Tag: NASA

Scientists discover new Earth-sized planet; all you need to know

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

In yet another significant stride towards understanding the cosmos, scientists have discovered a new Earth-sized planet, orbiting an ultracool red dwarf star.

Called the SPECULOOS-3b, it is 55 light-years away from Earth. It was identified using a network of telescopes dedicated to exploring such celestial bodies. Scientists detected it as it passed in front of its host star, which is reportedly half as hot as the Sun and 100 times less luminous.

While SPECULOOS-3b shares its size with the Earth, it differs vastly in environmental conditions. It swings around the red dwarf once every 17 hours, which makes a year on this planet shorter than a single day on Earth.

Moreover, it is likely missing an atmosphere, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This planet is likely tidally locked, which means that its one side perpetually faces the star, receiving continuous daylight, while the other side would be locked in never-ending darkness, NASA stated.

This unique aspect of this newly found planet raises multiple questions about the potential for life as well as its atmospheric conditions.

The host star of SPECULOOS-3b is said to be dimmer than the Sun, having a temperature of around 4,760 degrees Fahrenheit (2,627 degrees Celsius). However, it pummels its planet with radiation, which means that there is likely no atmosphere.

“Though this particular red dwarf is more than a thousand times dimmer than the Sun, its planet orbits much, much closer than the Earth, heating the planetary surface,” Catherine Clark, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said.

This is the second planetary system to be discovered around such a star, post the detection of seven rocky worlds around ‘Trappist-1’, which is another cool red dwarf star 40 light years from the Earth, reports said.

The SPECULOOS project is aimed at finding habitable exoplanets and other signs of life by keeping a focus on ultra-cool dwarf stars. While these stars are abundant in our galaxy, their planetary systems remain unexplored due to their faintness and other reasons.

The US Space Agency stated that SPECULOOS-3b can be an
“excellent candidate for follow-up observations by the James Webb Space Telescope.”

Besides its potential for atmosphere and surface mineralogy, it will further help in understanding the stellar neighbourhood.

Steve B Howell, one of the planet’s discoverers at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley noted that ‘great strides’ have been made in its study of planets orbiting other stars.

“We have now reached the stage where we can detect and study Earth-sized exoplanets in detail. The next step will be to determine whether any of them are habitable, or even inhabited,” Howell said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Sunita Williams’ third mission aborted hours before lift-off due to technical glitch

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

The launch of the first crewed Boeing Starliner spacecraft flight was aborted just hours before lift-off on Tuesday due to a technical glitch. Astronaut Butch Wilmore was scheduled to accompany Sunita Williams on her third space mission aboard the spacecraft. The delay was revealed during a live NASA webcast and was ascribed to a problem with a valve in the rocket’s second stage. There has been no announcement of a revised launch date yet.

“NASA, Boeing, and United Launch Alliance scrubbed the launch opportunity on Monday, May 6 for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station due to a faulty oxygen relief valve observation on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket Centaur second stage,” the space agency said in a statement.

Today’s #Starliner launch is scrubbed as teams evaluate an oxygen relief valve on the Centaur Stage on the Atlas V. Our astronauts have exited Starliner and will return to crew quarters. For updates, watch our live coverage: https://t.co/plfuHQtv4l

— NASA (@NASA) May 7, 2024

Astronauts were strapped into their seats, ready for lift-off, when the request for a ‘scrub’ arrived, giving engineers time to check anomalous readings from an oxygen relief valve.

The Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, was scheduled to launch the Boeing Starliner at 8:04 am India time.

However, the Atlas V rocket launch was cancelled just 90 minutes before lift-off.

This is Williams’ third space mission; she previously spent 322 days in space and held the record for the most hours of spacewalk by a woman until being surpassed by Peggy Whitson.

Sunita Williams revealed that she plans to carry a special ‘lucky charm’ with her on her third space journey — an idol of Lord Ganesha. She confirmed her intention of bringing the Ganesh idol on her third space mission, according to a report in indiatimes.com

Williams said that Ganesh is her ‘good luck charm,’ and she planned to bring the statue on the commercial crew flight.  In her previous two space missions, she took the Bhagavad Gita along.

This time, she was going to be the first woman to travel on a new space shuttle’s inaugural crewed flight.

It occurs two years after the capsule in the shape of a gumdrop completed its maiden test journey to the orbiting laboratory without any humans onboard.

The Starliner’s maiden uncrewed journey to the ISS in 2019 failed.

Though no decision was made on the timing of a second lift-off attempt, the mission’s next possible launch window is Tuesday evening.

The mission gets underway at a difficult moment for Boeing, as the century-old company’s commercial aircraft segment is engulfed in a safety crisis and has already seen years of delays.

NASA is depending on Starliner’s test being successful to approve a second commercial vehicle that will transport astronauts to the ISS.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX accomplished the feat in 2020 with its Dragon capsule, breaking a nearly decade-long reliance on Russian rockets following the termination of the Space Shuttle programme.

Starliner will be launched into orbit by an Atlas V rocket manufactured by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

To test the craft’s capabilities, the crew will then assume control and drive it manually. The capsule will next arrive at the ISS and spend a week there.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight test ready for lift-off amid favourable weather forecast; when and where to watch

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

US space agency NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test is set to launch two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). Launch weather officers predict a 95% chance of favourable conditions at the scheduled lift-off time of 10:34 pm EDT. Two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore as commander and Suni Williams as pilot, are all set to make their way to space.

According to NASA, the spacecraft, on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, is scheduled to launch from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 10:34 pm EDT.

The Starliner spacecraft Calypso is capable of autonomous or manual control and is expected to dock with the space station on Wednesday, May 8.

Butch and Suni will spend about a week at the station before returning to Earth with a parachute and airbag-assisted landing in the southwestern United States.

Following the flight test, NASA will move forward with certifying Starliner and its systems for crewed rotation missions to the space station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

Where to watch

The agency said that the coverage of the mission will begin at 6:30 pm ET on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Wilmore and Williams will be the first to fly aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station.

The event has been delayed for a decade because of the spacecraft’s development setbacks.

“The Starliner spacecraft, with a diameter of 15 feet (4.56 meters), can carry up to four astronauts, or a mix of crew and cargo, for NASA missions to low Earth orbit for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program,” NASA said.

More about mission

This mission is the agency’s first crewed flight of the Starliner spacecraft, as part of the Commercial Crew Program. The mission will test the Starliner system’s end-to-end capabilities in the western United States, including launch, docking, and return to Earth.

In 2019, Williams gave the crew capsule the name Calypso to pay tribute to Jacques Cousteau, the explorer who travelled the planet on a ship of the same name.

His goal was to learn about the ocean and share the wonders of the sea with people, and Williams believes that Starliner can accomplish the same for space.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense.

The most distant spacecraft from Earth stopped sending back understandable data last November. Flight controllers traced the blank communication to a bad computer chip and rearranged the spacecraft’s coding to work around the trouble.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California declared a success after receiving good engineering updates late last week. The team is still working to restore the transmission of the science data.

It takes 22 1/2 hours to send a signal to Voyager 1, more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometres) away in interstellar space. The signal travel time is double that for a round trip.

Contact was never lost, rather it was like making a phone call where you can’t hear the person on the other end, a JPL spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Launched in 1977 to study Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 has been exploring interstellar space — the space between star systems — since 2012. Its twin, Voyager 2, is 12.6 billion miles (20 billion kilometres) away and still working fine.

Also Read: Japan’s moon lander survives 3 months despite lack of preparation for lunar night

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

NASA is seeking a faster, cheaper way to bring Mars samples to Earth

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

NASA’s plan to bring samples from Mars back to Earth is on hold until there’s a faster, cheaper way, space agency officials said Monday.

Retrieving Mars soil and rocks has been on NASA’s to-do list for decades, but the date kept moving forward, as costs ballooned. A recent independent review put the total cost at $8 billion to $11 billion, with an arrival date of 2040, about a decade later than advertised.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that’s too much and too late. He’s asking private industry and the space agency’s centres to come up with other options to revamp the project. With NASA facing across-the-board budget cuts, he wants to avoid gutting other science projects to finance the Mars sample project.

“We want to get every new and fresh idea that we can,” he said at a news conference.

NASA’s rover Perseverance already has gathered 24 core samples in tubes since landing in 2021 at Mars’ Jezero Crater, an ancient river delta. The goal is more than 30 samples to scour for possible signs of ancient Martian life.

The space agency wants to get at least some of the collected samples to Earth sometime in the 2030s for no more than $7 billion. That would require a spacecraft that goes to Mars to get the tubes and launch off the planet. Then it must rendezvous with yet another spacecraft that would bring the samples to Earth.

NASA’s science mission chief, Nicky Fox, refused to speculate at the news conference when the samples might arrive at Earth, given a new program and timeline, or even how many samples might be returned. That information will be included in any proposals, she said.

“We’ve never launched from another planet, and that’s actually what makes Mars sample return such a challenging and interesting mission,” Fox said.

Scientists are eager to analyse pristine samples from Mars in their own labs, far superior to the kind of rudimentary testing done by spacecraft at the red planet. It will take such in-depth testing to confirm any evidence of microscopic life dating back billions of years when water flowed on the planet, according to NASA.

The samples will help NASA decide where astronauts go on Mars in the 2040s, Nelson said.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, had been in charge of the sample project. It was hit by hundreds of layoffs earlier this year due to all the budget cutbacks. Nelson is seeking ideas from across the space agency, with the revamped program more spread out.

NASA hopes to receive any ideas by late fall.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

NASA confirms mystery object that crashed through roof of Florida home came from space station

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

NASA confirmed Monday that a mystery object that crashed through the roof of a Florida home last month was a chunk of space junk from equipment discarded at the International Space Station.

The cylindrical object that tore through the home in Naples on March 8 was subsequently taken to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for analysis.

The space agency said it was a metal support used to mount old batteries on a cargo pallet for disposal. The pallet was jettisoned from the space station in 2021, and the load was expected to eventually fully burn up on entry into Earth’s atmosphere, but one piece survived.

The chunk of metal weighed 1.6 pounds (0.7 kilograms) and was 4 inches (10 centimetres) tall and roughly 1 1/2 inches (4 centimetres) wide.

Homeowner Alejandro Otero told television station WINK at the time that he was on vacation when his son told him what had happened. Otero came home early to check on the house, finding the object had ripped through his ceiling and torn up the flooring.

“I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage,” Otero said. “I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”

Also Read: A 1.6-pound metal fell from the sky and crashed on someone’s house — space debris can be scary

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

A 1.6-pound metal fell from the sky and crashed on someone’s house — space debris can be scary

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

On March 8, a mysterious object crashed through the roof of Alejandro Otero’s home in Florida. Today, NASA admitted that it was a 700 gram metal object that was discarded by the International Space Station in March 2021.

It’s common practice to dispose of junk in space and they are supposed to burn up when it enters the Earth’s atmosphere but this one didn’t. Many

The metal object that fell from the sky and crashed into Otero’s home was part of a pallet, a flat wooden structure, which was used to store aging batteries  that weighed over 2,630 kg.

The problem of rising space debris

More than 25,000 objects larger than 10 centimetres are floating around the Earth’s orbit and this junk travels at a tremendous speed of about 7 to 8 kilometres a second, according to NASA.

Some of them travel at ten times the speed of a bullet.

An average of one cataloged piece of debris fell back to Earth each day in the last 50 years, the American space agency said.

On April 2, a flaming piece of orbital wreck weighing over 1,500 kg, which was left in space by the Shenzou 15 mission launched by China, crashed over Southern California.

A space debris from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) PSLV satellite fell on a beach in Australia in 2023.

Most of the space debris falls into the oceans, covering over 70% of the Earth’s surface.

While the odds may be low, but a big piece of space junk falling at great speeds and crashing into a ship could cause a lot of damage.

Some of the pieces may even be radioactive as was the case with the remnants of the Kosmos 954, a Soviet Union satellite that crashed in the north of Canada in 1978 .

Even those that fall into the water may hurt life and pollute marine ecosystems.

Possible accidents on Earth due to falling space debris are not the only risks.

The floating space junk also collide with satellites in outer space. By NASA’s admission, the ISS collides with space debris at an average of once a year.

There are international laws to curb the generation and management of space junk. Article 7 of the Outer Space Treaty says that the country launching the space object would be liable to pay for any damages due to the debris it leaves behind.

The convention, which came into force in September 1972, also provides for procedures for the settlement of claims for damages, says the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs.

However, the junk and the risks emerging from it are increasing with the rising role of private players in the space industry.

The first fine for leaving discarded junk in space was imposed only in October 2023. The US-based Dish Network paid $150,000 for violating the norms.

The European Space Agency has a planned launch in 2026 to clean up millions of space debris. The Switzerland-based Startup Clearspace that built the solution described the vehicle as a tow truck for the space.

A defunct rocket weighing 112 kg is only one of the millions of junk floating over our head in the low Earth orbit waiting to be cleaned up by Clearsapce, which was described byTIME Magazine rated as one the best inventions of 2023.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

In search for life, NASA’s ‘Clipper’ spacecraft to explore Jupiter’s moon

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

US space agency NASA is gearing up for an interplanetary probe to hunt for extra-terrestrial life on one of Jupiter’s icy moons. US scientists recently unveiled plans to send the Clipper spacecraft to Europa, one of dozens of moons orbiting Jupiter, in October this year, AFP reported.

It is touted as the nearest spot in our celestial neighbourhood that might offer a perch for life.

“One of the fundamental questions that NASA wants to understand is, are we alone in the cosmos?” the news agency quoted Bob Pappalardo, the mission’s project scientist, as saying.

This probe will cost NASA a whopping $5 billion and is currently at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, sitting in a ‘clean room’. The sealed area is only accessible to those who wear head-to-toe covering.

The US space agency is making all possible efforts to make sure that the probe remains free of contaminants to avoid transporting Earthly microbes to Europa.

Clipper will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in October 2024 to kickstart its five-year journey that involves a pass by Mars.

It is expected to be in orbit around Jupiter and Europa in 2031. There it will start its detailed study of the moon which scientists believe is covered in frozen water.

Pappalardo said that Clipper will have instruments like cameras, and spectrometers, a magnetometer and a radar that can “penetrate right through ice, bounce off liquid water and back to the surface to tell us how thick is the ice and where is liquid water located”.

The mission managers are looking out for conditions that could support life on Europa — nearly the size of Earth’s moon.

Conditions on Europa could provide a similar habitat, the scientists believe.

“If moons around planets far away from stars could hold life, then the number of opportunities around the solar system, around the universe, where life could take hold, I think goes up dramatically,” AFP quoted Jordan Evans, project manager for the Europa Clipper mission, as saying.

However, the challenging environment around Europa poses significant challenges to NASA’s mission.

A powerful radiation field around Europa may degrade the instruments, because of this the signal will take 45 minutes to arrive at mission control.

Further, it will be difficult to keep Clipper powered as sustaining power with solar arrays is difficult.

Right after launch, the solar panels put out 23,000 watts, however, once they are out at Jupiter, they are only putting out 700 watts, Evans said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Russian Soyuz rocket with 3 astronauts blasts off to the International Space Station

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying three astronauts to the International Space Station blasted off Saturday, two days after its launch was aborted at the last minute.

The spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, Russian Oleg Novitsky and Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus launched smoothly from the Russian-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan.

The launch had been planned for Thursday but was halted by an automatic safety system about 20 seconds before the scheduled liftoff. The head of the Russian space agency, Yuri Borisov, said the launch abort was triggered by a voltage drop in a power source.

The space capsule atop the rocket separated and went into orbit eight minutes after the launch and began a two-day, 34-orbit trip to the space station. If the launch had gone as scheduled on Thursday, the journey would have been much shorter, requiring only two orbits. Docking is now expected at 1510 GMT Monday.

The three astronauts were to join the station’s crew consisting of NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Russians Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin. Novitsky, Vasilevskaya and O’Hara are to return to Earth on April 6.

The space station, which has served as a symbol of post-Cold War international cooperation, is now one of the last remaining areas of collaboration between Russia and the West amid tensions over Moscow’s military action in Ukraine.

NASA and its partners hope to continue operating the orbiting outpost until 2030. Russia has continued to rely on modified versions of Soviet-designed rockets for commercial satellites, as well as crews and cargo to the space station.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow