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NASA Encounters the Perfect Storm for Science

JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory logo. June 13, 2018

Animation above: This set of images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a fierce dust storm is kicking up on Mars, with rovers on the surface indicated as icons. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. One of the thickest dust storms ever observed on Mars has been spreading for the past week and a half. The storm has caused NASA’s Opportunity rover to suspend science operations, but also offers a window for four other spacecraft to learn from the swirling dust. NASA has three orbiters circling the Red Planet, each equipped with special cameras and other atmospheric instruments. Additionally, NASA’s Curiosity rover has begun to see an increase in dust at its location in Gale Crater. “This is the ideal storm for Mars science,” said Jim Watzin, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “We have a historic number of spacecraft operating at the Red Planet. Each offers a unique look at how dust storms form and behave – knowledge that will be essential for future robotic and human missions.” Dusty With a Chance of Dust Dust storms are a frequent feature on Mars, occurring in all seasons. Occasionally, they can balloon into regional storms in a matter of days, and sometimes even expand until they envelop the planet. These massive, planet-scaled storms are estimated to happen about once every three to four Mars years (six to eight Earth years); the last one was in 2007. They can last weeks, or even months at the longest. The current storm above Opportunity, which is still growing, now blankets 14 million square miles (35 million square kilometers) of Martian surface – about a quarter of the planet.

Image above: These two views from NASA’s Curiosity rover, acquired specifically to measure the amount of dust inside Gale Crater, show that dust has increased over three days from a major Martian dust storm. The left-hand image shows a view of the east-northeast rim of Gale Crater on June 7, 2018 (Sol 2074); the right-hand image shows a view of the same feature on June 10, 2018 (Sol 2077). The images were taken by the rover’s Mastcam. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. All dust events, regardless of size, help shape the Martian surface. Studying their physics is critical to understanding the ancient and modern Martian climate, said Rich Zurek, chief scientist for the Mars Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Each observation of these large storms brings us closer to being able to model these events – and maybe, someday, being able to forecast them,” Zurek said. “That would be like forecasting El Niño events on Earth, or the severity of upcoming hurricane seasons.” The thin atmosphere makes these storms vastly different from anything encountered on Earth: Despite the drama of “The Martian,” the most powerful surface winds encountered on Mars would not topple a spacecraft, although they can sand-blast dust particles into the atmosphere. Teamwork Members of NASA’s spacecraft “family” at Mars often help each other out. The agency’s orbiters regularly relay data from NASA’s rovers back to Earth. Orbiters and rovers also offer different perspectives on Martian terrain, allowing their science to complement one another. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has a special role, acting as an early warning system for weather events such as the recent storm. It was the orbiter’s wide-angle camera, called the Mars Color Imager, that offered the Opportunity team a heads up about the storm. This imager, built and operated by Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, can create daily global maps of the planet that track how storms evolve, not unlike weather satellites that track hurricanes here on Earth.

Image above: This series of images shows simulated views of a darkening Martian sky blotting out the Sun from NASA’s Opportunity rover’s point of view, with the right side simulating Opportunity’s current view in the global dust storm (June 2018). Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/TAMU. NASA’s two other orbiters – 2001 Mars Odyssey and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) – also provide unique science views. Odyssey has an infrared camera called THEMIS (Thermal Emission Imaging System) that can measure the amount of dust below it; MAVEN is designed to study the behavior of the upper atmosphere and the loss of gas to space. Science happens on the ground as well, of course. Despite being on the other side of the planet from the evolving dust storm, NASA’s Curiosity rover is beginning to detect increased “tau,” the measure of the veil of dusty haze that blots out sunlight during a storm. As of Tuesday, June 12, the tau inside Gale Crater was varying between 1.0 and 2.0 – figures that are average for dust season, though these levels usually show up later in the season. Fortunately, Curiosity has a nuclear-powered battery. That means it doesn’t face the same risk as the solar-powered Opportunity. The Next Big One? Since 2007, Mars scientists have been patiently waiting for a planet-encircling dust event – less precisely called a “global” dust storm, though the storms never truly cover the entire globe of Mars. In 1971, one of these storms came close, leaving just the peaks of Mars’ Tharsis volcanoes poking out above the dust.

Image above: This graphic shows the ongoing contributions of NASA’s rovers and orbiters during a Martian dust storm that began on May 30, 2018. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. The most recent dust storm is the earliest ever observed in the northern hemisphere of Mars, said Bruce Cantor of Malin Space Science Systems, deputy principal investigator for the Mars Color Imager. But it could take several more days before anyone can tell whether the storm is encircling the planet. If it does “go global,” the storm will offer a brand new look at Martian weather. Four spacecraft stand ready to collect the science that shakes out. Fine Print JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Exploration Rover mission; the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity rover; the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project; and the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Image above: This graphic shows how the energy available to NASA’s Opportunity rover on Mars (in watt-hours) depends on how clear or opaque the atmosphere is (measured in a value called tau). When the tau value (blue) is high, the rover’s power levels (yellow) drop. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/New Mexico Museum of Natural History. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the MAVEN project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. MAVEN’s principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey, MRO and MAVEN projects, having developed and built all three orbiters. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL for Odyssey and MRO, and jointly with the GSFC for MAVEN. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The THEMIS investigation is led by Philip Christensen at Arizona State University. Related articles: Shades of Martian Darkness https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2018/06/shades-of-martian-darkness.html Opportunity Hunkers Down During Dust Storm https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2018/06/opportunity-hunkers-down-during-dust.html For more updates about the Martian dust storm visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/weather For more information about NASA’s Mars missions, visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/ Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): https://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/home/index.html Animation (mentioned), Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/JPL/Andrew Good. Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article

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Wormhole Echoes That May Revolutionize Astrophysics

Madrid, Spain (SPX) Jun 13, 2018 Scientists have deduced the existence of black holes from a multitude of experiments, theoretical models and indirect observations, such as the recent detection, by the LIGO and Virgo observatories, of gravitational waves, which are supposed to originate from the collision of two of these dark gravitational monsters. But there is a problem with black holes: they present an edge, called an Full article

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ALMA Discovers Trio of Infant Planets around Newborn Star

ALMA - Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array logo. 13 June 2018 Novel technique to find youngest planets in our galaxy

ALMA Discovers Trio of Infant Planets

Two independent teams of astronomers have used ALMA to uncover convincing evidence that three young planets are in orbit around the infant star HD 163296. Using a novel planet-finding technique, the astronomers identified three disturbances in the gas-filled disc around the young star: the strongest evidence yet that newly formed planets are in orbit there. These are considered the first planets to be discovered with ALMA. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has transformed our understanding of protoplanetary discs — the gas- and dust-filled planet factories that encircle young stars. The rings and gaps in these discs provide intriguing circumstantial evidence for the presence of protoplanets [1]. Other phenomena, however, could also account for these tantalising features.

Planets in the making

But now, using a novel planet-hunting technique that identifies unusual patterns in the flow of gas within a planet-forming disc around a young star, two teams of astronomers have each confirmed distinct, telltale hallmarks of newly formed planets orbiting an infant star [2]. “Measuring the flow of gas within a protoplanetary disc gives us much more certainty that planets are present around a young star,” said Christophe Pinte of Monash University in Australia and Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (Université de Grenoble-Alpes/CNRS) in France, and lead author on one of the two papers. “This technique offers a promising new direction to understand how planetary systems form.”

The young star HD 163296 in the constellation of Sagittarius

To make their respective discoveries, each team analysed ALMA observations of HD 163296, a young star about 330 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer) [3]. This star is about twice the mass of the Sun but is just four million years old — just a thousandth of the age of the Sun.

“We looked at the localised, small-scale motion of gas in the star’s protoplanetary disc. This entirely new approach could uncover some of the youngest planets in our galaxy, all thanks to the high-resolution images from ALMA,” said Richard Teague, an astronomer at the University of Michigan and principal author on the other paper.

Surroundings of the young star HD 163296

Rather than focusing on the dust within the disc, which was clearly imaged in earlier ALMA observations, the astronomers instead studied carbon monoxide (CO) gas spread throughout the disc. Molecules of CO emit a very distinctive millimetre-wavelength light that ALMA can observe in great detail. Subtle changes in the wavelength of this light due to the Doppler effect reveal the motions of the gas in the disc. The team led by Teague identified two planets located approximately 12 billion and 21 billion kilometres from the star. The other team, led by Pinte, identified a planet at about 39 billion kilometres from the star [4].

ALMA Discovers Trio of Infant Planets

The two teams used variations on the same technique, which looks for anomalies in the flow of gas — as evidenced by the shifting wavelengths of the CO emission — that indicate the gas is interacting with a massive object [5]. The technique used by Teague, which derived averaged variations in the flow of the gas as small as a few percent, revealed the impact of multiple planets on the gas motions nearer to the star. The technique used by Pinte, which more directly measured the flow of the gas, is better suited to studying the outer portion of the disc. It allowed the authors to more accurately locate the third planet, but is restricted to larger deviations of the flow, greater than about 10%.

Zooming in on the young star HD 163296

In both cases, the researchers identified areas where the flow of the gas did not match its surroundings — a bit like eddies around a rock in a river. By carefully analysing this motion, they could clearly see the influence of planetary bodies similar in mass to Jupiter. This new technique allows astronomers to more precisely estimate protoplanetary masses and is less likely to produce false positives. “We are now bringing ALMA front and centre into the realm of planet detection,” said coauthor Ted Bergin of the University of Michigan. Both teams will continue refining this method and will apply it to other discs, where they hope to better understand how atmospheres are formed and which elements and molecules are delivered to a planet at its birth. Notes: [1] Although thousands of exoplanets have been discovered in the last two decades, detecting protoplanets remains at the cutting edge of science and there have been no unambiguous detections before now. The techniques currently used for finding exoplanets in fully formed planetary systems — such as measuring the wobble of a star or the dimming of starlight due to a transiting planet — do not lend themselves to detecting protoplanets. [2] The motion of gas around a star in the absence of planets has a very simple, predictable pattern (Keplerian rotation) that is nearly impossible to alter both coherently and locally, so that only the presence of a relatively massive object can create such disturbances. [3] ALMA’s stunning images of HD 163296 and other similar systems have revealed intriguing patterns of concentric rings and gaps within protoplanetary discs. These gaps may be evidence that protoplanets are ploughing the dust and gas away from their orbits, incorporating some of it into their own atmospheres. A previous study of this particular star’s disc shows that the gaps in the dust and gas overlap, suggesting that at least two planets have formed there. These initial observations, however, merely provided circumstantial evidence and could not be used to accurately estimate the masses of the planets. [4] These correspond to 80, 140 and 260 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. [5] This technique is similar to the one that led to the discovery of the planet Neptune in the nineteenth century. In that case anomalies in the motion of the planet Uranus were traced to the gravitational effect of an unknown body, which was subsequently discovered visually in 1846 and found to be the eighth planet in the Solar System. More information: This research was presented in two papers to appear in the same edition of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The first is entitled “Kinematic evidence for an embedded protoplanet in a circumstellar disc”, by C. Pinte et al. and the second “A Kinematic Detection of Two Unseen Jupiter Mass Embedded Protoplanets”, by R. Teague et al. The Pinte team is composed of: C. Pinte (Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia; Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), D. J. Price (Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia), F. Ménard (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), G. Duchêne (University of California, Berkeley California, USA; Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France), W.R.F. Dent (Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago, Chile), T. Hill (Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago, Chile), I. de Gregorio-Monsalvo (Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago, Chile), A. Hales (Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago, Chile; National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA) and D. Mentiplay (Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia). The Teague team is composed of: Richard D. Teague (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA), Jaehan Bae (Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, DC, USA), Edwin A. Bergin (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA), Tilman Birnstiel (University Observatory, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany) and Daniel Foreman- Mackey (Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, New York, USA). The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA. ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 15 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a strategic partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”. Links: ESOcast 164 Light: ALMA Discovers Trio of Infant Planets: https://www.eso.org/public/videos/eso1818a/ Research paper Pinte et al. in Astrophysical Journal Letters: http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1818/eso1818a.pdf Research paper Teague et al. in Astrophysical Journal Letters: http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1818/eso1818b.pdf Photos of ALMA: http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/search/?adv=&subject_name=Atacama%20Large%20Millimeter/submillimeter%20Array Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA): http://www.eso.org/alma/ Images: ESO, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); Pinte et al./A. Isella; B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)/IAU and Sky & Telescope/Digitized Sky Survey 2/Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin/Text: ESO/Calum Turner/University of Michigan/Richard Teague/Monash University/Christophe Pinte/Video: ESO. Music: Astral Electronic. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article

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