A Quadcopter Is Officially Set to Travel to an Ocean World in Our Outer Solar System 4 Years from Now...

NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Steve Gribben

NASA’s Dragonfly Rotorcraft Mission to Saturn’s Moon Titan Confirmed (News Release)

NASA has confirmed its Dragonfly rotorcraft mission to Saturn’s organic-rich moon Titan. The decision allows the mission to progress to completion of final design, followed by the construction and testing of the entire spacecraft and science instruments.

“Dragonfly is a spectacular science mission with broad community interest, and we are excited to take the next steps on this mission," said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Exploring Titan will push the boundaries of what we can do with rotorcraft outside of Earth.”

In early 2023, the mission successfully passed all the success criteria of its Preliminary Design Review. At that time, however, the mission was asked to develop an updated budget and schedule to fit into the current funding environment.

This updated plan was presented and conditionally approved in November 2023, pending the outcome of the fiscal year 2025 budget process. In the meantime, the mission was authorized to proceed with work on final mission design and fabrication to ensure that the mission stayed on schedule.

With the release of the president’s fiscal year 2025 budget request, Dragonfly is confirmed with a total lifecycle cost of $3.35 billion and a launch date of July 2028. This reflects a cost increase of about two times the proposed cost and a delay of more than two years from when the mission was originally selected in 2019.

Following that selection, NASA had to direct the project to replan multiple times due to funding constraints in fiscal years 2020 through 2022. The project incurred additional costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain increases, and the results of an in-depth design iteration.

To compensate for the delayed arrival at Titan, NASA also provided additional funding for a heavy-lift launch vehicle to shorten the mission’s cruise phase.

The rotorcraft, targeted to arrive at Titan in 2034, will fly to dozens of promising locations on the moon, looking for prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and the early Earth before life developed. Dragonfly marks the first time that NASA will fly a vehicle for science on another planetary body.

The rotorcraft has eight rotors and flies like a large drone.

Dragonfly is being designed and built under the direction of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, which manages the mission for NASA. Elizabeth Turtle of APL is the principal investigator.

The team includes key partners at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado; NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California; NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania; Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, California; Honeybee Robotics in Pasadena, California; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) in Paris; the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, Germany; and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in Tokyo.

Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Source: NASA.Gov

America and Europe's Next Flagship Mission to the Red Planet Is Goin' Back to the Drawing Board...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA Sets Path to Return Mars Samples, Seeks Innovative Designs (Press Release)

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson shared on Monday the agency’s path forward on the Mars Sample Return program, including seeking innovative designs to return valuable samples from Mars to Earth. Such samples will not only help us understand the formation and evolution of our solar system but can be used to prepare for future human explorers and to aid in NASA’s search for signs of ancient life.

Over the last quarter century, NASA has engaged in a systematic effort to determine the early history of Mars and how it can help us understand the formation and evolution of habitable worlds, including Earth. As part of that effort, Mars Sample Return has been a long-term goal of international planetary exploration for the past two decades.

NASA’s Perseverance rover has been collecting samples for later collection and return to Earth since it landed on Mars in 2021.

“Mars Sample Return will be one of the most complex missions NASA has ever undertaken. The bottom line is, an $11 billion budget is too expensive, and a 2040 return date is too far away,” said Nelson. “Safely landing and collecting the samples, launching a rocket with the samples off another planet – which has never been done before – and safely transporting the samples more than 33 million miles back to Earth is no small task. We need to look outside the box to find a way ahead that is both affordable and returns samples in a reasonable timeframe.”

The agency has also released NASA’s response to a Mars Sample Return Independent Review Board report from September 2023. This includes: an updated mission design with reduced complexity; improved resiliency; risk posture; stronger accountability and coordination; and an overall budget likely in the $8 billion to $11 billion range.

Given the Fiscal Year 2025 budget and anticipated budget constraints, as well as the need to maintain a balanced science portfolio, the current mission design will return samples in 2040.

To achieve the ambitious goal of returning the key samples to Earth earlier and at a lower cost, the agency is asking the NASA community to work together to develop a revised plan that leverages innovation and proven technology. Additionally, NASA will soon solicit architecture proposals from industry that could return samples in the 2030s, and lowers cost, risk and mission complexity.

“NASA does visionary science – and returning diverse, scientifically-relevant samples from Mars is a key priority,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “To organize a mission at this level of complexity, we employ decades of lessons on how to run a large mission, including incorporating the input we get from conducting independent reviews. Our next steps will position us to bring this transformational mission forward and deliver revolutionary science from Mars -- providing critical new insights into the origins and evolution of Mars, our solar system, and life on Earth.”

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Update on #SamplingMars: I recently collected my 24th sample from an area called "Bunsen Peak" (named for the @YellowstoneNPS landmark). The rock core is filled with silica and carbonate. https://t.co/PJeNVCluNV pic.twitter.com/6Oi12jeNJ0

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) April 3, 2024

Mainstream Journalists Finally Got to Check Out a Spacecraft That I Saw in Person Twice Last Year...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

Media Get Close-Up of NASA’s Jupiter-Bound Europa Clipper (News Release)

Excitement is mounting as the largest spacecraft that NASA has ever built for a planetary mission gets readied for an October launch.

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California are running final tests and preparing the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft for the next leg of its journey: launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Europa Clipper, which will orbit Jupiter and focus on the planet’s ice-encased moon Europa, is expected to leave JPL later this spring.

Europa Clipper's launch period opens on October 10.

Members of the media put on “bunny suits” — outfits to protect the massive spacecraft from contamination — to see Europa Clipper up close in JPL’s historic Spacecraft Assembly Facility on Thursday, April 11. Project Manager Jordan Evans, Launch-to-Mars Mission Manager Tracy Drain, Project Staff Scientist Samuel Howell, and Assembly, Test and Launch Operations Cable Harness Engineer Luis Aguila were on the clean room floor, while Deputy Project Manager Tim Larson and Mission Designer Ricardo Restrepo were in the gallery above to explain the mission and its goals.

Planning of the mission began in 2013, and Europa Clipper was officially confirmed by NASA as a mission in 2019. The trip to Jupiter is expected to take about six years, with flybys of Mars and Earth.

Reaching the gas giant in 2030, the spacecraft will orbit Jupiter while flying by Europa dozens of times, dipping as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) from the moon’s surface to gather data with its powerful suite of science instruments. The information will help scientists learn about the ocean beneath the moon’s icy shell, map Europa’s surface composition and geology, and hunt for any potential plumes of water vapor that may be venting from the crust.

“After over a decade of hard work and problem-solving, we’re so proud to show the nearly-complete Europa Clipper spacecraft to the world,” said Evans. “As critical components came in from institutions across the globe, it’s been exciting to see parts become a greater whole. We can’t wait to get this spacecraft to the Jupiter system.”

At the event, a cutaway model showing the moon’s layers and a globe of the moon helped journalists learn why Europa is such an interesting object of study. On hand with the details were Project Staff Scientist and Assistant Science Systems Engineer Kate Craft from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, and, from JPL, Project Scientist Robert Pappalardo, Deputy Project Scientist Bonnie Buratti and Science Communications Lead Cynthia Phillips.

Beyond Earth, Europa is considered one of the most promising potentially-habitable environments in our solar system. While Europa Clipper is not a life-detection mission, its primary science goal is to determine whether there are places below the moon’s icy surface that could support life.

When the main part of the spacecraft arrives at Kennedy Space Center in a few months, engineers will finish preparing Europa Clipper for launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, attaching its giant solar arrays and carefully tucking the spacecraft inside the capsule that rides on top of the rocket. Then Europa Clipper will be ready to begin its space odyssey.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Photos of the Day: A 2nd Falcon 9 Lights Up the SoCal Sky This Week...

Richard T. Par

Only five days after a previous Falcon 9 rocket launched with 22 Starlink spacecraft to low-Earth orbit, a second Falcon 9 took to the skies a few hours ago at 7:25 PM, PDT...sending 21 additional Starlink satellites to space. The photos in this Blog entry were taken from Summitridge Park in Diamond Bar, California.

This is the third SpaceX launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California, in almost three weeks—and it's definitely likely that another Falcon 9 will grace the SoCal sky soon! I'm just hoping that as summer approaches, SpaceX will conduct a launch a bit later in the evening.

When the summer solstice arrives (on June 20), there will still be broad daylight around the 7:30 PM timeframe during which the three previous Falcon 9s took off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg. As you can see in these images, the contrail from the rocket isn't as bright as in the earlier flights because the Sun set only 8 minutes before liftoff.

Might I suggest that SpaceX launches the next Starlink mission between 7:45 PM to 8:15 PM, Pacific Time? I'm usually out walking around my neighborhood during that time if I'm not working that day.

Happy Saturday evening!


Richard T. Par


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Richard T. Par

SpaceX sends 21 more #Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit...as seen from the city of Diamond Bar in California!#Falcon9 #SoCal #LACounty pic.twitter.com/TPRsKI7CdL

— Rich Par (@AstroPnoy) April 7, 2024

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Has Imaged Another Spacecraft Orbiting the Moon (and Vice Versa)...

NASA / Goddard / Arizona State University

NASA’s LRO Finds Photo Op as It Zips Past South Korea’s Danuri Moon Orbiter (News Release)

NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), which has been circling and studying the Moon for 15 years, captured several images of Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s Danuri lunar orbiter last month. The two spacecraft, traveling in nearly parallel orbits, zipped past each other in opposite directions between March 5 and 6, 2024.

LRO’s narrow angle camera (one in a suite of cameras known as “LROC”) captured the images featured here during three orbits that happened to be close enough to Danuri’s to grab snapshots.

Due to the fast relative velocities between the two spacecraft (about 7,200 miles, or 1,500 kilometers, per hour), the LRO operations team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, needed exquisite timing in pointing LROC to the right place at the right time to catch a glimpse of Danuri, the Republic of Korea’s first spacecraft at the Moon. Danuri has been in lunar orbit since December 2022.

Although LRO’s camera exposure time was very short, only 0.338 milliseconds, Danuri still appears smeared to 10 times its size in the opposite direction of travel because of the relative high-travel velocities between the two spacecraft.

LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the Moon.

NASA is returning to the Moon with commercial and international partners to expand human presence in space and bring back new knowledge and opportunities.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Goddard / Arizona State University


NASA / KARI / Arizona State University

Photos of the Day: A Falcon 9 Lights Up the SoCal Sky Once More...

Richard T. Par

Two weeks after a previous Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California, another SpaceX booster lifted off from the West Coast launch site as well (at 7:30 PM, PDT)...sending another 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit.

Unlike the March 18 launch, I knew about yesterday's flight a few days in advance. Last time, I wasn't sure if I was in the mood to get dressed with few minutes to spare and drive somewhere that provided a great view of Falcon 9 shooting up into the Southern California sky.

In terms of last night, on the other hand, I got dressed (after eating dinner around 6:30 PM, PDT) and walked down my street to where the neighborhood mailbox was located. This spot provided an awesome, unimpeded view of the patch of sky that Falcon 9 was gonna fly through as it made its way to space.

Much like what I did two weeks ago, I used my Google Pixel 4A smartphone to take photos of SpaceX's airborne twilight spectacle.

I look forward to the next evening launch of Falcon 9 from Vandenberg...which is almost 200 miles from where I live! But it would be just as cool if another company's rocket—I'm looking at you, United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Vulcan Centaur—graced the SoCal sky at dusk as well.

I'm sure that ULA will make this a reality...eventually. Happy Belated April Fools' Day!


Richard T. Par


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Richard T. Par

Lookin' forward to the next Vandenberg-based evening launch to capture with my smartphone#SpaceX #Falcon9 #Starlink #SoCal #LACounty pic.twitter.com/dw8F3nd5m4

— Rich Par (@AstroPnoy) April 2, 2024

NASA's Artemis Moon Rover Is Now 88% Assembled...

NASA / Helen Arase Vargas

NASA VIPER Robotic Moon Rover Team Raises Its Mighty Mast (News Release)

NASA’s VIPER – short for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover – now stands taller and more capable than ever. And that’s thanks to its mast.

VIPER’s mast, and the suite of instruments affixed to it, looks a lot like the rover’s “neck” and “head.” The mast instruments are designed to help the team of rover drivers and real-time scientists send commands and receive data while the rover navigates around hazardous crater slopes, boulders and places that risk communications blackouts.

The team will use these instruments, along with four science payloads, to scout the lunar South Pole. During its approximately 100-day mission, VIPER seeks to better understand the origin of water and other resources on the Moon, as well as the extreme environment where NASA plans to send astronauts as part of the Artemis campaign.

The tip of VIPER’s mast stands approximately eight feet (2.5 meters) above its wheel rims and is equipped with a pair of stereo navigation cameras, a pair of powerful LED headlights, as well as a low- and high-gain antenna to transmit data to and receive data from the Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas on Earth.

The stereo navigation cameras – the “eyes” of the rover – are mounted to a part of the mast that gimbals, allowing the team to pan them as much as 400 degrees around and tilt them up and down as much as 75 degrees. The VIPER team will use the navigation cameras to take sweeping panoramas of the rover’s surroundings and images to detect and further study surface features such as rocks and craters as small as four inches (10 cm) in diameter – or about the length of a pencil – from as far as 50 feet (15 meters) away.

And because the navigation cameras are mounted up high, it gives the VIPER team a near human-like perspective as the rover explores areas of scientific interest around the Moon’s South Pole.

Due to the extremes of light and darkness found on the Moon, VIPER will be the first planetary rover to have headlights. The headlights will cast a narrow, long-distance beam – much like a car’s high beams – to help the team reveal obstacles or interesting terrain features that would otherwise stay hidden in the shadows.

Positioned next to the rover’s two navigation cameras, the lights feature arrays of blue LEDs that the rover navigation team determined would provide the best visibility given the challenging lighting conditions on the Moon.

In order to transmit large amounts of data across the 240,000 miles (384,000 km) that separate Earth and the Moon, VIPER has a gimballing precision-pointed, high-gain antenna that will send information along a very focused, narrow beam. Its low-gain antenna will also send data but using radio waves at a much lower data rate.

The ability for the antennas to maintain the correct orientation, even while driving, serves a critical function: without it, the rover cannot receive commands while in motion on the Moon and cannot transmit any of its data back to Earth for scientists to achieve their mission goals. All that data is then transferred from the DSN to the Multi-Mission Operations and Control Center at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, where rover operations are based.

Prior to installation on the rover, engineers put the mast through a variety of testing. This included time in a thermal vacuum chamber to verify that the white coating surrounding the mast insulates as intended.

After the mast’s integration in the clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the team also successfully performed check-outs of its components and for the first time sent data through the rover using its antennas.

VIPER is part of the Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program and is managed by the Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. VIPER will launch to the Moon aboard Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.

VIPER will reach its destination at Mons Mouton near the Moon’s South Pole.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Josh Valcarcel

SoCal News: Something Cool Is Being Built Near the Santa Monica Mountains...

Living Habitats and National Wildlife Federation

So a few days ago, I read online that Highway 101 near the city of Agoura Hills (here in Southern California's Conejo Valley ) will be closed on weekdays from midnight to at least 5 AM starting next month.

Why, you ask? Because the next phase of construction will soon begin on the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing...a vegetated bridge being built for animals that dwell in the Simi Hills and Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles County!

This Blog entry will be pretty lengthy if I delved into the whole story behind why this wildlife crossing is being assembled (you can read about the history of the project here), but I just want to point out that I am pretty stoked that this bridge—which I first learned about on the Web a few years ago—is finally becoming a reality.

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will be the largest bridge of its kind in the world (you can see photos of other countries' wildlife crossings in this fascinating article)...and that's not a surprise given the size of Highway 101 (which is 10 car-lanes-wide when you account for the northbound and southbound sides of the freeway), and the number of animal species that struggle to cross it to find mates (of genetic diversity, that is), food or a new habitat to dwell in everyday.

Mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, deer and fence lizards—among other creatures—will take advantage of this bridge once it's finished. And that's great news!

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the government agency responsible for this project, has already assembled the three vertical rows of pylons (shown below) that the bridge will rest on above Highway 101. And next month, the horizontal girders that comprise the bridge itself will begin being placed atop these pylons in the middle of the night.

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing began construction by Caltrans in spring of 2022, and the bridge should be completed by early 2026. Very exciting!


RCDSMM


Caltrans

America's Next Jupiter-bound Orbiter Passes Major Testing Before It's Shipped to Florida for Launch...

NASA / JPL - Caltech

NASA’s Europa Clipper Survives and Thrives in ‘Outer Space’ on Earth (News Release - March 27)

A gantlet of tests prepared the spacecraft for its challenging trip to the Jupiter system, where it will explore the icy moon Europa and its subsurface ocean.

In less than six months, NASA is set to launch Europa Clipper on a 1.6-billion-mile (2.6-billion-kilometer) voyage to Jupiter’s ocean moon Europa. From the wild vibrations of the rocket ride to the intense heat and cold of space to the punishing radiation of Jupiter, it will be a journey of extremes.

Europa Clipper was recently put through a series of hard-core tests at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to ensure that it’s up to the challenge. Called environmental testing, the battery of trials simulates the environment that the spacecraft will face, subjecting it to shaking, chilling, airlessness, electromagnetic fields and more.

“These were the last big tests to find any flaws,” said JPL’s Jordan Evans, the mission’s project manager. “Our engineers executed a well-designed and challenging set of tests that put the system through its paces. What we found is that the spacecraft can handle the environments that it will see during and after launch. The system performed very well and operates as expected.”

The Gantlet

The most recent environmental test for Europa Clipper was also one of the most elaborate, requiring 16 days to complete. The spacecraft is the largest that NASA has ever built for a planetary mission and one of the largest ever to squeeze into JPL’s historic 85-foot-tall, 25-foot-wide (26-meter-by-8-meter) thermal vacuum chamber (TVAC).

Known as the 25-foot Space Simulator, the chamber creates a near-perfect vacuum inside to mimic the airless environment of space.

At the same time, engineers subjected the hardware to the high temperatures it will experience on the side of Europa Clipper that faces the Sun while the spacecraft is close to Earth. Beams from powerful lamps at the base of the Space Simulator bounced off a massive mirror at its top to mimic the heat that the spacecraft will endure.

To simulate the journey away from the Sun, the lamps were dimmed and liquid nitrogen filled tubes in the chamber walls to chill them to temperatures replicating space. The team then gauged whether the spacecraft could warm itself, monitoring it with about 500 temperature sensors, each of which had been attached by hand.

TVAC marked the culmination of environmental testing, which included a regimen of tests to ensure the electrical and magnetic components that make up the spacecraft don’t interfere with one another.

The orbiter also underwent vibration, shock and acoustics testing. During vibration testing, the spacecraft was shaken repeatedly – up and down and side to side – the same way it will be jostled aboard the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket during liftoff.

Shock testing involved pyrotechnics to mimic the explosive jolt that the spacecraft will get when it separates from the rocket to fly its mission. Finally, acoustic testing ensured that Europa Clipper can withstand the noise of launch, when the rumbling of the rocket is so loud it can damage the spacecraft if it’s not sturdy enough.

“There still is work to be done, but we’re on track for an on-time launch,” Evans said. “And the fact that this testing was so successful is a huge positive and helps us rest more easily.”

Looking to Launch

Later this spring, the spacecraft will be shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There, teams of engineers and technicians will carry out final preparations with eyes on the clock.

Europa Clipper’s launch period opens on October 10.

After liftoff, the spacecraft will zip towards Mars, and in late February 2025, it will be close enough to use the Red Planet’s gravitational force for added momentum. From there, the solar-powered spacecraft will swing back towards Earth to get another slingshot boost – from our own planet’s gravitational field – in December 2026.

Then it’s on to the outer solar system, where Europa Clipper is set to arrive at Jupiter in 2030. The spacecraft will orbit the gas giant while it flies by Europa 49 times, dipping as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) from the moon’s surface to gather data with its powerful suite of science instruments.

The information gathered will tell scientists more about the moon’s watery interior.

Source: NASA.Gov

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A New Photo of Our Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole Has Been Released!

EHT Collaboration

Astronomers Unveil Strong Magnetic Fields Spiraling at the Edge of Milky Way’s Central Black Hole (Press Release)

CfA astronomers led two new EHT studies that have produced the first polarized light image of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy.

Cambridge, MA — A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration — which includes scientists from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) — has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Seen in polarized light for the first time, this new view of the monster lurking at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy has revealed a magnetic field structure strikingly similar to that of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, suggesting that strong magnetic fields may be common to all black holes.

This similarity also hints toward a hidden jet in Sgr A*. The results were published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Scientists unveiled the first image of Sgr A* — which is approximately 27,000 light-years away from Earth — in 2022, revealing that while the Milky Way's supermassive black hole is more than a thousand times smaller and less massive than M87’s, it looks remarkably similar. This made scientists wonder whether the two shared common traits outside of their looks.

To find out, the team decided to study Sgr A* in polarized light. Previous studies of light around M87* revealed that the magnetic fields around the black hole giant allowed it to launch powerful jets of material back into the surrounding environment.

Building on this work, the new images have revealed that the same may be true for Sgr A*.

"What we're seeing now is that there are strong, twisted and organized magnetic fields near the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy," said Sara Issaoun, CfA NASA Hubble Fellowship Program Einstein Fellow, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) astrophysicist, and co-lead of the project. "Along with Sgr A* having a strikingly similar polarization structure to that seen in the much larger and more powerful M87* black hole, we’ve learned that strong and ordered magnetic fields are critical to how black holes interact with the gas and matter around them."

Light is an oscillating, or moving, electromagnetic wave that allows us to see objects. Sometimes, light oscillates in a preferred orientation, and we call it "polarized."

Although polarized light surrounds us, to human eyes it is indistinguishable from "normal" light. In the plasma around these black holes, particles whirling around magnetic field lines impart a polarization pattern perpendicular to the field.

This allows astronomers to see in increasingly vivid detail what's happening in black hole regions and map their magnetic field lines.

"By imaging polarized light from hot glowing gas near black holes, we are directly inferring the structure and strength of the magnetic fields that thread the flow of gas and matter that the black hole feeds on and ejects," said Harvard Black Hole Initiative Fellow and project co-lead Angelo Ricarte. "Polarized light teaches us a lot more about the astrophysics, the properties of the gas, and mechanisms that take place as a black hole feeds."

But imaging black holes in polarized light isn’t as easy as putting on a pair of polarized sunglasses, and this is particularly true of Sgr A*, which is changing so fast that it doesn’t sit still for pictures. Imaging the supermassive black hole requires sophisticated tools above and beyond those previously used for capturing M87*, a much steadier target.

CfA postdoctoral fellow and SAO astrophysicist Paul Tiede said, "It is exciting that we were able to make a polarized image of Sgr A* at all. The first image took months of extensive analysis to understand its dynamical nature and unveil its average structure. Making a polarized image adds on the challenge of the dynamics of the magnetic fields around the black hole. Our models often predicted highly-turbulent magnetic fields, making it extremely difficult to construct a polarized image. Fortunately, our black hole is much calmer, making the first image possible."

Scientists are excited to have images of both supermassive black holes in polarized light because these images, and the data that comes with them, provide new ways to compare and contrast black holes of different sizes and masses. As technology improves, the images are likely to reveal even more secrets of black holes and their similarities or differences.

Michi Bauböck, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said, "M87* and Sgr A* are different in a few important ways: M87* is much bigger, and it’s pulling in matter from its surroundings at a much faster rate. So, we might have expected that the magnetic fields also look very different. But in this case, they turned out to be quite similar, which may mean that this structure is common to all black holes. A better understanding of the magnetic fields near black holes helps us answer several open questions—from how jets are formed and launched to what powers the bright flares we see in infrared and X-ray light."

The EHT has conducted several observations since 2017 and is scheduled to observe Sgr A* again in April 2024. Each year, the images improve as the EHT incorporates new telescopes, larger bandwidth and new observing frequencies.

Planned expansions for the next decade will enable high-fidelity movies of Sgr A*, may reveal a hidden jet, and could allow astronomers to observe similar polarization features in other black holes. Meanwhile, extending the EHT into space will provide sharper images of black holes than ever before.

The CfA is leading several major initiatives to sharply enhance the EHT over the next decade. The next-generation EHT (ngEHT) project is undertaking a transformative upgrade of the EHT, aiming to bring multiple new radio dishes online, enable simultaneous multi-color observations, and increase the overall sensitivity of the array.

The ngEHT expansion will enable the array to make real-time movies of supermassive black holes on event horizon scales. These movies will resolve detailed structure and dynamics near the event horizon, bringing into focus "strong-field" gravity features predicted by General Relativity as well as the interplay of accretion and relativistic jet-launching that sculpts large-scale structures in the Universe.

Meanwhile, the Black Hole Explorer (BHEX) mission concept will extend the EHT into space, producing the sharpest images in the history of astronomy. BHEX will enable the detection and imaging of the "photon ring" – a sharp-ring feature formed by strongly-lensed emission around black holes.

The properties of a black hole are imprinted on the size and shape of the photon ring, revealing masses and spins for dozens of black holes, in turn showing how these strange objects grow and interact with their host galaxies.

Source: Harvard & Smithsonian