Space News and Discussions

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New aurorae detected on Jupiter's four largest moons
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-aurorae-j ... moons.html
by W. M. Keck Observatory
Astronomers using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaiʻi have discovered that aurorae at visible wavelengths appear on all 4 major moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

Using Keck Observatory's High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) as well as high-resolution spectrographs at the Large Binocular Telescope and Apache Point Observatory, a team led by Caltech and Boston University observed the moons in Jupiter's shadow so that their faint aurorae, which are caused by the gas giant's strong magnetic field, could be spotted without competition from bright sunlight reflected off of their surfaces.

"These observations are tricky because in Jupiter's shadow the moons are nearly invisible. The light emitted by their faint aurorae is the only confirmation that we've even pointed the telescope at the right place," says Katherine de Kleer, Caltech professor and lead author of one of two new research papers published today in The Planetary Science Journal describing the discovery.

All four of the Galilean moons show the same oxygen aurora we see in skies near the Earth's poles, but gases on Jupiter's moons are much thinner, allowing a deep red color to glow nearly 15 times brighter than the familiar green light.

At Europa and Ganymede, oxygen also lights up infrared wavelengths, just a little redder than the human eye can see—the first occurrence of this phenomenon seen in the atmosphere of a body other than Earth.

At Io, Jupiter's innermost moon, volcanic plumes of gas and dust are vast in size, reaching hundreds of kilometers in height. These plumes contain salts like sodium chloride and potassium chloride, which break down to produce additional colors. Sodium gives Io's aurora the same yellowy-orange glow that we see in urban streetlamps. The new measurements also show potassium aurora at Io in infrared light, which has not been detected anywhere else previously.
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Alien Life on Enceladus Could Be Found by Studying Saturn’s Rings
by Alfredo Carpineti
February 24, 2023

Introduction:
(IFL Science) The E-ring is quite unlike all the other rings of Saturn. It is much wider, roughly the Earth-Moon distance, and much thicker than the other rings. It is also rich in microscopic particles of ice and silica and the Cassini mission identified the icy moon Enceladus as its creator.

Underneath its icy shell, Enceladus harbors a deep water-ocean with hydrothermal activity at its bottom. And on the southern pole of the moon, a region called the tiger stripes is known to have geysers. And these geysers launch material into space and ended up forming the E-ring.

It is unclear how the nano-silica particles seen by Cassini formed but one suggestion sees them as coming from the seafloor of Enceladus, and new models agree with the idea. Materials can be lifted from the moon’s seafloor and taken to the icy shell in a matter of months.

“Our model shows that these grains may be transported through the ocean interior on timescales faster than previously thought,” Assistant Professor Emily Hawkins, from Loyola Marymount University, said in a statement. “The nano-silica material is thought to be important in the generation of life on the icy moon. Ultimately, our research aids in the understanding of the habitability of Enceladus, and will guide future missions to the outer solar system moon.”

What keeps the interior of Enceladus going is the tidal forces it experiences as it goes around Saturn in a strongly elliptical orbit. The forces squish the rocky core and the ice shell and the bottom of the ocean gets heated by hydrothermal vents that form there.
Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/alien-life- ... ngs-67698
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Japan forced to destroy flagship H3 rocket in failed launch

40 minutes ago

Japan was forced to blow up its new rocket during a failed launch on Tuesday, setting back efforts to crack a market led by Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Its space agency had to send a self-destruct command to the H3 rocket when its second-stage engine failed minutes after lift-off.

Observers say it is a significant setback for Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa).

The government called the test failure "extremely regrettable".

The H3 rocket is the first medium-lift rocket designed by Japan in three decades.

It has been presented as a cheaper alternative to SpaceX's Falcon 9 for launching commercial and government satellites into Earth's orbit.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64871603
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The world's first 3D-printed rocket is about to launch into space. Here's how it could beat Elon Musk's SpaceX to Mars.
Mar 8, 2023, 11:52 AM

The world's first 3D-printed rocket is about to launch into space.

Terran 1, built by Relativity Space, is expected to lift off from Cape Canaveral at 1 p.m. local time.

If it is successful, it will become the largest 3D-printed object to reach orbital flight. It could also become the first-ever privately-funded rocket to reach orbit on the first attempt.

The 3D-printed rocket is the brainchild of Tim Ellis, a former engineer at Jeff Bezos' space startup, Blue Origin.
https://www.businessinsider.com/relativ ... nch-2023-3
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Venus could have had oceans long after life started on Earth
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-venus-oce ... earth.html
by Justin Jackson , Phys.org

Today Venus has a dry, oxygen-poor atmosphere. But recent studies have proposed that the early planet may have had liquid water and reflective clouds that could have sustained habitable conditions. Researchers at the University of Chicago, Department of Geophysical Sciences, have built a new time-dependent model of Venus's atmospheric composition to explore these claims. Their findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Water is everywhere in our solar system, usually in the form of ice or atmospheric gas, though occasionally in liquid form. On all of the planets, many of the moons, from the outer ring of the inner asteroid belt to the icy Kuiper Belt, and way out to the far distant Oort cloud two light years away, water is there.
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NASA instrument bound for Titan could reveal chemistry leading to life
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-nasa-inst ... eveal.html
by Nick Oakes, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
A new NASA mission to Saturn's giant moon, Titan, is due to launch in 2027. When it arrives in the mid-2030s, it will begin a journey of discovery that could bring about a new understanding of the development of life in the universe. This mission, called Dragonfly, will carry an instrument called the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS), designed to help scientists hone in on the chemistry at work on Titan. It may also shed light on the kinds of chemical steps that occurred on Earth that ultimately led to the formation of life, called prebiotic chemistry.

Titan's abundant complex carbon-rich chemistry, interior ocean, and past presence of liquid water on the surface make it an ideal destination to study prebiotic chemical processes and the potential habitability of an extraterrestrial environment.

DraMS will allow scientists back on Earth to remotely study the chemical makeup of the Titanian surface. "We want to know if the type of chemistry that could be important for early pre-biochemical systems on Earth is taking place on Titan," explains Dr. Melissa Trainer of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
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NASA selects Firefly Aerospace for mission to moon's far side in 2026
published 2 days ago

NASA has selected Firefly Aerospace to land payloads on the moon and send another into orbit to provide communications with the lunar far side.

The mission will use Texas-based Firefly Aerospace's robotic Blue Ghost lander to safely deliver two payloads to the far side of the moon, which permanently faces away from Earth.

The launch will first send the European Space Agency's (ESA) Lunar Pathfinder communications and navigation satellite into an elliptical orbit around the moon to relay signals between Earth and the payloads on the surface.

The payloads destined for the surface are the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night), which is designed to understand the moon's radio environment and peer into the unobserved cosmic "dark ages," and User Terminal (UT), which will provide communications support for LuSEE-Night.

NASA announced on Tuesday (March 14) that it had awarded Firefly the $112 million contract as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The initiative is part of the agency's larger Artemis program.
https://www.space.com/moon-far-side-mis ... ium=social
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Glass beads on moon's surface may hold billions of tonnes of water, scientists say
Source: The Guardian

Tiny glass beads strewn across the moon’s surface contain potentially billions of tonnes of water that could be extracted and used by astronauts on future lunar missions, researchers say.

The discovery is thought to be one of the most important breakthroughs yet for space agencies that have set their sights on building bases on the moon, as it means there could be a highly accessible source of not only water but also hydrogen and oxygen.

“This is one of the most exciting discoveries we’ve made,” said Mahesh Anand, a professor of planetary science and exploration at the Open University. “With this finding, the potential for exploring the moon in a sustainable manner is higher than it’s ever been.”

Tests on the glass particles revealed that together they contain substantial quantities of water, amounting to between 300m and 270bn tonnes across the entire moon’s surface.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... ntists-say
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