Earlier today, it was announced that the Los Angeles Lakers have reached a deal with the Washington Wizards to acquire point guard Russell Westbrook...who's a 9-time NBA All-Star, a 2-time NBA scoring champion, a 1-time Olympic gold medalist and the NBA's 2017 Most Valuable Player.
In exchange for Westbrook, the Lakers will send Kyle Kuzma, Montrezl Harrell, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and the No. 22 pick in today's NBA Draft to Washington. The Wizards will also send their 2024 and 2028 second-round picks to Los Angeles to complete the deal.
While he played with fellow NBA All-Stars such as James Harden and Kevin Durant during his time with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and with Harden again on the Houston Rockets, Westbrook never won a championship.
The fact that Westbrook is returning to Los Angeles (he was born in Long Beach and advanced to the Final Four each year he played on the UCLA Bruins) shows that he is serious about completing his prolific career with an NBA title. The Milwaukee Bucks may be the newest champions, but the road to the Larry O'Brien Trophy still runs through the City of Angels once LeBron James and Anthony Davis are fully healthy again.
Here's hoping that the LeBron, AD and Westbrook trio will be reminiscent of LeBron's tenure with the Miami Heat...when he won two straight titles with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in 2012 and 2013, respectively. It's time for Westbrook to stop thinking about padding his individual stats (leave that to James Harden even though he's now on the loaded Brooklyn Nets) and help the Lake Show surpass the Boston Celtics with an 18th franchise championship. Happy Thursday!
I'm two days late, but congratulations to Hidilyn Diaz for winning the Women's 55 kg competition at the Tokyo Summer Games!
Diaz became the one Filipina weightlifter to compete in two consecutive Olympics, but last Monday marked the first time that an athlete from the Philippines earned a gold medal...which is also the only medal that the country has currently won in Japan. (There are a total of 19 Filipino athletes taking part in these Games.)
The United States, in contrast, currently ranks third in 11 gold medals and is number one with 31 medals in the 2020 Olympics.
While this is a proud moment for Pinoys everywhere, as a huge space nerd, I'll show more pride in my motherland when the first-ever Filipino astronaut launches into space. NASA's space shuttle was in operation for 30 years, and not once did a Pinoy fly on this vehicle before it was retired in 2011.
Thank God for the Artemis Accords...an international agreement in which 11 nations have currently signed with NASA to explore the Moon's surface as soon as 2024. I'm definitely hoping that the Philippines becomes one of the next signatories.
Back to topic, I'm proud of you, Diaz! I'm obviously rooting for her to win more medals during her promising Olympic career—like the great Simone Biles. Happy Wednesday.
Hubble Finds First Evidence of Water Vapor at Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede (News Release)
For the first time, astronomers have uncovered evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. This water vapor forms when ice from the moon's surface sublimates -- that is, turns from solid to gas.
Scientists used new and archival datasets from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to make the discovery, published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Previous research has offered circumstantial evidence that Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, contains more water than all of Earth's oceans. However, temperatures there are so cold that water on the surface is frozen solid. Ganymede's ocean would reside roughly 100 miles below the crust; therefore, the water vapor would not represent the evaporation of this ocean.
Astronomers re-examined Hubble observations from the last two decades to find this evidence of water vapor.
In 1998, Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph took the first ultraviolet (UV) images of Ganymede, which revealed colorful ribbons of electrified gas called auroral bands, and provided further evidence that Ganymede has a weak magnetic field.
The similarities in these UV observations were explained by the presence of molecular oxygen (O2). But some observed features did not match the expected emissions from a pure O2 atmosphere. At the same time, scientists concluded this discrepancy was likely related to higher concentrations of atomic oxygen (O).
As part of a large observing program to support NASA's Juno mission in 2018, Lorenz Roth of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden led the team that set out to measure the amount of atomic oxygen with Hubble. The team's analysis combined the data from two instruments: Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph in 2018 and archival images from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) from 1998 to 2010.
To their surprise, and contrary to the original interpretations of the data from 1998, they discovered there was hardly any atomic oxygen in Ganymede's atmosphere. This means there must be another explanation for the apparent differences in these UV aurora images.
Roth and his team then took a closer look at the relative distribution of the aurora in the UV images. Ganymede's surface temperature varies strongly throughout the day, and around noon near the equator it may become sufficiently warm that the ice surface releases (or sublimates) some small amounts of water molecules. In fact, the perceived differences in the UV images are directly correlated with where water would be expected in the moon's atmosphere.
"So far only the molecular oxygen had been observed," explained Roth. "This is produced when charged particles erode the ice surface. The water vapor that we measured now originates from ice sublimation caused by the thermal escape of water vapor from warm icy regions."
This finding adds anticipation to ESA (European Space Agency)'s upcoming mission, JUICE, which stands for JUpiter ICy moons Explorer. JUICE is the first large-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program. Planned for launch in 2022 and arrival at Jupiter in 2029, it will spend at least three years making detailed observations of Jupiter and three of its largest moons, with particular emphasis on Ganymede as a planetary body and potential habitat.
Ganymede was identified for detailed investigation because it provides a natural laboratory for analysis of the nature, evolution and potential habitability of icy worlds in general, the role it plays within the system of Galilean satellites, and its unique magnetic and plasma interactions with Jupiter and its environment.
"Our results can provide the JUICE instrument teams with valuable information that may be used to refine their observation plans to optimize the use of the spacecraft," added Roth.
Right now, NASA's Juno mission is taking a close look at Ganymede and recently released new imagery of the icy moon. Juno has been studying Jupiter and its environment, also known as the Jovian system, since 2016.
Understanding the Jovian system and unravelling its history, from its origin to the possible emergence of habitable environments, will provide us with a better understanding of how gas giant planets and their satellites form and evolve. In addition, new insights will hopefully be found on the habitability of Jupiter-like exoplanetary systems.
The Hubble Space Telescope 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. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.
Astronomers Make First Clear Detection of a Moon-forming Disc Around an Exoplanet (Press Release - July 22)
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter /submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, astronomers have unambiguously detected the presence of a disc around a planet outside our Solar System for the first time. The observations will shed new light on how moons and planets form in young stellar systems.
“Our work presents a clear detection of a disc in which satellites could be forming,” says Myriam Benisty, a researcher at the University of Grenoble, France, and at the University of Chile, who led the new research published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “Our ALMA observations were obtained at such exquisite resolution that we could clearly identify that the disc is associated with the planet and we are able to constrain its size for the first time,” she adds.
The disc in question, called a circumplanetary disc, surrounds the exoplanet PDS 70c, one of two giant, Jupiter-like planets orbiting a star nearly 400 light-years away. Astronomers had found hints of a “moon-forming” disc around this exoplanet before but, since they could not clearly tell the disc apart from its surrounding environment, they could not confirm its detection — until now.
In addition, with the help of ALMA, Benisty and her team found that the disc has about the same diameter as the distance from our Sun to the Earth and enough mass to form up to three satellites the size of the Moon.
But the results are not only key to finding out how moons arise. “These new observations are also extremely important to prove theories of planet formation that could not be tested until now,” says Jaehan Bae, a researcher from the Earth and Planets Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science, USA, and author on the study.
Planets form in dusty discs around young stars, carving out cavities as they gobble up material from this circumstellar disc to grow. In this process, a planet can acquire its own circumplanetary disc, which contributes to the growth of the planet by regulating the amount of material falling onto it. At the same time, the gas and dust in the circumplanetary disc can come together into progressively larger bodies through multiple collisions, ultimately leading to the birth of moons.
But astronomers do not yet fully understand the details of these processes. “In short, it is still unclear when, where, and how planets and moons form,” explains ESO Research Fellow Stefano Facchini, also involved in the research.
“More than 4000 exoplanets have been found until now, but all of them were detected in mature systems. PDS 70b and PDS 70c, which form a system reminiscent of the Jupiter-Saturn pair, are the only two exoplanets detected so far that are still in the process of being formed,” explains Miriam Keppler, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany and one of the co-authors of the study.
“This system therefore offers us a unique opportunity to observe and study the processes of planet and satellite formation,” Facchini adds.
PDS 70b and PDS 70c, the two planets making up the system, were first discovered using ESO’s Very Large Telescope in 2018 and 2019 respectively, and their unique nature means they have been observed with other telescopes and instruments many times since.
The latest high resolution ALMA observations have now allowed astronomers to gain further insights into the system. In addition to confirming the detection of the circumplanetary disc around PDS 70c and studying its size and mass, they found that PDS 70b does not show clear evidence of such a disc, indicating that it was starved of dust material from its birth environment by PDS 70c.
An even deeper understanding of the planetary system will be achieved with ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean Atacama desert. “The ELT will be key for this research since, with its much higher resolution, we will be able to map the system in great detail,” says co-author Richard Teague, a researcher at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, USA. In particular, by using the ELT’s Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph, the team will be able to look at the gas motions surrounding PDS 70c to get a full 3D picture of the system.
NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Europa Clipper Mission (Press Release - July 23)
NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for Earth’s first mission to conduct detailed investigations of Jupiter's moon Europa.
The Europa Clipper mission will launch in October 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The total contract award amount for launch services is approximately $178 million.
Europa Clipper will conduct a detailed survey of Europa and use a sophisticated suite of science instruments to investigate whether the icy moon has conditions suitable for life. Key mission objectives are to produce high-resolution images of Europa's surface, determine its composition, look for signs of recent or ongoing geological activity, measure the thickness of the moon’s icy shell, search for subsurface lakes, and determine the depth and salinity of Europa's ocean.
NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy will manage the Europa Clipper launch service. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
So for the past 4.5 hours, I've been watching NBC's delayed broadcast of the opening ceremony for the 2020 Summer Olympics (yes, that year is still being used for these Games) in Tokyo, Japan.
Obviously, this ceremony would've been much more exciting if there was a full capacity of 68,000 people in the stands at Japan National Stadium...but it's amazing that these Games are even being played considering the fact the world is nowhere near reaching the end of the coronavirus pandemic.
There were some entertaining moments, nonetheless, with the obvious highlights being the Parade of Nations (Team USA consists of 613 athletes while Japan's delegation is made up of 631 competitors) and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron. Naomi Osaka—the 4-time Grand Slam champion and reigning US Open winner who feels that the mandatory post-game press conference is needlessly stressful—was the final torchbearer who lit the cauldron with the Olympic flame.
The Tokyo Games will last through August 8. And next year, those Commie goofballs in Beijing will host the 2022 Winter Games while Paris and Los Angeles will conduct the Summer Olympics in 2024 and 2028, respectively. As someone who lives in Southern California, guess which one I'm most excited for? Have a nice weekend.
Getty Images
PS: The last time the Olympic Games were played in an odd-numbered year was 393 AD. Roman emperor Theodosius I, a Christian (well obviously), sought to ban all “pagan” festivals, ending the ancient Olympic tradition...which took place in Olympia, Greece every 4 years since 776 BC. What a killjoy. (Thanks for the trivia, History.com!)
NASA's InSight Reveals the Deep Interior of Mars (News Release)
Three papers published today share new details on the crust, mantle, and molten core of the Red Planet.
Before NASA’s InSight spacecraft touched down on Mars in 2018, the rovers and orbiters studying the Red Planet concentrated on its surface. The stationary lander’s seismometer has changed that, revealing details about the planet’s deep interior for the first time.
Three papers based on the seismometer’s data were published today in Science, providing details on the depth and composition of Mars’ crust, mantle, and core, including confirmation that the planet’s center is molten. Earth’s outer core is molten, while its inner core is solid; scientists will continue to use InSight’s data to determine whether the same holds true for Mars.
“When we first started putting together the concept of the mission more than a decade ago, the information in these papers is what we hoped to get at the end,” said InSight’s principal investigator Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads the mission. “This represents the culmination of all the work and worry over the past decade.”
InSight’s seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), has recorded 733 distinct marsquakes. About 35 of those – all between magnitudes 3.0 and 4.0 – provided the data for the three papers. The ultrasensitive seismometer enables scientists to “hear” seismic events from hundreds to thousands of miles away.
Peering Into Mars
Seismic waves vary in speed and shape when traveling through different materials inside a planet. Those variations on Mars have given seismologists a way to study the planet’s inner structure. In turn, what the scientists learn about Mars can help improve the understanding of how all rocky planets – including Earth – formed.
Like Earth, Mars heated up as it formed from the dust and larger clumps of meteoritic material orbiting the Sun that helped to shape our early solar system. Over the first tens of millions of years, the planet separated into three distinct layers – the crust, mantle, and core – in a process called differentiation. Part of InSight’s mission was to measure the depth, size, and structure of these three layers.
Each of the papers in Science focuses on a different layer. The scientists found the crust was thinner than expected and may have two or even three sub-layers. It goes as deep as 12 miles (20 kilometers) if there are two sub-layers, or 23 miles (37 kilometers) if there are three.
Beneath that is the mantle, which extends 969 miles (1,560 kilometers) below the surface.
At the heart of Mars is the core, which has a radius of 1,137 miles (1,830 kilometers). Confirming the size of the molten core was especially exciting for the team. “This study is a once-in-a-lifetime chance,” said Simon Stähler of the Swiss research university ETH Zurich, lead author of the core paper. “It took scientists hundreds of years to measure Earth’s core; after the Apollo missions, it took them 40 years to measure the Moon’s core. InSight took just two years to measure Mars’ core.”
Hunting for Wiggles
The earthquakes most people feel come from faults caused by tectonic plates shifting. Unlike Earth, Mars has no tectonic plates; its crust is instead like one giant plate. But faults, or rock fractures, still form in the Martian crust due to stresses caused by the slight shrinking of the planet as it continues to cool.
InSight scientists spend much of their time searching for bursts of vibration in seismograms, where the tiniest wiggle on a line can represent a quake or, for that matter, noise created by wind. If seismogram wiggles follow certain known patterns (and if the wind is not gusting at the same time), there’s a chance they could be a quake.
The initial wiggles are primary, or P, waves, which are followed by secondary, or S, waves. These waves can also show up again later in the seismogram after reflecting off layers inside the planet.
“What we’re looking for is an echo,” said Amir Khan of ETH Zurich, lead author of the paper on the mantle. “We’re detecting a direct sound – the quake – and then listening for an echo off a reflector deep underground.”
These echoes can even help scientists find changes within a single layer, like the sub-layers within the crust.
“Layering within the crust is something we see all the time on Earth,” said Brigitte Knapmeyer-Endrun of the University of Cologne, lead author on the paper about the crust. “A seismogram’s wiggles can reveal properties like a change in porosity or a more fractured layer.”
One surprise is that all of InSight’s most significant quakes appear to have come from one area, Cerberus Fossae, a region volcanically active enough that lava may have flowed there within the last few million years. Orbiting spacecraft have spotted the tracks of boulders that may have rolled down steep slopes after being shaken loose by marsquakes.
Curiously, no quakes have been detected from more prominent volcanic regions, like Tharsis, home to three of the biggest volcanoes on Mars. But it’s possible many quakes – including larger ones – are occurring that InSight can’t detect. That’s because of shadow zones caused by the core refracting seismic waves away from certain areas, preventing a quake’s echo from reaching InSight.
Waiting for the Big One
These results are only the beginning. Scientists now have hard data to refine their models of Mars and its formation, and SEIS detects new marsquakes every day. While InSight’s energy level is being managed, its seismometer is still listening and scientists are hopeful they’ll detect a quake bigger than 4.0.
“We’d still love to see the big one,” said JPL’s Mark Panning, co-lead author of the paper on the crust. “We have to do lots of careful processing to pull the things we want from this data. Having a bigger event would make all of this easier.”
Panning and other InSight scientists will share their findings at 9 a.m. PDT (12 p.m. EDT) on July 23 in a livestreamed discussion on NASA Television, the NASA app, the agency’s website, and multiple agency social media platforms, including the JPL YouTube and Facebook channels.
NASA Perseverance Mars Rover to Acquire First Sample (Press Release)
NASA is making final preparations for its Perseverance Mars rover to collect its first-ever sample of Martian rock, which future planned missions will transport to Earth. The six-wheeled geologist is searching for a scientifically interesting target in a part of Jezero Crater called the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough.”
This important mission milestone is expected to begin within the next two weeks. Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater Feb. 18, and NASA kicked off the rover mission’s science phase June 1, exploring a 1.5-square-mile (4-square-kilometer) patch of crater floor that may contain Jezero’s deepest and most ancient layers of exposed bedrock.
“When Neil Armstrong took the first sample from the Sea of Tranquility 52 years ago, he began a process that would rewrite what humanity knew about the Moon,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters. “I have every expectation that Perseverance’s first sample from Jezero Crater, and those that come after, will do the same for Mars. We are on the threshold of a new era of planetary science and discovery.”
It took Armstrong 3 minutes and 35 seconds to collect that first Moon sample. Perseverance will require about 11 days to complete its first sampling, as it must receive its instructions from hundreds of millions of miles away while relying on the most complex and capable, as well as the cleanest, mechanism ever to be sent into space – the Sampling and Caching System.
Precision Instruments Working Together
The sampling sequence begins with the rover placing everything necessary for sampling within reach of its 7-foot (2-meter) long robotic arm. It will then perform an imagery survey, so NASA’s science team can determine the exact location for taking the first sample, and a separate target site in the same area for “proximity science.”
“The idea is to get valuable data on the rock we are about to sample by finding its geologic twin and performing detailed in-situ analysis,” said science campaign co-lead Vivian Sun, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “On the geologic double, first we use an abrading bit to scrape off the top layers of rock and dust to expose fresh, unweathered surfaces, blow it clean with our Gas Dust Removal Tool, and then get up close and personal with our turret-mounted proximity science instruments SHERLOC, PIXL, and WATSON.”
SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals), PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry), and the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera will provide mineral and chemical analysis of the abraded target. Perseverance’s SuperCam and Mastcam-Z instruments, both located on the rover’s mast, will also participate. While SuperCam fires its laser at the abraded surface, spectroscopically measuring the resulting plume and collecting other data, Mastcam-Z will capture high-resolution imagery.
Working together, these five instruments will enable unprecedented analysis of geological materials at the worksite.
“After our pre-coring science is complete, we will limit rover tasks for a sol, or a Martian day,” said Sun. “This will allow the rover to fully charge its battery for the events of the following day.”
Sampling day kicks off with the sample-handling arm within the Adaptive Caching Assembly retrieving a sample tube, heating it, and then inserting it into a coring bit. A device called the bit carousel transports the tube and bit to a rotary-percussive drill on Perseverance’s robotic arm, which will then drill the untouched geologic “twin” of the rock studied the previous sol, filling the tube with a core sample roughly the size of a piece of chalk.
Perseverance’s arm will then move the bit-and-tube combination back into the bit carousel, which will transfer it back into the Adaptive Caching Assembly, where the sample will be measured for volume, photographed, hermetically sealed, and stored. The next time the sample tube contents are seen, they will be in a clean room facility on Earth, for analysis using scientific instruments much too large to send to Mars.
“Not every sample Perseverance is collecting will be done in the quest for ancient life, and we don’t expect this first sample to provide definitive proof one way or the other,” said Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley, of Caltech. “While the rocks located in this geologic unit are not great time capsules for organics, we believe they have been around since the formation of Jezero Crater and incredibly valuable to fill gaps in our geologic understanding of this region – things we’ll desperately need to know if we find life once existed on Mars.”
More About the Mission
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is the first step in NASA’s Mars Sample Return Campaign. Subsequent NASA missions, now in development in cooperation with the European Space Agency, would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California.
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Preparations are underway for @NASAPersevere to collect the first-ever Martian rock core. It’ll take our rover ~11 days to complete its first sample-taking, and it will rely on the complex and clean Sampling & Caching System at the end of its robotic arm. https://t.co/Qhc0JDfnEapic.twitter.com/Re0L3mZ2FK
Congratulations to the Milwaukee Bucks for defeating the Phoenix Suns tonight and winning their first NBA championship in 50 years! I was actually rooting for the Suns (since they beat the L.A. Clippers, who I despise as a Lakers fan), but the Bucks' latest title should resonate with folks who still miss Kobe Bryant one-and-a-half years after he passed away. In 2017, Kobe challenged the Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo to win the NBA's Most Valuable Player award...which he did in 2019 and last year, respectively. Making Kobe's challenge all the more significant is the fact that Antetokounmpo now has a Finals MVP trophy in his collection. The Mamba's legacy continues to live on—even with those who don't play for the Lakers.
On a related note, will the Lakers join the Bucks during their eventual visit to the White House? The L.A. Dodgers celebrated their 2020 World Series title with President Biden and Vice President Harris about three weeks ago, while the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers dropped by the White House earlier today. COVID-19 protocols stopped LeBron James, Anthony Davis and company from meeting Biden and Harris after they took office... It would be great if the Lake Show was given a second opportunity to hand customized jerseys to the two most powerful people in the world as well. We'll see.
Hubble Returns to Full Science Observations and Releases New Images (News Release)
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is back in business, exploring the universe near and far. The science instruments have returned to full operation, following recovery from a computer anomaly that suspended the telescope’s observations for more than a month.
Science observations restarted the afternoon of Saturday, July 17. The telescope’s targets this past weekend included the unusual galaxies shown in the images above.
“I’m thrilled to see that Hubble has its eye back on the universe, once again capturing the kind of images that have intrigued and inspired us for decades,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “This is a moment to celebrate the success of a team truly dedicated to the mission. Through their efforts, Hubble will continue its 32nd year of discovery, and we will continue to learn from the observatory’s transformational vision.”
These snapshots, from a program led by Julianne Dalcanton of the University of Washington in Seattle, feature a galaxy with unusual extended spiral arms and the first high-resolution glimpse at an intriguing pair of colliding galaxies. Other initial targets for Hubble included globular star clusters and aurorae on the giant planet Jupiter.
Hubble’s payload computer, which controls and coordinates the observatory’s onboard science instruments, halted suddenly on June 13. When the main computer failed to receive a signal from the payload computer, it automatically placed Hubble’s science instruments into safe mode. That meant the telescope would no longer be doing science while mission specialists analyzed the situation.
The Hubble team moved quickly to investigate what ailed the observatory, which orbits about 340 miles (547 kilometers) above Earth. Working from mission control at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, as well as remotely due to COVID-19 restrictions, engineers collaborated to figure out the cause of the problem.
Complicating matters, Hubble was launched in 1990 and has been observing the universe for over 31 years. To fix a telescope built in the 1980s, the team had to draw on the knowledge of staff from across its lengthy history.
Hubble alumni returned to support the current team in the recovery effort, lending decades of mission expertise. Retired staff who helped build the telescope, for example, knew the ins and outs of the Science Instrument and Command & Data Handling unit, where the payload computer resides – critical expertise for determining next steps for recovery. Other former team members lent a hand by scouring Hubble’s original paperwork, surfacing 30- to 40-year-old documents that would help the team chart a path forward.
“That’s one of the benefits of a program that’s been running for over 30 years: the incredible amount of experience and expertise,” said Nzinga Tull, Hubble systems anomaly response manager at Goddard. “It’s been humbling and inspiring to engage with both the current team and those who have moved on to other projects. There’s so much dedication to their fellow Hubble teammates, the observatory, and the science Hubble is famous for.”
Together, team members new and old worked their way through the list of likely culprits, seeking to isolate the issue to ensure they have a full inventory for the future of which hardware is still working.
At first, the team thought the likeliest problem was a degrading memory module, but switching to backup modules failed to resolve the issue. The team then designed and ran tests, which involved turning on Hubble’s backup payload computer for the first time in space, to determine whether two other components could be responsible: the Standard Interface hardware, which bridges communications between the computer’s Central Processing Module and other components, or the Central Processing Module itself. Turning on the backup computer did not work, however, eliminating these possibilities as well.
The team then moved on to explore whether other hardware was at fault, including the Command Unit/Science Data Formatter and the Power Control Unit, which is designed to ensure a steady voltage supply to the payload computer’s hardware. However, it would be more complicated to address either of these issues, and riskier for the telescope in general. Switching to these components’ backup units would require switching several other hardware boxes as well.
“The switch required 15 hours of spacecraft commanding from the ground. The main computer had to be turned off, and a backup safe mode computer temporarily took over the spacecraft. Several boxes also had to be powered on that were never turned on before in space, and other hardware needed their interfaces switched,” said Jim Jeletic, Hubble deputy project manager at Goddard. “There was no reason to believe that all of this wouldn’t work, but it’s the team’s job to be nervous and think of everything that could go wrong and how we might compensate for it. The team meticulously planned and tested every small step on the ground to make sure they got it right.”
The team proceeded carefully and systematically from there. Over the following two weeks, more than 50 people worked to review, update, and vet the procedures to switch to backup hardware, testing them on a high-fidelity simulator and holding a formal review of the proposed plan.
Simultaneously, the team analyzed the data from their earlier tests, and their findings pointed to the Power Control Unit as the possible cause of the issue. On July 15, they made the planned switch to the backup side of the Science Instrument and Command & Data Handling unit, which contains the backup Power Control Unit.
Victory came around 11:30 p.m. EDT July 15, when the team determined the switch was successful. The science instruments were then brought to operational status, and Hubble began taking scientific data once again on July 17. Most observations missed while science operations were suspended will be rescheduled.
This is not the first time Hubble has had to rely on backup hardware. The team performed a similar switch in 2008, returning Hubble to normal operations after another part of the Science Instrument and Command & Data Handling (SI C&DH) unit failed. Hubble’s final servicing mission in 2009 – a much-needed tune-up championed by former U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski – then replaced the entire SI C&DH unit, greatly extending Hubble’s operational lifetime.
Since that servicing mission, Hubble has taken more than 600,000 observations, bringing its lifetime total to more than 1.5 million. Those observations continue to change our understanding of the universe.
“Hubble is in good hands. The Hubble team has once again shown its resiliency and prowess in addressing the inevitable anomalies that arise from operating the world’s most famous telescope in the harshness of space,” said Kenneth Sembach, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, which conducts Hubble science operations. “I am impressed by the team’s dedication and common purpose over the past month to return Hubble to service. Now that Hubble is once again providing unprecedented views of the universe, I fully expect it will continue to astound us with many more scientific discoveries ahead.”
Hubble has contributed to some of the most significant discoveries of our cosmos, including the accelerating expansion of the universe, the evolution of galaxies over time, and the first atmospheric studies of planets beyond our solar system. Its mission was to spend at least 15 years probing the farthest and faintest reaches of the cosmos, and it continues to far exceed this goal.
“The sheer volume of record-breaking science Hubble has delivered is staggering,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “We have so much to learn from this next chapter of Hubble's life – on its own, and together with the capabilities of other NASA observatories. I couldn’t be more excited about what the Hubble team has achieved over the past few weeks. They’ve met the challenges of this process head on, ensuring that Hubble's days of exploration are far from over."
So I don't know who to hate more: A.) MAGA supporters, B.) Republicans in general, C.) anti-vaxxers (these three aren't mutually exclusive), D.) die-hard SpaceX fanboys who won't shut up about Starship, or E.) those astronomers who announced the discovery of phosphine in Venus' atmosphere last year?
The answer is E.
Until NASA greenlights another New Horizons-type mission to the outer Solar System and beyond (which I've been waiting to happen for almost 16 years now), I'll never forgive those astronomers for relegatingTrident to nothing more than a computer-generated concept. To hell with them and to hell with Venus...overlooking the fact that Venus is already a hellish world. With no real future in human space exploration. That is all.
Astrobotic’s MoonRanger Moves into Final Production (Press Release)
NASA Approves MoonRanger Rover for Final Construction
Astrobotic announced today that MoonRanger, an autonomous rover that will explore the lunar South Pole in 2022, passed NASA’s Key Decision Point (KDP) review and is in the final stage of the payload preparation phase, culminating in flight hardware fabrication.
By passing the KDP, Astrobotic, subcontractor Carnegie Mellon University, and partner NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley have proven MoonRanger’s cost, schedule, and technical design are viable. The completion of this milestone is a green light from NASA to continue to delivery.
“MoonRanger will be the first truly autonomous micro-rover on the lunar surface. It is designed to map its surroundings and make intelligent navigational decisions based on what it sees without being guided, supervised, or teleoperated from Earth,” says Joe Zimo, Lead Systems Engineer for Planetary Mobility at Astrobotic.
MoonRanger’s autonomy software will build 3D maps of the lunar surface and demonstrate long-range and communication-denied exploration. Using visual odometry with a stereo camera system and a sun sensor, the rover can independently orient itself on the lunar surface. Its mobility system will provide valuable insight on how lunar regolith affects small rover scale motors.
About the size of a small suitcase, MoonRanger will map the lunar surface using NASA’s Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS). The NSS will search for indications of water ice up to 1 meter beneath the lunar surface and is considered a precursor to NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover(VIPER) and future Artemis missions.
“This is an ambitious mission with a relatively miniscule budget when compared with past rover missions of similar scope. I commend our team for developing such a capable, meaningful system and mission,” says Zimo.
MoonRanger’s next major milestone is a System Integration Review (SIR) around February 2022. After successful completion of SIR, the rover will be fully assembled, tested, and integrated with a lunar lander. MoonRanger will then be delivered to the Moon through the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program in 2023.
Just felt like posting this drawing that I made of a Gundam back in college 20 years ago! Inspired by the Epyon from the anime TV series Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, I believe that this is the only artwork that I've ever digitally colored (using Microsoft Paint, heh). I usually use good old-fashioned Crayola markers for my illustrations...and yet with digital coloring, this Gundam illustration is still in black and white. Happy Hump Day!
Just thought I'd share this image of the total solar eclipse that could be seen from both American continents on July 11, 1991. I myself didn't personally view the eclipse [since my family didn't yet have a telescope (with a solar filter on it, obviously)], but I was so stoked to watch live coverage of it on television that day, as well as see a giant photo of the eclipse make the front page of the Los Angeles Times newspaper on July 12 three decades ago. (I lived in L.A. County back then, and I still live there today.) This eclipse, according to Wikipedia, was the most central total eclipse in 8 centuries—and there will not be a more central eclipse for another 800 years! I was 11 years-old at this time, with my passion for astronomy and space exploration being at an all-time high that year...until NASA's New Horizons mission enhanced my obsession tenfold (but not really in a positive way)in 2005, that is.
Happy Tuesday, everyone! Just thought I'd share that ShibaSwap, the new portal that was created by the same folks behind the Shiba Inu coin ($SHIB—which I proudly own), is now live online! For those of you wondering what ShibaSwap is, here's a copy-and-paste explanation for it: ShibaSwap is a decentralized exchange, or DEX, which will allow users to trade among Shiba Inu and other cryptocurrency tokens [such as Dogecoin Killer ($LEASH) and Bone ($BONE)]—and make transactions among these cryptos easy. You can either 'bury' these tokens or 'stake' them on this exchange, thus earning income at a very low risk. As of this Blog entry, ShibaSwap now has a Total Value Lock of at least $727 million since it finally became available for use today...which shows that this exchange was much highly-anticipated, and has a bright future in the crypto world.
Why is #SHIBASWAP such a big deal? How does it work? Wallet? How do I use it? Why $SHIB, $LEASH and $BONE tokens and not just one token?
So if you're thinking about getting your feet wet in the cryptocurrency world, Shiba Inu is the token to buy! And you'll be able to put your investment to good use, and most likely add to it, by trying out ShibaSwap as well. Today is, after all, “Shibapendence Day." Celebrate this special occasion by becoming the newest member of the SHIB Army! And no, I wasn't paid to type this. Considering the fact that I currently have 54 million SHIB coins in my wallet, I'd be a fool not to increase their value by promoting the masterpiece that is ShibaSwap on my Blog. Shiba Inu to the Moon! Carry on.
