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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 2 min read
Sols 4336-4337: Where the Streets Have No Name
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on Sol 4329 — Martian day 4,329 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Oct. 10, 2024 at 04:19:55 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024
Curiosity continues to drive along the western edge of the upper Gediz Vallis channel. After exiting the channel a few weeks ago, we turned north to image the “back side” of the deposits that we investigated on the eastern side before the channel crossing. As a member of the Channel Surfers working group, we believe that acquiring these views will help further our understanding of the geometry, nature, and evolution of these landforms. The bumpy terrain in front of us, however, plays a role in determining our route and length of drive. The rover planners on the team always do a fantastic job in charting the course on this once-in-a-lifetime road trip. I like to imagine Curiosity with the windows down, blaring U2, as she steadily blazes a new path across the sulfate unit.
With an eye towards imaging in this two-sol plan, Mastcam crafted a large mosaic of “Fascination Turret” that rises above the channel floor. ChemCam fit an unprecedented number of long distance RMI images in the plan that will document the upper extent of the white stone deposit, the nature of the “Kukenan” mound, and characterize the rocks in Fascination Turret at targets named “Chimney Tree” and “Forgotten Canyon.” In our immediate workspace, ChemCam used the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument on a laminated (very thinly bedded) bedrock in the workspace at “Puppet Lake” to determine its chemical composition, which will be documented with a coordinating Mastcam image. MAHLI and AXPS teamed up to analyze a cluster of small gray rocks in front of us at “Jumble Lake.”
The second sol includes a 25-meter (about 82 feet) drive to the west/northwest as we continue along our path adjacent to the channel. The Environmental theme group included a range of activities such as a Mastcam tau that will measure the optical depth of the atmosphere and constrain aerosol scattering properties, dust devil movies, and a suprahorizon movie to monitor clouds.
Written by Sharon Wilson Purdy, Planetary Geologist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
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Last Updated Oct 18, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
NASA/JPL-Caltech The golden records placed aboard Voyager 1 and 2 each have a cover with special etchings, seen here in this photo from Sept. 4, 1977. These drawings show how the record should be used to receive a message from Earth.
For example, the drawing in the bottom right corner is of the phonograph record and the stylus carried with it; the stylus is in the correct position for the record to be played from the beginning. The lines around the record mark the time of one rotation of the record, 3.6 seconds, in binary arithmetic. The drawing also indicates that the record should be played from the outside in.
The Golden Record itself contains 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals, as well as musical selections from different cultures and eras, spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan.
Discover what the other drawings on the Golden Record cover reveal.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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By NASA
These images from NASA’s LRO spacecraft show a collection of pits detected on the Moon. Each image covers an area about 728 feet wide. An international team of scientists using data from NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) has discovered evidence of caves beneath the Moon’s surface.
In re-analyzing radar data collected by LRO’s Mini-RF (Miniature Radio-Frequency) instrument in 2010, the team found evidence of a cave extending more than 200 feet from the base of a pit. The pit is located 230 miles northeast of the first human landing site on the Moon in Mare Tranquillitatis. The full extent of the cave is unknown, but it could stretch for miles beneath the mare.
Scientists have suspected for decades that there are subsurface caves on the Moon, just like there are on Earth. Pits that may lead to caves were suggested in images from NASA’s lunar orbiters that mapped the Moon’s surface before NASA’s Apollo human landings. A pit was then confirmed in 2009 from images taken by JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Kaguya orbiter, and many have since been found across the Moon through images and thermal measurements of the surface taken by LRO.
NASA’s LRO Finds Lunar Pits Harbor Comfortable Temperatures
“Now the analysis of the Mini-RF radar data tells us how far these caves might extend,” said Noah Petro, LRO project scientist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Lunar Pits Could Shelter Astronauts, Reveal Details of How ‘Man in the Moon’ Formed
Like “lava tubes” found here on Earth, scientists suspect that lunar caves formed when molten lava flowed beneath a field of cooled lava, or a crust formed over a river of lava, leaving a long, hollow tunnel. If the ceiling of a solidified lava tube collapses, it opens a pit, like a skylight, that can lead into the rest of the cave-like tube.
Evidence is mounting that an intricate, winding network of channels exist just below the surface of the Moon. These “lava tubes” are produced by underground flowing magma from ancient volcanoes. Credit: NASA Mini-RF is operated by The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the Moon. NASA is returning to the Moon with commercial and international partners to expand human presence in space and bring back new knowledge and opportunities.
By Lonnie Shekhtman
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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By NASA
4 Min Read NASA’s Hubble Finds Strong Evidence for Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in Omega Centauri
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features the globular star cluster, Omega Centauri. Credits:
ESA/Hubble, NASA, Maximilian Häberle (MPIA) Most known black holes are either extremely massive, like the supermassive black holes that lie at the cores of large galaxies, or relatively lightweight, with a mass of under 100 times that of the Sun. Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) are scarce, however, and are considered rare “missing links” in black hole evolution.
Now, an international team of astronomers has used more than 500 images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope — spanning two decades of observations — to search for evidence of an intermediate-mass black hole by following the motion of seven fast-moving stars in the innermost region of the globular star cluster Omega Centauri.
Omega Centauri is about 10 times as massive as other big globular clusters – almost as massive as a small galaxy – and consists of roughly 10 million stars that are gravitationally bound. ESA/Hubble, NASA, Maximilian Häberle (MPIA)
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These stars provide new compelling evidence for the presence of the gravitational pull from an intermediate-mass black hole tugging on them. Only a few other IMBH candidates have been found to date.
Omega Centauri consists of roughly 10 million stars that are gravitationally bound. The cluster is about 10 times as massive as other big globular clusters — almost as massive as a small galaxy.
Among the many questions scientists want to answer: Are there any IMBHs, and if so, how common are they? Does a supermassive black hole grow from an IMBH? How do IMBHs themselves form? Are dense star clusters their favored home?
The astronomers have now created an enormous catalog for the motions of these stars, measuring the velocities for 1.4 million stars gleaned from the Hubble images of the cluster. Most of these observations were intended to calibrate Hubble’s instruments rather than for scientific use, but they turned out to be an ideal database for the team’s research efforts.
This image shows the central region of the Omega Centauri globular cluster, where NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope found strong evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole candidate. ESA/Hubble, NASA, Maximilian Häberle (MPIA)
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“We discovered seven stars that should not be there,” explained Maximilian Häberle of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, who led this investigation. “They are moving so fast that they would escape the cluster and never come back. The most likely explanation is that a very massive object is gravitationally pulling on these stars and keeping them close to the center. The only object that can be so massive is a black hole, with a mass at least 8,200 times that of our Sun.”
Several studies have suggested the presence of an IMBH in Omega Centauri. However, other studies proposed the mass could be contributed by a central cluster of stellar-mass black holes, and had suggested the lack of fast-moving stars above the necessary escape velocity made an IMBH less likely in comparison.
An international team of astronomers used more than 500 images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope – spanning two decades of observations – to detect seven fast-moving stars in the innermost region of Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. These stars provide compelling new evidence for the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) tugging on them. Only a few other IMBH candidates have been found to date. This image shows the location of the IMBH in Omega Centauri. If confirmed, at its distance of 17,700 light-years the candidate black hole resides closer to Earth than the 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole in the center of the Milky Way, which is 26,000 light-years away. Besides the Galactic center, it would also be the only known case of a number of stars closely bound to a massive black hole. This image includes three panels. The first image at left shows the globular cluster Omega Centauri, a collection of myriad stars colored red, white, and blue on the black background of space. The second image shows the details of the central region of this cluster, with a closer view of the individual stars. The third image shows the location of the IMBH candidate in the cluster. ESA/Hubble, NASA, Maximilian Häberle (MPIA)
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“This discovery is the most direct evidence so far of an IMBH in Omega Centauri,” added team lead Nadine Neumayer of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, who initiated the study, together with Anil Seth from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. “This is exciting because there are only very few other black holes known with a similar mass. The black hole in Omega Centauri may be the best example of an IMBH in our cosmic neighborhood.”
If confirmed, at a distance of 17,700 light-years the candidate black hole resides closer to Earth than the 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole in the center of the Milky Way, located 26,000 light-years away.
Omega Centauri is visible from Earth with the naked eye and is one of the favorite celestial objects for stargazers living in the southern hemisphere. Located just above the plane of the Milky Way, the cluster appears almost as large as the full Moon when seen from a dark rural area. It was first listed in Ptolemy’s catalog nearly 2,000 years ago as a single star. Edmond Halley reported it as a nebula in 1677. In the 1830s the English astronomer John Herschel was the first to recognize it as a globular cluster.
The discovery paper led by Häberle et al. is published online today in the journal Nature.
Scientists think a massive object is gravitationally pulling on the stars within Omega Centauri, keeping them close to its center. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Lead Producer: Paul Morris
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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.
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contacts:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Bethany Downer
ESA/Hubble.org
Science Contact:
Maximilian Häberle
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany
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Last Updated Jul 10, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Black Holes Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope Missions Stars The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
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By European Space Agency
An international team of astronomers has used more than 500 images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope spanning two decades to detect seven fast-moving stars in the innermost region of Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. These stars provide compelling new evidence for the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole.
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