Notices by Fraser Cain (fraser@m.universetoday.com), page 3

Last week, NASA shut down the NEOWISE mission, after it had spent 10 years scanning the Solar System for potentially hazardous asteroids. Before this role, it was WISE, making infrared observations of the Universe, finding nearby brown dwarfs and dust-obscured galaxies across the Universe. NASA decided to end the mission because its declining altitude was already impacting its science operations. It'll burn up in the atmosphere in late 2024.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-mission-concludes-after-years-of-successful-asteroid-detections/

A Japanese satellite has just completed its analysis of a large piece of space debris, photographing it from every angle. Built by Astroscale, the spacecraft has been studying an H-IIA upper-stage rocket that launched a climate satellite in 2009. It came within 50 meters of the space debris and then maneuvered around to examine it. This is just a prototype, but a future mission will attempt to grapple and de-orbit space debris, providing a "mission termination service."

https://global.jaxa.jp/press/2024/07/20240730-1_e.html

NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory just completed its 25th year of observations, and to celebrate, they've released 25 never-before-seen images of various celestial objects. X-rays are a sign of extremely hot and energetic places in the Universe, so these images show regions around active black holes, giant clouds of hot gas, and extreme magnetic fields. Enjoy them while you can, as NASA is still planning on shutting down the mission to save budget.

https://chandra.harvard.edu/press/24_releases/press_072224.html/

NASA has awarded a Phase III NIAC grant to a proposal investigating growing structures off-planet using fungal mycelial composites - mushrooms. Since this is phase III, the team has already completed two phases of testing: growing structures on different food substrates and using inflatables for phase II. For phase three, they'll test the technique on an orbiting space station to see if mushrooms can grow into usable shapes in weightlessness.

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/mycotecture-off-planet-en-route-to-the-moon-and-mars/

As part of the Artemis missions, NASA is building the Lunar Gateway in an orbit that provides easier access to the Moon. Construction begins in 2028 with Artemis IV, and elements will be added to the station in the following missions. NASA has released a new 3D animation of the Lunar Gateway, which shows what the finished Gateway will look like, including additional modules provided by partner nations. There's even an Orion and lunar landers docked to carry astronauts.

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/gateway/gateway-up-close-in-stunning-detail/

From our vantage point on Earth, we can only see one hemisphere of the Sun, but there are enough spacecraft positioned around the Solar System that we can monitor the entire star. In mid-May, a large sunspot region unleashed the most powerful solar storm in decades toward the Earth. As the Sun rotated out of view, ESA's Solar Orbiter continued to watch the sunspot region as it released an even more powerful flare away from us.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter/Can_t_stop_won_t_stop_Solar_Orbiter_shows_the_Sun_raging_on

You might be surprised to hear this, but planet Earth contains a technological civilization. That's according to the Odysseus lunar lander that touched down on the Moon in February. The lander was equipped with an instrument called ROLSES, which examined the radio emissions of Earth as if it were an exoplanet. It was able to examine the Earth for 90 minutes, providing a glimpse of what Earth might look like from 30 light-years away.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2024/06/10/new-experiment-scientists-record-earths-radio-waves-moon

Earth's climate has changed many times over its long history, thanks to everything from volcanic eruptions to carbon dioxide levels. However, a new paper suggests that the Earth's location in the Milky Way might also affect its climate and habitability. About two million years ago, the solar system passed through an interstellar cloud so dense that it might have interfered with the Sun's solar wind, exposing the planet to more radiation and depleting the ozone.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02279-8

While JWST gives astronomers insight into the earliest times in the Universe, it also finds a surprising number of supernovae. The telescope finds exploding stars almost everywhere, discovering ten times as many supernovae in the early Universe than previously known. The discoveries were made as part of the JADES survey characterizing distant galaxies. They've found plenty of supernovae by comparing galaxies seen a year apart, looking for stars appearing or disappearing.

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-122.html

One hazard of spaceflight is meteoroids, small chunks of rock that impact spacecraft at high velocity, causing damage. Since NASA has sent spacecraft across the Solar System, they know what the environment is like. To reduce the risk, NASA has developed a new library of meteoroids across the Solar System, allowing mission planners to predict the size, speed, and density of meteoroids a spacecraft might encounter, from low-Earth orbit to various Lagrange Points.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.08685

ESA's Euclid mission has scanned the skies for months, building a map of the Universe's large-scale structures. Today, the agency released five images that showcase its Early Release Observations, which targeted 17 astronomical objects, from nearby nebulae to more distant galaxies. Because Euclid is in space, its images are four times sharper than ground-based observations. Its early catalog contains 11 million objects in visible light and 5 million in infrared.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid/ESA_s_Euclid_celebrates_first_science_with_sparkling_cosmic_views

The upcoming Polaris Dawn mission will carry private astronauts into orbit as early as the Summer of 2024. As part of this mission, they'll perform a spacewalk using a newly designed spacesuit to support extravehicular activity. According to SpaceX, the new suit incorporates new materials, fabrication processes, and joint designs to provide mobility in an unpressurized environment. The helmet is 3D printed and includes a new heads-up display.

https://www.spacex.com/updates/#eva-suit

The Milky Way is surrounded by a halo of smaller satellite dwarf galaxies, with at least 61 within 1.4 million light-years of Earth. There are undoubtedly more, and astronomers have used the Subaru telescope to search almost 3% of the sky looking for them. Astronomers conducting the survey have found nine satellite galaxies within the surveyed area, which is a higher rate than is predicted by recent models. They were only expecting to find about four.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.05439

Motorcyclists can drive inside a cylinder, using speed to generate artificial gravity that sticks them to the wall. A similar technique could be used on the Moon, allowing astronauts to maintain their cardiovascular and muscles on the Moon. Researchers put study participants into a "Wall of Death" ring, suspended them with bungee jumping bands that mimicked lunar gravity, and taught them how to run horizontally. This should be possible on the Moon without support.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231906

Telescopes work best when perched high on a mountain, above much of the murky, moisture-laden atmosphere that obscures their view of the night sky. A new Japanese observatory has come online, becoming the highest observatory in the world. The Tokyo Atacama Observatory is at the summit of Cerro Chajnantor, at 5,640 meters. It took 26 years to design and construct the observatory in such an extreme environment, but the view of the night sky will be pristine.

https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00344.html

Gravity and quantum mechanics are two theories that have been tested with extreme precision. The problem is that they're incompatible with each other. Theorists have proposed that quantum gravity could be the bridge between the two, but it hasn't been experimentally tested yet. In a new study, researchers propose that ultra-high energy neutrinos passing through the IceCube observatory in Antarctica could show the influence of quantized gravity on spacetime.

https://www.uta.edu/news/news-releases/2024/05/02/uta-scientists-test-for-quantum-nature-of-gravity

In March 2021, NASA released a cargo pallet from the International Space Station carrying nickel hydride batteries. They hoped that the hardware would burn up on re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere, but a 700-gram piece survived the process and smashed into a home in Naples, Florida. NASA collected the debris and confirmed its source. They're working to figure out how the debris survived the journey into the atmosphere to prevent it from happening again.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2024/04/15/nasa-completes-analysis-of-recovered-space-object/

After delivering the first images of the event horizon surrounding the Milky Way's supermassive black hole (Sgr A*), the Event Horizon Telescope has taken an even deeper look. This time, the worldwide network of radio telescopes has revealed the polarized light in the region, defining the direction of the magnetic fields around the black hole. They show how the magnetic fields are swirling in the same direction and hint at hidden jets.

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/astronomers-unveil-strong-magnetic-fields-spiraling-edge-milky-ways-central-black-hole

In March, we learned that NASA was getting about two billion dollars less than it had requested, forcing difficult cuts across the agency. We will see agency-wide trimming and mission pushback, but one surprising outcome was the announcement that NASA will no longer support the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This hard-working X-ray mission has been operational since 1999 and used to make countless discoveries about the high-energy Universe. No replacement is planned.

https://cxc.cfa.harvard.edu/cdo/announcement.html

Nearly 11,000 years ago, a supernova detonated relatively nearby (galactically speaking), creating the Vela Supernova Remnant. The expanding shockwaves of gas and dust cover almost 100 light-years across and would be twenty times the diameter of the full Moon if we could see it with our eyes. The 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) created this gigantic 1.3-gigapixel mosaic image, the largest ever released from this instrument. It's your new desktop wallpaper.

https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2406/