrees relative to the primary disk. The curved feature at upper right, which the science team nicknamed the “cat’s tail,” has never been seen before. A coronagraph (black circle and two small disks) has been used to block the light of the central star, whose location is marked with a white star shape. In this image light at 15.5 microns is colored cyan and 23 microns is orange (filters F1550C and F2300C, respectively).NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, C. Stark and K. Lawson (NASA GSFC), J. Kammerer (ESO), and M. Perrin (STScI). “Beta Pictoris is the debris disk that has it all: It has a really bright, close star that we can study very well, and a complex cirumstellar environment with a multi-component disk, exocomets, and two imaged exoplanets,” said Rebollido, lead author of the study. “While there have been previous observations from the ground in this wavelength range, they did not have the sensitivity and the spatial resolution that we now have with Webb, so they didn’t detect this feature.”
A Star’s Portrait Improved with Webb
Even with Webb or JWST, peering at Beta Pic in the right wavelength range — in this case, the mid-infrared — was crucial to detect the cat’s tail, as it only appeared in the MIRI data. Webb’s mid-infrared data also revealed differences in temperature between Beta Pic’s two disks, which likely is due to differences in composition.
“We didn’t expect Webb to reveal that there are two different types of material around Beta Pic, but MIRI clearly showed us that the material of the secondary disk and cat’s tail is hotter than the main disk,” said Christopher Stark, a co-author of the study at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The dust that forms that disk and tail must be very dark, so we don’t easily see it at visible wavelengths — but in the mid-infrared, it’s glowing.”
To explain the hotter temperature, the team deduced that the dust may be highly porous “organic refractory material,” similar to the matter found on the surfaces of comets and asteroids in our solar system. For example, a preliminary analysis of material sampled from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission found it to be very dark and carbon-rich, much like what MIRI detected at Beta Pic.
Image: Annotated Image
This image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the star system Beta Pictoris. An edge-on disk of dusty debris generated by collisions between planetesimals (orange) dominates the view and is labeled “main disk plane.” While a secondary disk (cyan), inclined 5 degrees relative to the main disk, was already known, Webb showed its true extent at lower left. Webb also detected a never-before-seen feature labeled the cat’s tail. A coronagraph (black circle and two small disks) has been used to block the light of the central star. A scale bar shows that the disks of Beta Pic extend for hundreds of astronomical units (AU), where one AU is the average Earth-Sun distance. (In our solar system, Neptune orbits 30 AU from the sun.) In this image light at 15.5 microns is colored cyan and 23 microns is orange (filters F1550C and F2300C, respectively). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, C. Stark and K. Lawson (NASA GSFC), J. Kammerer (ESO), and M. Perrin (STScI). The Tail’s Puzzling Beginning Warrants Future Research
However, a major lingering question remains: What could explain the shape of the cat’s tail, a uniquely curved feature unlike what is seen in disks around other stars?
Rebollido and the team modeled various scenarios in an attempt to emulate the cat’s tail and unravel its origins. Though further research and testing is required, the team presents a strong hypothesis that the cat’s tail is the result of a dust production event that occurred a mere one hundred years ago.
“Something happens — like a collision — and a lot of dust is produced,” shared Marshall Perrin, a co-author of the study at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. “At first, the dust goes in the same orbital direction as its source, but then it also starts to spread out. The light from the star pushes the smallest, fluffiest dust particles away from the star faster, while the bigger grains do not move as much, creating a long tendril of dust.”
“The cat’s tail feature is highly unusual, and reproducing the curvature with a dynamical model was difficult,” explained Stark. “Our model requires dust that can be pushed out of the system extremely rapidly, which again suggests it’s made of organic refractory material.”
Animation: Cat’s Tail Creation
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This is an animation portraying the creation of the cat’s tail, as hypothesized by a team of astronomers. The cat’s tail may be the result of a dust production event — like a collision — that occurred a mere one hundred years ago. This tendril of dust, which is seen in the southwest portion of Beta Pic’s secondary debris disk, is estimated to span 10 billion miles. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Crawford (STScI), C. Stark (NASA-GSFC), M. Perrin (STScI), and I. Rebollido (Astrobiology Center). The team’s preferred model explains the sharp angle of the tail away from the disk as a simple optical illusion. Our perspective combined with the curved shape of the tail creates the observed angle of the tail, while in fact, the arc of material is only departing from the disk at a five-degree incline. Taking into consideration the tail’s brightness, the team estimates the amount of dust within the cat’s tail to be equivalent to a large main belt asteroid spread out across 10 billion miles.
A recent dust production event within Beta Pic’s debris disks could also explain a newly-seen asymmetric extension of the inclined inner disk, as shown in the MIRI data and seen only on the side opposite of the tail. Recent collisional dust production could also account for a feature previously spotted by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in 2014: a clump of carbon monoxide (CO) located near the cat’s tail. Since the star’s radiation should break down CO within roughly one hundred years, this still-present concentration of gas could be lingering evidence of the same event.
“Our research suggests that Beta Pic may be even more active and chaotic than we had previously thought,” said Stark. “JWST continues to surprise us, even when looking at the most well-studied objects. We have a completely new window into these planetary systems.”
These results were presented in a press conference at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The observations were taken as part of Guaranteed Time Observation program 1411.
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 the Canadian Space Agency
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Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Rob Gutro– rob.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, , Greenbelt, Md.
Abigail Major amajor@stsci.edu, Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Related Information
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More Webb News – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/latestnews/
More Webb Images – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/multimedia/images/
Webb Mission Page – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/
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