Planetary Science Institute’s Post

As the Moon wedges itself between Earth and Sun, temporarily dimming the day’s light over parts of our planet, three rockets will take to the skies to observe how those brief moments of darkness affect Earth’s upper atmosphere. Rebecca Hall on Filming Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire On April 8, NASA will launch three sounding rockets from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to study the disturbances in the ionosphere during the solar eclipse. The rockets will launch at three different times; 45 minutes before, during, and 45 minutes after the peak time of the eclipse, according to NASA. The Sun’s sudden disappearance affects part of the planet’s atmosphere, creating disturbances that could possibly interfere with communication systems on Earth. The ionosphere is part of Earth’s upper atmosphere, and forms the boundary between Earth’s lower atmosphere and the vacuum of space. It contains a large number of electrically charged atoms and molecules, and reflects and refracts radio waves that are used for our communication and navigation systems. During nighttime, the ionosphere thins out because it no longer receives solar radiation, which ionize the atoms and molecules. As a result, the previously ionized particles relax and recombine into neutral particles. “Understanding the ionosphere and developing models to help us predict disturbances is crucial to making sure our increasingly communication-dependent world operates smoothly,” Aroh Barjatya, a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, and lead scientist of the mission, said in a statement. The upcoming eclipse presents an opportunity to study changes in the ionosphere during a rapid, localized sunset, as the Sun’s light disappears at an exact time. Each of the rockets will release four secondary instruments the size of a two-liter soda bottle to measure perturbations in the ionosphere, which will help scientists improve current models that predict potential disturbances to communication systems, according to Barjatya. Sounding rockets, or research rockets, carry science instruments to suborbital space along a parabolic trajectory. Aside from the rockets measuring data on the ionosphere, teams on the ground will also be taking measurements using various means. These same rockets have been launched once before from the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, during the October 2023 annular solar eclipse. The rockets got some new instruments and were refurbished for reuse for the upcoming eclipse. During the previous eclipse, the rockets measured a sharp reduction in the density of charged particles in the atmosphere. “We saw the perturbations capable of affecting radio communications in the second and third rockets, but not during the first rocket that was before peak local eclipse” Barjatya said. “We are super excited to relaunch them during the total eclipse, to see if the perturbations start

ROSES for You! The new Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences came out today. That’s the big list of NASA research funding/grant opportunities. You can propose citizen science to any ROSES element. But this year’s ROSES also includes three citizen science-specific calls: Citizen Science Seed Funding Program (CSSFP), Heliophysics Citizen Science Investigations (HCSI), and Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program (CSESP).   Seed Funding in Time For Summer. Folks have been asking for earlier start dates for CSSFP so they can use the funding for summer interns and summer salary. You asked for it, you got it! This year’s CSSFP proposals are due November 19, 2024. That should give us time to get funding to you before those interns come knocking.   Citizen Science for Earth Systems. Earth scientists: don’t miss this one! CSESP comes around only once every three years and this is it. There’s no downselect process this time! The solicitation has been “simplified into a request for full projects of up to three years with annual budget limits. There is no longer a prototype phase or separate proposal types.” Due May 14, 2024.   Open Source Science. If you provide infrastructure for citizen science, take a good look at the High Priority Open-Source Science (HPOSS) element and the Support for Open-Source Tools, Frameworks, and Libraries element. Deadlines are rolling/TBD. https://lnkd.in/g8YCmk6J

Meet the Two Women Leading Space Station Science 🚀 "The International Space Station provides researchers access to the unique features of low Earth orbit: long-duration microgravity, exposure to space, and a one-of-a-kind perspective of our planet. These special attributes enable scientists to conduct innovative experiments that can’t be done anywhere else. Employees in the International Space Station Research Integration Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center help enable and execute the research opportunities only available on board the space station with a wide variety of researchers. They also look out for and coordinate new partnerships with international partners, academic organizations, commercial companies, and more. Two women are currently spearheading these efforts: International Space Station Program Chief Scientist Jennifer Buchli and International Space Station Program Deputy Chief Scientist Meghan Everett. Together, they lead the full suite of research and science happening on board the orbital outpost. 💬 What inspirational message or advice would you give to young girls interested in a career in STEAM? 💎 Jennifer Buchli: Find a field you are passionate about and do not let anyone steer you away from it. 💎 Meghan Everett: Believe in your dreams and do hard things, and don’t be afraid to get it wrong and fail. Things we do now were once thought impossible – go try to do the impossible things!" #WomenInSTEM #GirlsInSTEM #STEMGems #GiveGirlsRoleModels https://lnkd.in/efhzunRg

Curtin University PhD graduate and Director of the Australian Desert Fireball Network (DFN) Eleanor Sansom never imagined that she would be pursuing planetary science as a career. 🪐🔭 Stargazing with her grandfather as a child, Eleanor has always had a passion for space which led her to Australia to study planetary science which later ignited into a multidisciplinary career researching the origins of shooting stars. 🌠 This #WorldSpaceWeek, Eleanor shares how she is helping uncover some of the biggest mysteries of planetary science. 👇 𝐐. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐅𝐍? As Director of the DFN, I research the impact of space rocks hitting our atmosphere and help determine where meteorites may land. Our remote-operated cameras in the Australian outback help us discover how our planetary system began and how dust and gas produced a planet capable of supporting life – our Earth. 𝐐. 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐅𝐍 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭? When we think about the environment, we often think of forests and trees on the land. However, our Earth's environment extends to the thin atmosphere and space surrounding us and contributes to our longevity. Currently, the problem of space debris is very poorly understood. At the DFN, we are investigating the impact the increasing amount of space debris and satellites are having on Earth. Currently, more than 45,600 objects are orbiting Earth. This includes active satellites, defunct satellites, spent rocket stages, and other debris. Only around 5,000 are active satellites that are incredibly important in monitoring our waterways, and CO2 levels, as well as providing us with GPS tracking and communication on Earth. But these satellites don’t last forever, and along with other debris, can fall to earth and they burn on re-entry as fireballs. By 2035, predictions for Australian airspace show nearly 1,400 objects re-entering per year. Although we hope that nothing will go wrong, there is a bit of an unknown, which is why our work at the DFN is so important. We can observe when satellites and space debris enter the atmosphere and see if a satellite’s remains have entered as planned. This enables us to be more proactive in future planning! 𝐐. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐮𝐞 𝐚 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be a planetary scientist. At the DFN we have worked with engineers, mathematicians, astronomers, software developers, artists, and science communicators. Anyone can get involved in space, you don’t have to be a scientist! Discover more inspiring Science & Engineering graduate stories here: https://shorturl.at/A10v8 #CurtinUniversity #CurtinAlumni #WorldSpaceWeek #DesertFireballNetwork #Space #STEM #WomeninSTEM #Astronomy Space Science and Technology Centre at Curtin University

The shoebox-sized BurstCube satellite has observed its first gamma-ray burst, the most powerful kind of explosion in the universe, according to a recent analysis of observations collected over the last several months. “We’re excited to collect science data,” said Sean Semper, BurstCube’s lead engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s an important milestone for the team and for the many early career engineers and scientists that have been part of the mission.” The event, called GRB 240629A, occurred on June 29 in the southern constellation Microscopium. The team announced the discovery in a GCN (General Coordinates Network) circular on August 29. BurstCube deployed into orbit April 18 from the International Space Station, following a March 21 launch. The mission was designed to detect, locate, and study short gamma-ray bursts, brief flashes of high-energy light created when superdense objects like neutron stars collide. These collisions also produce heavy elements like gold and iodine, an essential ingredient for life as we know it. BurstCube is the first CubeSat to use NASA’s TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) system, a constellation of specialized communications spacecraft. Data relayed by TDRS (pronounced “tee-driss”) help coordinate rapid follow-up measurements by other observatories in space and on the ground through NASA’s GCN. BurstCube also regularly beams data back to Earth using the Direct to Earth system — both it and TDRS are part of NASA’s Near Space Network. After BurstCube deployed from the space station, the team discovered that one of the two solar panels failed to fully extend. It obscures the view of the mission’s star tracker, which hinders orienting the spacecraft in a way that minimizes drag. The team originally hoped to operate BurstCube for 12-18 months, but now estimates the increased drag will cause the satellite to re-enter the atmosphere in September. “I’m proud of how the team responded to the situation and is making the best use of the time we have in orbit,” said Jeremy Perkins, BurstCube’s principal investigator at Goddard. “Small missions like BurstCube not only provide an opportunity to do great science and test new technologies, like our mission’s gamma-ray detector, but also important learning opportunities for the up-and-coming members of the astrophysics community.” #ISS #TDRS #NASA #BurstCube BurstCube, trailed by another CubeSat named SNOOPI (Signals of Opportunity P-band Investigation), emerges from the International Space Station on April 18, 2024. (NASA)

After 16 years studying Earth’s highest clouds for the benefit of humanity – polar mesospheric clouds – from its orbit some 350 miles above the ground, NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, or AIM, mission has come to an end. Initially slated for a two-year mission, AIM was extended numerous times due to its high science return. While AIM has faced hurdles over the years – from software hiccups to hardware issues – an incredibly dedicated team kept the spacecraft running for much longer than anyone could have anticipated. On March 13, 2023, the spacecraft’s battery failed following several years of declining performance. Multiple attempts to maintain power to the spacecraft were made, but no further data could be collected, so the mission has now ended. “AIM was dedicated to studying the atmospheric region that borders between our atmosphere and space,” said AIM mission scientist Diego Janches, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “AIM’s help understanding this region has been of critical importance to providing insights on how the lower atmosphere affects space weather.” In 2019, AIM’s battery started to decline, but through great effort and ingenuity, the mission operations team maintained the battery power, enabling the spacecraft to continue returning data. In early 2023, the battery experienced a significant drop-off in performance which meant the spacecraft could not regularly receive commands or collect data. Unfortunately, this hardware issue was not one that could be repaired remotely, and the satellite finally ceased collecting data in March 2023. “We’re saddened to see AIM reach the end of its lifetime, but it’s been amazing how long it has lasted,” Bailey said. “It’s given us more data and insight into noctilucent clouds and atmospheric gravity waves than we could ever have hoped for.” Though the spacecraft has seen its last night-shining clouds, scientists will continue to study AIM’s data for years to come. As for the spacecraft itself, it will slowly lose orbital height and burn up upon atmosphere re-entry in 2026. “There are still gigabytes upon gigabytes of AIM data to study,” said Cora Randall, AIM deputy principal investigator and senior research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado. “And as our models and computational capabilities continue to improve, people will make many more discoveries using the AIM datasets.” #NASA #AIM #Mesosphere NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission, seen in this visualization, contributed to NASA's understanding of the region that borders between Earth's atmosphere and space. (NASA)

NASA shuts off Voyager 2 science instrument as power dwindles NASA engineers have turned off one of Voyager 2's science instruments due to dwindling power supplies on the spacecraft as it explores interstellar space.  Voyager 2 launched into space on Aug. 20, 1977 and left the solar system on Nov. 5, 2018. It is currently 12.8 billion miles (20.5 billion kilometers) from Earth and is using four science instruments to study space beyond the heliosphere, the sun's bubble of influence around the solar system. NASA thinks that Voyager 2 has enough power to keep running one science instrument into the 2030s, but doing that requires selecting which of its other instruments need to be turned off.  Mission specialists have tried to delay the instrument shutdown until now because Voyager 2 and Voyager 1 are the only two active probes humanity has in interstellar space, making any data they gather unique. Thus far, six of the spacecraft's initial 10 instruments have been deactivated. Now, losing the seventh has become unavoidable, and the spacecraft's plasma science instrument drew the short straw. On Sept. 26, engineers gave the command to turn off the instrument. The plasma science instrument consists of four "cups" collecting information on the amount of plasma, a fluid of charged particles, flowing past Voyager 2 and the direction of this flow. Three cups are angled toward the sun, monitoring charged particles in the solar wind while within the heliosphere. A fourth cup is angled away from the others to observe plasma in planetary magnetic fields and interstellar space. This instrument was crucial in detecting the drop-off in charged particles from the sun, which indicated that Voyager 2 had crossed the boundary between the heliosphere and interstellar space in 2018.  "Mission engineers always carefully monitor changes being made to the 47-year-old spacecraft's operations to ensure they don't generate any unwanted secondary effects," officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which oversees the mission, wrote in a statement. "The team has confirmed that the switch-off command was executed without incident and the probe is operating normally." The usefulness of the plasma science instrument was limited by the fact that the three cups angled toward the sun stopped collecting plasma after leaving the heliosphere and moving past the influence of solar wind.  Also, because of Voyager 2's orientation, the data it has harvested over the last few years has been further limited. The one active cup only provides useful data once every three months when the spacecraft makes a 360-degree turn on its axis. This influenced the decision to switch the plasma instrument off to conserve power rather than deactivating one of Voyager 2's other instruments.

SPACE EXPLORATION: Congressional letter seeks big increase in NASA science budget - More than 40 House members have signed a letter asking for a significant increase in NASA’s science budget for 2025, a request that will be challenging to fulfill given spending caps. - The May 1 letter to the chair and ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee’s commerce, justice and science (CJS) subcommittee, signed by 44 members, asked appropriators to provide at least $9 billion for NASA’s science programs in their fiscal year 2025 spending bill, more than $1.4 billion above the administration’s request and $1.67 billion above what the agency received for science in 2024. https://lnkd.in/eyAjw7BB

NASA’s BurstCube, a shoebox-sized satellite designed to study the universe’s most powerful explosions, is on its way to the International Space Station. The spacecraft travels aboard SpaceX’s 30th Commercial Resupply Services mission, which lifted off at 4:55 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 21, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. After arriving at the station, BurstCube will be unpacked and later released into orbit, where it will detect, locate, and study short gamma-ray bursts – brief flashes of high-energy light. “BurstCube may be small, but in addition to investigating these extreme events, it’s testing new technology and providing important experience for early career astronomers and aerospace engineers,” said Jeremy Perkins, BurstCube’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Short gamma-ray bursts usually occur after the collisions of neutron stars, the superdense remnants of massive stars that exploded in supernovae. The neutron stars can also emit gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time, as they spiral together. Astronomers are interested in studying gamma-ray bursts using both light and gravitational waves because each can teach them about different aspects of the event. This approach is part of a new way of understanding the cosmos called multimessenger astronomy. The collisions that create short gamma-ray bursts also produce heavy elements like gold and iodine, an essential ingredient for life as we know it. Currently, the only joint observation of gravitational waves and light from the same event – called GW170817 – was in 2017. It was a watershed moment in multimessenger astronomy, and the scientific community has been hoping and preparing for additional concurrent discoveries since. “BurstCube’s detectors are angled to allow us to detect and localize events over a wide area of the sky,” said Israel Martinez, research scientist and BurstCube team member at the University of Maryland, College Park and Goddard. “Our current gamma-ray missions can only see about 70% of the sky at any moment because Earth blocks their view. Increasing our coverage with satellites like BurstCube improves the odds we’ll catch more bursts coincident with gravitational wave detections.” BurstCube’s main instrument detects gamma rays with energies ranging from 50,000 to 1 million electron volts. (For comparison, visible light ranges between 2 and 3 electron volts.) #NASA #BurstCube #CubeSat The BurstCube satellite sits in its flight configuration in this photo taken in the Goddard CubeSat Lab in 2023. (NASA)

China-European Space Agency Science Mission: Einstein Probe’s First X-ray Images FriendsofNASA.org: The first images captured by the Einstein Probe (爱因斯坦探针) were revealed during the 7th Joint Workshop of the Einstein Probe Consortium, held in Beijing, China, from April 24-26, 2024. The Einstein Probe is a collaboration led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), Germany. The Einstein Probe is equipped with a new generation of X-ray instruments with high sensitivity and a very wide view, designed to observe powerful blasts of X-ray light coming from neutron stars and black holes. China's newly launched X-ray satellite Einstein Probe (EP) will help scientists further unlock valuable information about the universe by observing distant flashes from cosmic events. "The Einstein Probe can capture sudden cosmic burst events, or violent activities of celestial bodies. This kind of celestial body that suddenly appears in the universe, lasts for a few moments, and then disappears quickly is called a transient," said Yuan Weimin, chief scientist of the Einstein Probe. There are many spectacular transients and bursts in the universe from stellar activities near the solar system to gamma ray bursts from the distant early universe. They can generate huge radioactive energy in a very short period of time, concentrated in the X-ray band, producing complex and changing brightness levels like sparkling fireworks. Such transients and bursts originate from the critical stages of the formation and evolution of celestial bodies, and carry key information for studying the universe. However, due to absorption by the Earth's atmosphere, X-rays containing valuable information cannot reach the ground. "These transients are relatively far away, and their signals are relatively dim. They appear randomly in space. We don't know when and in what direction they appear. So it is difficult for current satellites to detect them, and we need a monitor with very high sensitivity and large field-of-view. That's why we developed the Einstein Probe—to capture these more remote and dimmer transients and bursts," Yuan said. International Einstein Probe X-ray Mission: https://lnkd.in/gt2PaR-R Credit: EPSC, NAO/CAS; DSS; ESO/CCTV Thanks to SciNews Duration: 1 min, 47 s Release Date: April 28, 2024 The International Astronomical Union United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) Chinese Academy of Sciences European Space Agency - ESA Centre National d'Études Spatiales German Aerospace Center (DLR) Max Planck Institute for Physics European Astronomical Society Royal Astronomical Society American Astronomical Society (AAS) National Academy of Sciences National Science Foundation (NSF) #NASA #ESA #CAS #Space #Astronomy #Science #Earth #Satellite #EinsteinProbe #爱因斯坦探针 #China #中国 #Universe #Xray #Transients #MPE #Germany #Deutschland #Europe #STEM #Education #HD #Video