NASA has revealed a major update after they’ve broken records in space.
According to the space agency, its spacecraft broke the record for being a human-made invention being the closest ever to the surface of the sun.
On 24 December, the Parker Solar Probe was able to come within 3.8 million miles of the sun’s surface at amazing speeds of 430,000 miles per hour, according to NASA.
The craft aimed to touch the Sun by flying through its weakest atmosphere, also known as the corona, which reaches temperatures of 982C.
The team at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland, US found out that the craft had broken the record for closest encounter to the ball of flames when it gave the all clear to the team on Christmas Eve, telling them that it had touched the Sun.
The Parker Solar Probe was able to come within 3.8 million miles of the sun’s surface (Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)
It was so fast to do its job that the team didn’t even expect to hear from it until 27 December, making it three days early on its flight plan.
Nasa said: “Following its record-breaking closest approach to the sun, Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe has transmitted a beacon tone back to Earth indicating it’s in good health and operating normally.”
Thanks to the data it will have collected from the atmosphere, scientists hope that it will allow them more information on how material is heated to millions of degrees, what is going on with where solar wind comes from, and they hope to learn how energetic particles reach near light speeds once flung into space.
It had to pass Venus seven times in order to use the planet’s gravity to move it into a tighter orbit, which launched it to the Sun, where it passed 21 times and touched it on the 22nd attempt.
“No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory,” said Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations manager at APL.
It touched the Sun (Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)
Pinkine added: “We’re excited to hear back from the spacecraft when it swings back around the Sun.”
The mission hopes to ‘take measurements that help scientists better understand how material in this region gets heated to millions of degrees, trace the origin of the solar wind (a continuous flow of material escaping the Sun) and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to near light speed,’ states the website.
Dr Nicola Fox, Nasa’s head of science, told BBC News: “For centuries, people have studied the Sun, but you don’t experience the atmosphere of a place until you actually go (and) visit it.
“And so we can’t really experience the atmosphere of our star unless we fly through it.
“We are 93 million miles away from the Sun, so if I put the Sun and the Earth one metre apart, Parker Solar Probe is 4cm from the Sun – so that’s close.”
Dr Fox added: “I will worry about the spacecraft. But we really have designed it to withstand all of these brutal, brutal conditions. It’s a tough, tough little spacecraft.”
They’ll know more on 1 January once the probe delivers a comprehensive data report, which could help scientists understand the Sun more in-depth.Featured Image Credit: Getty stock/Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images
Topics: James Webb Space Telescope, NASA, Science, Space, Technology
Britt Jones
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Updated 08:31 18 Dec 2024 GMTPublished 08:15 18 Dec 2024 GMT
NASA shares major update on astronauts stranded in space as rescue mission is delayed
They were only planning to spend a few days in space, that was back in June
Two astronauts who are stranded up on the International Space Station will have to wait even longer for rescue.
You might have been following the story of NASA astronauts Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore, 61, and Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams, 59, and their eight day mission which has left them in space a lot longer than they planned.
NASA astronaut speaks out
Credit: NASA
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On 5 June they embarked on what ought to have been a mission to space that lasted little over a week, but a wrench was thrown into the works when technical faults occurred and left the pair of them stuck in space and waiting for a return trip.
They had flown up to the ISS in Boeing’s Starliner, but the spacecraft developed a number of faults on the way and it was decided that the astronauts would not make their scheduled return trip in it.
When the spacecraft returned to Earth it was decided that Wilmore and Williams would not be on board, and with the way crew handover works up in space they were stuck waiting for the next chance to rotate off the station.
Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams went up to space in June for a mission which should have lasted just a few days (MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO/AFP via Getty Images)
While the astronauts had been due to come back from space by the end of February, NASA has now explained that there’s some more bad news on the way for the duo.
NASA said that the rescue mission had been delayed by at least another month as SpaceX apparently needs more time to get their new Dragon capsule ready for launch.
Instead of going up to the International Space Station in February it will instead not be launching before March.
There are other capsules which could possibly be used, but in order to keep things all on schedule the plan is currently to stick with what’s already happening.
“Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,” NASA’s Steve Sitch said of the delays.
Their rescue mission has been delayed as SpaceX are still getting things ready (NASA / Getty Images)
“We appreciate the hard work by the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions and the flexibility of the station programme and expedition crews as we work together to complete the new capsule’s readiness for flight.”
While the duo of stranded astronauts face an even longer wait than expected there have been some concerns over their health.
Some people seeing photos of the pair had been worried that they were suffering from malnutrition, though NASA have said all of their astronauts regularly undergo health checks and the astronauts themselves have said they’re in good health.
While some people might dream of going to space it’s possible that these two would very much like to come back down to Earth.Featured Image Credit: MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO/AFP via Getty Images / NASA / Getty Images
Joe Harker
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Published 14:47 10 Jun 2024 GMT+1
Why NASA hasn’t found alien life yet even with $10bn James Webb Space Telescope
There’s logic behind NASA’s efforts not finding alien life just yet, the space agency says
Humanity’s obsession with discovering alien life – or vice versa – is unparalleled. From The War of the Worlds to Mars Attacks and Venom, thousands of films and television shows have cemented our obsession with what might lurk on other planets.
But there’s a very real reason why humankind has struggled when it comes to exploring the cosmos and stumbling across life from a place that isn’t Earth, with NASA now moving to explain this to us.
How big is space?
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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The issue has even been given its own term, dubbed the Fermi paradox. Named after scientist Enrico Fermi, it notes the huge disparity between the lack of evidence that advanced alien life exists out there and the apparent likelihood that it does in fact exist.
With billions of stars in our very own Milky Way similar to the Sun, and then what lies further afield, the scientific chances for what is needed to allow life to prosper is at odds with humanity’s inability to find that life.
This is increasingly the case as technology gets better and better, through the likes of NASA’s $10 billion (£8 billion) James Webb Space Telescope (also known as the JWST or simply, Webb).
Launched into space two years ago, Webb is travelling the galaxy in search of all things new to provide greater understanding of the likes of black holes and finding signs of extraterrestrial life.
CGI of the James Webb Space Telescope floating in space (NASA/Getty Stock Images)
Among its discovers, Webb has found planets with all the evidence pointing towards ‘signs of life’, with investigatory work now under way.
Last week, NASA said that the JWST has been ‘busy observing a few small, potentially habitable planets, and astronomers are now hard at work analysing’ the data.
With this in mind, the American spacey agency has spoken to two doctors who help run the Webb programme to explain what is happening and why finding evidence of life is bloody hard work.
Writing in a new blog post, Doctors Knicole Colón and Christopher Stark, both Webb scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, explained why it is ‘extraordinarily difficult’ to find alien life.
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Surely there is life out there in some form (Getty Stock Images)
“The potentially habitable worlds Webb is observing are all transiting exoplanets, meaning their orbits are nearly edge-on so that they pass in front of their host stars,” they said.
“Webb takes advantage of this orientation to perform transmission spectroscopy when the planet passes in front of its star. This orientation allows us to examine the starlight filtered through the atmospheres of planets to learn about their chemical compositions.
“However, the amount of starlight blocked by the thin atmosphere of a small rocky planet is tiny, typically much smaller than 0.02%. Simply detecting an atmosphere around these small worlds is very challenging.
“Identifying the presence of water vapour, which may bolster the possibility of habitability, is even harder. Searching for biosignatures (biologically produced gases) is extraordinarily difficult, but also an exciting endeavour.”
CGI Of The James Webb Space Telescope Floating Through The Universe
Credit: Getty Stock Videos
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They also explain that there is ‘currently only a handful of small, potentially habitable worlds that are considered accessible to atmospheric characterisation with Webb’. This includes planets known as LHS 1140 b and TRAPPIST-1 e; two of NASA’s biggest hopes in finding life on other planets.
Another such planet is the super-Earth-size planet LHS 1140 b and with that comes problems.
To find potential evidence of gases produced by organisms, the JWST would have to collect data from the planet going around its sun up to 50 times, which would take up to 200 dedicated hours of Webb’s time.
And all that does is provide a base point from which readings could be taken to detect the likes of ammonia, phosphine, chloromethane, and nitrous oxide, in the best-case scenario of a clear, cloud-free atmosphere.
So basically, it’s incredibly hard to get the results in terms of time, observation conditions, and then scientific analysis. One thing that is for sure, though, is that the world’s experts in the field are certainly giving it their best shot.Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: Aliens, James Webb Space Telescope, NASA, Science, Space, Technology
Tom Earnshaw
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Updated 11:18 10 Apr 2024 GMT+1Published 15:49 14 Feb 2024 GMT
NASA James Webb Space telescope finds signs of possible lights on planet 47 light years away
The JWST telescope is already making ground-breaking discoveries
In huge news for astronomy fans, NASA may have made an intriguing breakthrough in the field of space exploration.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched on Christmas Day in 2021, sent into space to outperform the long-standing Hubble Telescope and capture crystal-clear images of newly-discovered stars, planets, galaxies, and more.
Nasa Sun Sonification (Raw Audio)
Credit: YouTube/ NASA
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The $10 billion telescope has already captured amazing photos of Uranus in our solar system… stop laughing.
And it looks like it may have just made a ground-breaking discovery light-years outside our solar system.
Despite social media rumours of the discovery of ‘city lights’ on exoplanet Proxima Centauri b, which shares similar characteristics to Earth, signalling signs of extraterrestrial life, it has since been debunked.
It turns out that the discovery is something just as interesting.
In a statement released on the official JWST website, it was announced that the telescope may just have found ‘aurorae’ appearing as lights on what is known as a ‘brown dwarf’.
Getty Stock Photos
Affectionately named ‘Brown Dwarf W1935’, the object is bigger than Jupiter but no bigger than the Sun.
It is cold and lacks a host star, meaning there is no clear source for the energy in the upper atmosphere, while it is speculated that methane emissions are behind the object emitting an aurorae.
Basically, an aurorae on Earth is created when energetic particles that make their way into space from the Sun are captured by our planet’s magnetic field.
They then cascade down towards our atmosphere along magnetic field lines around the Earth’s poles, colliding with gas molecules – this creates pretty curtains of lights – you may know these as the Northern Lights.
Jupiter and Saturn have similar aurorae phenomenons to do with solar wind, but Brown Dwarf W1935 has no star to orbit, so its aurorae is a huge mystery that is set to be discussed at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans.
Getty Stock Photo
The excitement of it possibly signalling life beyond Earth spread on social media prior to the official announcement by NASA.
It wouldn’t be possible with the Brown Dwarf being out of a habitable zone and without a star altogether.
Everyone’s hopes continue to rest on Proxima Centauri b, just 4.24 light-years from earth and within the Milky Way galaxy.
With scientists detecting the presence of water on the exoplanet, the possibility of life on the planet can’t be ruled out.
Perhaps one day, selected humans will move there to restart civilisation after a mass-extinction event on Earth.
That’s more of a Hollywood script from the depths of my brain…my bad.Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: NASA, Science, James Webb Space Telescope
Joshua Nair
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Published 12:08 21 May 2024 GMT+1
NASA cracks mystery of ‘marshmallow’ planet thanks to James Webb Space Telescope
Details about why the warm gas-giant exoplanet WASP-107 b is so puffy have been revealed
NASA has finally cracked it when it comes to explaining how a ‘marshmallow’ planet got so big despite being extremely light compared to its size.
Through the pioneering James Webb Space Telescope, the American space agency has figured out how it got so big while staying light and ‘floofy’.
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Credit: NASA
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Dubbed WASP-107 b, the massive planet lies some 200 light-years away from Earth.
It was first discovered back in 2017 by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The planet itself is massive, some three-quarters the size of Jupiter yet it holds less than 10% of the planet’s mass – meaning it’s somewhat of a balloon in comparison floating through the cosmos.
The problem with the planet
While puffy planets are not uncommon, most are hotter and more massive, and therefore easier to explain. Hence the head-scratching from scientists for the past seven years when trying to explain how it ballooned but stayed so light.
“Based on its radius, mass, age, and assumed internal temperature, we thought WASP-107 b had a very small, rocky core surrounded by a huge mass of hydrogen and helium,” explained Luis Welbanks from Arizona State University (ASU), lead author on a paper published in Nature.
WASP-107 b (NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI))
“But it was hard to understand how such a small core could sweep up so much gas, and then stop short of growing fully into a Jupiter-mass planet.”
David Sing from the Johns Hopkins University (JHU), lead author on a parallel study also published in Nature, said: “WASP-107 b is such an interesting target for Webb because it’s significantly cooler and more Neptune-like in mass than many of the other low-density planets, the hot Jupiters, we’ve been studying.
“As a result, we should be able to detect methane and other molecules that can give us information about its chemistry and internal dynamics that we can’t get from a hotter planet.”
NASA strikes again (EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/AFP via Getty Images)
What was found?
WASP-107 b’s giant radius, extended atmosphere, and edge-on orbit make it ideal for something called transmission spectroscopy; a method used to identify the various gases in a planet atmosphere based on how they affect starlight.
The precision of the data from both studies has made it possible to not just detect, but actually measure the abundances of a wealth of molecules on the planet.
This includes water vapour (H2O), methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and ammonia (NH3).
There was a huge lack of methane in the planet’s atmosphere; one-thousandth the amount expected based on its assumed temperature.
Researchers were also able to estimate the size of the planets core, which is now thought to be at least twice as big as originally thought.
CGI of the James Webb Space Telescope floating in space (NASA/Getty Stock Images)
What does this mean to the ordinary person?
All together, WASP-107 b is not as mysterious as it once appeared.
“The Webb data tells us that planets like WASP-107 b didn’t have to form in some odd way with a super small core and a huge gassy envelope,” explained Mike Line from ASU.
“Instead, we can take something more like Neptune, with a lot of rock and not as much gas, just dial up the temperature, and poof it up to look the way it does.”