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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Space.com: NASA provided an Artemis update today (June 30), announcing new lunar landing contracts for its Moon Base initiative and a surprise new possible rover mission that could be headed to the moon's south pole. During the second monthly update that NASA has provided for its moon base plans, the agency named Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines as the providers of four robotic landers that will deliver scientific payloads to the surface of the moon, as NASA tests and expands the technologies needed for a permanent human outpost. "This is this drawing on the playbook that worked very well for NASA during the 1960s," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said during the livestreamed update, explaining the experiential approach to a crewed lunar return. "We didn't just jump right to Apollo 11."
Isaacman also announced the potential repurposing of an engineering development model built to mirror the agency's Perseverance and Curiosity rovers on Mars. "There is another," Isaacman said, quoting Yoda's line from "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back." That test rover is called PROMISE, short for "Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration" (though it was formerly known as Optimism). PROMISE was developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, where it has been used as a test platform for fixes or commands that engineers want to try on the ground before permanently sending them to Perseverance and Curiosity. Now, NASA wants to send PROMISE on a mission of its own. Though sending PROMISE to the moon would leave Perseverance and Curiosity -- both of which remain active on Mars -- without an Earth-based testbed, Isaacman thinks it would be worth it. "We've had years now of experience operating the two rovers on the surface of Mars, and we've got this hardware that the taxpayers have invested a lot in," he said. "So the question was posed: 'What if we send it to the moon?'"
With a little refurbishment, PROMISE would help advance NASA's lunar plans, Isaacman added. Like Perseverance and Curiosity, the test rover is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which converts heat from naturally decaying radioactive material into electricity. So it wouldn't require sunlight to operate -- a real benefit on the moon, where most locations experience long stretches of darkness. (NASA plans to build its Artemis base near the moon's south pole, which is thought to harbor an abundance of water ice and also has a relatively complex lighting environment.) The other robots currently in the works to launch on future missions to the moon, including the landers announced during today's update, are all solar powered. Through 2029, NASA hopes to launch up to 20 such missions as part of the CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative to support the first phase of the agency's moon base plans, and the landers announced today will be some of the first in that lineup.
Isaacman also announced the potential repurposing of an engineering development model built to mirror the agency's Perseverance and Curiosity rovers on Mars. "There is another," Isaacman said, quoting Yoda's line from "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back." That test rover is called PROMISE, short for "Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration" (though it was formerly known as Optimism). PROMISE was developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, where it has been used as a test platform for fixes or commands that engineers want to try on the ground before permanently sending them to Perseverance and Curiosity. Now, NASA wants to send PROMISE on a mission of its own. Though sending PROMISE to the moon would leave Perseverance and Curiosity -- both of which remain active on Mars -- without an Earth-based testbed, Isaacman thinks it would be worth it. "We've had years now of experience operating the two rovers on the surface of Mars, and we've got this hardware that the taxpayers have invested a lot in," he said. "So the question was posed: 'What if we send it to the moon?'"
With a little refurbishment, PROMISE would help advance NASA's lunar plans, Isaacman added. Like Perseverance and Curiosity, the test rover is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), which converts heat from naturally decaying radioactive material into electricity. So it wouldn't require sunlight to operate -- a real benefit on the moon, where most locations experience long stretches of darkness. (NASA plans to build its Artemis base near the moon's south pole, which is thought to harbor an abundance of water ice and also has a relatively complex lighting environment.) The other robots currently in the works to launch on future missions to the moon, including the landers announced during today's update, are all solar powered. Through 2029, NASA hopes to launch up to 20 such missions as part of the CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative to support the first phase of the agency's moon base plans, and the landers announced today will be some of the first in that lineup.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope measured the constituents of exoplanet WD 1856 b's atmosphere as it passed in front of its star, finding signs of methane. WD 1856 b orbits a white dwarf star the size of Earth. As a result, the planet blocks more than half of the star’s light. The red bands indicate where bumps in the spectrum show that this planet’s atmosphere contains methane.
Read the full story: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-studies-how-pla...
Image Credit: Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
Image Description: Graphic titled “Gas giant exoplanet WD 1856 b, transmission spectrum, NIRSpec PRISM” shows a graph of amount of light blocked by percent on the y-axis and wavelength of light in microns on the x-axis. The y-axis ranges from 55.2% to 56.5% with tick marks every 0.1% and labels at 55.5 and 56.0. The x-axis ranges from 0.5 to 4.0 microns with tick marks every 0.5 microns. A thick purple line outlined with two semi-translucent bands has an inner line that’s darker and an outer line that’s lighter. The purple line is wavy and runs higher, in the top third, until about 3.5 microns, where it drops to 55.2 on the y-axis and 4.0 on the x-axis. Five humps are highlighted by vertical red bars, indicating the presence of methane. White circles representing data points are scattered above and below the purple line. A key shows that the purple line is the best fit model, red highlights methane, and white circles represent data.
James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:
You’re a spark in the dark 🎶
Billions of years ago, a Sun-like star nearing the end of its life swelled and became a red giant before ejecting its outer layers and leaving behind its core as a white dwarf. The transformation into a red giant should have destroyed any nearby planets, but astronomers found WD 1856 b, a Jupiter-sized exoplanet, orbiting the white dwarf in a tight orbit, every 34 hours at a distance of less than 2 million miles (3 million km). Could this planet actually have survived the death of its star? Or did this planet originate further out and migrate inwards due to gravitational effects of the other stars in this triple star system?
Using Webb, scientists were able to measure the temperature of this planet and show that it is significantly hotter than if the only source of its heat was the white dwarf. So the planet’s heat must be residual from an earlier time. Figuring out how early would help determine whether the heating came from being engulfed by a red giant or whether it occurred during an inward migration. The conclusion is that heating of this planet most likely happened between 3 and 5.5 billion years after the star became a red dwarf. Webb also took a look at the atmosphere of this planet which shows signs of methane.
In approximately five billion years, the Sun will run out of hydrogen fuel in its core and swell up more than 100 times larger than it is now into a red giant star. It will then shed its outer layers and end its life as a white dwarf star. Mercury, Venus, and possibly the Earth will be destroyed by the red giant. However, the fate of the more distant planets, particularly the gas giants, is unclear. Finding and studying planets in orbit around the remnants of Sun-like stars after their death is a means of learning what might happen in our own solar system in the far future.
Read more: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-studies-how-pla...
Image credit: Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
Image description: An orange gas giant planet at left, taking up about one-third of the frame, facing a star, which appears at top right as a far smaller bright dot. The planet has subtle orange cloud bands. The star illuminates the right side of the planet like the crescent of a waxing moon. Both are on the black background of space. The words “artist’s concept” are in the bottom right corner.