Why is the Sun’s Corona So Hot? One Hypothesis Down, Many to Go

The temperature of the Sun’s corona is a minimum of 100 times hotter than the Sun’s surface, despite the corona being far less dense and extending millions of miles from the Sun’s surface, as well. But why is this? Now, a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal could eliminate a longstanding hypothesis regarding the processes responsible for the corona’s extreme heat, which could help them better understand the Sun’s internal processes. This study holds the potential to help scientists gain greater insight into the formation and evolution of our Sun, which could lead to better understanding stars throughout the universe, as well.

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from the first 14 laps conducted by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe around the Sun with the goal of ascertaining how the magnetic field causes S-shaped bends, often called magnetic switchbacks due to their behavior in causing sudden reversals in the magnetic field’s direction. The goal of the study was to determine the source of the switchbacks, which are known to store energy from the magnetic field, to better understand how they could potentially heat the corona and solar wind.

“That energy has to go somewhere, and it could be contributing to heating the corona and accelerating the solar wind,” said Dr. Mojtaba Akhavan-Tafti, who is an assistant research scientist of climate and space sciences and engineering at the University of Michigan and lead author of the study.

The debate regarding the origin of the switchbacks has been disputed for some time within the scientific community, with scientists currently favoring two potential hypotheses: switchbacks originate from the magnetic field bending due to the solar wind’s extreme activity that occurs past the corona, and the other origin being from the surface of the Sun.

The results of the study show switchbacks do not originate from the surface of the Sun, which the researchers attribute to the lack of the number of switchbacks inside the corona. In contrast, if the Sun’s surface was the origin of the switchbacks, it is hypothesized the switchback numbers inside the corona would be far greater. Therefore, the study’s results eliminate one of the two competing hypotheses regarding the origin of switchbacks in the Sun.

“Our theory could fill the gap between the two schools of thought on S-shaped switchback generation mechanisms,” said Dr. Akhavan-Tafti. “While they must be formed outside the corona, there could be a trigger mechanism inside the corona that causes switchbacks to form in the solar wind.”

He follows this with, “The mechanisms that cause the formation of switchbacks, and the switchbacks themselves, could heat both the corona and the solar wind.” 

The study of the Sun’s magnetic field reversal dates to the 1970s when the two German-US Helios spacecraft, dubbed Helios-1 and Helios-2, observed this reversal behavior when Helios-2 traveled just over 43.432 million kilometers (26.99 million miles) from the Sun with Helios-1 being 3 million kilometers (1.9 million miles) behind it. This distance record was broken by the Parker Solar Probe in October 2018 and has since achieved a jaw-dropping distance of 7.26 million kilometers (4.51 million miles) from the Sun, which was accomplished in September 2023.

The Helios missions were followed by the first observations of switchbacks conducted by the NASA/ESA Ulysses probe that studied the Sun’s southern and northern polar regions in 1994 and 1995, respectively. More recently, remnants of switchbacks were observed by the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter in September 2020 when the spacecraft was just over 146 million kilometers (91 million miles) from the Sun.

As noted, discovering the origin of switchbacks could help scientists better understand the internal processes of the Sun, and specifically the behavior of the solar wind, which contributes to space weather that can cause massive damage to orbiting satellites and electronic ground stations on Earth.

What new discoveries will scientists make about the origins of switchbacks on the Sun in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

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This Binary Asteroid is Messed Up. It’s Probably Earth’s Fault

Space is big, really big! Finding new asteroids which are usually dark against the inky blackness of space is harder than looking for a needle in a cosmic haystack. Back in 1991 an astronomer discovered a kilometre wide asteroid which was subsequently found to have a smaller moon half its size. It was given the snappy name of 1991 VH which , after follow up observations was revealed to have a tumbling, chaotic rotation. This was the first binary asteroid that has been seen to exhibit this behaviour. A paper just published suggests that a close encounter with Earth as recently as 12,000 years ago could have started its tumbling motion. 

Asteroid 1991 VH was discovered by Robert McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory. The asteroid was subject to high resolution imaging from Goldstone and the Arecibo Observatory in 2008 and showed a roughly spherical object. There is an equatorial ridge which gives the whole thing the appearance of a classical spinning top. It’s shape is not what makes the system unique, instead it is the chaotic tumbling nature of the binary system. 

The Arecibo Radio Telescope Credit: UCF

The satellite of 1991 VH has been dubbed S/2008 (35107) 1 and it was discovered on 27 February 1997 by a team of astronomers at Ondrejov Observatory. It was detected through photometric observations of the system’s dip in brightness caused by the eclipses and occultations as the two components rotate about each other. 

The binary asteroid pair have captured attention of astronomers because it comes from a class of asteroids known as Near Earth Binary Asteroids. Usually they consist of an oblate primary asteroid that is rotating rapidly and around it is a tidally locked elongated secondary asteroid. The tidal locking of the system is the result of tidal forces just like those that have tidally locked the Moon to Earth.  

In a paper published by Alex J Meyer from the University of Colorado Boulder and the team of researchers discuss that a past close encounter with Earth could have provided the necessary gravitational influence to disturb the binary system. It has been known that near-Earth asteroids develop chaotic orbital; properties at some point in their life. This is due to orbital resonances with some of the outermost gas giants and on occasions close passages by terrestrial planets. 

The team theorise that a single close passage by Earth could have been enough to impose a chaotic nature to the asteroids orbit. To facilitate their research, the team undertake a series of Monte-Carlo simulations where a stable binary asteroid is perturbed by a series of different orbital geometries. The resultant orbital parameters from the simulations are then compared with real observations from 1991 VH. 

Their results showed that a close fly-by of Earth by 1991 VH could most definitely alter the state. They propose that the flyby would have occurred within the last 100,000 years, possibly as close as within the last 12,000 years. The new altered chaotic state could remain until current day unless further encounters counteract the perturbations. 

Source : An Earth Encounter As the Cause of Chaotic Dynamics in Binary Asteroid (35107) 1991VH

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Starliner Successfully Fires its Thrusters, Preparing to Return to Earth

Being trapped in space sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Astronauts on board the International Space Station have on occasion, had their return delayed by weather or equipment malfunction. We find ourselves again, watching and waiting as two astronauts; Juni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stuck for months instead of their week long mission. The delays came as the Starliner system required fixes to be implemented. NASA successfully fired up 27 of its 28 thrusters in a hot-firing test and now, ground teams are preparing finally, to bring them home.

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft is officially known as the CST-100 Starliner. It was developed by Boeing as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Its purpose is to transport astronauts to the International Space Station and other low orbit craft. Starliner hit the headlines with its reusable design aimed at reducing costs and increasing launch frequency. It was first launched on 20 December 2019 as an uncrewed test flight to demonstrate docking capability with ISS. 

Boeing’s CTS-100 Starliner taking off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 5th, 2024. Credit: NASA

Since 2019 Starliner has had issues along the way but has largely seen a successful progression to becoming a key part of NASA’s launch capability. Just recently however there have been issues with the manoeuvring jets used to adjust the attitude. Engineering teams at NASA and Boeing have been working on and running tests with Mexico a new configuration. Part of the thruster system controls the flow of helium, these are the helium manifolds and they were opened to allow engineers to monitor any helium supply issues and leaks. 

The team ran a hot fire test of the reaction control system jets on 27 July to see if there were any problems with the propulsion system. They test fired 27 out of 28 jets while astronauts Wilmore and Williams sat inside the docked Starliner. The tests involved firing the jets for short bursts, one at a time. They revealed that all thrusters were back to performing well and the helium manifolds were within operational margins that were needed for a return trip from ISS. The engineering teams closed the manifolds ahead of undocking and returning the astronauts home. 

The work is not over for the engineering teams however as they are now reviewing data from the tests and from ground based testing at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico. Once the review of data is complete, NASA and Boeing will identify a date to return the astronauts. 

Meanwhile back on board the ISS Wilmore and Williams wait. They have been checking other Starliner systems in preparation for return, working with other Boeing teams to prepare and have been undertaking pressure tests of their space suits. They have been working alongside Expedition 71 members and have recently helped setup the BioServe centrifuge in the Harmony Module. The centrifuge supports a wide range of biological, physical and materials science projects. Facilitating the separation of substances with different densities it can work with cell cultures, DNA, protein, blood and sedimentary samples.

Source : NASA, Boeing Complete Second Docked Starliner Hot Fire Test

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Space Debris From Every Angle

Near-Earth space is an orbiting junkyard of space debris. Everything from old rocket parts and pieces of dead satellites to cameras and tools floats in orbit. None of it serves a useful function any longer, but it does threaten other spacecraft. In fact, some missions have been damaged by this orbital debris and the problem will get worse as we launch more missions to space.

So, it makes sense to remove the existing space junk, but how to do that? A company in Japan called Astroscale is working with the Japan Aerospace Agency (JAXA) to figure that out.

On July 15 and 16th, Astroscale maneuvered a demonstration satellite called ADRAS-J into place around its target. Its goal was to do a “Fly-around observation” of a rocket upper stage that launched the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) in 2009. ADRAS-J was launched earlier this year on a trajectory to chase down space debris. The early July portion of the mission saw ADRAS-J fly around the object and get high-quality images of the object. In addition, it took data about the rocket motor’s motion in space (including its orbital parameters) and assessed its condition. The effort was successful and the teams captured great images of the motor from every angle.

More images of the target object of space debris from ADRAS-J on July 16th. Courtesy Astroscale/JAXA.

The maneuvers ADRAS-J made are technically challenging, requiring fine guidance control of the ADRAS-J module. Luckily, the target object was fairly easy to approach and move around. In on-orbit maneuvers like this one, it’s important to control the relative position and attitude of the servicer unit (ADRAS-J). Such control allows it to move around the object and zero in on specific parts for further work. The rocket motor was fairly stable. However, not all bits of space junk are as stable as the rocket motor targeted for this experiment.

Challenges to Working with Space Debris

Given the huge collection of space junk out there, not everything is going to be easy to capture. Future “clean-up efforts” could involve so-called “non-cooperative targets” whose motions are more chaotic, or are dangerous to approach. Those could be very challenging. So, it’s important to have the detailed shape and surface reflectance of the real target object. For most pieces of space junk that information isn’t readily available.

For example, it’s also useful to know the changing visibility of the target object, and the influence of earth-reflected light, which disturbs the navigation sensor (the so-called Earth background problem in non-cooperative relative navigation). These add to the complexity of the mission. That’s because the servicer spacecraft must overcome those challenges for relative navigation while achieving highly accurate relative six-degree-of-freedom control around the target.

The ADRAS-J mission is part of the “Commercial Remove of Debris Demonstration” initiative from JAXA to acquire and test debris removal in space. If it’s successful, that should help clear up space for future missions leaving Earth. Astroscale Japan, Inc. will continue to operate ADRAS-J and will carry out “Astroscale missions” to further test the hardware and maneuvering capabilities.

The next step will be to perform a “Mission termination service”. That involves the transfer of a target piece of space junk to a safe orbit. This will be done in cooperation with JAXA, which has already provided extensive technical advice, testing facilities, and other activities supporting ADRAS-J’s development and operation.

Fly-around images in sequence. Courtesy Astroscale/JAXA.

Why Clean Up Space Junk?

Tens of thousands of artificial objects orbit above Earth. That includes more than 5,000 operating satellites, plus space stations, and Starlinks, and other stuff shot into orbit since the late 1950s. Eventually, as the old adage says, “what goes up must come down.” In fact, some of it does come back to Earth, which also poses a safety issue.

In the case of dead rocket motors and other nonworking pieces of space junk, not only will they come down to Earth, but they get in the way of spacecraft launches. That includes crewed launches carrying astronauts to the space stations, the Moon, and beyond.

The danger isn’t just that a collision will hurt somebody in space or on the ground. Tiny pieces of space junk can knock holes in solar panels and instruments. Bits of dust and paint flecks and other materials literally “sandblast” spacecraft on the way up. Space shuttles showed a lot of this damage. All this space debris began littering our spaceways starting with the first launches in the late 1950s. The materials are tracked by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and their catalogs include details of all the objects including satellites, weapons, fairings, upper stages, cameras, tools, and other pieces of debris from satellites destroyed by collisions and other actions.

It makes sense to clean up the junk that doesn’t fall back to Earth (and hopefully burn up in the atmosphere). That’s why JAXA and other agencies are looking at proactive ways to approach, apprehend, and safely store the debris (or deorbit it to vaporize, if possible). The first steps with ADRAS-J are proofs of concept that should lead to a larger clean-up job and a safer near-Earth environment for future missions.

For More Information

CRD2 Phase I / ADRAS-J Update: Fly-Around Observation Images of Space Debris Released
ESA: about Space Debris

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A Surprising Source of Oxygen in the Deep Sea

I have always found Mariana’s Trench fascinating, it’s like an alien world right on our doorstep. Any visitor to the oceans or seas of our planet will hopefully get to see fish flitting around and whilst they can survive in this alien underwater world they still need oxygen to survive. Breathing in oxygen is a familiar experience to us, we inflate our lungs and suck air into them to keep us topped up with life giving oxygen. Fish are different, they get their oxygen as water flows over their gills. Water is full of oxygen which at the surface comes from the atmosphere or plants. But deep down, thousands of meters beneath the surface, it is not so easy. Now a team of scientists think that potato-sized chunks of metal called nodules act like natural batteries, interacting with the water and putting oxygen into the deep water of the ocean. 

Thanks to robotic underwater explorers the sight of life teeming around thermal vents on the bottom of the deep ocean is not unusual. At those depths, no sunlight can penetrate to facilitate photosynthesis in plants. Somehow though, oxygen is present in the dark, deep regions of the ocean and its the rocks that a team of scientists led by Andrew Sweetman have been exploring.

A Three-dimensional cross-section of the hydrothermal system in the Chicxulub impact crater and its seafloor vents. The system has the potential for harboring microbial life. Illustration by Victor O. Leshyk for the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

The production of oxygen by plants is well understood. Light is captured by a pigment known as chlorophyll where it is then converted into chemical energy and stored in the glucose. During photosynthesis, carbon dioxide from air and water from soil are combined in a series of chemical reactions to produce glucose and oxygen that we use to breathe. This oxygen from the plants plays a role in maintaining levels in the atmosphere and the oceans and seas. The study challenges this somewhat simplified explanation. 

The team focussed on measuring how much oxygen was being consumed by organisms in the depths of the ocean. Water sampled from the deep showed a surprising rise in oxygen levels instead of an anticipated decline. The study was repeated a few years later from the same location in a study commissioned by a mining company. Again they saw a rise in oxygen levels. Clearly something in the deep ocean was creating oxygen, but what?

Lab tests ruled out the possibility of microbes but the region being studied was peppered with lumps of rock known as polymetallic nodules. The nodules are known to form when manganese and cobalt precipitate out of water and form around shells. The nodules where theorised to be the source of the oxygen but the mechanism was not understood. 

The answer came when Sweetman heard a reporter calling the nodules ‘a battery in a rock’. Putting batteries in saltwater results in bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen which is the result of a process known as electrolysis. The team measured the voltage on the nodules and found just one of them to be 0.95 volts – a little lower than the required 1.5 volts for saltwater driven electrolysis but the team were onto something, suspecting multiple rocks could cluster together to increase voltage. 

The discovery of rocks on the bottom of the ocean generating oxygen is fascinating on its own but it has profound impacts on the search for life elsewhere in the universe. We have already discovered ice covered water worlds among the moons around some of the outer planets. It’s likely there will be others in planetary systems around other stars. If these worlds are common then it is quite likely that oxygen is being released through electrolysis from similar metallic nodules and perhaps, supporting entire ecosystems.  

Source : Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor

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When Earth Danced with Polar Moons

The origins of the Moon have been the cause of many a scientific debate over the years but more recently we seem to have settled on a consensus. That a Mars-sized object crashed into Earth billions of years ago, with the debris coalescing into the Moon. The newly formed Moon drifted slowly away from Earth over the following eons but a new study suggests some surprising nuances to the accepted model. 

According to current theory, the Moon formed around 4.5 billion years ago, shortly after the Solar System’s birth. It began with a massive collision between the early Earth and a Mars-sized protoplanet called Theia. The impact sent debris into orbit around the Earth which eventually coalesced to create the Moon. There is plenty of evidence to support this theory chiefly the composition of Earth’s mantle and lunar rocks.

Artist’s impression of the early Solar System, where collision between particles in an accretion disc led to the formation of planetesimals and eventually planets. Those early particles brought primitive minerals to each world. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The majority of the debris cloud settled back down on the Earth, a large proportion formed the Moon but some of it was ejected from the Earth-Moon system. In the paper recently authored by Stephen Lepp and his team from the University of Nevada they explored the dynamics of the material ejected from the impact. 

Shortly after the Moon formed it was orbiting Earth at a distance about 5% of its current value (average distance – 384,400km) but slowly, due to tidal effects between Earth and Moon it drifted away to its current altitude. Its surface was largely molten magma which gradually cooled and solidified forming the familiar crust, mantle and core that we see today. Heavy bombardment scarred the lunar surface with impact basins and craters and volcanic activity led to the slow formation of the lunar maria. 

The orbit of the Moon around the Earth has settled into a slightly elliptical one with an eccentricity of 0.0549. It is not a perfect circle and moves from 364,397km to 406,731km from Earth. The system wasn’t so stable in the early days of the Earth-Moon system and the particles in the accreting Moon had more erratic journeys. 

The Moon on August 24, 2023, with the eQuinox 2 telescope by Unistellar. Credit: Nancy Atkinson.

One of the terms that describes evolving orbits is nodal precession (where the orbital intersections slowly move around the orbit). There are two types and the first relates to where particles in an orbit slowly precess about the angular momentum vector of the Earth-Moon system. The other occurs around highly eccentric binary systems when the inclination of the orbiting object is large. The particle precesses about the binary eccentricity vector. Taking into account the Earth and orbits of particles in the debris cloud as the Moon started to form, such orbits described would be unstable.

The team showed that of all the possible orbits of particles, those in polar orbits were the most stable. They went further and showed that they existed around the Earth-Moon binary system after the Moon formed. As the separation of the Earth and Moon slowly increased through tidal interactions the region of space where polar orbits could exist decreased. Today, with the Moon at its current distance from Earth, there are no stable polar orbits since the nodal precession driven by the Sun is dominant

The team conclude that the presence of polar orbiting material can drive eccentricity growth of a binary system like the Earth and Moon. If a significant amount of material found its way into a polar orbit then the eccentricity of the Earth-Moon system would have increased.  

Source : Polar orbits around the newly formed Earth-Moon binary system

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No Merger Needed: A Rotating Ring of Gas Creates A Hyperluminous Galaxy

Some galaxies experience rapid star formation hundreds or even thousands of times greater than the Milky Way. Astronomers think that mergers are behind these special galaxies, which were more abundant in the earlier Universe. But new results suggest no mergers are needed.

These galaxies are called Hyper Luminous Infrared Galaxies (HyLIRGs), and they emit most of their energy in the infrared. New research examined a HyLIRG that’s 10,000 times brighter than the Milky Way in infrared. Instead of a chaotic merger, they found an organized rotating ring of gas that they say is responsible for the galaxy’s abundant star formation.

Their results are in a paper in Nature Astronomy titled “Detailed study of a rare hyperluminous rotating disk in an Einstein ring 10 billion years ago.” The lead author is Daizhong Liu, a Research Professor at Purple Mountain Observatory near Nanjing, China.

HyLIRGs are the rarest type of starburst galaxy, and they’re the most extreme type. They’re found only in the distant, ancient Universe. The galaxy is named PJ0116-24 and has a redshift of z=2.125. That redshift value means the light we’re seeing was emitted about 10.5 billion years ago, and the distant galaxy is now about 16 billion light-years away. At that distance, astronomers had to use gravitational lensing to look at the galaxy. That not only magnified the galaxy, it created an Einstein Ring.

This image is a VLT MUSE image of PJ0116-24 distorted into an Einstein Ring by a gravitational lens. The foreground lens is not removed in this image. Image Credit: Liu et al. 2024.

The researchers used a pair of telescopes to observe the galaxy. The Very Large Telescope traced the warm gas with its Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS) instrument, and the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array traced the cold gas. By combining the observations from both, the astronomers found an organized ring of rotating gas. If a merger had occurred and triggered the galaxy’s abundant star formation, an organized structure like this wouldn’t have been present. Instead, the galaxy’s morphology would be much more chaotic.

The authors write, “A widely accepted scenario is that HyLIRGs are the distant higher-luminosity tail of the local ultra-luminous IR galaxies with extreme starburst activities triggered by major mergers.” Another possibility is that these galaxies are very young and are experiencing their maximum star formation rates associated with youth. The problem is that astronomers haven’t observed enough of them to be certain exactly what’s going on.

This galaxy was identified by the Planck All-Sky Survey to Analyze Gravitationally-lensed Extreme Starbursts project (PASSAGES), which found about 20 HyLIRGs. PJ0116-24 is the brightest one found in the southern sky.

This image from the research shows how the gravitational lensing created an Einstein Ring. It’s a distorted but still scientifically revealing image of the distant HyLIRG PJ0116-24. The gravitational lensing creates two images of the galaxy, with two AGN, labelled A1 and A2. The foreground lens has been removed from the image. Blue to green colours show stars, and red shows the cold gas out of which more stars form. (Note that the Einstein Ring is an artifact of gravitational lensing and is not the gaseous ring that the researchers found. That ring is revealed in velocity maps.) Image Credit: Liu et al. 2024.

The authors write, “We found PJ0116-24 to be highly rotationally supported with a richer gaseous substructure than other known HyLIRGs. Our results imply that PJ0116-24 is an intrinsically massive and rare starburst disk probably undergoing secular evolution.” Its star formation rate (SFR) is 1,490 solar masses yr^-1.

Simulations predict that the maximum SFR is greater than or equal to 1,000?solar masses yr^-1. If these observations are correct, then they show that a galaxy can reach its maximum SFR even if it is alone and hasn’t been involved in a merger.

“Unlike almost all other extreme HyLIRGs, which are major mergers, PJ0116-24 does not obviously have massive companions or disturbed kinematics as evidence for major mergers,” the authors explain in their paper.

These velocity maps clearly show a coherent rotating gaseous ring structure in PJ0116-24. If the galaxy’s rapid SFR were because of a merger, no such orderly structure would be present. Image Credit: Liu et al. 2024.

The galaxy also shows much higher metallicity than others in the early Universe. “These diagnostics indicate solar to supersolar metallicity,” the authors write. “This is much higher than in non-starburst galaxies at the same redshifts.”

Amit Vishwas is a postdoc at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Sciences. He’s a co-author of this paper and a previous paper in 2023 that used the JWST to observe another galaxy at an earlier epoch with similar gas conditions and metallicity. PJ0116-24 is about five times more massive and luminous than that one. Vishwas says both of these galaxies are helping astronomers build a better picture of how galaxies evolve.

“In both cases, gravitational lensing helped us zoom in to study the details of the interstellar medium of these galaxies,” Vishwas said in a press release. “I believe these new observations are helping us build an argument for the way galaxies evolve and build up – efficiently converting gas to stars in rapid growth spurts separated by long periods of relative calm.”

“The robust confirmation of PJ0116-24 as the most rotationally supported HyLIRG from this work is key evidence suggesting that secular evolution, that is, without recent major mergers, can be responsible for maximal star formation in the Universe,” the authors conclude in their work.

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Evolutionary Biology: Why study it? What can it teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

Universe Today has had the incredible opportunity of exploring various scientific fields, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, organic chemistry, black holes, cryovolcanism, planetary protection, dark matter, supernovae, neutron stars, and exomoons, and how these separate but unique all form the basis for helping us better understand our place in the universe.

Here, Universe Today discusses the incredible field of evolutionary biology with Dr. David Baum, who is a Professor of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, regarding the importance of studying evolutionary biology, his career highlights, what evolutionary biology can teach us about finding life beyond Earth, and what advice he can offer upcoming students who wish to pursue studying evolutionary biology. Therefore, what is the importance of studying evolutionary biology?

Dr. Baum tells Universe Today, “Humans and all living species are the products of evolution, so what could be more important than understanding how evolution works and yielded such amazing organisms and ecosystems! Most of biology is concerned with How questions, such as: How do we fight off infections? How do animals pick mates? How do plants use light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into plant matter?”

Dr. Baum continues, “Evolutionary biologists ask Why questions. When we do that, the answer can be either historical or general ahistorical. In either case, evolutionary models enrich our understanding of the natural world. Evolution also helps us make predictions, such as the almost inevitable evolution of resistance to antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, etc.”

The field of evolutionary biology, also called evolution by natural selection, was kickstarted in 1859 by Charles Darwin who famously crafted the notion of evolution by natural selection with his book On the Origin of Species. While groundbreaking, this new insight into the evolution of life was not accepted by the academic community as its own field until the 1930s, and waited another five decades until departments of evolutionary biology were created within the university system, as well.

Since then, the field of evolutionary biology has “evolved” into better understanding speciation, sexual reproduction, ageing, and cooperation, while incorporating fields like computer science and molecular genetics into answering these questions. It involves the study of various types of evolution, including adaptive, convergent, divergent, and coevolution, which attempt to explain how life evolves over time based on its environment, species, and interactions. Additionally, the field of medicine uses evolutionary biology to gain greater insights into evolutionary medicine and evolutionary therapies. Therefore, what are some of the career highlights that Dr. Baum has encountered while studying evolutionary biology?

Dr. Baum tells Universe Today, “Too many to recount, but perhaps the best was proposing a hypothesis for how complex cells with nuclei might have originated in 2014 and then having researchers discover a new group of organisms in 2015 that, when visualized in 2020, supported our model surprisingly well to the point where textbooks on the subject were rewritten!”

As its name implies, the field of evolutionary biology involves studying how biology evolves over time, ranging anywhere from thousands to billions of years. Evolutionary biologists aim to understand the processes that allowed life on the Earth to evolve from the first single-celled organisms that existed early in our planet’s history to the millions of complex species that inhabit our planet today. But despite the Earth being the only known planetary body with life, the questions that drive the field of evolutionary biology span beyond the confines of our small, blue world. In doing so, evolutionary biologists ask if these same processes could have allowed life to emerge on other planetary bodies, including the planets Mars and Venus, and even moons like Europa and Titan.

Today, the planet Mars is a dry, cold, and desolate world, but could life have formed billions of years ago after the Red Planet’s own formation? And while the surface of Venus exhibits extreme temperatures and pressures where life as we know it cannot exist, what about billions of years ago, as well? And what about Venus’ atmosphere, which has exhibited evidence that life as we know it might exist today at high altitudes where the conditions are more Earth-like regarding temperature and pressure? Does life exist in the deep oceans of Europa, and what about the liquid methane and ethane lakes and seas on Titan? Armed with these burning questions, what can evolutionary biology teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

“My lab is studying how evolution can get started on non-living planets,” Dr. Baum tells Universe Today. “We use both chemical experiments and analytical work that draws on principles from physics and evolutionary theory. I believe that this work will eventually clarify whether some kind of evolving biosphere is inevitable and whether it is likely to be composed of individualized entities, like cells, and whether those units are likely to have some analog of genetic systems. It is too early to know, but I suspect that individualization is likely to be universal, but I am less sure about genetics. We do suspect, however, that without genetic-like systems, cellular complexity is likely to be limited.”

As noted above, the field of evolutionary biology encompasses a wide range of expertise from a myriad of scientific disciplines, including computer science, genetics, and medicine. Additionally, it has enabled the creation of new research fields studying the evolution of robotics, engineering, architecture, and economics. For evolutionary robotics, scientists used the theory of natural selection to improve robots using artificial intelligence (AI) where the algorithms are produced to discard the least efficient robotic designs based on a specific task they’ve been assigned to do, which has allowed engineers to design efficient robots that can function in environments not friendly to humans, like nanoscales or space. Therefore, what advice can Dr. Baum give upcoming students who wish to pursue studying evolutionary biology?

Dr. Baum tells Universe Today, “Read lots of wonderful popular books to get a feel for the underlying principles but be critical of your own thinking – the concept of evolution by natural selection seems simple, but it turns out to be much more subtle and complex that folk usually realize.”

As the field of evolutionary biology continues to grow, expand, and “evolve” and help other scientific fields do the same, so will our understanding of how life on the Earth came to be and potentially on other worlds, as well. In the 165 years since its introduction by Charles Darwin, the field of evolutionary biology has grown to encompass far more than what Darwin potentially imagined, so it’s exciting to think where evolutionary biology will be in the next 165 years, as well.

Dr. Baum concludes by telling Universe Today, “Evolutionary biology is central to the study of why organisms are the way they are, but also underlies the most profound questions in astrobiology and physics: Is there a drive to life in the universe? When a world spawns life, is there a drive to complexity and intelligence? And, by extrapolation, are we alone in the Universe?!”

How will evolutionary biology help us understand our place in the universe in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

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Moon and Mars cave exploration could be easier with ReachBot

How will future robotic explorers navigate the difficult subterranean environments of caves and lava tubes on the Moon and Mars? This is what a recent study published in Science Robotics hopes to address as a team of researchers from Stanford University investigated the use of a novel robotic explorer called ReachBot, which could potentially use its unique mechanical design to explore deep caves and lava tubes on the Moon and Mars in the future.

Here, Universe Today discusses this incredible research with Dr. Tony Chen, who is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory at Harvard University and lead author of the study, regarding the motivation behind developing ReachBot, significant results, what steps he thinks need to be taken for ReachBot to actually go to the Moon, and how ReachBot could contribute to the upcoming Artemis missions. Therefore, what was the motivation behind ReachBot?

Dr. Chen tells Universe Today, “ReachBot started as a NASA NIAC [NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts] project, where the program is focused on the development of far-reaching and long-term technologies. The main motivation behind ReachBot is to enable robotic exploration of previous inaccessible planetary environments (such as lava tubes) that could provide interesting scientific discoveries and advancements.”

What makes ReachBot unique is its ability to maneuver difficult terrain like uneven rock surfaces by using its elongated appendages with pivoting wrists and grippers guided by a series of algorithms to determine the best course of action. This allows ReachBot to contort its body in a variety of ways while traversing both tight and wide areas within a confined space like a tube or cave. The concept of ReachBot for use in Martian lava tubes was discussed in a 2021 study (Dr. Chen as co-author), followed by prototype testing in a 2022 study (Dr. Chen as lead author), prototype improvements in a 2022 study (Dr. Chen as co-author), and further improvements in a 2022 study (Dr. Chen as co-author).

For this study, the researchers conducted field tests of ReachBot and its capabilities within a lava tube in the Lavic Lake volcanic field in the Mojave Desert as an analog for Martian lava tubes while building off the previous studies. This included investigating how ReachBot could predict how it will both grip and grasp rocky surfaces, gripper design, rocky surface site identification and selection, and how ReachBot performed in a lava tube using its extended appendages that enables the robot’s extreme maneuverability. In the end, the researchers found a wide range of possible extensions for ReachBot, along with favoring convex (outward curved) rocky surfaces that could provide stronger grips, as well.

Image of the ReachBot prototype with its extended boom and grabber within a lava tube of the Lavic Lake volcanic field in the Mojave Desert. (Credit: Stanford University Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab)

Image of grabber attached to extended boom on ReachBot. (Credit: Stanford University Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab)

Closeup image of grabber attached to extended boom on ReachBot. (Credit: Stanford University Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab)

Closeup of the ReachBot grabber without the extended boom. (Credit: Stanford University Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab)

Closeup of the ReachBot grabber without the extended boom testing its dexterity. (Credit: Stanford University Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab)

Dr. Chen tells Universe Today, “The lava tubes in the Mojave Desert were chosen because it was a close analogous cave system to what the lava tubes could potentially be like on Mars. It allowed us to bring a partial ReachBot system into this environment and investigate how the various subsystems perform in a realistic environment.”

This study comes as an international team of researchers led by the University of Trento in Italy successfully constructed a 3D map of a lava tube skylight entrance located in the Mare Tranquillitatis pit (MTP) on the Moon using radar data obtained by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The team determined the lava tube could be tens of meters in length with the skylight itself being almost 100 meters in diameter, noting such lava caves could shield future astronauts from the harsh solar and cosmic radiation that endlessly blasts the lunar surface, thus opening the potential for long-term human exploration of the Moon.

Lava tubes have long been studied for potential future human exploration on both the Moon and Mars, with more than 200 skylights having been observed on the Moon up to this point. Shielding future astronauts from harmful space radiation prevents potentially catastrophic health consequences, including biological effects, radiation sickness, cancer, and death. Being able to send a robotic explorer ahead of time could help astronauts and scientists better determine the most ideal lava caves where astronauts could call home for long-term missions. Therefore, what steps does Dr. Chen believe need to be taken for ReachBot to actually go to the Moon?

“As it currently stands, only a partial prototype of ReachBot has been constructed and tested in a relevant environment,” Dr. Chen tells Universe Today. “There are many other technological developments needed in this project to push it forward. These include but are not limited to the further development of retractable space booms to be more suitable for ReachBot application, full system prototype, and further testing in relevant environments.”

This study also comes as NASA plans to send humans back to the Moon for the first time since 1972 with the agency’s Artemis Program, including landing the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface in history. This program started with the uncrewed Artemis I mission that took the Orion spacecraft, performing a couple flybys of the Moon while testing out the various flight hardware during the mission. This will be followed with the crewed Artemis II mission, which is currently scheduled for a September 2025 launch, will consist of a 10-day mission and four astronauts (three from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency) who conducts flybys of the Moon without touching down on the surface.

The first crewed landing on the lunar surface will be the Artemis III mission, which is currently scheduled for September 2026, which will occur near the lunar south pole in hopes of extracting water ice hidden within the deep and dark craters known as the permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). While lava caves and tubes are currently not part of the program, how can ReachBot contribute to the upcoming Artemis missions?

“As you noted earlier, ReachBot was originally designed as a concept to explore Martian lava tubes,” Dr. Chen tells Universe Today. “But there are also lava tubes on the Moon that ReachBot could also provide interesting capabilities to explore. These lava tubes could potentially be a habitat for future space explorers, and ReachBot can help both exploring these caves to provide crucial data and forceful manipulation capabilities for potential construction tasks.”

How will ReachBot help improve lava cave exploration on the Moon and Mars in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

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Being in Space Mimics Age-Related Muscle Loss

One of the hazards astronauts must contend with is muscle loss. The more time they spend in a microgravity environment, the more muscle loss they suffer. Astronauts use exercise to counter the effects of muscle atrophy, but it’s not a perfect solution. Researchers want to develop drugs to help, and understanding the muscle-loss process in space is a critical first step.

In the early days of space travel, researchers weren’t certain what effects microgravity had on astronauts. As the length of space missions grew and scientific monitoring became more prevalent, researchers gained a better understanding of the problem. After the Skylab missions in 1973 and 1974, researchers acquired better data and began to reach some conclusions. It was clear that microgravity contributed to a host of health problems, and muscle atrophy was among them.

Many of the problems astronauts suffer mimic the same problems stemming from aging.

“Space is a really unique environment that accelerates qualities associated with aging and also impairs many healthy processes,” said Ngan Huang, an associate professor at Stanford University. “Astronauts come back with muscle atrophy, or a reduction of muscle function, because the muscle isn’t being actively used in the absence of gravity. As space travel becomes more common and available to civilians, it’s important to understand what happens to our muscle in microgravity.”

Huang is the co-author of new research published in the journal Stem Cell Reports. The study is “Skeletal muscle-on-a-chip in microgravity as a platform for regeneration modeling and drug screening.”

Age-related muscle loss is called sarcopenia. Many factors, including immobility, hormonal changes, and even nutrition, contribute to sarcopenia. Currently, there aren’t any FDA-approved drugs to treat the condition, so exercise, lifestyle, and nutrition are the only ways to treat it. Exercise is critical for astronauts in their struggle against muscle loss. However, space for exercise equipment is limited on the ISS. An effective medication to treat astronaut sarcopenia would be a huge boon.

In this new research, the researchers grew live muscle cells on scaffolds on tiny chips and then sent them for study in microgravity aboard the ISS. The cells grew for seven days under the watchful eyes of astronauts and were exposed to a pair of used to counteract sarcopenia and enhance muscle regeneration. Then, they compared the microgravity muscle cells to ones grown under normal gravity in a lab here on Earth.

This figure from the research gives an outline of the study. (A) shows human muscle cells were seeded onto collagen scaffolds, then placed into a bioreactor with media to become muscles on a chip. (B) shows an overview of the experiment, including travelling to the ISS, being exposed to different drugs, and later extracted and analyzed. Image Credit: Kim et al. 2024.

The results showed that the microgravity muscle cells had impaired muscle fibre formation, differences in gene activity, and differences in their protein profiles.

Muscle tubes, or myotubes, are precursors to muscle fibres. The study results showed reduced myotube length and width, as well as a reduced fusion index. The fusion index basically tells researchers how many muscle cell nuclei are present.

The mitochondria generate most of a cell’s energy, and the results showed that genes affecting their function were compromised. Since muscles have such high metabolic function, any impairment to mitochondria will play out in reduced muscle regeneration. Results also showed that genes associated with forming fat were bolstered. The researchers say the combined effect takes a large toll on muscle regeneration in microgravity.

Protein profiles are like snapshots of what cellular machinery is doing at a particular time. They reveal critical information about the cell’s function and health. In this research, the team examined 200 different proteins.

The results showed that five proteins were produced in greater abundance. Two of those are associated with chronic inflammation, and one is “a biomarker for mitochondrial dysfunction and cellular senescence.” Four of the proteins showed reduced abundance. One of those is “an important player in the maintenance of muscle and myogenesis,” the researchers write in their paper.

This image shows the “muscles-on-a-chip” experiment. Image Credit: Kim et al. 2024.

Overall, the changes the muscle cells underwent shared similarities with changes induced by aging.

“We think our research on muscle chips in microgravity may have broader implications on sarcopenia,” says Huang. “Sarcopenia usually takes decades to develop on Earth, and we think that microgravity may have some ability to accelerate the disease process in orders of days.”

The research also helped understand the role drugs could play. “We next used the muscle-on-a-chip platform to perform proof-of-concept drug screening studies,” the researchers write. They exposed the cells to drugs used to counteract sarcopenia and enhance muscle regeneration.

Geneticists use the terms down-regulation and up-regulation to describe negative and positive effects on gene expression. They found that 286 genes were down-regulated in microgravity. Of those, 200 showed a positive response to drug treatment and similar expression levels to cells in normal gravity.

These Venn diagrams from the research show upregulated genes (left) and downregulated genes (right) in microgravity. The two drugs tested in the research are IGF-1 and 15-PDGH-i. The study showed that 286 genes in muscle tissue are downregulated in microgravity and that 200 of them responded positively to drugs. Image Credit: Kim et al. 2024.

“In conclusion, we show that engineered muscle-on-a-chip bioconstructs exposed to microgravity induced prominent changes to their transcriptome that mimic aspects of impaired myogenesis,” the authors write.

Space research is difficult and resource-intensive, so the researchers intend to continue their work using equipment that mimics microgravity to dig deeper into the issue here on Earth. In 2025, the muscles-on-a-chip are scheduled for another space flight. That experiment will help to identify more drugs that can combat muscle loss.

The benefits of this research extend beyond just muscle loss. “This concept of engineered tissue chip platform in microgravity is a potentially transformative tool that could allow us to study a variety of diseases and do drug screening without animal or human subjects,” says Huang.

The authors conclude in their paper, “This work further highlights the utility of microgravity as a unique environment for drug discovery.”

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We Might Find Life Just Under the Surface on Europa

What does it take to have life at another world? Astrobiologists say you need water, warmth, and something for life to eat. If it’s there, it’ll leave signs of itself in the form of organic molecules called amino acids. Now, NASA scientists think that those “signatures” of life—or potential life—could exist just under the icy surfaces of Europa and Enceladus.

If future explorations find those signatures, it’ll make a major step in the search for life elsewhere in the Solar System—and beyond. That’s one reason why robotic missions will someday land on those moons—to look for the signs of life. The next mission to Europa, called Europa Clipper, will orbit that tiny moon, but won’t land. However, it will look for environments suitable for life. So, that’s a start. There’s also a proposed mission called Enceladus Orbilander. It could launch in 2038 and spend a year checking out that moon.

The Search for Life Signs

Scientists strongly suspect there’s a warmish salty ocean beneath the ices of both Europa and Enceladus. Moreover, they are probably heated by tidal stresses. So, those are two of the ingredients for life right there. Given what we know about these worlds, there could be something to feed that life, too.

If life does exist, it could “imprint” its existence in the form of amino acids, nucleic acids, and other organic molecules in the surface ice. Life probably wouldn’t exist right on the surface, mostly due to radiation and the lack of atmosphere at those worlds. That makes the near sub-surface ice a good place to look for evidence of that life. That will require a little digging to find the evidence. How deep? According to Alexander Pavlov of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, it wouldn’t be far.

“Based on our experiments, the ‘safe’ sampling depth for amino acids on Europa is almost 8 inches (around 20 centimeters) at high latitudes of the trailing hemisphere (hemisphere opposite to the direction of Europa’s motion around Jupiter) in the area where the surface hasn’t been disturbed much by meteorite impacts,” Pavlov said. “Subsurface sampling is not required for the detection of amino acids on Enceladus – these molecules will survive radiolysis (breakdown by radiation) at any location on the Enceladus surface less than a tenth of an inch (under a few millimeters) from the surface.”

Testing that Hypothesis

Of course, scientists don’t have any samples of ice on hand to study from either Europa or Enceladus. So, Pavlov’s team simulated the conditions to see if rovers and landers could find evidence of organic materials and life on those worlds. They used amino acids in ice and those from dead microorganisms in radiolysis experiments as possible representatives of biomolecules on icy moons. Radiolysis uses ionizing radiation to bombard molecules and break them apart.

Experimental samples of amino acids (as fingerprints of life) were loaded into a dewar and bombarded by gamma radiation. Credit: Candace Davison.

The team mixed samples of amino acids with ice chilled to about -196 Celsius and bombarded them with gamma rays. Since the oceans might host microscopic life, they also tested the survival of amino acids in dead bacteria in ice. Finally, they tested samples of amino acids in ice mixed with silicate dust. That tested the potential mixing of material from meteorites or the interior with surface ice.

Amino acids are interesting because life can create them. Other non-biological chemistry processes also make them. Scientists studied specific kinds of amino acids that could exist on Europa or Enceladus, particularly those amino acids from the microorganisms they tested (called A. woodii). If other microorganisms similar to that one existed at Europa or Enceladus, they could be a potential sign of life. That’s because they are used by terrestrial life as a component to build proteins. Those make enzymes that speed up or regulate chemical reactions and make structures.

Moving Evidence of Life to the Icy Surface

If such life did exist on either world’s subsurface oceans, the next question is how its “fingerprint” amino acids get to the ice so close to the top layers of ice. There’s evidence of resurfacing at both worlds by ocean water from below. On Europa, there are surface units much younger than others, which indicates that water makes its way to the surface and freezes. On Enceladus, geysers shoot material out to space from below the surface. Amino acids and other compounds from subsurface oceans could be brought to the surface by geyser activity or the slow churning motion of the ice crust.

Europa’s bizarre surface features suggest an actively churning ice shell above a salty liquid water ocean. That liquid could carry amino acids and signs of life to the surface. Credit: JPL

So, it looks like the team’s experiment shows that amino acids could survive on both worlds, under certain conditions, but they also degrade at different rates. That’s important news for future missions, according to Pavlov.

“Slow rates of amino acid destruction in biological samples under Europa and Enceladus-like surface conditions bolster the case for future life-detection measurements by Europa and Enceladus lander missions,” he said. “Our results indicate that the rates of potential organic biomolecules’ degradation in silica-rich regions on both Europa and Enceladus are higher than in pure ice and, thus, possible future missions to Europa and Enceladus should be cautious in sampling silica-rich locations on both icy moons.”

For More Information

NASA: Life signs Could Survive Near Surfaces of Enceladus and Europa

Radiolytic Effects on Biological and Abiotic Amino Acids in Shallow Subsurface Ices on Europa and Enceladus

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Taking a High-Resolution Ultraviolet Image of the Sun’s Corona Will Require VISORS

Sometimes, brainstorming does work. In 2019, America’s National Science Foundation (NSF) held the CubeSat Ideas Lab, a shindig that brought together some of the world’s best CubeSat designers. One outcome of that shindig is the Virtual Super-Resolution Optics with Reconfigurable Swarms, or VISORS, mission. Expected to launch in October, this mission will be a proof of concept for many swarming technologies in CubeSats. Hopefully, It will also capture a pretty impressive picture of the Sun’s corona.

VISORS was formally defined in a paper in 2022, with input from experts at nine different academic institutions, one NASA lab, and one private lab. The concept of operations (or ConOps in the paper) is easy enough – fly two separate 6U CubeSats in formation and take an extreme ultraviolet picture of the Sun. 

The obvious question is—why do you need two CubeSats to do that? A single spacecraft could do the job, but the science goal of the VISORS missions is to take an image at a very high resolution in a very specific extreme ultraviolet wavelength. To do that, the mission would need an optical mirror diameter of around 40m.

Fraser discusses how swarms could change how we explore the solar system.

That is beyond humanity’s current capability to fit onto a rocket fairing and blast into space. So, VISORS will actually consist of two spacecraft. One, known as the Detector Spacecraft (DSC), will house an ultraviolet detector, and one, known as the Optics Spacecraft (OSC), will act as an optical system that mimics the characteristics of a 40m diameter mirror.

However, the secret sauce of the VISORS mission lies in the coordination between the DSC and the OSC. They will fly in formation with each other, about 40 m apart, with the OSC placed between the Sun and the DSC. The light from a specific region of the Sun’s corona will pass through a photon sieve on the OSC and be directed into the detector of the DSC 40 m away, effectively creating the effect of a 40m wide mirror without the need for a continuous surface.

The only problem is that this type of coordinated alignment between CubeSats has never been done before. So, really, the VISORS mission could be looked at as a technology demonstration mission for CubeSat swarm formation rather than a heliophysics one. The mission statement in the ConOps paper states that the mission will be considered successful if it captures one ten-second image over the course of a six-month primary mission duration.

YouTube video from the Space REndezvous Laboratory describing VISORS formation.
Credit – Space Rendevzous Laboratory YouTube Channel

Ten seconds out of almost 16 million may not seem like much, but it shows the difficulty of getting CubeSats to align properly at the right time. To do so, researchers at the Space Rendezvous Laboratory at Stanford have created novel Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) software based on a concept familiar to any controls engineer—a state machine.

In software, a state machine is defined by various variables that will change the software’s behavior based on the values of those variables. In the case of VISORS, there will be five different states. Standby is pretty self-explanatory – wait in your current orbit for further instructions. Transfer is an attempt to move into formation to allow the system to capture an image. Science is when the mission will attempt to capture that ten-second image. But if something goes wrong, it also has two recovery states – Safe mode is pretty standard for all spacecraft, but Escape mode is unique for VISORS. This would move either spacecraft out of the way of the other, and collision between the two is one of the primary risks of the mission architecture and one of the things the GNC algorithm is designed to avoid.

Development of that software appears to be ongoing, though the planned launch date for the mission is only three months away. If all goes well and VISORS is successfully deployed and takes at least one picture, that proof of concept will shortly enable plenty more CubeSat swarm missions. It might even inspire more successful brainstorming Idea Labs.

Learn More:
Lightsey et al – CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS FOR THE VISORS MISSION: A TWO SATELLITE CUBESAT FORMATION FLYING TELESCOPE
UT – What a Swarm of Probes Can Teach Us About Proxima Centauri B
UT – Tiny Swarming Spacecraft Could Establish Communications with Proxima Centauri
UT – A Pair of CubeSats Using Ground Penetrating Radar Could Map The Interior of Near Earth Asteroids

Lead Image:
Artist’s depiction of the VISOR spacecraft flying in formation.
Credit – Simone D’Amico

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