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Pillars of Creation (NIRCam and MIRI composite image)
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By NASA
4 min read
NASA’s Instruments Capture Sharpest Image of Earth’s Radiation Belt
From Aug. 19-20, ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) mission made history with a daring lunar-Earth flyby and double gravity assist maneuver, a spaceflight first. As the spacecraft zipped past our Moon and home planet, Juice’s instruments came online for a dry run of what they’ll do when they reach Jupiter. During that time, two of NASA’s onboard instruments added another first to the list: capturing the sharpest-ever image of Earth’s radiation belts – swaths of charged particles trapped in Earth’s magnetic shield, or magnetosphere.
The Jovian Energetic Neutrals and Ions (JENI) instrument, built and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, on behalf of NASA, took the image as Juice soared away from Earth. What it captured is invisible to the human eye. Unlike traditional cameras that rely on light, JENI uses special sensors to capture energetic neutral atoms emitted by charged particles interacting with the extended atmospheric hydrogen gas surrounding Earth. The JENI instrument is the newest generation of this type of camera, building on the success of a similar instrument on NASA’s Cassini mission that revealed the magnetospheres of Saturn and Jupiter.
An illustration showing the trajectory of ESA’s Juice spacecraft during its lunar-Earth gravity assist, featuring a high-resolution ENA image of the million-degree hot plasma halo encircling Earth captured by NASA’s JENI instrument. The white rings denote equatorial distance of 4 and 6 Earth radii. The inset showcases measurements taken by the NASA’s JENI and JoEE instruments during their passage through the radiation belts, revealing a highly structured energetic ion and electron environment. Credit: ESA/NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Josh Diaz “As soon as we saw the crisp, new images, high fives went around the room,” said Matina Gkioulidou, deputy lead of JENI at APL. “It was clear we had captured the vast ring of hot plasma encircling Earth in unprecedented detail, an achievement that has sparked excitement for what is to come at Jupiter.”
On Aug. 19, JENI and its companion particle instrument Jovian Energetic Electrons (JoEE) made the most of their brief 30-minute encounter with the Moon. As Juice zoomed just 465 miles (750 kilometers) above the lunar surface, the instruments gathered data on the space environment’s interaction with our nearest celestial companion. It’s an interaction scientists expect to see magnified at Jupiter’s moons, as the gas giant’s radiation-rich magnetosphere barrels over them.
On Aug. 20, Juice hurled into Earth’s magnetosphere, passing some 37,000 miles (60,000 km) above the Pacific Ocean, where the instruments got their first taste of the harsh environment that awaits at Jupiter. Racing through the magnetotail, JoEE and JENI encountered the dense, lower-energy plasma characteristic of this region before plunging into the heart of the radiation belts. There, the instruments measured the million-degree plasma encircling Earth to investigate the secrets of plasma heating that are known to fuel dramatic phenomena in planetary magnetospheres.
“I couldn’t have hoped for a better flyby,” said Pontus Brandt, principal investigator of JoEE and JENI at APL. “The richness of the data from our deep-dive through the magnetosphere is astounding. JENI’s image of the entire system we just flew through was the cherry on top. It’s a powerful combination we will exploit in the Jovian system.”
Now after using the Moon’s and Earth’s gravity, Juice’s trajectory has been successfully adjusted for a future encounter with Venus in August 2025. That Venus flyby will serve as a gravitational slingshot, propelling Juice back toward Earth and priming it for two additional flybys in September 2026 and January 2029. Only then will the spacecraft, now boosted into high gear, make its grand arrival at Jupiter in July 2031.
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, Maryland, manages the JoEE and JENI instruments, which together make up the Particle Environment Package (PEP-Hi) instrument suite, for NASA on ESA’s Juice mission. The JoEE and JENI instruments are part of the Solar System Exploration Program, managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information on NASA’s involvement with ESA’s Juice mission, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/juice/
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
An automated fiber placement machine on an industrial robot is seen at Fives Machining Systems Inc. Fives is one of the new partners joining a NASA project that explores ways to speed up the production of composite aircraft.Fives Machining Systems Inc. Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation and Fives Machining Systems Inc. have joined 20 other organizations to support NASA’s Hi-Rate Composite Aircraft Manufacturing (HiCAM) project.
The project is addressing industry’s needs to meet growing demand for air travel, replace aging airliners, and secure U.S. competitiveness in the commercial aircraft industry.
NASA and its partners are collaborating and sharing costs to increase the manufacturing rate for aircraft components made from composite (nonmetallic) materials. Gulfstream and Fives are the newest members in a public-private partnership called the Advanced Composites Consortium.
Advanced Composites Consortium
Members of the Consortium have significant and unique expertise in aircraft design, manufacturing, certification, testing, and tool development, with the new members bringing important new insights and capabilities to the team.
“By partnering with U.S. industry, academia, and regulators, we’ll increase the likelihood of impacting the next generation of transports,” said Richard Young, manager for NASA’s HiCAM project, which oversees the consortium.
The team is currently competing concepts to determine which technologies will have the greatest impact on manufacturing rates. Once the most promising concepts are selected, they’ll be demonstrated at full scale.
The project and Advanced Composites Consortium contribute to NASA’s Sustainable Flight National Partnership by enabling broader use of lightweight composite airframes, which will reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions, improving air quality and the environment.
HiCAM is managed under NASA’s Advanced Air Vehicles Program.
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Last Updated Aug 22, 2024 EditorJim BankeContactRobert Margettarobert.j.margetta@nasa.gov Related Terms
Aeronautics Advanced Air Vehicles Program Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Green Aviation Tech Hi-Rate Composite Aircraft Manufacturing Sustainable Flight National Partnership View the full article
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By NASA
Learn Home AstroViz: Iconic Pillars of… For Educators Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Stories Science Activation Highlights Citizen Science 4 min read
AstroViz: Iconic Pillars of Creation Star in NASA’s New 3D Visualization
NASA’s Universe of Learning – a partnership among the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Caltech/IPAC, the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and part of the NASA Science Activation program portfolio – recently released a new 3D visualization of the towering clouds of cosmic dust and gas at the center of the star-forming region known as M16, or the Eagle Nebula. This video, which uses data from NASA’s Hubble, James Webb, and Spitzer space telescopes, as well as the Chandra X-ray Observatory, is the most comprehensive and detailed multiwavelength movie yet of these star-birthing “Pillars of Creation.”
“By flying past and amongst the pillars, viewers experience their three-dimensional structure and see how they look different in the Hubble visible light view versus the Webb infrared light view,” explained principal visualization scientist Frank Summers of STScI in Baltimore. “The contrast helps them understand why we have more than one space telescope to observe different aspects of the same object.” Summers led the video development team.
The Pillars of Creation, made primarily of cool molecular hydrogen and dust, are being eroded by the fierce winds and punishing ultraviolet light of nearby hot, young stars. Finger-like structures larger than the solar system protrude from the tops of the pillars. Within these fingers can be embedded embryonic stars. The tallest pillar stretches across three light-years, three-quarters of the distance between our Sun and the next nearest star.
The movie takes visitors into the three-dimensional structures of the pillars. Rather than an artistic interpretation, the video is based on observational data from a science paper led by Anna McLeod, an associate professor at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom. McLeod also served as a scientific advisor on the movie project.
The 3D structures are approximations for how the pillars are lined up in space like a row of trees, based on observational data. The goal is to give viewers an experiential view, so that they can better interpret the otherwise flat, two-dimensional images from telescopes. This 3D understanding allowed the team to create 3D printable files of the Pillars using the newest data.
On the same day or the visualization release, Dr. Frank Summers led a live-streamed panel discussion with attendees covering “A Deep Dive into the Creation of the Pillars of Creation” at the AstroViz Community Practice meetup. The panelists and attendees engaged in a deep dive into the transformation of 2D views of the Pillars of Creation into a scientifically-vetted 3D visualization.
The new visualization helps viewers experience how of the world’s most powerful space telescopes work together to provide a more complex portrait of the pillars. Hubble sees objects that glow in visible light at thousands of degrees. Webb’s infrared vision, which is sensitive to cooler objects with temperatures of just hundreds of degrees, pierces through obscuring dust to see stars embedded in the pillars.
Experience the Visualization: Pillars of Creation Access the 3D-Printable Pillars of Creation Model Explore Pillars of Creation Resource Watch AstroViz Community Meet Up Recording: Astrophysical Artistry | AstroViz Community Meetup | June 2024 As of July 25, 2024, the visualization has received 2,457,930 views, made 467,318 impressions, and been featured in 755 online media articles reaching 3.8 billion potential readers. A variety of additional learning resources related to the Pillars of Creation and star-forming regions, including the 3D print files, sonification, and interactive to explore the Pillars in different wavelengths, can be found on the NASA’s Universe of Learning website.
NASA’s Universe of Learning s supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AC65A and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn
Credits:
Visualization and video: Greg Bacon (STScI), Ralf Crawford (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Leah Hustak (STScI), Danielle Kirshenblat (STScI), Christian Nieves (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Frank Summers (STScI), Robert L. Hurt (Caltech, IPAC) Subject Matter Expert: Anna McLeod (Durham University) Script Writer and narration: Frank Summers (STScI) Music: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) 3D Model: NASA, STScI, R. Crawford, L. Hustak
Side-by-side images of the Pillars of Creation from Hubble (left) and Webb (right)
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Last Updated Aug 05, 2024 Editor NASA Science Editorial Team Location Jet Propulsion Laboratory Related Terms
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By NASA
Note: Please note that this is an “archived project” and is no longer updated. This article is meant for historical purposes only.
The Composite Cryogenic Propellant Tank project will develop and ground demonstrate large-scale composite cryogenic propellant tanks applicable to heavy-lift launch vehicles, propellant depots, and future lander systems. The primary objective of the Composite Cryotank Technologies and Demonstration (CCTD) project is to mature the technology readiness of composite cryogenic propellant tanks at diameters that are suitable for future heavy lift vehicles and other in-space applications. The concept being developed and demonstrated by this project involves advanced materials (composites), structural concepts (joints, splices, fasteners, etc.), and manufacturing techniques. For this project, an out-of-autoclave manufacturing approach is being developed.
The Boeing Company will: design and manufacture a 2.4-meter diameter and a 5.5-meter tanks based on expected loads from the larger SLS tank using an out-of-autoclave procedure; validate the performance of the tanks composite material systems in a relevant environment (e.g., structural integrity, permeability, microcracking); validate the durability of the tanks composite materials under cyclic thermal-mechanical loads; validate the predicted performance of critical joints and design details under representative mechanical and thermal loads; and validate the manufacturing techniques used to create a structural cryotanks. If successful, the manufacturing of large, high-performance composite structures can be accomplished throughout industry without the need of an autoclave, thus improving competition and potentially further reducing the cost to manufacture very large composite components.
Success in this project could lead to rocket propellant tanks that are more than 30 percent lighter and 25 percent cheaper to fabricate compared with current state-of-the-art metallic tanks. Such advancements offer less cost for payload delivery to orbit and the potential of enabling advanced human and robotic space exploration missions.
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Last Updated Jul 31, 2024 LocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By USH
Years ago, physicist Dr. John Brandenburg stated that there is evidence of two nuclear explosions on Mars. These explosions could have been caused by thermonuclear bombs.
Remnants of an ancient city on Mars destroyed by thermonuclear attack.
Evidence supporting this theory includes the presence of nuclear isotopes in the Martian atmosphere and the detection of a thin layer of substances such as uranium, thorium, and radioactive potassium on the surface of Mars.
The absence of craters at the sites indicates that the bombs were likely detonated above ground in an air blast, which worsens the global fallout but dampens the immediate ground impact. Conversely, if detonated on the ground, the local devastation is immense but the global impact is minimized. Regardless, these explosions were powerful enough to cause a global catastrophe and significantly alter Mars' climate. According to Brandenburg, the nuclear attack apparently wiped out two races: the Cydonians and Utopians.
The MRO HiRISE image ESP_019103_1460 shows the "Atlantic Chaos," and a closer examination reveals a city that was almost destroyed by the thermonuclear explosions. Amid the ruins of destroyed buildings and towering structures, a largely intact dome-shaped structure is visible (See image below.)
The remnants of this city suggest that Mars was once inhabited by intelligent species like the Cydonians and Utopians, who lived there under conditions similar to those on Earth. This also serves as evidence that far more advanced civilizations may have existed for millions of years and possessed the capability to annihilate all life on a planet using thermonuclear bombs, among other means.
See also:
J.E. Brandenburg:Evidence for a Large Anomalous Nuclear Explosions in Mars Past
Gigapan images (zoom) of the destroyed city on Mars: Javed Raza's-Atlantis Chassis-ESP 019103 1460 by Neville Thompson
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