Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
Mysterious Ripples Found Racing Through Planet-Forming Disk
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Use your mouse to explore this 360-degree view of Gediz Vallis channel, a region of Mars that NASA’s Curiosity rover surveyed before heading west to new adventures. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS The rover captured a 360-degree panorama before leaving Gediz Vallis channel, a feature it’s been exploring for the past year.
NASA’s Curiosity rover is preparing for the next leg of its journey, a monthslong trek to a formation called the boxwork, a set of weblike patterns on Mars’ surface that stretches for miles. It will soon leave behind Gediz Vallis channel, an area wrapped in mystery. How the channel formed so late during a transition to a drier climate is one big question for the science team. Another mystery is the field of white sulfur stones the rover discovered over the summer.
Curiosity imaged the stones, along with features from inside the channel, in a 360-degree panorama before driving up to the western edge of the channel at the end of September.
The rover is searching for evidence that ancient Mars had the right ingredients to support microbial life, if any formed billions of years ago, when the Red Planet held lakes and rivers. Located in the foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain, Gediz Vallis channel may help tell a related story: what the area was like as water was disappearing on Mars. Although older layers on the mountain had already formed in a dry climate, the channel suggests that water occasionally coursed through the area as the climate was changing.
Scientists are still piecing together the processes that formed various features within the channel, including the debris mound nicknamed “Pinnacle Ridge,” visible in the new 360-degree panorama. It appears that rivers, wet debris flows, and dry avalanches all left their mark. The science team is now constructing a timeline of events from Curiosity’s observations.
NASA’s Curiosity captured this panorama using its Mastcam while heading west away from Gediz Vallis channel on Nov. 2, 2024, the 4,352nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The Mars rover’s tracks across the rocky terrain are visible at right.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS The science team is also trying to answer some big questions about the sprawling field of sulfur stones. Images of the area from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) showed what looked like an unremarkable patch of light-colored terrain. It turns out that the sulfur stones were too small for MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) to see, and Curiosity’s team was intrigued to find them when the rover reached the patch. They were even more surprised after Curiosity rolled over one of the stones, crushing it to reveal yellow crystals inside.
Science instruments on the rover confirmed the stone was pure sulfur — something no mission has seen before on Mars. The team doesn’t have a ready explanation for why the sulfur formed there; on Earth, it’s associated with volcanoes and hot springs, and no evidence exists on Mount Sharp pointing to either of those causes.
“We looked at the sulfur field from every angle — from the top and the side — and looked for anything mixed with the sulfur that might give us clues as to how it formed. We’ve gathered a ton of data, and now we have a fun puzzle to solve,” said Curiosity’s project scientist Ashwin Vasavada at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this last look at a field of bright white sulfur stones on Oct. 11, before leaving Gediz Vallis channel. The field was where the rover made the first discovery of pure sulfur on Mars. Scientists are still unsure exactly why theses rocks formed here. Spiderwebs on Mars
Curiosity, which has traveled about 20 miles (33 kilometers) since landing in 2012, is now driving along the western edge of Gediz Vallis channel, gathering a few more panoramas to document the region before making tracks to the boxwork.
Viewed by MRO, the boxwork looks like spiderwebs stretching across the surface. It’s believed to have formed when minerals carried by Mount Sharp’s last pulses of water settled into fractures in surface rock and then hardened. As portions of the rock eroded away, what remained were the minerals that had cemented themselves in the fractures, leaving the weblike boxwork.
On Earth, boxwork formations have been seen on cliffsides and in caves. But Mount Sharp’s boxwork structures stand apart from those both because they formed as water was disappearing from Mars and because they’re so extensive, spanning an area of 6 to 12 miles (10 to 20 kilometers).
Scientists think that ancient groundwater formed this weblike pattern of ridges, called boxwork, that were captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Dec. 10, 2006. The agency’s Curiosity rover will study ridges similar to these up close in 2025.NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona This weblike crystalline structure called boxwork is found in the ceiling of the Elk’s Room, part of Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. NASA’s Curiosity rover is preparing for a journey to a boxwork formation that stretches for miles on Mars’ surface. “These ridges will include minerals that crystallized underground, where it would have been warmer, with salty liquid water flowing through,” said Kirsten Siebach of Rice University in Houston, a Curiosity scientist studying the region. “Early Earth microbes could have survived in a similar environment. That makes this an exciting place to explore.”
More About Curiosity
Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.), in Boulder, Colorado. JPL manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more about these missions:
science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity
science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2024-160
Share
Details
Last Updated Nov 18, 2024 Related Terms
Curiosity (Rover) Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Explore More
4 min read Precision Pointing Goes the Distance on NASA Experiment
Article 4 days ago 5 min read NASA’s EMIT Will Explore Diverse Science Questions on Extended Mission
Article 4 days ago 4 min read NASA Data Helps International Community Prepare for Sea Level Rise
Article 5 days ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
By USH
While observing the Orion Nebula with his 12-inch Dobsonian telescope, a sky-watcher noticed an unusual flashing object. As stars appeared to drift due to Earth's rotation, this particular object while flashing approximately every 20 seconds clearly travels through deep space.
The observer wonders whether it might be a rotating satellite or not. However, this isn’t the first sighting of cigar-shaped UFOs or other mysterious objects traveling through space near the Orion Nebula, so it is quite possible that it could be an interstellar craft.
Over the years, I have shared several articles, complete with images and videos, documenting similar UFO sightings around the Orion Nebula. You can explore these under the tag: Orion Nebula.
Interestingly, these sightings have all occurred between November and February, suggesting there may be a seasonal pattern to these observations.
View the full article
-
By NASA
Hubble Space Telescope Home NASA’s Hubble, Webb… Hubble Space Telescope Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts E-books Lithographs Fact Sheets Glossary Posters Hubble on the NASA App More Online Activities 6 Min Read NASA’s Hubble, Webb Probe Surprisingly Smooth Disk Around Vega
Teams of astronomers used the combined power of NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes to revisit the legendary Vega disk. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Wolff (University of Arizona), K. Su (University of Arizona), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona) In the 1997 movie “Contact,” adapted from Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, the lead character scientist Ellie Arroway (played by actor Jodi Foster) takes a space-alien-built wormhole ride to the star Vega. She emerges inside a snowstorm of debris encircling the star — but no obvious planets are visible.
It looks like the filmmakers got it right.
A team of astronomers at the University of Arizona, Tucson used NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes for an unprecedented in-depth look at the nearly 100-billion-mile-diameter debris disk encircling Vega. “Between the Hubble and Webb telescopes, you get this very clear view of Vega. It’s a mysterious system because it’s unlike other circumstellar disks we’ve looked at,” said Andras Gáspár of the University of Arizona, a member of the research team. “The Vega disk is smooth, ridiculously smooth.”
The big surprise to the research team is that there is no obvious evidence for one or more large planets plowing through the face-on disk like snow tractors. “It’s making us rethink the range and variety among exoplanet systems,” said Kate Su of the University of Arizona, lead author of the paper presenting the Webb findings.
[left] A Hubble Space Telescope false-color view of a 100-billion-mile-wide disk of dust around the summer star Vega. Hubble detects reflected light from dust that is the size of smoke particles largely in a halo on the periphery of the disk. The disk is very smooth, with no evidence of embedded large planets. The black spot at the center blocks out the bright glow of the hot young star.
[right] The James Webb Space Telescope resolves the glow of warm dust in a disk halo, at 23 billion miles out. The outer disk (analogous to the solar system’s Kuiper Belt) extends from 7 billion miles to 15 billion miles. The inner disk extends from the inner edge of the outer disk down to close proximity to the star. There is a notable dip in surface brightness of the inner disk from approximately 3.7 to 7.2 billion miles. The black spot at the center is due to lack of data from saturation. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Wolff (University of Arizona), K. Su (University of Arizona), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona)
Download this image
Webb sees the infrared glow from a disk of particles the size of sand swirling around the sizzling blue-white star that is 40 times brighter than our Sun. Hubble captures an outer halo of this disk, with particles no bigger than the consistency of smoke that are reflecting starlight.
The distribution of dust in the Vega debris disk is layered because the pressure of starlight pushes out the smaller grains faster than larger grains. “Different types of physics will locate different-sized particles at different locations,” said Schuyler Wolff of the University of Arizona team, lead author of the paper presenting the Hubble findings. “The fact that we’re seeing dust particle sizes sorted out can help us understand the underlying dynamics in circumstellar disks.”
The Vega disk does have a subtle gap, around 60 AU (astronomical units) from the star (twice the distance of Neptune from the Sun), but otherwise is very smooth all the way in until it is lost in the glare of the star. This shows that there are no planets down at least to Neptune-mass circulating in large orbits, as in our solar system, say the researchers.
Hubble acquired this image of the circumstellar disk around the star Vega using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Wolff (University of Arizona), K. Su (University of Arizona), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona)
Download this image
“We’re seeing in detail how much variety there is among circumstellar disks, and how that variety is tied into the underlying planetary systems. We’re finding a lot out about the planetary systems — even when we can’t see what might be hidden planets,” added Su. “There’s still a lot of unknowns in the planet-formation process, and I think these new observations of Vega are going to help constrain models of planet formation.”
Disk Diversity
Newly forming stars accrete material from a disk of dust and gas that is the flattened remnant of the cloud from which they are forming. In the mid-1990s Hubble found disks around many newly forming stars. The disks are likely sites of planet formation, migration, and sometimes destruction. Fully matured stars like Vega have dusty disks enriched by ongoing “bumper car” collisions among orbiting asteroids and debris from evaporating comets. These are primordial bodies that can survive up to the present 450-million-year age of Vega (our Sun is approximately ten times older than Vega). Dust within our solar system (seen as the Zodiacal light) is also replenished by minor bodies ejecting dust at a rate of about 10 tons per second. This dust is shoved around by planets. This provides a strategy for detecting planets around other stars without seeing them directly – just by witnessing the effects they have on the dust.
“Vega continues to be unusual,” said Wolff. “The architecture of the Vega system is markedly different from our own solar system where giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn are keeping the dust from spreading the way it does with Vega.”
Webb acquired this image of the circumstellar disk around the star Vega using the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Wolff (University of Arizona), K. Su (University of Arizona), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona)
Download this image
For comparison, there is a nearby star, Fomalhaut, which is about the same distance, age and temperature as Vega. But Fomalhaut’s circumstellar architecture is greatly different from Vega’s. Fomalhaut has three nested debris belts.
Planets are suggested as shepherding bodies around Fomalhaut that gravitationally constrict the dust into rings, though no planets have been positively identified yet. “Given the physical similarity between the stars of Vega and Fomalhaut, why does Fomalhaut seem to have been able to form planets and Vega didn’t?” said team member George Rieke of the University of Arizona, a member of the research team. “What’s the difference? Did the circumstellar environment, or the star itself, create that difference? What’s puzzling is that the same physics is at work in both,” added Wolff.
First Clue to Possible Planetary Construction Yards
Located in the summer constellation Lyra, Vega is one of the brightest stars in the northern sky. Vega is legendary because it offered the first evidence for material orbiting a star — presumably the stuff for making planets — as potential abodes of life. This was first hypothesized by Immanuel Kant in 1775. But it took over 200 years before the first observational evidence was collected in 1984. A puzzling excess of infrared light from warm dust was detected by NASA’s IRAS (Infrared Astronomy Satellite). It was interpreted as a shell or disk of dust extending twice the orbital radius of Pluto from the star.
In 2005, NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope mapped out a ring of dust around Vega. This was further confirmed by observations using submillimeter telescopes including Caltech’s Submillimeter Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and also the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Herschel Space Telescope, but none of these telescopes could see much detail. “The Hubble and Webb observations together provide so much more detail that they are telling us something completely new about the Vega system that nobody knew before,” said Rieke.
Two papers (Wolff et al. and Su et. al.) from the Arizona team will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
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).
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
Explore More:
Finding Planetary Construction Zones
The science paper by Schuyler Wolff et al., PDF (3.24 MB)
The science paper by Kate Su et al., PDF (2.10 MB)
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Facebook logo @NASAWebb @NASAWebb Instagram logo @NASAWebb Media Contacts:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov), Laura Betz (laura.e.betz@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Ray Villard, Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Share
Details
Last Updated Nov 01, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Astrophysics Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Stars Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble and Webb
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
James Webb Space Telescope
Space Telescope
Hubble vs. Webb
Hubble Focus: Strange New Worlds
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope team has released a new edition in the Hubble Focus e-book series, called “Hubble Focus: Strange…
View the full article
-
By USH
Over the years, numerous mysterious events have been witnessed in the sky, defying explanation. Recently, yet another unusual sky phenomenon was observed over Southern Australia capturing attention and sparking curiosity.
Video footage reveals what appears to be a dome-shaped structure, with an even stranger detail: lightning seems to bounce off or perhaps even originate from within the dome.
The mysterious formation has led to numerous theories. Some viewers suggest it could be a unique (red) rainbow or a rare weather event like a haboob (sandstorm). Others speculate it might be the result of weather manipulation or even an energy field projected over the region.
Opinions also vary on the lightning, some say it’s bouncing off the dome, while others believe it could be emanating from within. Although it may just be an unusual natural phenomenon, the seemly strange interaction with the lightning remains unexplained.
View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
An international team of astronomers has used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to detect the first brown dwarf candidates outside the Milky Way in the star cluster NGC 602.
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.