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How long does planet formation take? Maybe not as long as we thought, according to new research. Observations with the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) show that planet formation around young stars may begin much earlier than scientists thought.

These new results were presented at the American Astronomical Society’s 243rd Meeting. Cheng-Han Hsieh, a Ph.D. candidate at Yale, presented the new observations. “ALMA’s early observations of young protoplanetary disks have revealed many beautiful rings and gaps, possible formation sites of planets,” he said. “I wondered when these rings and gaps started to appear in the disks.”

Hsieh is referring to the well-known ALMA images of protoplanetary disks that have been making news for a few years now. These images show the protoplanetary disks around young stars with gaps that scientists think are where planets are forming.

ALMA captured these high-resolution images of nearby protoplanetary disks in 2018 as part of its Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP). The gaps indicate where planets are forming and ‘sweeping’ their lanes of material. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), S. Andrews et al.; NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello

But this earlier image and ones like it are images of Class 2 disks. The new images from ALMA are part of the CAMPOS (Corona australis, Aquila, chaMaeleon, oPhiuchus north, Ophiuchus, and Serpens) survey, named after the molecular clouds studied in the survey. They show Class 0 and Class 1 disks, which are younger. The Classes refer to the age of the stars that host the disks. In fact, at these young ages, they’re not even called stars; they’re called young stellar objects (YSOs.)

A Class 2 YSO is a protostar with a visible photosphere. But the new images show YSOs and disks that are Class 0 and Class 1. At these young ages, the YSOs are still in the collapsing and formation stages.

A YSO is only a Class 0 object for about 10,000 years and a Class 1 object for a few hundred thousand years. So, finding rings and gaps in the disks around these extremely young stellar objects is a surprising development, to say the least. If planets are forming this early in a solar system’s life, it challenges our entire understanding of how planets form.

There are two theories for how planets form: core accretion and gravitational instability.

In core accretion, a rocky core forms from colliding planetesimals, and when it has sufficient mass, it attracts a gaseous envelope. Scientists think this is how large gas giants like Jupiter form.

In gravitational instability, a protoplanetary disk becomes massive enough that it’s unstable and gravitationally bound clumps will form. The clumps and fragments go on to form planets.

This simple illustration shows how the two planet-forming theories work. The core accretion model is considered a bottom-up process, and the disk instability model is considered a top-down model. Image Credit: NASA/ ESA/ A. Feild

“It is difficult to form giant planets within a million years from the core accretion model,” said Cheng-Han Hsieh.

At the AAS Press Conference, where he presented his work, Hsieh was asked if these images capture the first stages of planet formation. Is it possible that the process begins even earlier, and we just can’t see it?

“Our survey is limited by angular resolution,” Hsieh explained. “Our angular resolution is around 15 AU, so we can only detect substructures such as rings and gaps larger than 8 AU. So, to put it into perspective, the distance between the Sun and Saturn is 9 AU. So if there’s a gap or ring larger than the distance between the Sun and Saturn, then those substructures we can detect.”

“We don’t see any substructures in the earliest systems, and this might be because the substructures are smaller early on,” Hsieh said.

Ethan Siegel from “Starts With A Bang” asked Hsieh another important question. “It’s cool that you see structure appearing in these early disks,” said Siegel. “Is there any evidence either for or against that what we’re seeing is a planet-forming structure as opposed to a transient feature being carved in the disk that will be washed out during the evolution of this planetary system as some simulations indicate?”

“For simulations, if you have Earth-sized or Neptune-sized planets inside the protoplanetary disk, they will start to accrete gas from the surrounding gas, and then over time, they will carve out gaps and rings,” Hsieh said. “On the other hand, different instabilities like perturbations in density or temperature can also cause substructures. So, it is very difficult, from observations, to determine whether or not these substructures are definitely caused by a planet or they’re coming from instabilities.”

Hsieh also explained that it’s difficult to tell for certain and that it’s the subject of much research. He also explained how important it is to detect the gaps and rings, no matter if they’re planets or some type of instability.

This ALMA image shows the protoplanetary disc surrounding the young star HL Tauri. ALMA reveals some of the substructures in the disk, like gaps where planets may be forming. Only better observations can eventually tell us whether these gaps are planets, but even if they’re not, the presence of gaps indicates that the disk has calmed enough for planets to form. Image Credit: ESO/ALMA

“But it’s still very important to determine when these substructures form because even though we don’t know whether there’s a planet inside, it still gives us a time scale for planet formation,” Hsieh explained. That’s because neither planets nor any substructure can form until the disk settles down and turbulence subsides. So even if these aren’t actually planets, their presence indicates that the protoplanetary disk has calmed enough for structures and planets to start to form.

If they are planets, then the images show that they can begin to form within about 300,000 years into the life of the young stellar object that hosts the disk. Only future observations can tell us if these are actually planets.

A paper presenting these images and results is being prepared for publishing.

The post The Youngest Planetary Disks Ever Seen appeared first on Universe Today.

It’s a real shame that spaceflight is seen as routine by the world’s media.  In reality, our exploration of the Solar System is still in its infancy, problems are still seen and sadly missions do still fail. We are reminded of this with the recent launch of the Astrobotic Peregrine lander on Sunday. It was launched atop a Vulcan rocket but it soon became apparent that there was a problem with the lander propulsion system. A leak has been discovered and unfortunately there is insufficient fuel to support a soft landing on the Moon. 

NASA had partnered with the US based Astrobotic company to send the Peregrine lunar lander to the surface of the Moon. The robotic lander was launched on Monday 8th January to deliver equipment to the surface, to the Gruithuisen Domes region. With an eye on the Artemis project, Peregrine was delivering scientific instrumentation that would pave the way for the Artemis III crewed landing. In addition there was instrumentation from German and Mexican space agencies along with equipment from universities and companies. One of the items was teh Japanese ‘lunar dream capsule’ that included over 180,000 messages from children around the world. 

Artist’s impression of Astrobiotic’s Peregrine lander on the Moon. Credit: Astrobiotic

The launch on Monday seemed pretty standard. The Vulcan Centaur rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 7.18am GMT. As scheduled, at an altitude of 500km, the Peregrine lander separated, 50 minutes after launch. All progressed well for the next few hours but 7 hours in and the lander was unable to properly orient its solar panels to align with the Sun. This meant the batteries were unable to charge but the team were able to rectify. Unfortunately this was just the beginning of the problems for this doomed craft.

Investigations by Astrobotic suggested the root cause was a problem with the propulusion system and a loss of propellant. The company released images to press agencies and via their social platforms e of the outer layers of the insulation that showed it was wrinkled. Further investigations revealed that the fuel leak was impacting the ability of the thrusters to control the attitude of the craft.

The Astrobotic social profiles posted an update on Wednesday at around 16:00 GMT to advise that it had been operational for a total of 55 hours and has travelled 80% of the distance of the Moon. Peregrine is not on a direct course to the Moon though, it has to swing back around the Earth before it would finally cruise to the Moon.

The planned lunar landing would take place 15 days from  launch. The propellant however continues to leak and is forecast to run out in 35 hours time. This will unfortunately not be enought time to reach the Moon although the team are working to try and extend the life of the system.  Astrobotic confirm that they will not be able to land on the Moon and so, assuming this is indeed how it plays out, Peregrine will end up as an expensive piece of space debris floating through space for all time.  

Source : Astrobotic Social Media Feed

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Astronomers have used JWST to find a brown dwarf with polar auroras like the Earth, or Jupiter. This is surprising because the brown dwarf, dubbed W1935, is a free-floating object, meaning it isn’t part of another star system. Therefore, there’s no solar wind available to generate any Northern Lights. Instead, the auroras are seemingly generated from methane emissions in the planet’s atmosphere, interacting with the interstellar plasma. Another theory is that it perhaps has an active but unseen moon contributing to the emissions.

An artist’s depiction of the relative sizes of the Sun, a low-mass star, a brown dwarf, Jupiter, and the Earth. Credit: Jupiter: NASA,ESA,and A. Simon (NASA,GSFC); Sun and Low-Mass Star: NASA,SDO; Brown Dwarf: NASA,ESA,and JPL-Caltech; Earth: NASA; Infographic: NASA and E. Wheatley (STScI)

Brown dwarfs are celestial objects more massive than Jupiter but smaller than a star. Brown dwarfs are considered failed stars because they form like stars do — by the contraction of gas that collapses into a dense core under the force of its own gravity – but brown dwarfs just don’t have enough mass for their cores to burn nuclear fuel and radiate starlight. Planets, meanwhile, form from the accumulation of leftover debris from stars being formed.

Brown dwarfs also do have complex planet-like outer atmospheres, including clouds and molecules such as H2O. Therefore, the fact that this brown dwarf has methane is not a surprise.

Astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to study 12 cold brown dwarfs. Two of them – W1935 and W2220 – appeared to be near twins of each other in composition, brightness, and temperature. However, W1935 showed emission from methane, as opposed to the anticipated absorption feature that was observed toward W2220. The team speculates that the methane emission may be due to processes generating aurorae. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI)

But in observing at a distinct infrared wavelength to which JWST is uniquely sensitive, the astronomers were extremely surprised to see methane emissions glowing. Usually methane absorbs visible light, especially at the red end of the spectrum.

“We expected to see methane because methane is all over these brown dwarfs. But instead of absorbing light, we saw just the opposite: The methane was glowing. My first thought was, what the heck? Why is methane emission coming out of this object?” said Jackie Faherty, an astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was awarded time with the Webb telescope to investigate 12 cold brown dwarfs.

Faherty and her team used computer models to infer what might be behind the emission. The models showed that the atmosphere on W1935 got warmer with increasing altitude, while the other brown dwarfs they were observing showed the expected opposite, where the distribution of energy throughout the atmosphere became cooler with increasing altitude.

“This temperature inversion is really puzzling,” said Ben Burningham, a co-author from the University of Hertfordshire in England and lead modeler on the work. “We have seen this kind of phenomenon in planets with a nearby star that can heat the stratosphere, but seeing it in an object with no obvious external heat source is wild.” 

A view of an auroral storm from the ISS. Credit: NASA/ESA/Tim Peake

On Earth, aurorae are created when energetic particles ejected into space from the Sun are captured by Earth’s magnetic field. They cascade down into our atmosphere along magnetic field lines near Earth’s poles, colliding with gas molecules and creating the aurora we all love to see. Jupiter and Saturn have similar auroral processes that involve interacting with the solar wind, but they also get auroral contributions from nearby active moons like Io (for Jupiter) and Enceladus (for Saturn).

But for rogue brown dwarfs like W1935, the absence of a stellar wind to contribute to the auroral process and explain the extra energy in the upper atmosphere required for the methane emission is a mystery. The team surmises that either unaccounted internal processes like the atmospheric phenomena of Jupiter and Saturn, or external interactions with either interstellar plasma or a nearby active moon may help account for the emission.

The astronomers plan to keep an eye on W1935 to learn more about what is happening there, and if possibly an unseen active moon might play a role in the methane emissions.

“With W1935, we now have a spectacular extension of a Solar System phenomenon without any stellar irradiation to help in the explanation,” Faherty noted. “With Webb, we can really ‘open the hood’ on the chemistry and unpack how similar or different the auroral process may be beyond our Solar System.”

W1935 was originally found by a citizen scientist named Dan Casslden as the Backyard Worlds Zooniverse project. The new findings of methane aurorae were presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans.

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I wasn’t around for the Apollo program that took human beings to the Moon. I would have love to have seen it all unfold though. With NASAs Artemis program the opportunity will soon be with us again to watch humans set foot on another world, just not for the first time. Alas NASA announced on Tuesday that the Moon landings which form part of Artemis 3, have been pushed back one year to 2026. 

The update from NASA came following a number of challenges to the Artemis project which aims to land humans back on the Moon including the first woman and the first person of colour. One of the key aims of Artemis is in preparation for the human exploration of Mars but in order for this to succeed, crew safety is of paramount importance. To that end the target to get the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon is now September 2025 followed by a lunar landing in September 2026. Plans for the Lunar Gateway station remain unchanged and on track for 2028.

Artemis II is the first flight that will carry a crew and their safety is key. The mission will test the life support systems, environmental controls and other elements of the technology required to support human occupants. On the lead up to this land mark mission, NASA have unveiled issues (issues with battery, air ventiliation components and temperature control) that need extra time to resolve. In addition to these fixes, there was la oss of pieces of the heat shield protective layers during Artemis I. These issues must all be resolved before the crewed test flights can continue. 

The changes to timeline for Artemis II have meant Artemis III needs to be realigned but also includes a chunk of contingecy to ensure any learnings from Artemis II can also be incorporated into Artemis III. As the program of work continues the complexity increases. Not only is the launcher new technology but the lander and spacesuits are all new too and with that comes more testing and refinements. 

Artist impression of Artemis lunar landing

Quite how these schedule changes will impact the other elements is as yet, unknown but the teams at NASA are reviewing schedules of the Gatway elements that are currently planned for October 2025. In reviewing these streams of the project, NASA are keen to protect the schedule for the rest of the Artemis program.

NASA are working closely with their delivery partners to ensure all learnings are swiftly implemented and that they delivery on time to protect the timeline for its lunar and Mars exploration goals. If all goes to (revised) plan NASA will be able to explore more of the Moon than ever before and more importantly learn how to live and work there to support long term human exploration of the Solar System. 

Source : NASA Shares Progress Toward Early Artemis Moon Missions with Crew

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Researchers using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) have found three iron rings around a young star about 500 light-years away. The rings indicate that planets are forming. What can these rings tell us about how Earth and the other planets in our Solar System formed?

One of the driving questions for humanity is how our home planet formed. Studying our Solar System has led to a partial understanding. Scientists piece together their understanding of our Solar System by studying Earth, examining asteroids, and exploring Mars and even meteorites that came from Mars. But it’s the study of other young solar systems that will take us further because they give us a glimpse of how things were about 4.5 billion years ago when our system formed.

In new research, an international team of researchers used the VLTI and its Matisse spectrometer to study the planet-forming disk around the young Herbig Ae star HD 144432. Their research is titled “Mid-infrared evidence for iron-rich dust in the multi-ringed inner disk of HD 144432.” It’s published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the lead author is József Varga from the Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, Hungary.

After a star forms, leftover material forms a rotating disk around the star called a protoplanetary disk. Out of this disk, planets form. But exactly how they form, especially rocky ones like Earth, is still a detailed question awaiting a more detailed answer. It starts with studying the dust in the interior regions of the protoplanetary disk where rocky planets form.

“When studying the dust distribution in the disk’s innermost region, we detected for the first time a complex structure in which dust piles up in three concentric rings in such an environment,” said study co-author Roy van Boekel, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany. “That region corresponds to the zone where the rocky planets formed in the solar system.”

Rocky planets form in the inner, warmer regions of a solar system close to the star. They can take tens of millions of years to form. The larger, gaseous planets like Jupiter and Saturn in our system form further away, and so do ice giants like Uranus and Neptune. It should be noted, however, that in some cases, planets can migrate to different locations.

The three rings around HD 144432 are roughly in the same region where the rocky planets in our Solar System formed. The first ring lies within Mercury’s orbit, the second ring is close to Mars, and the third ring corresponds roughly to Jupiter’s orbit.

“Our best-fit model has three disk zones with ring-like structures at 0.15, 1.3, and 4.1 au.,” the authors write in their research. This means the structure contains two gaps, at about 0.9 au and about 3 au. These gaps are carved out by still-forming rocky planets, according to the authors. “Assuming that the dark regions in the disk at ~0.9 au and at ~3 au are gaps opened by planets, we estimate the masses of the putative gap-opening planets to be around a Jupiter mass.”

This sketch from the study shows the three dusty ring regions and the gaps between them where planets are likely forming. Inside the gaps are two planets about the same mass as Jupiter. Image Credit: Varga et al. 2024.

This isn’t the first time astronomers have found a complex ring structure like this. But they usually correspond to where Saturn orbits, well beyond where rocky planets formed in our Solar System. Finding one this close to a star leads to the next question. What are the rings made of?

To find that out, the researchers compared their data to known models of dust surface brightness. They find the model that best fits their data. In this case, it’s a three-ringed structure including iron.

This figure from the study illustrates some of the work behind the results. Each panel is a best-fit brightness model image at various data wavelengths. The researchers ran several simulations to fit the data, some with dust and some including iron dust. These ones include iron. The grey circles indicate the approximate beam size of the VLTI, the telescope that captured the data. Image Credit: Varga et al. 2024.

The main component of the dust is no surprise to scientists. It contains silicates, compounds containing silica, oxygen, and metals. About 95% of Earth’s crust is made of silicates. But intriguingly, the scientists also identified iron in the dust.

“To identify the dust component responsible for the infrared continuum emission, we explore two cases for the dust composition, one with a silicate+iron mixture and the other with a silicate+carbon one,” the authors write in their paper. “We find that the iron-rich model provides a better fit to the spectral energy distribution.”

It’ll take more research to provide stronger confirmation of these results. But if they are confirmed, they’re important. This will be the first time scientists have identified iron in the protoplanetary disk around a young star. “Astronomers have thus far explained the observations of dusty disks with a mixture of carbon and silicate dust, materials that we see almost everywhere in the universe,” van Boekel explains.

The region close to the star is much hotter than more distant regions, obviously. The heat provides further confirmation of these results. In the hot environment close to the star, where the temperature reaches 1500 C, iron and minerals melt and often recondense as crystals. Conversely, carbon can’t survive the high temperatures. It would be vapourized and form carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide gas.

These results also line up with what we know about Earth and the rocky planets in our Solar System. Earth is relatively iron-rich and carbon-poor. Mercury is also iron-rich. “We think that the HD 144432 disk may be very similar to the early solar system that provided lots of iron to the rocky planets we know today,” said van Boekel. “Our study may pose as another example showing that the composition of our solar system may be quite typical.”

This table from the research shows some of the elemental compositions for Mercury, Earth, CI chondrites, and two models of the HD 144432 system’s disk zone 2. Image Credit: Varga et al. 2024.

But there’s still more work to be done to strengthen these results. Finding one young solar system that mirrors ours isn’t enough. But the VLTI has shown it can find them. If there are more out there, the VLTI should find them. “Our analysis exemplifies the need for detailed studies of the dust in inner disks with multiwavelength high angular resolution techniques,” the authors write.

Van Boekel and his colleagues have already identified some other solar systems that deserve to be examined with the powerful VLTI and its Matisse spectrometer. “We still have a few promising candidates waiting for the VLTI to take a closer look at,” van Boekel points out.

One day, with more findings like these, we may know for certain that rocky planets, including our own Earth, form close to their stars from iron-rich dust. It seems like we’re inching toward that obvious-seeming conclusion.

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Supernova explosions are fascinating because they’re so cataclysmic, powerful, and awe-inspiring. They’re Nature’s summer blockbusters. Humans have recorded their existence in ancient astronomical records and stone carvings, and in our age, with telescopes.

Now, the Dark Energy Survey (DES) has uncovered the largest number of Type 1A supernovae ever found with a single telescope.

Finding large numbers of them is about more than just cataloguing these exploding stars. Type 1A supernovae serve as standard candles, reliable markers for determining astronomical distances. That means they can help us understand the expansion of the Universe and the force that drives it: Dark Energy.

That’s the goal of the international effort of the Dark Energy Survey (DES.) The DES operates the Dark Energy Camera (DECam.) DECam works in conjunction with the 4-meter (13 t.) Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in northern Chile. DECam has a 550 megapixel CCD, wide-field vision, and can see the red-shifted light from distant galaxies. It also works in visible and ultraviolet light.

In the late 1990s, astronomers with the National Science Foundation NOIRLab discovered that the expansion of the Universe was accelerating. This was a surprise to scientists, who thought that the expansion was slowing down. Observations of Type 1a supernovae led to this new understanding, and scientists call the force that drives the accelerated expansion ‘Dark Energy.’

“It’s a really massive scale-up from 25 years ago when only 52 supernovae were used to infer dark energy.”

Professor Tamara Davis, University of Queensland, Australia and co-convener of the DES Supernova Working Group.  The history of the expansion Universe can be traced by comparing recessional velocities (redshifts) with distances determined for each supernova. The Dark Energy Survey result shows that the expansion has been accelerating with cosmic time, the signature of dark energy. Image Credit: DES Collaboration

Now, scientists at the DES have turned to Type 1a supernovae again to see what else they can learn about Dark Energy. They presented their results at the 243rd AAS Conference and in a paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal. The research is titled “The Dark Energy Survey: Cosmology Results With ~1500 New High-redshift Type Ia Supernovae Using The Full 5-year Dataset.” The paper has well over 100 authors, all with the DES Collaboration.

To perform the survey, the DECam mapped almost one-eighth of the entire sky, taking 758 nights over six years to do it. The observations captured about two million distant galaxies and several thousand supernovae. After filtering through all of the results, the team had over 1500 Type 1a supernovae.

“After accounting for the likelihood of each SN being an SN Ia, we find 1635 DES SN in the redshift range 0.10<z<1.13 that pass quality selection criteria and can be used to constrain cosmological parameters,” the authors write. This is five times as many high-quality Type 1a SN compared to previous leading research. This result gives scientists “… the tightest cosmological constraints achieved by any SN data set to date,” according to the authors.

DECam uses a system of filters to search for supernovae at different redshifts. Image Credit: DES Collaboration.

When scientists discovered the accelerating expansion of the Universe, the discovery was based on only 52 high redshift supernovae. Since then, surveys of supernovae have come from combining data from multiple surveys. This new survey is a much more homogenous data set consisting of high-quality, well-calibrated light curves. Having a large data set from a single survey helps researchers eliminate the systematic errors that weaken the results of previous research.

“It’s a really massive scale-up from 25 years ago when only 52 supernovae were used to infer dark energy,” said Tamara Davis, a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia and co-convener of the DES Supernova Working Group. 

The massive increase in SN data will allow cosmologists to place constraints on their models of Dark Energy and Universal Expansion. Researchers take each single SN and combine its distance with its redshift, which is a measure of how fast it’s moving away from Earth, driven by Dark Energy. Scientists are trying to find the answer to a critical question: did the density of Dark Energy change as the Universe expanded over time, or has it remained constant?

Redshift is the term used to describe the stretching of wavelengths of light from an object as a result of the expansion of the Universe; the greater the object’s distance, the greater the redshift. The detailed history of the expansion of the Universe is determined by a precise relation between the distances to galaxies — or supernovae — and their redshifts. Image Credit: DES Collaboration.

The standard model of how the cosmos works is called the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model. It explains how the Universe exolves and expands using the density of matter, the type of matter, and how Dark Energy behaves. The LCDM is based on the assumption that the density of Dark Energy is constant over time and isn’t diluted as the Universe expands.

“As the Universe expands, the matter density goes down,” said DES director and spokesperson Rich Kron, who is a Fermilab and University of Chicago scientist. “But if the dark energy density is a constant, that means the total proportion of dark energy must be increasing as the volume increases.”

But these new results may be poking a hole in the LCDM model.

“A more complex explanation might be needed.”

Professor Tamara Davis, University of Queensland, Australia and co-convener of the DES Supernova Working Group.

This is the first SN survey large enough and with enough distant SN to make a detailed measurement of a critical time in the Universe’s expansion: the decelerating phase before the expansion accelerated about 9.8 billion years after the Big Bang.

The results support the idea that the density of Dark Energy is constant in the Universe. Cosmologists think that about three billion years ago, Dark Energy began to dominate the Universe’s energy density precisely because it’s constant and doesn’t dissipate with expansion. But this data also hints that the density varies some.

“There are tantalizing hints that dark energy changes with time,” said Davis. “We find that the simplest model of dark energy — ?CDM — is not the best fit. It’s not so far off that we’ve ruled it out, but in the quest to understand what is accelerating the expansion of the Universe, this is an intriguing new piece of the puzzle. A more complex explanation might be needed.”

Any new explanation might stem from changes in our understanding of gravity. Our understanding of Dark Energy’s existence relies heavily on General Relativity and its description of gravity. There are several different, competing, modified theories of gravity out there, and if one of them proves to be correct, then a cascade of new understandings in cosmology will follow, including Dark Energy and Universal Expansion.

But, in an eloquent example of how things are intertwined, the speed of gravity measured in the ongoing study of gravitational waves eliminated many competing alternate theories of gravity used to explain Dark Energy. As it stands now, most astrophysicists believe that Dark Energy exists and drives Universal Expansion.

The DES has pioneered some new, innovative techniques for analyzing astrophysical data. These techniques will be put to work when the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the Vera Rubin Observatory come online. The Vera Rubin, in particular, will generate an enormous amount of data that will require powerful data analysis to yield results.

“We’re pioneering techniques that will be directly beneficial for the next generation of supernova surveys,” said DES director and spokesperson Rich Kron.

When it comes to the enduring puzzle of the Universe’s expansion, the DES’ supernovae survey is just one of many diverse approaches needed to solve it. “We need as many diverse approaches as we can get in order to understand what dark energy is and what it isn’t,” said Nigel Sharp, a program director in NSF’s Astronomical Sciences Division. “This is an important route to that understanding.”

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Star formation is well understood when it happens in the populous centers of galaxies. From our vantage point on Earth, within the Milky Way, we see it happening all around us. But when newborn stars are birthed in the empty outskirts of galactic space, it requires a new kind of explanation. At the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Association yesterday, astronomers announced that they have observed, for the first time, the unique molecular clouds that give rise to star formation near the remote edges of galaxies.

“We didn’t expect to find star formation at the outskirts of galaxies, but about 18 years ago, surprisingly, the NASA GALEX satellite (Galaxy Evolution Explorer) found a lot of newborn stars at the outskirts of galaxies,” says Jin Koda, lead researcher on the project and associate professor at Stony Brook University. “Astronomers became interested in the environment for this star formation and looked for molecular clouds – the parental sites of star formation – but couldn’t find any. Until now.”

The normal path to star formation involves diffuse atomic gas slowly gravitating together into a cloud that eventually begins to shrink and collapse. As the density increases, the single diffuse atoms form bonds, becoming molecular gas, at which point the gas has transformed into the star-forming engine that astronomers call molecular clouds.

“Molecular clouds typically have very dense cores at their centers which we call the ‘hearts’ of molecular clouds, which are surrounded by less dense molecular gas. Star formation is actually happening in these hearts of molecular clouds: the dense cores,” says Koda.

When GALEX observations found newborn stars on the edge of Galaxy M83 back in 2005, it did not see any accompanying molecular clouds. That was strange.

With this new research, the reason astronomers couldn’t see the clouds has become clear.

The outer envelope of the molecular clouds in this region were invisible: the observations could only see the minuscule “hearts” of the clouds.

Research on the far edge of galaxy M83 reveals unusual star formation in an extreme environment. This area, outlined in yellow, is shown in data from several different instruments. From left to right: optical image from CTIO, ultraviolet image from GALEX, HI 21cm image from VLA and GBT, and CO(3-2) image from ALMA. In this last image, the star-forming “hearts” of molecular clouds, circled with white, are shown. Image Credit: Jin Koda.

The team discovered a total of 23 of these solitary molecular cloud hearts, each within a tiny region of Galaxy M83.

Now that researchers know the formation sites for these outskirt stars exist (albeit looking very distinct from their inner galactic counterparts), they can put one 18-year-old mystery to rest. But the research also raised a new mystery.

The same region that hosted the 23 molecular cloud hearts was also home to a surprisingly large concentration of atomic gas, compared to the amount of molecular gas observed.

“We don’t yet understand why this atomic gas has not converted to molecular gas efficiently in this environment,” says Amanda Lee, who was an undergraduate on the team, and is now at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

For that answer, more research is necessary.

David Thilker, the astronomer responsible for the original discovery of newborn stars in M83’s outskirts using GALEX 18 years ago, says “It has been gratifying to see the search for dense clouds associated with the outer disk finally come to fruition, revealing a characteristically different observational fingerprint for the molecular clouds.”

Besides GALEX, observations for this research were carried out using a combination of instruments, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), and the Subaru Telescope.

Learn More:

“Mystery of Star Formation Revealed by Hearts of Molecular Clouds.” Green Bank Observatory.

Watch the press conference here.

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Humans have dreamed about traveling to other star systems and setting foot on alien worlds for generations. To put it mildly, interstellar exploration is a very daunting task. As we explored in a previous post, it would take between 1000 and 81,000 years for a spacecraft to reach Alpha Centauri using conventional propulsion (or those that are feasible using current technology). On top of that, there are numerous risks when traveling through the interstellar medium (ISM), not all of which are well-understood.

Under the circumstances, gram-scale spacecraft that rely on directed-energy propulsion (aka. lasers) appear to be the only viable option for reaching neighboring stars in this century. Proposed concepts include the Swarming Proxima Centauri, a collaborative effort between Space Initiatives Inc. and the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) led by Space Initiative’s chief scientist Marshall Eubanks. The concept was recently selected for Phase I development as part of this year’s NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program.

According to Eubanks, traveling through interstellar space is a question of distance, energy, and speed. At a distance of 4.25 light-years (40 trillion km; 25 trillion mi) from the Solar System, even Proxima Centauri is unfathomably far away. To put it in perspective, the record for the farthest distance ever traveled by a spacecraft goes to the Voyager 1 space probe, which is currently more than 24 billion km (15 billion mi) from Earth. Using conventional methods, the probe accomplished a maximum speed of 61,500 km/h (38,215 mph) and has been traveling for more than 46 years straight.

Graphic depiction of Swarming Proxima Centauri: Coherent Picospacecraft Swarms Over Interstellar Distances. Credit: Thomas Eubanks

In short, traveling at anything less than relativistic speed (a fraction of the speed of light) will make interstellar transits incredibly long and entirely impractical. Given the energy requirements this calls for, anything other than small spacecraft with a maximum mass of a few grams is feasible. As Eubanks told Universe Today via email:

“Of course, rockets are a common way to go fast. Rockets work by throwing “stuff” (typically hot gas) out the back, the momentum in the stuff going backwards equaling that in the velocity increase of the vehicle in the forward direction. The essence of rocketry is that it is only really efficient if the velocity of the stuff going backwards is comparable to the velocity  you want to gain going forward. If it isn’t, if it is very much smaller, you just can’t carry enough stuff to gain the velocity you want.

“The trouble is that we have no technology – no energy source – that would enable us to throw out a lot of stuff at anything like 60,000 km/sec, and so rockets won’t work. Antimatter might conceivably enable this, but we just don’t understand antimatter well enough – and can’t make anywhere near enough of it – to make this a solution, probably for many decades to come.”

In contrast, concepts like Breakthrough Starshot and the Proxima Swarm consist of “inverting the rocket” – i.e., instead of throwing stuff out, stuff is thrown at the spacecraft. Instead of heavy propellant, which constitutes the majority of conventional rockets, the energy source for a lightsail is photos (which have no mass and move at the speed of light). But as Eubanks indicated, this does not overcome the issue of energy, making it even more important that the spacecraft be as small as possible.

“Bouncing photons off of a laser sail thus solves the speed-of-stuff problem,” he said. “But the trouble is, there is not much momentum in a photon, so we need a lot of them. And given the power we are likely to have available, even a couple of decades from now, the thrust will be weak, so the mass of the probes needs to be very small – grams, not tons.”

This artist’s impression shows the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Their proposal calls for a 100-gigawatt (GW) laser beamer boosting thousands of gram-scale space probes with laser sails to relativistic speed (~10-20% of light). They also proposed a series of terrestrial light buckets measuring a square kilometer (0.386 mi2) in diameter to catch the light signals. By their estimates, this mission concept could be ready for development around midcentury and could reach Proxima Centauri and its Earth-like exoplanet (Proxima b) by the third quarter of this century (2075 or after).

In a previous paper, Eubanks and his colleagues demonstrated how a fleet of a thousand spacecraft could overcome the difficulties imposed by interstellar travel and maintaining communications with Earth. However, the eight-year round-trip time lag imposed by interstellar distances and General Relativity makes control from Earth impossible. As such, the swarm must possess an extraordinary agree of autonomy when it comes to navigation (coordinating a thousand probes) and deciding what data is returned to Earth.

While these strategies address distance, energy, and speed (at least for the time being), there is still the issue of how much it will cost to create the swarm and the associated infrastructure. The single greatest expense will be the laser array itself, whereas the gram-scale craft will be reasonably cheap to produce. As Eubanks indicated in a previous article, their proposal can be developed with a budget of $100 billion. But as Eubanks said, the benefits of the mission architecture they’ve envisioned are legion, and the payoff of sending a swarm of probes to Proxima Centauri would be astronomical:

“The simple fact is that the cost of a laser-propelled interstellar mission, with light-weight probes and a huge laser system to propel them to the stars, will be dominated by capital costs – the costs of the laser system. The probes themselves will be pretty cheap by comparison. So, if you can send one, you should send lots. Clearly, sending a lot of probes brings the advantage of redundancy. Space travel is risky, and interstellar travel is likely to be especially risky, so if we send a lot of probes, we can tolerate a high loss rate. But we can do a lot more.”

“We want to look for signs of biology and even technology, and so it would be good to get probes very close to the planet, to get good pictures and spectra of the surface and atmosphere. That will be tough for one probe, as we don’t know very well where the planet will be 24-plus years in the future. By sending a bunch of probes in a spread, at least a few should get close to the planet, giving us the close-up view we want.”

A collage of illustrations highlighting the novel concepts proposed by the 2024 NIAC Phase I awardees. Credit: (clockwise, from upper right) Steven Benner, Beijia Zhang, Matthew McQuinn, Alvaro Romero-Calvo, Thomas M. Eubanks, Kenneth Carpenter, James Bickford/Alvaro Romero/Calvo/Peter Cabauy/ Geoffrey Landis/Lynn Rothschild/Ge-Cheng Zha/NASA

Beyond that, Eubanks and his colleagues hope that the development of a coherent swarm of robotic probes will have applications closer to home. Swarm robotics is a hot field of research today and is being investigated as a possible means of exploring Europa’s interior ocean, digging underground cities on Mars, assembling large structures in space, and providing extreme weather tracking from Earth’s orbit. Beyond space exploration and Earth observation, swarm robotics also has applications in medicine, additive manufacturing, environmental studies, global positioning and navigation, search and rescue, and more.

While it could take many decades before an interstellar mission is ready to travel to Alpha Centauri, Eubanks, and his colleagues are honored and excited to be among NASA’s selectees for the 2024 NIAC program. For them, the research took many years but is closer to realization than ever. “It’s been a long time – almost a decade – and we feel honored to be selected,” said Eubanks. “Now the real work begins.”

Further Reading: NASA

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The term dark matter was coined back in 1933 and since then, the hunt for it has been well and truly on. However, the concept of dark matter was to describe anomalies from observation for example the rotation of spiral galaxies and the data from gravitational lensing. An alternative soljution is that our model of gravity is simply wrong, enter MOND, Modified Newtonian Dynamics. A new paper just published explores wide binary stars and looks to see if it supports the MOND model. 

Study the rotational velocity of spiral galaxies at different distances from the centre and you might be surprised.  You would expect the rotational velocity to decrease with increasing distance from the centre, in reality we find that it remains the same with distance or even increases. Take into account our current model of gravity and it suggests that some unseen mass encircles the galaxy aka dark matter. 

The bluish-white spiral galaxy NGC 1376 hangs delicately in the cold vacuum of space. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

MOND as an alternative model was first published in 1983 by physicist Mordehai Milgrom. The model was proposed to explain stellar motion in galaxies without dark matter. Milgrom theorised that the gravitational force varied inverseley with the radius as opposed to the inverse square of the radius.  The model explained the movements of stars in the outer region of galaxies without the need for dark matter. 

Another observational discrepancy was reported in 2023 during a study of wide binaries. It seemed the orbital motions of binaries experience larger accelerations than Newtonian gravity predicts. Taking into account the effects of dark matter still does not resolve the equations.  An opportunity therefore arose to explore wide binaries and the MOND model and, given that wide binaries are at the perfect distance for MOND effects to be detectable, it was an excellent test bed. 

The sudy was carried out by Kyu-Hyun Chae, professor of physics and astronomy at Sejong University in South Korea. Using the European Space Agency’s Gaia telescope Chae gathered new data of 2,463 wide binaries, targeting those that were unlikely to be host to unseen companions. He then applied two algoritms to test the MOND model of gravity. 

Artist impression of ESA’s Gaia satellite observing the Milky Way (Credit : ESA/ATG medialab; Milky Way: ESA/Gaia/DPAC)

Both algoritms produced results that were consistent with MOND predictions for wide binaries. It should be noted that MOND only seems to be required for stars with component separations of about 2,000 astronomical units (1 astronomical unit equates to the average distance between the Sun and Earth.

Source : Direct Evidence for Modified Gravity at Low Acceleration is Reinforced by a New Study of Wide Binaries

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One of the fascinating things about being a human in this age is that we can do more than wonder about other life and other civilizations. We can actually look for them, although there are obvious limitations to our search. But what’s equally fascinating is that we can wonder if others can see us.

Assuming that all civilizations who have begun to explore their surroundings are interested in finding other civilizations, then the question of who can detect who comes down to technology. It takes advanced technological tools to search for the technosignatures of other civilizations. It also takes technology to produce most of them. But what level of technology is needed on both sides of that equation?

The technology needed to produce technosignatures is not complex. We’ve had that technology for thousands of years. The Great Pyramids are proof of that. But what technology is needed to see them? And from how far away?

In new research published in the journal Acta Astronautica, a researcher associated with SETI poses the question, “Are we visible to advanced alien civilizations?” His name is Z. Osmanov, and he’s the author and co-author of multiple studies and articles on SETI and related topics.

“We considered the question of how our artificial constructions are visible to advanced extraterrestrial
civilizations,” Osmanov writes. Osmanov explains how the universal laws of physics set the limits for detection and how more advanced civilizations can solve this problem. The maximum distance for detections is about 3,000 light-years, according to Osmanov, adding that “under certain conditions, Type-II advanced alien societies might be able to resolve this problem.”

What technologies are needed to receive our technosignatures?

The background for Osmanov’s work is the classification of civilization types called the Kardashev Scale, which is familiar to many readers. It’s the work of Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev, and it describes three types of hypothetical civilizations:

• Type I Civilizations harvest, use and store all the energy on their planet.
• Type II Civilizations directly consume their star’s energy with a Dyson sphere or something similar.
• Type III Civilizations can capture all the energy available in their entire galaxy.

(Note that in the Kardashev Scale, humanity is about 0.75.)

A Type II civilization is one that can directly harvest the energy of its star using a Dyson Sphere or something similar. Credit: Fraser Cain (with Midjourney)

In his research, Osmanov ignores Type III civilizations and focuses on Types I and II. He asks a relatively straightforward question: “Can the artifacts of our technological society be visible and potentially detectable by the telescopes of ETs?”

Our technological artifacts are things like large engineering projects and satellites. A Type I or II civilization would recognize these things as technological artifacts if they could see them. According to Osmanov, the best way for an ETI to detect them is with reflected light, and that means high-powered optical telescopes with extreme angular resolution.

We’re busy building more powerful telescopes with greater angular resolution, and ETIs are probably working on it, too. ETIs more advanced than us are way ahead of us. “In this paper, we analyze how visible we are to advanced ETs, depending on their technological level.”

Osmanov says that ETIs will make use of interferometry to detect us. Astronomical interferometry uses two or more individual telescopes separated by distance to observe the same object at the same time. The data from the detectors is combined and processed. So rather than viewing something with the limited angular resolution of a single telescope, interferometry basically builds a “virtual” telescope—a telescope array—that is much larger than any physical telescope could be.

This aerial view shows the ESO’s VLTI, the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. It has a total of eight separate, movable telescopes that can all look at the same object, increasing the interferometer’s angular resolution. Image Credit: ESO

Osmanov calculates that for an alien civilization to detect the Great Pyramids of Giza, for example, the civilization would have to be no further away than about 3,000 light years. Because of the number of photons that would have to be sensed to see the Pyramids, the telescope would have to be extraordinarily huge. Only an interferometer could do it. “It is clear that the diameter of the telescope should be on the order of several million kilometres,” the author explains.

That eliminates Type 1 civilizations. “Such huge megastructures might be built only by Type-II civilizations but not by Type-I alien societies,” Osmanov writes.

But how can we know if any ETIs of Types II or III are within the 3,000 light-year range? Osmanov uses the well-known Drake Equation to determine that number. The Drake Equation is a probabilistic argument that thinkers can use to try to understand how many ETIs there might be in the Milky Way, but of course, there’s no absolute way of verifying its answers. It’s a thought experiment tool that keeps everyone on the same page when thinking about the question of ETIs.

In his calculations, the author determines the average distance among advanced civilizations. “As an order of magnitude, we assume that the civilizations are uniformly distributed over the galactic plane,” Osmanov writes. There would have to be something like 650 ETIs in the Milky Way for one of them to be close enough to detect our large engineering projects from the ancient world up to our medieval times. That includes things like the Pyramids and maybe other large constructions.

JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata captured this image of the Great Pyramids from the ISS in February 2023. The most visible one is the Great Pyramid of Giza, built in the 23rd century B.C. Image Credit: Koichi Wakata.

The numbers are different when it comes to ETIs detecting our modern structures, because there hasn’t been enough time for the reflected light from these modern structures to propagate as far into space. There would have to be vastly more ETIs for one to be close enough to detect our modern structures, including satellites. “They can detect our modern constructions only if their total number in the MW is of the order of 106, which has been hypothesized by <Carl> Sagan,” Osmanov writes.

Of course, we have no way of knowing if there are any other ETIs or if one might have found our technosignatures. But the study does give context to the question and to thought experiments.

Barring first contact, all we have is thought experiments.

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NASA’s long-lived Chandra X-ray Observatory teamed up with JWST for the first time, producing this incredibly detailed image of the famous supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. JWST first looked at the remnant in April 2023, and noticed an unusual debris structure from the destroyed star, dubbed the “Green Monster.” The combined view has helped astronomers better understand what this unusual structure is, plus it uncovered new details about the explosion that created Cas A.

This new image also includes data from the venerable Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The supernova explosion that created the iconic remnant only took place about 340 years ago. The new images and details were presented by Dan Milisavljevic from Purdue University at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans.

This colorful view can be divided into the various colors, which represents different wavelengths of light that were seen by the different telescopes. The X-rays seen by Chandra are blue, and this data revealed the hot gas in the debris is made of elements like silicon and iron. Astronomers believe the X-rays come  from supernova debris from the destroyed star, which produced energetic electrons moving through the magnetic field lines in the blast wave. X-rays are also present as thin arcs in the outer regions of the remnant.

The April 2023 image of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) from JWST’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveals Cas A in a new light, revealing the “Green Monster.” Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, D. D. Milisavljevic (Purdue), T. Temim (Princeton), I. De Looze (Ghent University). Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI)

The infrared data from JWST are red, green, blue, which shows infrared emissions from dust that is warmed up because it is embedded in the hot gas. The optical data from Hubble are seen as red and white, which shows the stars in the field. The outer parts of the image also include infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, seen in red, green and blue.

The astronomers who analyzed this data found that the filaments in the outer part of Cas A, from the blast wave, closely matched the X-ray properties of the Green Monster, including less iron and silicon than in the supernova debris.

You can see in this image below, which shows that the colors inside the Green Monster’s outline matches with the colors of the blast wave rather than the debris with iron and silicon. The researchers concluded that the Green Monster was created by a blast wave from the exploded star slamming into material surrounding it, supporting earlier suggestions from the JWST’s data alone.

“We already suspected the Green Monster was created by a blast wave from the exploded star slamming into material surrounding it,” said Jacco Vink of the University of Amsterdam, who lead the Chandra work. “Chandra helped us clinch the case.”

Chandra Image of Cassiopeia A, Labeled. Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

The debris from the explosion can be seen by Chandra because it is heated to tens of millions of degrees by shock waves. JWST’s data shows some material that has not been affected by shock waves, what can be called “pristine” debris.

In attempt to learn more about the supernova explosion, the researchers compared the JWST view of the pristine debris with X-ray maps of radioactive elements that were created in the supernova. They used NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) data to map radioactive titanium, and Chandra to map where radioactive nickel was by measuring the locations of iron. Radioactive nickel decays to form iron. An additional image shows the iron-rich debris (tracing where radioactive nickel was located) in green, the radioactive titanium in blue and the pristine debris seen in orange and yellow.

They said their analysis suggests that radioactive material seen in X-rays has helped shape the pristine debris near the center of the remnant seen with Webb, forming cavities. The fine structures in the pristine debris were most likely formed when the star’s inner layers were violently mixed with hot, radioactive matter produced during collapse of the star’s core under gravity.

“We’ve made the first map of the web-shaped, pristine debris in the center of this supernova remnant,” said Milisavljevic. “No one has ever seen structures like this before in an exploded star.”

You can see more images and details of Cas A at the Chandra website.

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Space missions regularly test multiple new technologies in one go. It’s very common to have a single mission test out three or more new technologies, making them “flight-proven.” Unfortunately, that sometimes means that though one particular new technology, or even many of them, might succeed, one technology could work. At the same time, another one could fail, and that single failure might mean that several other technologies might never even get a chance for their day in the Sun. That seems to have happened with NASA’s first Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission. While the Vulcan rocket, developed by the United Launch Alliance (ULA), lifted off successfully, the Peregrine lander, developed by Astrobotic, seems to have run into an error that jeopardizes the rest of the mission.

This might just be a matter of experience – ULA has decades of it when launching rockets. While the Vulcan is its latest and greatest rocket, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, the two giant aerospace manufacturers who are joint partners in ULA, are no strangers to successful rockets. While the Vulcan is more powerful than the Atlas V and the Delta IV heavy, the current workhorses of the ULA’s launch fleet, it follows the same basic logic of its predecessors rather than taking the sorts of risks that have made Space X’s reusable boosters the darling of space enthusiasts over the last ten years. 

But if the technology works, then it works, and the launch on the morning of January 8 counts as the first success for the Vulcan. That success comes after multiple delays from when development was originally started in 2014. Initially slated for launch in 2020, problems with engine development and the “Centaur” upper stage delayed the initial planned launch by almost four years. But sometimes repeated delays are necessary to launch a good product, which appears to be true for the Vulcan.

The Angry Astronaut already has a video released about the lander’s potential problems.
Credit – The Angry Astronaut YouTube Channel

Astrobotic has had much less experience with utilizing technologies in space. Despite being founded in 2007, the Peregrine lander that Vulcan lifted into orbit was the first time its technology had made it into space. This isn’t for want of trying. It has received millions of dollars from NASA as part of its Small Business Innovation Research, Institute for Advanced Concepts, and CLPS programs. 

It also tried to launch a predecessor to Peregrine, then known as the Griffin, through a series of launch windows from 2013 to 2016, but the mission never got off the ground. Several other projects have been canceled during the company’s history. However, as part of this current CLPS mission, the Peregrine is carrying five different NASA experiments on board, ranging from a radiation detector to a sensor to look for water and other volatiles on the lunar surface.

Peregrine itself did make it off the ground and even into space. However, as of the time of writing, the company said it experienced an anomaly with a propulsion system that made it impossible to orientate toward the Sun correctly. There are two main problems stemming from this – first, the solar arrays on the lander aren’t able to get enough sunlight to maintain lander operations in their current orientation. Second, and perhaps more devastatingly, the propulsion problem itself could stop the lander from making a soft landing as planned on the lunar surface.

SpaceFlight Now has a video describing the Peregrine lander that is having some trouble.
Credit – Spaceflight Now YouTube Channel

At the time of writing, the company was posting continual updates on X about the state of the lander. The latest update was that Astrobotic’s engineers had attempted to send a command to force the lander to reorientate toward the Sun, allowing it to receive enough solar radiation to keep operating for an extended period and thereby giving the engineers more time to figure out a solution to the propulsion problem. However, they were also entering a known communications blackout period, so it is currently unclear whether or not that orientation command successfully went through and whether the lander will be able to reestablish communications once it has passed through the blackout. 

More updates are sure to come on the lander’s current state and also on what might have potentially happened to cause these problems. But one thing is certain – this will not be the end of CLPS, nor most likely of Astrobotic itself. Despite being a start-up spun out of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, it is well-established enough in the space exploration industry for one failure such as this to not necessarily cause the company itself to fail. But, if it hopes to grow as robust as ULA at some point in the future, it will need to learn from its mistakes. Hopefully, when it does, that will result in a successful lunar lander mission for the US for the first time in decades.

Learn More:
NASA – NASA Science Heads to Moon on First US Private Robotic Artemis Flight
NASA – Astrobotic Experiences Issue Aboard First NASA CLPS Robotic Flight to the Moon
UT – Astrobotic is Going to Use a Vulcan Rocket For its Lunar Lander in 2021
UT – ULA Test Fires its New Vulcan Rocket

Lead Image:
As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander launched on United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan rocket at 2:18 a.m. EST from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Credit – NASA

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