Category: Spacecraft - Ascension Now

IS 3I/ATLAS REALLY A COMET?

29/8/2025

The most intriguing mystery in astronomy today is the nature of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS. Most astronomers believe it is a comet. However, Avi Loeb of Harvard University famously makes the case that it might be something else--like alien tech.
Into this debate comes new data from the James Webb Space Telescope. A paper just submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters reports that 3I/ATLAS looks like a comet, albeit a strange one. Here are the images from JWST:

Above: These JWST images show the distribution of carbon dioxide (panel b), water (panel c) and carbon monoxide (panel d). Most of the light is coming from CO2.

The infrared space telescope found most of the ingredients we expect to find in comets. There's a fuzzy coma, volatile ices, and all the usual molecules: water (H20), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO). If 3I/ATLAS is a spacecraft, it has an uncanny disguise.
However, there's also something strange. The ratios of the different molecules are quite unexpected and don't match what we see in Solar System comets. In particular, the CO2/H20 ratio of 8 ± 1 is extremely high. Only one other comet, C/2016 R2, is known to have similar chemistry, and astronomers have long considered it to be a "freak".

Above: Carbon dioxide-to-water ratios in known comets. 3I/ATLAS does not fit the trend.

Typical comets have a lot more water in their atmospheres, with H20 almost always outnumbering CO2. It could be that water production in 3I/ATLAS has not yet fully "turned on" because it is still too cold. If so, solar heating might restore ratios to normal. 3I/ATLAS will reach its closest point to the sun (1.36 AU) on Oct. 29, 2025, potentially bringing forth a geyser of water vapor to mix with the other gases.
Or, maybe, 3I/ATLAS is just strange--like it came from another star system. Stay tuned for updates.
https://spaceweather.com/

HUMANS TO ORBIT THE POLES:

31/3/2025

SpaceX is about to launch an historic mission. Later today, March 31st, four astronauts led by cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang will blast off from Cape Canaveral onboard a Falcon 9 rocket for the first-ever crewed spaceflight over the poles. During the 3-to-5 day mission, they will grow mushrooms in space, capture X-ray images of the human body in microgravity, and conduct 20 other science experiments. To watch the launch, tune into SpaceX's live stream starting at 8:46 p.m. Eastern Time.
https://spaceweather.com/

ASTRONAUTS WILL SPACEWALK WITHOUT AN AIRLOCK:

11/9/2024

SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission took flight Tuesday morning (Sept. 10th @ 5:23 a.m. EDT) when a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Conrad Pope watched the rocket roar into space from Wilmington, North Carolina:

"I wasn’t sure it was going to launch due to weather in Florida," says Pope. "But when it did, it was spectacular!"
Polaris Dawn is funded and led by billionaire Jared Isaacman, the founder of financial firm Shift4 Payments. SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis and retired US Air Force pilot Scott Poteet round out the crew of four.
A highlight of the mission will be their attempt to perform a spacewalk without an airlock. Opening the door of the Crew Dragon capsule will expose all four crew members to the vacuum of space. Only their spacesuits will keep them safe. Also, differences in pressure may make it difficult to relock the vehicle’s hatch. It's actually a daring maneuver, and we wish the crew good luck when they try it later this week.
https://spaceweather.com/

JUPITER SPACECRAFT PHOTO-OP:

10/4/2023

The European Space Agency is about to launch a very important spacecraft: The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer - 'Juice' for short. Its mission is to probe Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, moons with oceans larger than those of Earth and possible habitats for extraterrestrial life. Liftoff is scheduled for April 13th (12:15 UT) from French Guiana. "It may be possible for experienced observers to photograph Juice as it recedes on the night after launch", says John H. Rogers, the Jupiter Section Director of the British Astronomical Association. "The solar panels should be deployed by 100 minutes after launch, with full deployment over the next 17 days. You can obtain an ephemeris from JPL-Horizons. Type 'Juice' in for the target body."

"The best views will be from the Far East and Australia, from about 14:00 UT onwards, when solar panels are deployed", says Rogers. "The brightness will then diminish as the distance from Earth increases; by the time it is visible from western Europe, approaching 150,000 km out, one experienced observer suggests that it might be around mag.13 or 14."
Juice will take 8 years to reach Jupiter. After a series of visits to Callisto and Europa, Juice will enter into a permanent orbit around Ganymede in 2034 - the first time a spacecraft has ever held an orbit around a moon other than our own. Bigger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede is also the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetic field, providing a possible protective cocoon for life.
www.spaceweather.com

WILD CHINESE ROCKET VIDEO:

6/12/2022

On Nov. 29th, China launched one of the most important missions of its young space program: Shenzhou-15. The spacecraft carried three astronauts to China's new Tiangong space station, where they would begin its permanent occupation. Amateur astronomer Zheng Zhi was in Beijing when the ascending spacecraft flew overhead, and he recorded this spectacular video: to edit.

"The video shows Shenzhou-15 passing below Jupiter and a couple of Jovian Moons just before the second stage's Main Engine Cut Off," explains Zhi. "This event was captured on video by many astrophotographers in northern China."
Less than 6.5 hours later, Shenzhou-15 reached Earth orbit and docked with Tiangong --a remarkably fast automated rendevous and docking. Everything about China's new space station has gone quickly. The first module was launched in April 2021 with rapid additions resulting in its completion only 18 months later. Tiangong is now about the size of Russia's old Mir space station.
The crew of Shenzhou-15 (Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu) are commencing the "permanent manned phase" of the program. If all goes according to plan, from now on Chinese astronauts will always be in space.
https://spaceweather.com/

EUROPA AT POINT-BLANK RANGE:

30/9/2022

The first pictures from Juno's flyby of Europa on Sept 29th have arrived on Earth, and they are beautiful. At closest approach, the spacecraft was only 219 miles (352 km) above the ocean moon's icy crust, revealing cryovolcanic ridges, strangely curvaceous fractures, and frozen "rafts."

Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Navaneeth Krishnan S

This is only the third close pass in history below 310 miles (500 kilometers) altitude and the closest look at Europa any spacecraft has gotten since Jan. 3, 2000, when NASA’s Galileo spacecraft came within 218 miles (351 kilometers) of the surface.

At closest approach, Juno was directly above a region of chaos terrain called "Annwn Regio" where rafts of ice had previously broken free and re-frozen. Researchers suspect that water from beneath Annwn Regio must be breaking through from time to time. Researchers will be looking carefully at these images to see if anything has changed since Galileo visited 20+ years ago.
www.spaceweather.com

AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHS MILITARY SPACE PLANE:

5/10/2021

Did you know there's a space plane orbiting Earth? It's the US Space Force's Boeing X-37B mini-shuttle. Last night Philip Smith trained his 14-inch telescope on the elusive spacecraft as it soared over Manorville, NY:

"I let out a loud audible 'GOTCHA' followed by a huge smile," says Smith. "I've been hunting this space plane for a long time."
The X-37B is a robotic spacecraft which resembles NASA's old space shuttle. In fact, it started as a NASA project in 1999 before being transferred to the United States Department of Defense in 2004. The X-37B has been orbiting Earth off and on since April 2010, with some flights lasting as long as 780 days in orbit.
"I only wish the seeing had been better so I could get more details," says Smith. Maybe next time. Thanks in part to the efforts of amateur satellite observers, we usually know where the X-37B is. Local flyby predictions may be found at Heaven's Above.
https://spaceweather.com/

NEW IAU STATEMENT ON SATELLITE MEGA-CONSTELLATIONS:

14/2/2020

The night sky is in danger. This has been true for years as urban landscapes became increasingly light-polluted. But now there's a new threat, one you can't escape by driving into the countryside. It's the "mega-constellation." Some companies are planning to launch tens of thousands of internet satellites into low-Earth orbit. The recent launch by Space X of just 240 Starlink satellites has already ruined many astronomical observations.

Above: Astronomers at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory were trying
to photograph nearby galaxies when 19 Starlink satellites intervened. [Full Story]

This week the International Astronomical Union (IAU) issued a new press release describing the impact of satellite mega-constellations on astronomy. IAU astronomers simulated 25,000 satellites similar in type to the satellites of SpaceX, Amazon, and OneWeb, and here are their results:
1. The number of satellites above the horizon at any given time would be between ~1500 and a few thousand. Most will appear very close to the horizon, with only a relative few passing directly overhead.
2. When the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon--that is, when the night becomes dark--the number of illuminated satellites above the horizon would be around 1000. These numbers will decrease during the hours around midnight when many satellites fall into Earth's shadow.
3. At the moment it is difficult to predict how many of the illuminated satellites will be visible to the naked eye because of uncertainties in their reflectivity. Probably, the vast majority will be too faint to see. This depends to some degree on experiments such as those being carried out by SpaceX to reduce the reflectivity of their satellites with different coatings.

Above: Starlink satellites photobomb the NGC 5353/4 galaxy group
at Lowell Observatory [more]

4. Even if most satellites are invisible to the naked eye, mega-constellations pose a serious problem for professional astronomy. The trails of these satellites are bright enough to saturate modern detectors on large telescopes, and wide-field scientific astronomical observations will be severely affected.
5. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory currently under construction in Chile will be particularly hard-hit. The innovative observatory will scan large swaths of the sky, looking for near-Earth asteroids, studying dark energy, and much more. According to the IAU, up to 30% of the 30-second images during twilight hours will be affected. In theory, the effects of the new satellites could be mitigated by accurately predicting their orbits and interrupting observations, when necessary, during their passage, but this is a burdensome procedure.

There are no international rules governing the brightness of orbiting manmade objects. Until now, they didn't seem to be necessary. Mega-constellations, however, threaten "the uncontaminated view of the night sky from dark places, which should be considered a non-renounceable world human heritage," says the press release. Therefore the IAU will present its findings at meetings of the UN Committee for Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, bringing the attention of this problem to world leaders.
www.spaceweather.com

A RARE WAVE IN EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD:

22/11/2018

When a stream of solar wind hits Earth's magnetic field, magnetometers around the Arctic Circle normally go a bit haywire, with their needles swinging chaotically as the buffeting ensues. Rob Stammes of the Polarlightcenter, a magnetic observatory in Norway, sees such disordered behavior all the time. But on Nov. 18th something quite different happened. The solar wind produced a pure sine wave:

"A very stable ~15 second magnetic oscillation appeared in my recordings, and lasted for several hours," he says. "The magnetic field was swinging back and forth by 0.06 degrees, peak to peak."
Imagine blowing across a piece of paper, making it flutter with your breath. The solar wind can have a similar effect Earth's magnetic field. The waves Stammes recorded are essentially flutters propagating down the flanks of our planet's magnetosphere excited by the breath of the sun. Researchers call them "pulsations continuous" -- or "Pc" for short..
"A sensitive magnetometer is required to record these waves," says Stammes. "I use a mechanical magnetometer with bar magnets suspended from a special wire. LEDs and light detectors in an isolated dark box record the motion of the magnets, while vanes in oil damp out non-magnetic interference."
Pc waves are classified into 5 types depending on their period. The Nov. 18th waves fall into category Pc3. Researchers have found that Pc3 waves sometimes flow around Earth's magnetic field and cause a "tearing instability" in our planet's magnetic tail. This, in turn, sets the stage for an explosion as magnetic fields in the tail reconnect.

A quartet of NASA spacecraft recently flew through just such an explosion. Last week, researchers from the University of New Hampshire reported that four Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft spent several seconds inside a magnetic reconnection event as they were orbiting through Earth's magnetic tail. Sensors on the spacecraft recorded jets of high energy particles emerging from the blast site. One jet was aimed squarely at Earth and probably sparked auroras when it hit the upper atmosphere.
Stammes has recorded many Pc waves in the past, "but this is the first time I have detected category Pc3," he says. "This was a very rare episode indeed."
www.spaceweather.com

Astronaut captures image of orange light enveloping Earth during rare airglow

8/11/2018

Laura Geggel; Live Science; Wed, 07 Nov 2018 09:34 UTC

© NASA
Astronaut aboard the International Space Station captures image of orange airglow enveloping Earth

An eerie, marmalade-colored light show made Earth look like a gigantic orange lollipop, prompting an astronaut aboard the International Space Station to snap a photo of it on Oct. 7. And yesterday, NASA shared the glorious shot with Earthlings down below.

The enveloping orange hue is known as airglow - a mesmerizing luminescence caused by chemical reactions high in Earth's atmosphere, NASA reported. This ghostly glow usually happens when ultraviolet radiation from sunlight energizes molecules of nitrogen, oxygen, sodium and ozone in the atmosphere. These energized molecules then bump into each other and lose energy as they collide, resulting in a faint but spectacular afterglow, NASA said.

Airglow is best seen at night, as it's 1 billion times fainter than sunlight, NASA said. This particular photo was taken at an altitude of more than 250 miles (about 400 kilometers) above Australia.

The radiating blush, also known as chemiluminescence, is comparable to glowing chemical reactions here on Earth, including those seen in children's toys such as glow sticks and glow-in-the-dark silly putty, NASA added.

But airglow is more than an entrancing light attraction. It can also teach scientists about the workings of the upper atmosphere. For instance, it can shed light on how particles near the interface of Earth and space move, including how space weather and Earth weather are connected, NASA said.

Researchers are already using satellites - such as NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) - to study this dynamic zone.

Although this airglow emanated orange, the phenomenon isn't always the color of the snack food Doritos. In 2016, a photographer in the Azores islands in the Atlantic Ocean took a photo of a rainbow-colored airglow, according to Space.com, a sister site of Live Science.

A RADIO TRANSMISSION FROM THE SUN:

8/11/2018

The Parker Solar Probe has just radioed NASA with good news. The spacecraft survived its close approach to the sun on Nov. 5th. Because the sun is a giant natural source of broadband radio noise, Parker cannot transmit complicated data streams through the interference. Images and data won't arrive until early December when the probe has reached a sufficient distance from the sun again. For now, mission controllers are happy to have received a simple beacon saying the spacecraft is okay.

First Perihelion: Into the Unknown - Parker Solar Probe
JHU Applied Physics Laboratory
Published on Nov 2, 2018

Earlier this week, Parker screamed around the sun at 213,200 mph only 15 million miles from the stellar surface--shattering old records for both speed and distance. Intense sunlight raised the temperature of the probe's heat shield to about 820 degrees Fahrenheit. All the while, instruments and systems behind the shield kept cool in the mid-80s F.

Mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab received the status beacon at 4:46 p.m. EST on Nov. 7, 2018. It indicated, simply, "A" — the best of all four possible status signals, meaning that the probe is operating well with all instruments running and collecting science data and, if there were any minor issues, they were resolved autonomously by the spacecraft. Stay tuned for "first light" science results about one month from now.
www.spaceweather.com

SPACECRAFT MAKES RECORD CLOSE-APPROACH TO THE SUN:

30/10/2018

NASA's Parker Solar Probe is now closer to the sun than any other spacecraft in history, shattering the previous record of 26.6 million miles set by the Helios 2 spacecraft in 1976. The probe is now well inside the orbit of Mercury."It's a proud moment for our team," says Project Manager Andy Driesman of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Count to 3. Parker just broke the record again. The spacecraft is accelerating sunward for the mission's first perihelion on Nov. 5th. At closest approach, the solar disk will seem 6 times wider than it does on Earth as the probe is hit by "brutal heat and radiation" (NASA's words). Parker's carbon-composite heat shield is expected to heat up to a sizzling 2000 deg. F.
Parker's prime mission is to investigate the origin of the solar wind--a project best done uncomfortably close to the star. Parker will trace the solar wind back to its source and find out how it escapes the sun's gravity and magnetic confinement.
Russell Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory expects to learn a lot from this encounter. "We might detect magnetic islands in the solar wind, which have been theoretically predicted. And if a CME (solar explosion) happens or a comet passes through the sun's atmosphere while we are so nearby, it could be spectacular."

Howard is the principal investigator for WISPR, the probe's wide-field camera system. WISPR can actually see the solar wind, allowing it to image clouds and shock waves as they approach and pass the spacecraft. Other sensors on the spacecraft will sample the structures that WISPR sees, making measurements of particles and fields that researchers can use to test competing theories.
"We lose communication with the spacecraft during the perihelion period which begins next week," notes Howard. "This is because there isn't sufficient power to drive both the instruments and the transmitter. The first dump of data will occur in early December." Stay tuned for that.
Parker will plunge toward the sun 24 more times in the next 8 years, breaking many records en route. Here's the timeline.
www.spaceweather.com

Earth from 1.4 billion km away: Cassini captures amazing image

22/4/2017

RT : 21 Apr 2017

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured an incredible final image of Earth from 1.4 billion km away during its orbit of Saturn's rings. The space probe was facing Earth's Southern Atlantic Ocean, some 870 million miles (1.4 billion km) away, when the image of earth was captured on April 12, says NASA.

CassiniSaturn ✔ @CassiniSaturn
See that dot between #Saturn's rings? That's us. All of us, in Cassini's last view of Earth,
a billion miles away. https://go.nasa.gov/2o9bZAe :11:18 PM - 20 Apr 2017

In a zoomed-in version of the image, Earth's moon is also clearly visible, seeming to float alongside our bright planet in the dark vastness of space.

CassiniSaturn ✔ @CassiniSaturn
Zoom into Cassini’s last view of Earth and you can also see the moon – a smaller, fainter dot
to the left. https://go.nasa.gov/2o9bZAe :12:31 AM - 21 Apr 2017

The image marks Cassini's last view of Earth as the spacecraft prepares to end its mission by dramatically plunging into Saturn's atmosphere on September 15. The probe's 'Grand Finale' mission begins on Friday when the spacecraft will complete a close flyby of Saturn's moon, Titan - passing a mere 600 miles above its surface - before beginning its final set of 22 orbits between Saturn and its rings.

Cassini, a $3.2 billion mission from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency, launched in 1997 and has delivered unprecedented data of Saturn and its moons.
You can see video from the mission here.

NASA REGAINS CONTACT WITH LOST SPACECRAFT:

23/8/2016

In a surprising development, NASA has regained contact with the STEREO-B spacecraft after two years of silence. STEREO-B, which can see the farside of the sun, went quiet in 2014 after mission controllers tested a communications reset procedure. Unfortunately, STEREO-B failed the test. Since then, NASA has regularly attempted to regain contact using the Deep Space Network. On Aug. 21st, they succeeded, managing to receive a downlink carrier for several hours. In the days and weeks ahead, engineers will take steps to assess the health of STEREO-B and return it to service.
www.spaceweather.com

AMATEUR ASTRONOMER PHOTOGRAPHS 'BEAM':

31/5/2016

There's a new room on the International Space Station. NASA inflated it Saturday. The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) was filled with air by astronaut Jeff Williams as the ISS flew over the south Pacific, kicking off an experiment to learn how inflatable habitats perform in a microgravity environment. "I think I am the first amateur astronomer to photograph BEAM from Earth," says Philip Smith, who sends these before-and-after images from Manorville, New York:

"Using a backyard telescope, I tracked the ISS as it passed overhead on May 26th (before inflation) and May 28th (after)," says Smith. "The new addition was clearly visible in my images."

"The Bigelow Aerospace-built BEAM is a prototype space habitat for future space stations, moon colonies and moon bases," he adds. "I am glad to be a small part of that history."
BEAM will remain attached to station for a two-year test period. Astronauts will not occupy the new room, but they will enter from time to time and monitor its performance. For more information about BEAM, visit: www.nasa.gov/beam.  www.spaceweather.com