It was on February 28, 2007, that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft used Jupiter as a gravity assist on its way to the dwarf planet Pluto—which New Horizons visited on July 14, 2015. This amazing composite image of Jupiter (captured in the infrared on February 28, 2007) and its volcanic moon Io (photographed in visible light on March 1, 2007) was taken by the robotic probe before it spent the next eight years venturing out to Pluto and then the Kuiper Belt region.
It remains to be seen if NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will be able to scope out another Kuiper Belt Object (after Arrokoth, which New Horizons flew past on January 1, 2019) for New Horizons to explore over the coming years...
Happy end of February!
NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Goddard Space Flight Center
Just thought I'd share these pictures that I took last Friday of the new Performing Arts Center (PAC) at Bishop Amat Memorial High School...my alma mater. I graduated from Amat in June of 1998.
I love the PAC's architectural design—as it makes me think about the sleek shape of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. The only difference is, the PAC's structure is comprised of well-placed bricks while the Disney Hall is adorned by twisted metal.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the PAC is set to take place this May, I believe, while the very first theatrical show that will be held inside this auditorium is a student rendition of The Little Mermaid. I'm not planning to watch this production (unless I had kids who went to Amat, which I don't)...but I'll definitely head back to see if I can view the interior of this beautiful building next time.
The PAC's front doors were locked when I tried to enter last week. Happy Sunday!
Webb continues on its path to becoming a focused observatory. The team has successfully worked through the second and third out of seven total phases of mirror alignment. With the completion of these phases, called Segment Alignment and Image Stacking, the team will now begin making smaller adjustments to the positions of Webb’s mirrors.
After moving what were 18 scattered dots of starlight into Webb’s signature hexagonal formation, the team refined each mirror segment’s image by making minor adjustments, while also changing the alignment of Webb’s secondary mirror. The completion of this process, known as Segment Alignment, was a key step prior to overlapping the light from all the mirrors so that they can work in unison.
Once Segment Alignment was achieved, the focused dots reflected by each mirror were then stacked on top of each other, delivering photons of light from each segment to the same location on NIRCam’s sensor. During this process, called Image Stacking, the team activated sets of six mirrors at a time and commanded them to repoint their light to overlap, until all dots of starlight overlapped with each other.
“We still have work to do, but we are increasingly pleased with the results we’re seeing,” said Lee Feinberg, optical telescope element manager for Webb at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Years of planning and testing are paying dividends, and the team could not be more excited to see what the next few weeks and months bring.”
Although Image Stacking put all the light from a star in one place on NIRCam’s detector, the mirror segments are still acting as 18 small telescopes rather than one big one. The segments now need to be lined up to each other with an accuracy smaller than the wavelength of the light.
The team is now starting the fourth phase of mirror alignment, known as Coarse Phasing, where NIRCam is used to capture light spectra from 20 separate pairings of mirror segments. This helps the team identify and correct vertical displacement between the mirror segments, or small differences in their heights. This will make the single dot of starlight progressively sharper and more focused in the coming weeks.
#NASAWebb has completed 2 more phases of its 3-month mirror alignment process: First, the team made adjustments to its mirror segments & updated the alignment of its secondary mirror, refining each of the 18 dots of starlight from its 18 mirror segments. #UnfoldTheUniversepic.twitter.com/2H4EMAo8ck
U.S. F-35s Forward Deploy to NATO’s Eastern Flank (Press Release)
SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany -- Six U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II aircraft assigned to the 34th Fighter Squadron currently operating out of Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, forward deployed, Feb. 24, to the Baltic Sea and Black Sea regions in support of NATO’s collective defense.
The fifth-generation aircraft, originally from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, will be supporting NATO’s Enhanced Air Policing mission for a period of time from forward operating locations at Estonia’s Amari Air Base, Lithuania’s Siauliai Air Base, and Romania’s Fetesti Air Base.
“We are facing a dynamic environment, and the deployment of F-35s to NATO’s eastern flank enhances our defensive posture and amplifies the Alliance’s interoperability,” said Gen. Jeff Harrigian, U.S. Air Force in Europe – Air Forces Africa commander.
The F-35 provides unprecedented communication capabilities, command and control, and lethality for the combined and joint force. These capabilities afford NATO leaders the flexibility to project power and assert air dominance in highly-contested environments.
USAFE’s ability to support and integrate with NATO’s air policing missions continually hardens the alliance’s solidarity, collective resolve, and ability to adapt to a dynamic warfighting environment.
Statement by President Biden on Russia’s Unprovoked and Unjustified Attack on Ukraine (Press Release)
The prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine tonight as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces. President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering. Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its Allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable.
I will be monitoring the situation from the White House this evening and will continue to get regular updates from my national security team. Tomorrow, I will meet with my G7 counterparts in the morning and then speak to the American people to announce the further consequences the United States and our Allies and partners will impose on Russia for this needless act of aggression against Ukraine and global peace and security. We will also coordinate with our NATO Allies to ensure a strong, united response that deters any aggression against the Alliance. Tonight, Jill and I are praying for the brave and proud people of Ukraine.
If you’re an American, and your not tracking on #Ukraine, now is the time to start. This is just not another foreign policy blip. This is potentially bigger & more deadly than anything we’ve seen since WW2. This could have generational consequences globally. This will impact you.
Watching Putin attack Ukraine, putting people’s lives at risk in furtherance of his own goals, should be a cautionary tale for Americans who think we need our own version of an authoritarian leader in 2024.
Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador directly addressed his Russian counterpart at conclusion of U.N. Security Council meeting: “There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, Ambassador.” https://t.co/iqOY0jHTUupic.twitter.com/sybeINLSJj
That’s it. Throw every fucking economic sanction under the sun at Russia now. NOW. Shut down every Russian bank, deny Russia any money from the West, turn every Russian oligarch into a fucking pauper, bring Russia’s fucking economy to its knees.
Day of Discovery: 7 Earth-Size Planets (News Release)
Five years ago, astronomers revealed a spectacular collection of other worlds: the TRAPPIST-1 system.
Newspapers around the world printed the discovery on their front pages: Astronomers had found that a red dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1 was home to a close-knit family of seven Earth-size planets. NASA announced the system Feb. 22, 2017.
Using telescopes on the ground and in space, scientists revealed one of the most unusual planetary systems yet found beyond our Sun and opened the tantalizing question: Are any of these worlds habitable – a suitable home for life?
Five years later, the planets are still enigmatic. Since the first announcement, subsequent studies have revealed that the TRAPPIST-1 planets are rocky, that they could be almost twice as old as our solar system, and that they are located 41 light-years from Earth.
But a real game-changer will be the recently-launched James Webb Space Telescope. Larger and more powerful than any previous space telescope, Webb will look for signs of atmospheres on the TRAPPIST-1 planets.
“That folks are even able to ask the question about whether a planet around another star is habitable – that just boggles my mind,” said Sean Carey, manager of the Exoplanet Science Institute at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Carey was part of the team that helped discover some of the TRAPPIST-1 planets using data from the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope.
A prime target for Webb is the fourth planet from the star, called TRAPPIST-1e. It’s right smack in the middle of what scientists call the habitable zone, also known as the Goldilocks zone. This is the orbital distance from a star where the amount of heating is right to allow liquid water on the surface of a planet.
Though the planets are tightly packed around TRAPPIST-1, the red dwarf star is not only far cooler than our Sun, it is less than 10% its size. (In fact, if the entire system were placed in our own solar system, it would fit within the orbit of our innermost planet, Mercury.)
Searching for Atmospheres
The habitable zone is just a first cut. A potentially habitable planet also would require a suitable atmosphere, and Webb, especially in its early observations, is likely to gain only a partial indication of whether an atmosphere is present.
“What is at stake here is the first atmosphere characterization of a terrestrial Earth-size planet in the habitable zone,” said Michaël Gillon, an astronomer at the University of Liege in Belgium and the lead author of the study that revealed the seven sibling planets in 2017.
Measurements with the Hubble Space Telescope added more information about habitability. While Hubble does not have the power to determine whether the planets possess potentially habitable atmospheres, it did find that at least three of the planets – d, e, and f – do not appear to have the puffy, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres of gas giants, such as Neptune, in our solar system. Such planets are thought to be less likely to support life.
That leaves open the possibility of “the atmospheres’ potential to support liquid water on the surface,” said Nikole Lewis, a planetary scientist at Cornell University.
Lewis is part of a science team that will use the Webb telescope, which will view the heavens in infrared light, to hunt for signs of an atmosphere on TRAPPIST-1e, the one with the Goldilocks perch in the habitable zone.
“The hope is that we see carbon dioxide, a really strong feature, right at the wavelengths [detectable by] Webb,” she said. “Once we know where there are little things peaking up above the noise, we can go back and do a much higher resolution look in that area.”
The size of the TRAPPIST-1 planets also might help to strengthen the case for habitability, though the research is far from conclusive.
They’re comparable to Earth not just in diameter but mass. Narrowing down the mass of the planets was possible, thanks to their tight bunching around TRAPPIST-1: Packed shoulder to shoulder, they jostle one another, enabling scientists to compute their likely range of mass from those gravitational effects.
“We have gotten some really good information about their size – mass and radius,” said Cornell’s Lewis. “That means we know about their densities.”
The densities suggest the planets might be composed of materials found in terrestrial planets like Earth.
Scientists use computer models of possible planetary atmosphere formation and evolution to try to narrow down their possible composition, and these will be critical for the TRAPPIST-1 planets, Lewis said.
“The great thing about the TRAPPIST system is that it is going to allow us to refine those models either way – whether they will end up being just barren rock or end up being potentially habitable worlds,” she said.
For Gillon, another great thing about the system is the reach of the TRAPPIST-1 system. “I’ve seen TRAPPIST-1 included in some artistic works; I’ve seen it in music, sci-fi novels, comics,” he said. “That’s really something we have enjoyed during these five years. It’s like this system has a life of its own.”
So yesterday, I received an R2-D2 version of Bandai's Tamagotchi digital pet that I ordered through Amazon.com on Saturday—and received less than 24 hours later thanks to Amazon Prime's one-day delivery.
Majdolene, my very-lovely and talented actress from my short film The Broken Table, sent me an ad for this cool Star Wars collectible via Instagram over a week ago...and needless to say, I couldn't wait to buy it since. Of course, I still got ways to go in terms of learning how to properly take care of R2-D2, as I might've caused him to explode when I pressed the wrong button to do maintenance on the Astromech droid earlier today! My bad.
Tamagotchis were extremely popular during my last two years in high school (from late 1996 to early '98), but I never bought one till now. Better late than never, I guess!
Being a huge fan of Star Wars for the past 27 years will pique my level of interest like that. Happy Monday (and President's Day to my fellow Yanks)!
Almost two hours ago, I watched NBC's taped broadcast of the Winter Games' closing ceremony in Beijing, China. It was a fun 16 days!
Even though the United States finished in the fourth spot with 8 gold medals, and 25 medals overall, it was a thrill to see Team USA members Chloe Kim (women’s halfpipe snowboarding), Nathan Chen (figure skating), Erin Jackson (speedskating), Alex Hall (freestyle skiing), Kaillie Humphries (bobsled), Ashley Caldwell, Christopher Lillis, Justin Schoenefeld (all three for freestyle skiing), Nick Baumgartner and Lindsey Jacobellis (both for mixed-team snowboard cross; Jacobellis won another medal for women’s snowboard cross) win gold at these Olympic Games.
Looking to the future, I'm totally stoked for the 2026 Milano Cortina Games in Italy. For starters, Olympians will be snowboarding and skiing on actual snow four years from now!
But in the meantime, we have the 2024 Summer Games in Paris to look forward to next. And as a resident of Southern California, I cannot wait for the Summer Games in Los Angeles four years after that!
Clearly, the next six years will be a fun time if you're an Olympic buff like me. Carry on!
After spending almost two hours looking for parking (I spent $25 when I finally found a parking spot), I walked several blocks down to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to attend the Rams' Super Bowl LVI championship parade and rally today!
The parade began at 11 AM, while the rally occurred at the Olympic Plaza near the Coliseum Peristyle at 12 PM...both times in Pacific Standard.
As shown in these photos (the majority of them taken with my Nikon D3300 DSLR camera), it was Rams linebacker Leonard Floyd who held the Vince Lombardi Trophy while the buses slowly strolled down South Figueroa Street next to the Coliseum. Quarterback Matthew Stafford, Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp and defensive tackle Aaron Donald were also spotted on the same bus that Floyd was on.
I didn't spot head coach Sean McVay, linebacker Von Miller or other Rams personnel till they gave their speeches at the rally afterwards. (I was too busy getting as many snapshots of the Lombardi Trophy on the bus as possible.)
It's amazing that I went to all five Lakers parades from 2000 to 2010, both Kings Stanley Cup parades in 2012 and 2014, and now a Super Bowl celebration in the City of Angels!
Here's hoping that the Major League Baseball lockout ends as soon as possible; the Dodgers need to win again and earn the parade they were denied two years ago. And the onus is now on the Chargers to bring another Super Bowl title to Los Angeles as well...
Earlier today, I bought this Los Angeles Rams baseball cap from a local Kohl's department store. This purchase was unplanned—as I went to Kohl's just to walk around and burn off calories from the hamburger combo I bought for lunch at a nearby In-N-Out food joint about half an hour earlier.
Seeing as how I'm not supposed to get my official Super Bowl championship cap (which I ordered online shortly after the Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengalstwo days ago) in the mail till March 1, I figured that I'd buy this alternate cap...which celebrates the Rams' National Football Conference championship victory against the San Francisco 49erslast month.
Can't wait to wear this cap at the Rams' parade and rally—which will be held near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum tomorrow! The parade will start near the Shrine Auditorium a few blocks away at 11 AM, and end at the Coliseum shortly before 12 noon.
The championship rally will then begin near Olympic Plaza next to the Coliseum Peristyle at noon and last till 1 PM... All times in Pacific Standard, of course.
Just thought I'd share this image of my updated SoCal Sports Wall of Fame...which now bears the Los Angeles Times' front page section featuring a triumphant photo of the L.A. Rams' Super Bowl victory over the Cincinnati Bengalsyesterday.
As you can see, my wall now holds L.A. Times newspapers that celebrate the championships of teams in three different sports leagues: The Lakers and Dodgers in 2020, and now the Rams. I'd also include newspapers that covered the Stanley Cup wins by the L.A. Kings in 2012 and 2014, respectively, but I figured I only have space on this part of my wall to mark the victories of professional Southern California sports teams in this decade.
(Even though 2020 was the end of last decade, but you get the idea.)
Will the L.A. Chargers win the Super Bowl next year? Or maybe this season's NBA championship will belong to the Clippers... Pfft, yea right. Even if the Lakers' obnoxious little brothers somehow make it to the NBA Finals this June, I have no intention of immortalizing them on a load-bearing wall at home.
Congratulations to the Los Angeles Rams for besting the Cincinnati Bengals, 23-20, during an intense game in Super Bowl LVI! This comes less than two years after the Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers won an NBA championship and World Series title, respectively.
Despite a knee injury to their star wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.—who had to sit out the rest of the game after sustaining a torn ACL in the second quarter—the Rams were able to regroup and play tough defense till the very end of the second half...preventing the Bengals from either making a game-winning touchdown or at least bringing the game to overtime.
This is the second consecutive year where the home team won the NFL championship on their home field (Tom Brady and the Buccaneers won a title at Tampa Bay's Raymond James Stadium in 2021), and the first time the Super Bowl was played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal were able to win their first NBA championship at STAPLES Center in the first year the Los Angeles arena opened (back in 1999), while the Rams accomplished this feat in the second year that SoFi took its place as the largest NFL stadium in the country. Well done!
It remains to be seen if there will be a victory parade this week...and if there is, I'll definitely be there! Donning an N95 mask, of course.
One last thing: Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg reminded us why they're still the GOATs of hip-hop during tonight's Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show. That is all!
Happy Super Bowl Eve, folks! And a Very Happy Birthday to Majdolene 'MJ' Abualfaraj—my very-talented actress from my short film The Broken Table!
MJ is a Finalist for Binibining Turismo Filipinas KSA 2022...a beauty pageant that will be held in her hometown of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, this spring.
MJ mentioned to me last December that I was the first person outside of her family whom she confided to about applying to this pageant, so it only makes sense to validate her confidence in me by doing whatever I can to show her support for this competition.
If you upgrade to premium (at the price of $2.99 USD for 30 days), you can vote up to 5 times a day and truly help MJ achieve one of her biggest goals for this year: Becoming a well-deserved beauty queen at her local pageant.
Even as a Finalist, I'm already extremely proud of MJ for this amazing achievement! Vote everyday for her till the March 24 deadline:
While we have started the long process of aligning the telescope mirrors, almost all of the components on Webb’s cold side are still continuing to cool.
Webb’s giant sunshield keeps the telescope and cameras out of both direct sunlight and sunlight that is reflected from Earth and the Moon. Everything on the cold side of the sunshield is passively cooling, radiating heat into deep space. That will continue until the telescope and the three near-infrared (NIR) instruments reach a steady-state temperature, where the milliwatts of energy that get through the sunshield, plus heat generated by the instruments’ own electronics, exactly balances the loss of heat into space. We expect that the primary mirror will cool to below 50 kelvins (about -370 degrees Fahrenheit, or -223 degrees Celsius), and the NIR instruments will reach about 40 kelvins (about -388 degrees Fahrenheit, or -233 degrees Celsius).
Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) needs to be even colder. In addition to passive cooling, MIRI will be cooled by a closed-cycle gaseous-helium cryocooler, or refrigerator, down to a temperature below 7 kelvins (-447 degrees Fahrenheit, or -266 degrees Celsius). Unlike some previous cryogenic missions, which were cooled by boiling off liquid helium and venting it into space, MIRI’s cooler reuses its helium, just like the refrigerator in your kitchen continuously recycles its own coolant. The Webb team turned on the first stage of the MIRI cryocooler this week.
In the several weeks since Webb’s sunshield was deployed, Webb’s mirrors have been cooling, but they aren’t at their final temperatures yet. There is a variation of temperatures across the different segments, and the segments closer to the sunshield and spacecraft bus are warmer. We expect that these mirror segments will all cool by another 10 kelvins or so, but their final temperatures will still have a spread of 15 to 20 kelvins. The secondary mirror, hanging out on the end of its “spider” support structure, is already very cold.
Meanwhile, the NIR instruments are also cooling. Early in the cooldown process, the Webb team used heaters to keep the instruments warmer than the cold-side structures, to prevent water ice from forming on the optical surfaces. But that is all done now, and the instruments and their detectors are cooling nicely. Their current temperatures are about 75 kelvins (-325 degrees Fahrenheit, or -198 degrees Celsius); they will continue to cool for a few more weeks before reaching their final operating temperature.
The cooling of an infrared telescope is a precise and critical process to ensure the success of the instrumentation and, ultimately, the amazing science. We have learned from and improved upon many years of infrared missions. Webb’s historian, Robert W. Smith, explains a bit more about how Webb builds on the legacy of previous infrared observatories:
“Pioneering investigators examined various astronomical objects in the infrared from the year 1800 on. Infrared astronomy, however, began to take off only in the 1960s. Given the limitations imposed by the atmosphere, researchers experimented with telescopes on balloons and rockets.
“Nevertheless, the grand prize was an infrared telescope in space not limited to the five or so minutes observing time of a rocket flight. Efforts in the U.S., the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom led to the Infrared Astronomy Satellite(IRAS). Launched in 1983, IRAS surveyed the skies at a range of wavelengths and, during its ten-month lifetime, identified 350,000 infrared sources. The Infrared Space Observatory(ISO) followed IRAS in 1995. It became the first infrared space telescope to exploit arrays of detectors of the sort that had begun to revolutionize ground-based infrared astronomy in the years around 1990.
“Critical for the future of infrared space telescopes was the radical shift to radiative or passive cooling. The mirrors of infrared telescopes emit infrared radiation, and to observe the infrared signals emitted by astronomical sources, many of which are exceedingly faint, the mirrors need to be kept very cold. Both IRAS and ISO had kept their telescopes cold by placing them inside a Dewar filled with liquid helium. But adopting this approach seriously limited the size of the telescope that could fly. Tim Hawarden of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, began in the early 1980s to explore the idea of doing away with the Dewar. Instead, a telescope would be launched warm and cooled by radiating heat away to space.
“The first infrared space telescope to use passive cooling was NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003 into an Earth-trailing orbit. The primary mirror cooled passively to about 34 kelvins before liquid helium was used to get the observatory to less than 6 kelvins. The Herschel Space Observatory, an ESA (European Space Agency) project, had a passively-cooled primary mirror (to 80 kelvins) with liquid helium-cooled instruments. Herschel operated from 2009 to 2013 and orbited around the L2 Lagrange point, similar to Webb. Herschel’s 3.5-meter diameter mirror made it the largest infrared telescope before Webb.
“In 1989, at a workshop at the Space Telescope Science Institute, astronomers explored ideas for the ‘Next-Generation U-V-Visible-IR Telescope’ to succeed Hubble. These discussions led to the suggestion of an infrared-optimized telescope, the ‘Next Generation Space Telescope,’ the vision of which was realized in the world’s largest and most powerful infrared observatory: Webb.”
- Robert W. Smith, professor of history, University of Alberta
Parker Solar Probe Captures its First Images of Venus' Surface in Visible Light, Confirmed (News Release)
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has taken its first visible-light images of the surface of Venus from space.
Smothered in thick clouds, Venus’ surface is usually shrouded from sight. But in two recent flybys of the planet, Parker used its Wide-Field Imager, or WISPR, to image the entire nightside in wavelengths of the visible spectrum – the type of light that the human eye can see – and extending into the near-infrared.
The images, combined into a video, reveal a faint glow from the surface that shows distinctive features like continental regions, plains, and plateaus. A luminescent halo of oxygen in the atmosphere can also be seen surrounding the planet.
“We’re thrilled with the science insights Parker Solar Probe has provided thus far,” said Nicola Fox, division director for the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “Parker continues to outperform our expectations, and we are excited that these novel observations taken during our gravity-assist maneuver can help advance Venus research in unexpected ways.”
Such images of the planet, often called Earth’s twin, can help scientists learn more about Venus’ surface geology, what minerals might be present there, and the planet’s evolution. Given the similarities between the planets, this information can help scientists on the quest to understand why Venus became inhospitable and Earth became an oasis.
“Venus is the third brightest thing in the sky, but until recently we have not had much information on what the surface looked like because our view of it is blocked by a thick atmosphere,” said Brian Wood, lead author on the new study and physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. “Now, we finally are seeing the surface in visible wavelengths for the first time from space.”
Unexpected Capabilities
The first WISPR images of Venus were taken in July 2020 as Parker embarked on its third flyby, which the spacecraft uses to bend its orbit closer to the Sun. WISPR was designed to see faint features in the solar atmosphere and wind, and some scientists thought they might be able to use WISPR to image the cloud tops veiling Venus as Parker passed the planet.
“The objective was to measure the speed of the clouds,” said WISPR project scientist Angelos Vourlidas, co-author on the new paper and researcher at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
But instead of just seeing clouds, WISPR also saw through to the surface of the planet. The images were so striking that the scientists turned on the cameras again during the fourth pass in February 2021. During the 2021 flyby, the spacecraft’s orbit lined up perfectly for WISPR to image Venus’ nightside in entirety.
“The images and video just blew me away,” Wood said.
Glowing like an Iron from the Forge
Clouds obstruct most of the visible light coming from Venus’ surface, but the very-longest visible wavelengths, which border the near-infrared wavelengths, make it through. On the dayside, this red light gets lost amid the bright sunshine reflected off Venus’ cloud tops, but in the darkness of night, the WISPR cameras were able to pick up this faint glow caused by the incredible heat emanating from the surface.
“The surface of Venus, even on the nightside, is about 860 degrees,” Wood said. “It's so hot that the rocky surface of Venus is visibly glowing, like a piece of iron pulled from a forge.”
As it passed by Venus, WISPR picked up a range of wavelengths from 470 nanometers to 800 nanometers. Some of that light is in the near-infrared – wavelengths that we cannot see, but sense as heat – and some is in the visible range, between 380 nanometers and about 750 nanometers.
Venus in a New Light
In 1975, the Venera 9 lander sent the first tantalizing glimpses of the surface after landing on Venus. Since then, Venus’ surface has been revealed further with radar and infrared instruments, which can peer through the thick clouds by using wavelengths of light invisible to the human eye. NASA’s Magellan mission created the first maps in the 1990s using radar and JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft gathered infrared images after reaching orbit around Venus in 2015. The new images from Parker add to these findings by extending the observations to red wavelengths at the edge of what we can see.
The WISPR images show features on the Venusian surface, such as the continental region Aphrodite Terra, the Tellus Regio plateau, and the Aino Planitia plains. Since higher-altitude regions are about 85 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than lower areas, they show up as dark patches amidst the brighter lowlands. These features can also be seen in previous radar images, such as those taken by Magellan.
Beyond looking at surface features, the new WISPR images will help scientists better understand the geology and mineral make-up of Venus. When heated, materials glow at unique wavelengths. By combining the new images with previous ones, scientists now have a wider range of wavelengths to study, which can help identify what minerals are on the surface of the planet. Such techniques have previously been used to study the surface of the Moon. Future missions will continue to expand this range of wavelengths, which will contribute to our understanding of habitable planets.
This information could also help scientists understand the planet’s evolution. While Venus, Earth, and Mars all formed around the same time, they are very different today. The atmosphere on Mars is a fraction of Earth’s while Venus has a much thicker atmosphere. Scientists suspect volcanism played a role in creating the dense Venusian atmosphere, but more data are needed to know how. The new WISPR images might provide clues about how volcanos may have affected the planet’s atmosphere.
In addition to the surface glow, the new images show a bright ring around the edge of the planet caused by oxygen atoms emitting light in the atmosphere. Called airglow, this type of light is also present in Earth’s atmosphere, where it’s visible from space and sometimes from the ground at night.
Flyby Science
While Parker Solar Probe’s primary goal is solar science, the Venusian flybys are providing exciting opportunities for bonus data that wasn’t expected at the mission’s launch.
WISPR has also imaged Venus’ orbital dust ring – a doughnut-shaped track of microscopic particles strewn in the wake of Venus’ orbit around the Sun – and the FIELDS instrument made direct measurements of radio waves in the Venusian atmosphere, helping scientists understand how the upper atmosphere changes during the Sun’s 11-year cycle of activity.
In December 2021, researchers published new findings about the rediscovery of the comet-like tail of plasma streaming out behind Venus, called a “tail ray”. The new results showed this tail of particles extending nearly 5,000 miles out from the Venusian atmosphere. This tail could be how Venus’ water escaped from the planet, contributing to its current dry and inhospitable environment.
While the geometry of the next two flybys likely won’t allow Parker to image the nightside, scientists will continue to use Parker’s other instruments to study Venus’ space environment. In November 2024, the spacecraft will have a final chance to image the surface on its seventh and final flyby.
NASA Selects Developer for Rocket to Retrieve First Samples from Mars (Press Release)
NASA has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Space of Littleton, Colorado, to build the Mars Ascent Vehicle(MAV), a small, lightweight rocket to launch rock, sediment, and atmospheric samples from the surface of the Red Planet. The award brings NASA a step closer to the first robotic round-trip to bring samples safely to Earth through the Mars Sample Return Program.
“This groundbreaking endeavor is destined to inspire the world when the first robotic round-trip mission retrieves a sample from another planet – a significant step that will ultimately help send the first astronauts to Mars,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. “America’s investment in our Mars Sample Return program will fulfill a top priority planetary science goal and demonstrate our commitment to global partnerships, ensuring NASA remains a leader in exploration and discovery.”
Set to become the first rocket fired off another planet, the MAV is a crucial part of a campaign to retrieve samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover and deliver them to Earth for advanced study. NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander, another important part of the campaign, would carry the MAV to Mars’ surface, landing near or in Jezero Crater to gather the samples cached by Perseverance. The samples would be returned to the lander, which would serve as the launch platform for the MAV. With the sample container secured, the MAV would then launch.
Once it reaches Mars orbit, the container would be captured by an ESA (European Space Agency)Earth Return Orbiter spacecraft outfitted with NASA’s Capture, Containment, and Return System payload. The spacecraft would bring the samples to Earth safely and securely in the early- to mid-2030s.
“Committing to the Mars Ascent Vehicle represents an early and concrete step to hammer out the details of this ambitious project not just to land on Mars, but to take off from it,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We are nearing the end of the conceptual phase for this Mars Sample Return mission, and the pieces are coming together to bring home the first samples from another planet. Once on Earth, they can be studied by state-of-the-art tools too complex to transport into space.”
Returning a sample is complicated, and MAV faces some complex development challenges. It must be robust enough to withstand the harsh Mars environment and adaptable enough to work with multiple spacecraft. It also must be small enough to fit inside the Sample Retrieval Lander. The Sample Retrieval Lander is planned for launch no earlier than 2026 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Lockheed Martin Space will provide multiple MAV test units and a flight unit. Work under the contract includes designing, developing, testing, and evaluating the integrated MAV system, and designing and developing the rocket’s ground support equipment.
The cost-plus-fixed-fee Mars Ascent Vehicle Integrated System (MAVIS) contract has a potential value of $194 million. The performance period begins no later than Feb. 25 and will extend six years.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Campaign promises to revolutionize our understanding of Mars by bringing scientifically-selected samples for study using the most sophisticated instruments around the world. The campaign would fulfill a solar system exploration goal, a high priority since the 1970s and in the last two National Academy of Sciences Planetary Decadal Surveys.
This strategic NASA and ESA partnership would be the first mission to return samples from another planet and the first launch from the surface of another planet. The samples collected by Perseverance during its exploration of an ancient river delta are thought to present the best opportunity to reveal the early evolution of Mars, including the potential for life.
Just thought I'd share this cool photo of fireworks erupting above China's Beijing National Stadium during yesterday's opening ceremony of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games.
Even though this two-week global event is once again taking place in the Land of Communist Heathens (the last time being the Summer Games in 2008) and where the COVID-19 pandemic—plus a couple of other pandemics—started, I'm excited to see how many medals Team USA will take home in snowboarding, skiing, sledding, snowmobiling and much more by February 20...the day of the closing ceremony.
This is a repost of an entry that I posted in my Film Notes blog earlier this morning:
Here are some updates regarding next month's screening of The Broken Table at the Haunted House FearFest! The event takes place in the UK's West Yorkshire from March 18 to 27.
Last night at my direction, U.S. military forces in the northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our Allies, and make the world a safer place.
Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi—the leader of ISIS. All Americans have returned safely from the operation. I will deliver remarks to the American people later this morning.
From the head of the Situation Room table, President Biden watched in real time as US commandos landed in Syria to kill the top ISIS leader https://t.co/1D0vUm0fYz
President Biden and the men and women of the US military deserve our gratitude for their decisive action to remove ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi from the battlefield. https://t.co/Hemqk6tRSe
Gotta hand it to the Los Angeles Rams for making this underachieving quarterback finally call it quits after 22 years of stinkin' up the joint in the NFL... One of the biggest disappointments in the history of football!
