Astronauts on Long Missions Will Need Personal AI Assistants

How can artificial intelligence (AI) help astronauts on long-term space missions? This is what a recent study presented at the 2024 International Astronautical Congress in Milan, Italy, hopes to address as an international team of researchers led by the German Aerospace Center introduce enhancements for the Mars Exploration Telemetry-Driven Information System (METIS) system and how this could help future astronauts on Mars mitigate the communications issues between Earth and Mars, which can take up to 24 minutes depending in the orbits. This study holds the potential to develop more efficient technology for long-term space missions beyond Earth, specifically to the Moon and Mars.

Here, Universe Today discusses this incredible research with Oliver Bensch, who is a PhD student at the German Aerospace Center regarding the motivation behind the study, the most significant results and follow-up studies, the significance of using specific tools for enhancing METIS, and the importance of using AI-based technology on future crewed missions. Therefore, what was the motivation behind this study regarding AI assistants for future space missions?

“Current astronauts rely heavily on ground support, especially during unexpected situations,” Bensch tells Universe Today. “Our project aims to explore new ways to support astronauts, making them more autonomous during missions. Our focus was to make the great amount of multimodal data, like documents or sensor data easily, and most importantly, reliably available to astronauts in natural language. This is especially relevant when we think about future long-duration space missions, e.g., to Mars where there is a significant communication latency.”

For the study, the researchers improved upon current METIS algorithms since current Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT) Models and are known for producing errors based on specific environments where they are deployed. To combat this, the researchers incorporated GPTs, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Knowledge Graphs (KGs), and Augmented Reality (AR) with the goal of enabling more autonomy for future astronauts without the need for constant communication with Earth ground stations.

The goal of the study was to develop a system that can improve astronaut autonomy, safety, and efficiency in conducting mission objectives on long-duration space missions to either the Moon or Mars. As noted, communication delays between the Earth and Mars can be as high as 24 minutes, so astronauts being able to make on-the-spot decisions could mean the difference between life and death. Therefore, what were the most significant results from this study?

“In our project we aim to integrate documents, like procedures, with live sensor data and other additional information into our Knowledge Graph,” Bensch tells Universe Today. “The stored and live updated information is then displayed in an intuitive way using augmented reality cues and natural language voice interaction, enhancing the autonomy of the astronauts. Reliable answers are ensured by backlinks to the Knowledge Graph, enabling astronauts to verify the information, something that is not possible when just relying on large language model-based assistants as they are prone to generating inaccurate or fabricated information.”

Regarding follow-up studies, Bensch tells Universe Today the team is currently working with the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative and aspires to work with astronauts at the European Space Agency’s European Astronaut Centre sometime in 2025.

As noted, the researchers integrated Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT) Models, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Knowledge Graphs (KGs), and Augmented Reality (AR) with the goal of enabling more autonomy for astronauts on future long-term space missions. GPTs are designed to serve as a framework for generative artificial intelligence and was first used by OpenAI in 2018.

RAGs help enhance generative artificial intelligence by enabling the algorithm to input outside data and documentation from the user and are comprised of four stages: indexing, retrieval, augmentation, and generation. KGs knowledge bases responsible for enhancing data through storing connected datasets and the term was first used by Austrian linguist Edgar W. Schneider in 1972. AR is a display interface that combines the elements of the virtual and real world with the goal of immersing the user with a virtual environment while still maintaining the real-world surroundings. Therefore, what was the significance of combining RAGs, KGs, and AR to produce this new system?

“Traditional RAG systems typically retrieve and generate responses based on a single matching document,” Bensch tells Universe Today. “However, the challenges of space exploration often involve processing distributed and multimodal data, ranging from procedural manuals and sensor data to images and live telemetry, such as temperatures or pressures. By integrating KGs, we address these challenges by organizing data into an interconnected, updatable structure that can accommodate live data and provide contextually relevant responses. KGs act as a backbone, linking disparate sources of information and enabling astronauts to access cohesive and accurate insights across multiple documents or data types.”

Bensch continues, “AR enhances this system by offering intuitive, hands-free interfaces. By overlaying procedures, sensor readings, or warnings directly onto the astronaut’s field of view, AR minimizes cognitive load and reduces the need to shift focus between devices. Additionally, voice control capabilities allow astronauts to query and interact with the system naturally, further streamlining task execution. Although each technology provides some benefit individually, their combined use offers significantly greater value to astronauts, especially during long-duration space missions where astronauts need to operate more autonomously.”

While this study addresses how AI could help astronauts on future space missions, AI is already being used in current space missions, specifically on the International Space Station (ISS), and include generative AI, AI robots, machine learning, and embedded processors. For AI robots, the ISS uses three 12.5-inch cube-shaped robots named Honey, Queen, and Bumble as part of NASA’s Astrobee program designed to assist ISS astronauts on their daily tasks. All three robots were launched to the ISS across two missions in 2019, with Honey briefly returning to Earth for maintenance shortly after arriving at the orbiting outpost and didn’t return until 2023.

Each powered by an electric fan, the three robots perform tasks like cargo movement, experiment documentation, and inventory management, along with possessing a perching arm to hold handrails for energy conservation purposes. The long-term goal of the program is to help enhance this technology for use on lunar crewed missions and the Lunar Gateway. But how important is it to incorporate artificial intelligence into future crewed missions, specifically to Mars?

“Astronauts are currently supported by a team during training and their missions,” Bensch tells Universe Today. “Mars missions involve significant delays, which makes ground support difficult during time critical situations. AI assistants that provide quick, reliable access to procedures and live data via voice and AR are essential for overcoming these challenges.”

How will AI assistants help astronauts on long-term space missions in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Astronauts on Long Missions Will Need Personal AI Assistants appeared first on Universe Today.

Could Primordial Black Holes Be Hiding in Plain Sight?

Are Primordial Black Holes real? They could’ve formed in the unusual physics that dominated the Universe shortly after the Big Bang. The idea dates back to the 1960s, but so far, the lack of evidence makes them purely hypothetical.

If they do exist, a new paper suggests they may be hiding in places so unlikely that nobody ever thought to look there.

Black holes form when massive stars reach the end of their lives and suffer gravitational collapse. However, Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) didn’t involve stars. Physicists hypothesize that PBHs formed in the early Universe from extremely dense pockets of sub-atomic matter that collapsed directly into black holes. They could form part or all of what we call dark matter.

However, they remain hypothetical because none have been observed.

New research in Physics of the Dark Universe suggests researchers are not looking in the right places. It’s titled “Searching for small primordial black holes in planets, asteroids and here on Earth.” The co-authors are De-Chang Dai and Dejan Stojkovic, from Case Western Reserve University and the State University of New York, respectively.

The authors claim that evidence for PBHs could be found in objects as large as hollowed out planetoids or asteroids and objects as small as rocks here on Earth.

“Small primordial black holes could be captured by rocky planets or asteroids, consume their liquid cores from inside and leave hollow structures,” the authors write. “Alternatively, a fast black hole can leave a narrow tunnel in a solid object while passing through it. We could look for such micro-tunnels here on Earth in very old rocks,” the authors claim, explaining that the search wouldn’t involve specialized, expensive equipment.

The authors work leans heavily on other research suggesting that PBH masses between 10¹⁶ and 10¹⁰ solar masses could be candidates for dark matter. These PBHs could be captured by stars or trapped in their interiors upon formation. The PBH would slowly consume gas inside the stars.

However, these authors take it in a different direction. “We extend this idea to planets and asteroids, which can also be expected to host PBHs,” they write, explaining that the PBHs could be captured by these objects either during their creation or after their creation. Once inside a rocky body, the PBH would consume the liquid core, hollowing it out and leaving it empty.

“We have to think outside of the box because what has been done to find primordial black holes previously hasn’t worked.”

Dejan Stojkovic, SUNY

“If the object has a liquid central core, then a captured PBH can absorb the liquid core, whose density is higher than the density of the outer solid layer,” Stojkovic said.

This figure from the research illustrates what could happen when a PBH is inside a rocky body. (A) A planet is formed around a small primordial black hole (or alternatively a planet captures a black hole in its center) (B) The central core gets slowly absorbed by the black hole. If the outer shell has a strong enough compressive strength, then the shell can support itself leading to a hollow object. (C) If the liquid core becomes solid before it is completely eaten by the black hole, there will exist an empty shell between the outer layer and central core. Image Credit: Stojkovic et al. 2024.

If the asteroid or other body suffers an impact, the PBH could escape, leaving nothing but a hollow shell behind, which could be detectable.

“If the object’s density is too low for its size, that’s a good indication it’s hollow,” Stojkovic said. Studying an object’s orbit with a telescope is enough to reveal hollowness.

Another possibility the authors present is fast-moving tiny PBHs that leave microscopic tunnels in objects. “Since the cross-section of a small PHBs is very small, a fast enough PBH will most likely create a straight tunnel after passing through the asteroid,” the authors explain. In that case, a straight tunnel through an asteroid could be evidence of a PBH.

A rapidly moving PBH could leave a straight tunnel the size of its Schwarzschild radius. If the asteroid’s composition is strong, the tunnel wouldn’t collapse immediately. Image Credit: Stojkovic et al. 2024.

PBHs could also leave microscopic tunnels in rocks and other objects on Earth. “The same effect could allow detection of a PBH here on Earth if we look for sudden appearance of narrow tunnels in metal slabs,” the authors write.

What’s different about these hypothesized PBHs is detection. In other scenarios, space telescopes, gravitational wave observatories, or even monitoring distant quasars in microwaves are required to detect them. But in this work, detection is potentially much cheaper and easier.

The James Webb Space Telescope or the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna are proposed ways of detecting PBHs. Image Credit: European Space Agency CC BY-SA 4.0

“The chances of finding these signatures are small, but searching for them would not require much resources and the potential payoff, the first evidence of a primordial black hole, would be immense,” said Stojkovic. “We have to think outside of the box because what has been done to find primordial black holes previously hasn’t worked.”

“While our estimate gives a very small probability of finding such tunnels, looking for them does not require expensive equipment and long preparation, and the payoff might be significant,” the authors explain.

“You have to look at the cost versus the benefit. Does it cost much to do this? No, it doesn’t,” Stojkovic said in a press release.

This is thinking outside the box, or outside the standard model in any case. Cosmology is kind of at a standstill while we wrestle with the idea of dark matter. Could PBHs be dark matter? Could they behave like the authors suggest, and be detected in this manner?

“The smartest people on the planet have been working on these problems for 80 years and have not solved them yet,” Stojkovic said. “We don’t need a straightforward extension of the existing models. We probably need a completely new framework altogether.”

The post Could Primordial Black Holes Be Hiding in Plain Sight? appeared first on Universe Today.

NASA Wants Students’ Help Designing Missions to Other Moons

One of NASA’s primary missions is to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers to join the STEM field. It does so by producing inspirational and educational content on various platforms. But sometimes, it takes a more direct approach by rewarding students for their contributions to solving a particular problem NASA is facing. Recently, the organization announced such a challenge – the Power to Explore Challenge, which is open to submission from K-12 students until the end of January.

This challenge is part of an ongoing series of challenges that NASA has released to encourage kids to utilize a radioisotope power system (commonly known as a radioisotope thermal generator—or RTG) to enable future missions. Last year, the challenge involved coming up with a mission to a “dark, dusty, or far away place” where the benefits of RTGs, which don’t rely on solar power, would be the most obvious.

A winner was then selected in three separate age categories, detailing missions to Enceladus (Rainie Lin from Kentucky), Tethys (Aadya Karthik from Washington), and Ariel (Thomas Liu from New Jersey). The three winners received a behind-the-scenes tour of the research facilities at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, where much of NASA’s RTG research occurs.

Video Announcing the Challenge.
Credit – ScienceatNASA YouTube Channel

This year, there is again a call to develop missions powered by an RTG, but with a more explicit call to visit a moon somewhere in the solar system. There are plenty to choose from—the International Astronomical Union recognizes 288 orbiting planets, while there are over 470 orbiting smaller objects, like Dimorphos around Didymos, the asteroid targeted by NASA’s DART redirect mission.

The challenge is once again run by Future Engineers, an organization that emphasizes engineering education for kids. They provide the judges, who will focus on details like how feasible it is to use an RTG at the location the entrant selected, and what their “special human power” that they describe in their essay would bring to the mission.

Submissions must be a maximum of 275 words and will go through three rounds of judging. Semifinalists, finalists, and grand prize winners will be selected in March, April, and May, respectively. Once again, the grand prize winners will receive a tour of the Glenn Research Center. Semifinalists will receive a gift pack, and finalists will receive both a gift pack and a teleconference with a NASA mission expert.

Fraser discusses some challenges facing missions to other moons – especially their budgets.

Applications are open until the end of January, so if you or someone you know is interested in applying, there’s still plenty of time to conceive of a mission and polish up a 275-word essay. Who knows, you might even win a trip to Cleveland – and I can attest to it being pretty nice here in the summer – but more importantly, you might inspire the next NASA mission to one of the solar system’s numerous moons.

Learn More:
NASA – Power to Explore Student Challenge
Future Engineers – Power to Explore
UT – An Improved Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator Could Dramatically Reduce The Weight Of Interplanetary Missions
UT – NASA is Getting the Plutonium it Needs for Future Missions

Lead Image:
Power To Explore Logo
Credit – NASA / Future Engineers

The post NASA Wants Students’ Help Designing Missions to Other Moons appeared first on Universe Today.

Antarctica Has Gotten 10 Times Greener in 35 Years

Our satellites are dispassionate observers of Earth’s climate change. From their vantage point they watch as pack ice slowly loses its hold on polar oceans, ice shelfs break apart, and previously frozen parts of the planet turn green with vegetation.

Now, scientists have compiled 35 years of satellite data showing that Antarctica is slowly, yet perceptibly, becoming greener.

NASA and the United States Geological Survey sent the first Landsat into space in 1975. Since then, they’ve launched eight more Landsats, with Landsat 9 being the most recent launch in 2021. Landsat data is a unique treasure trove of data about Earth and the changes it goes through, including millions of images.

Landsats have watched as forest fires burn, as urban regions expand, as glaciers melt, and as Earth goes through many other changes.

Recent research published in Nature Geoscience used 35 years of Landsat data, from Landsat 5 through Landsat 8, to measure the spread of vegetation into Antarctica. It’s titled “Sustained greening of the Antarctic Peninsula observed from satellites.” The research was co-led by Thomas Roland, an environmental scientist University of Exeter, and by remote sensing expert Olly Bartlett of the University of Hertfordshire.

“This study aimed to assess vegetation response to climate change on the AP <Antarctic Peninsula> over the past 35 years by quantifying rates of change in the spatial extent and ‘direction’ (greening versus browning), which have not yet been quantified,” the paper states.

The Antarctic Peninsula is about 1300 km (810 mi) long and is part of the larger West Antarctica Peninsula. It covers about 522,000 square kilometers (202,000 sq mi) and is the northern-most part of Antarctica. Image Credit: By krill oil – Krilloil.com, CC0, https://ift.tt/kv7lTrQ

The research shows that the amount of land covered in vegetation on the Antarctic Peninsula has increased by more than 10x since 1986. The area of vegetated land rose from 0.86 sq. km. (0.33 sq. mi.) in 1986 to 11.95 sq. km (4.61 sq. mi.) in 2021. The coverage is restricted to the warmer edges of the peninsula, but it still indicates a shift in the region’s ecology, driven by our carbon emissions.

This vegetative colonization of Earth’s coldest region begins with mosses and lichens. Mosses are pioneer species, the first organisms to move into a newly-available habitat. These non-vascular plants are tough and hardy, and can grow on bare rock in low-nutrient environments. They create a foundation for the plants that follow them by secreting acid that breaks down rock and by providing organic material when they die.

This image shows moss hummocks on Ardley Island just off the coast of the Antarctica Peninsula. Image Credit: Roland et al. 2024.

The map makes the results of the research clear. Each of the four panels show the amount of green vegetation on the Antarctic Peninsula’s ice-free land below 300 meters (1000 ft) altitude. Each hexagon is shaded depending on how many sq. km. of it are covered in vegetation. That’s determined by the satellite-based Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The NDVI is based on spectrometric data gathered by the Landsat satellites during cloud-free days every March, the end of the growing season in Antarctica.

Mosses dominate the green areas, growing in carpets and banks. In previous research, Roland and co-researchers collected carbon-dated core samples from moss banks on the western side of the AP. Those showed that moss had accumulated more rapidly in the past 50 years and that there’s been a boost in biological activity. That led them to their current research, where they wanted to determine if moss was not only growing upward to higher elevations, but outward, too.

“Based on the core samples, we expected to see some greening,” Roland said, “but I don’t think we were expecting it on the scale that we reported here.”

A moss bank grows on bare rock on Norsel Point on Amsler Island. Carbon-core samples from moss banks showed an increase in growth in the past few decades. Image Credit: Roland et al. 2024.

“When we first ran the numbers, we were in disbelief,” Bartlett said. “The rate itself is quite striking, especially in the last few years.”

The Western Antarctica Peninsula is warming up faster than other parts of Earth. Not only are its glaciers receding, but the extent of the sea ice is shrinking and there’s more open water. The authors point out that changing wind patterns due to GHG emissions could be contributing.

What will happen as the ice continues to retreat and pioneer species colonize more of Antarctica? The continent has hundreds of native species, mostly mosses, lichens, liverworts, and fungi. The continent has only two species of flowering plants, Antarctic Hair Grass and Antarctic Pearlwort. What does it mean for them?

Left: Antarctic Hair Grass. Right: Antarctic Pearlwort Image Credit Left: By Lomvi2 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://ift.tt/Hd6VwFJ. Image Credit Right: By Liam Quinn – Flickr: Antarctic Pearlwort, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://ift.tt/LtPvraO

“The narrative in these places has been dominated by glacial retreat,” Roland said. “We’re starting to think about what comes next, after ice recession.”

After moss gains a foothold in a region, soil is created where there was none. That provides an opening for other organisms, both native and non-native. The risk is that the inherent biodiversity will be undermined. Tourism and other human activity can inadvertently introduce new species, and wind-borne seeds and spores can do the same. If robust organisms arrive, they can outcompete the native species. There are already a few documented instances of this happening.

This image shows a moss lawn or carpet on Barrientos Island. Image Credit: Roland et al. 2024.

The carbon-core and Landsat data is just the beginning for Roland, Bartlett, and their fellow researchers. Up-close fieldwork is the next step. “We’re at the point that we’ve said the best we can say with the Landsat archives,” Roland said. “We need to go to these places where we’re seeing the most distinctive changes and see what’s happening on the ground.”

The researches want to know what types of plant communities are establishing themselves, and what shifts are playing out in the environment.

The post Antarctica Has Gotten 10 Times Greener in 35 Years appeared first on Universe Today.

Catch Jupiter at Opposition 2024 This Coming Weekend

Now is the time to catch Jupiter at its best.

The King of the Planets rules the winter night skies. Early December gives sky watchers a good reason to brave the cold, as Jupiter shines at its best. Look for the regal planet rising in the east at sunset, while the Sun sets to the west.

Why Opposition?

For an outer planet, we call this point ‘opposition’ as the planet sits ‘opposite’ to the Sun from our Earthly perspective. This also means that Jupiter is above the horizon for the entire evening: low to the east at sunset, high to the south at local midnight, and setting to the west at sunset.

Opposition for Jupiter in 2024 occurs on Saturday, December 7^th. Jupiter is closest to the Earth (611 million kilometers distant) a day prior on December 6^th. The discontinuity exists because Jupiter is currently moving away from us, while we’re headed towards the Sun.

A double shadow moon transit from August 14th, 2024. Credit: Thad Szabo.

Jupiter reached perihelion early last year on January 20-21^st, 2023, while Earth heads towards perihelion about a month from now on January 4, 2025. On an 11.9 year orbit, we won’t have another perihelion-opposition year for Jupiter until 2034.

Jupiter at opposition on December 7th. credit: Stellarium.

To the naked eye, Jupiter shines as a -2.8 magnitude ‘star’, in the constellation Taurus the Bull. This position, along with an opposition just two weeks prior to the December southward solstice on the 21^st assures that Jupiter dominates the scene for northern hemisphere observers in 2024, riding high in the nighttime sky.

A ground-based view of Jupiter and its moon Io, versus the view as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Juno/Efrain Morales.

Seeing Double

Zooming in on Jupiter with a telescope even at low power gives you a view similar to Galileo’s just over four centuries ago. The four major moons of Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto easily pop out, even in a low power binocular view. At opposition, the moons and even Jupiter itself cast shadows nearly straight back, slowly changing angle towards quadrature. While triple shadow moon transits are rare (the next one isn’t until March 20^th, 2032) double shadow transits happen in seasonal cycles a few times a year. The next one involving Io and Ganymede starts on December 23rd.

A simulation of the double shadow transit coming up on December 23rd. Credit: Starry Night.

Jupiter’s fast 10 hour rotation also means that you can witness one full rotation of the gas giant in one night. This means you can spot the Great Red Spot on any given evening if you wait long enough, though to my eye, it looks more like the ‘Pale Salmon Spot’ in recent years. The major northern and southern equatorial belts are also easily apparent at low power, though the Southern Equatorial Belt has been known to pull a vanishing act roughly once a decade or so… it last did so on 2010-2011, so you could say we’re due.

JWST provides a unique infrared view of Jupiter, showing the atmospheric depth of the belts and the Great Red Spot. NASA/JWST.

Jupiter is so bright that it can cast a slight shadow, something that’s worth watching for on the freshly fallen snow. The Moon also reaches Full for December on the 15^th, and passes five degrees north of the planet on the 14th, offering a chance to see Jupiter in the daytime, just before sunset.

A daytime Jupiter near the Moon. Credit: Dave Dickinson.

A Teaser for Jupiter in 2025

There’s also more Jovian action in store. In the coming years, Callisto (the only major moon that can ‘miss’ Jove) resumes transits in 2026. This leads the way into the next bi-decadal mutual-eclipse season for the moons.

Don’t miss Jupiter at opposition for 2024… it’s worth braving the cold for.

The post Catch Jupiter at Opposition 2024 This Coming Weekend appeared first on Universe Today.

Dragonfly is Going to Titan on a Falcon Heavy

NASA has given SpaceX the contract to launch the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. A Falcon Heavy will send the rotorcraft and its lander on their way to Titan in 2028, if all goes according to plan, and the mission will arrive at Titan in 2034. Dragonfly is an astrobiology mission designed to measure the presence of different chemicals on the frigid moon.

Dragonfly will be the second craft to visit Titan, along with the Huygens probe and its short visit back in 2005.

Titan is remarkable because it’s the only body besides Earth with liquids on its surface. The liquids are hydrocarbons, not water, though there may be surface deposits of water ice from impacts or cryovolcanic eruptions. Researchers think that prebiotic chemicals are also present, making the moon an enticing target to understand how far prebiotic chemistry may have advanced.

These images of Titan’s well-known hydrocarbon seas are from Cassini radar data. Image Credit: [JPL-CALTECH/NASA, ASI, USGS]

Titan is benign when it comes to powered flight; its atmosphere is dense and its gravity is weak, compared to Earth. Dragonfly is an octocopter, a large quadcopter with double rotors, that can take advantage of Titan’s flight-friendly conditions. It will travel at about 36 kmh (22 mph) and will be powered by a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG), a type of engine proven in multiple missions. The craft is designed to be redundant; it can lose one of its motors or rotors and still function.

Dragonfly will land near a feature on Titan called Shangri-La, east of where the Huygens probe landed. Shangri-La is one of three large sand seas near the moon’s equator.

Dragonfly’s target is the Selk impact structure, near the edge of Shangri-La. Selk is a young impact crater about 90 km (56 mi) in diameter that features melt pools, sites where liquid water and organics could mix together to form amino acids or other biomolecules. Dragonfly will initially land at some dunes near the structure then begin exploring the region and its chemistry.

Thanks largely to Cassini and Huygens, researchers have made progress understanding Titan. In a 2020 paper, researchers examined two types of craters on the moon: dune craters and plains craters. Selk is a dune crater, and in the paper, researchers said that the dune craters are richer in organics than plains craters, and in fact are almost entirely composed of organics. However, Titan’s thick atmosphere makes it difficult to observe, and these findings stem from interpreting albedo and emissivity.

Selk and the other dune craters may have originally had more water ice, according to the research, but much of it’s been eroded away. However, there was a long period of time where the water ice was present, and Dragonfly is heading for Selk to examine the chemistry in the crater and to try and determine if water and organics interacted and if prebiotic chemistry made any headway.

It’s up to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy to send Dragonfly on its way to Titan. Falcon Heavy has 11 launches under its belt, including the launch of the Europa Clipper in October. After Falcon Heavy launches Dragonfly, the spacecraft will perform one flyby of Earth to gain additional velocity.

It’ll take six years for Dragonfly to reach Titan, and just as it arrives, the entry capsule will separate from the cruise module. With the help of an aeroshell and two chutes, the lander will endure an approximately 105-minute descent. At approximately 1.2 km above the surface, the lander will deploy its skids, and based on its lidar and radar data, will perform and autonomous landing.

From its landing site, Dragonfly will deploy itself and perform a series of flights up to 8km (5 mi) long. There’s diverse geology in the region, and the rotorcraft will acquire samples and then analyze them during Titan’s nights, which last about 8 Earth days or about 192 hours. After that, it will head to the Selk crater.

Titan is an important astrobiology target in our Solar System, and unlike the frozen ocean moons Europa and Enceladus, there’s no added complexity of somehow working its way through thick ice before its potentially biological environment can be examined.

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket sends NASA’s Europa Clipper into space from its Florida launch pad. If all goes well, the Falcon Heavy will launch the Dragonfly mission to Titan in July, 2028. (NASA Photo / Kim Shiflett)

But for all of this to succeed, it needs a successful launch first. NASA is paying SpaceX about $256 million to launch Dragonfly, and it the launch goes off without a hitch, it’ll be money well-spent.

The post Dragonfly is Going to Titan on a Falcon Heavy appeared first on Universe Today.

A New Reconfigurable Structure Could Be Used to Make Space Habitats

Even some fields that seem fully settled will occasionally have breakthrough ideas that have reverberated impacts on the rest of the fields of science and technology. Mechanics is one of those relatively settled fields – it is primarily understood at the macroscopic level, and relatively few new breakthroughs have occurred in it recently. Until a few years ago, when a group of Harvard engineers developed what they called a totimorphic structure, and a recent paper by researchers at ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team dives into detail about how they can be utilized to create megastructures, such as telescope mirrors and human habitats in space.

First, it’s worth understanding what a totimorphic structure is. It is a series of triangular structures with a beam, a lever, and two elastic bands acting as springs. Given the proper configuration, the elastic bands can hold the lever at a set position in what mechanics researchers call “neutral” – i.e., without any external force being applied.

One important aspect is that the lever can be held at any position, essentially making it an analog positioning system that doesn’t have any set points where it must necessarily rest. Another important aspect is that two or more can be combined in an hourglass-looking shape, allowing the structure to take on literally any form in either 2D or 3D space and be stable in that form.

There are plenty of novel ideas for huge telescopes, as Fraser discusses

That second part is the critical feature that the researchers at ESA were interested in. Such a flexible structure would be useful in several applications, including building domed habitats or creating a telescope with an adjustable focal length that doesn’t rely on complex actuators. So, they developed a method for simulating these structures and applying them to those two use cases.

Since these modular units are physical structures, they must still abide by some rules. The three rules of these structures are that the beam and lever both have fixed lengths and that the lever must be connected on one of its ends to the midpoint of the beam. It would be interesting to see how these structures could use different types of materials for the lever or beam that would potentially allow them to change, but that’s still on the to-do list for researchers somewhere.

With those requirements in mind, the researchers set up a series of Python scripts that solve optimization problems associated with both configurable structures. The optimized features are different for either the habitat or the mirror. Still, both use the fact that the totimorphic structure is “analog,”—meaning it can continuously and stably move from one state to another without having to “jump” between them.

Video describing the mechanics of totimorphic materials.
Credit – Rajamanickam Antonimuthu YouTube Channel

The results were promising, though they show that physically realizing this system would be difficult. They also point out that an AI would be well-placed to understand the properties of the structures created by combining loads of these modular units, similar to how it is possible for AI to fold proteins in innumerable ways without ever physically experiencing them.

A lot of work will still be done with this novel technology, though putting these systems to the test in an actual experimental environment is probably pretty close. If the ESA or another team can build a functional variable focal point mirror out of this new structure, that would be a breakthrough worthy of celebration.

Example of an hourglass-shaped “unit cell” and the positions it can be put into.
Credit – Dold et al.

Learn More:
Dold et al. – Continuous Design and Reprogramming of Totimorphic Structures for Space Applications
UT – What’s the Best Material for a Lunar Tower?
UT – Using Smart Materials To Deploy A Dark Age Explorer
UT – NASA is Testing out new Composite Materials for Building Lightweight Solar Sail Supports

Lead Image:
Depiction of the two use cases in the current study – habitat domes and variable focal length mirrors.
Credit – Dold et al.

The post A New Reconfigurable Structure Could Be Used to Make Space Habitats appeared first on Universe Today.

What's Inside Uranus and Neptune? A New Way to Find Out

In our search for exoplanets, we’ve found that many of them fall into certain types or categories, such as Hot Jupiters, Super-Earths, and Ice Giants. While we don’t have any examples of the first two in our solar system, we do have two Ice Giants: Uranus and Neptune. They are mid-size gas planets formed in the cold outer regions of the solar system. Because of this, they are rich in water and other volatile compounds, and they are very different from large gas giants such as Jupiter. We still have a great deal to learn about these worlds, but what we’ve discovered so far has been surprising, such as the nature of their magnetic fields.

When the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s, it found that neither world had a strong dipolar magnetic field like Earth’s. Instead, each had a weaker and more chaotic magnetic field, similar to that of Mars. This was surprising given what we understand about planet formation.

Models for the interior structures of the ice-giant planets Uranus and Neptune. Credit: Burkhard Militzer, UC Berkeley

In a planet’s youth, the interior becomes very hot due to gravitational compression. This would allow heavier material such as iron to sink to the core, while lighter material such as water would move toward the surface. For Earth, this created a nickel-iron core with a crust of silicates, water, and organics. The tremendous heat in the core would also allow for a convective region, where hot core material rises a bit before cooling and sinking, creating a circular flow of dense material. In Earth, this convective iron region generates our planet’s strong magnetic field. Since Uranus and Neptune likely have an Earth-sized metallic core, we would expect them to have a similar convection region generating a similar magnetic field. But that isn’t what we observe.

After the Voyager 2 discovery, it was thought that perhaps some mechanism prevented a convection region from forming. Perhaps the layers within a gas giant don’t mix, similar to the separation of oil and water. But the details remained unknown. Since we can’t create the tremendously high-density, high-pressure conditions of a gas giant’s core in the lab, we had no way to test various models. We also haven’t sent another probe to either planet, so we have no way to gather new data in situ.

Simulated phase transitions for ice giant interiors. Credit: Burkhard Militzer, UC Berkeley

One approach that could work to solve the mystery would be to use computer simulations. However, simulating the interactions of hundreds of molecules to calculate their bulk properties is extremely intensive. Too complex for computer systems of a decade ago. But a new study has simulated the bulk properties of more than 500 molecules, which is enough to calculate how an ice giant’s layers form.

The simulations show how water, methane, and ammonia in the middle region of Uranus and Neptune separate into two unmixable layers. This primarily occurs because hydrogen is squeezed out of the deep interior, which limits how mixing can occur. Without a convection zone in these layers, the planets cannot form a strong dipolar magnetic field. Uranus likely has a rocky core about the size of Mercury, while Neptune likely has a rocky core about the size of Mars.

Future lab experiments could confirm some of these bulk properties, and there is a proposed mission to Uranus that would gather data to confirm or disprove this model.

Reference: Militzer, Burkhard. “Phase separation of planetary ices explains nondipolar magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121.49 (2024): e2403981121.

The post What's Inside Uranus and Neptune? A New Way to Find Out appeared first on Universe Today.

Just Built a Giant, Next Generation Planet Hunting Space Telescope? Here’s Where to Point It

You know what it’s like. You get a new telescope and need to know where to point it! The bigger the telescope, the more potential targets and the harder the decision! To date, we have found over 5,000 confirmed exoplanets (5,288 to be exact) with thousands more candidates. With missions like Gaia identifying thousands of nearby stars like our Sun where Earth-like planets could be lurking, its time to hunt them down. A new paper takes on the goiath task of trying to filter down all the millions of candidates into about 1,000 main sequence stars or binaries worth exploring. From these, they have identified 100 most promising targets and from them, the 10 best planetary systems.

Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars outside our Solar System. The first confirmed discovery of an exoplanet occurred in 1992 and since then, thousands more have been identified. They come in a wide variety of sizes, compositions, and orbital properties, ranging from small, rocky Earth-like planets to massive gas giants many times larger than Jupiter. The exoplanets are often found in the habitable zone of their stars, where conditions might allow liquid water to exist, making them potential candidates for hosting life. They are detected using various different methods, including the transit method, where a planet passes in front of its star and causes a slight dip in brightness, and the radial velocity method, which measures the gravitational wobble a planet induces on its star. 

This artist’s impression shows a Jupiter-like exoplanet that is on its way to becoming a hot Jupiter — a large, Jupiter-like exoplanet that orbits very close to its star. Courtesy: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva

There have been a number of telescopes that have turned their gaze on exoplanets and a number of different missions on the slate to explore their properties. One such project is the LIFE mission (the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets.) It will consist of four collector spacecraft separated by hundreds of metres and is designed to search for life outside the Solar System. The high resolution images it will produce will allow for direct imaging of exoplanets and more detailed analysis of their atmosphere. Of all its mission objectives its key task objective is to search for biosignatures, looking for molecules like oxygen, methane and carbon dioxide. All of these elements might indicate the presence of life. 

Graphic depiction of A Lunar Long-Baseline Optical Imaging Interferometer: Artemis-enabled Stellar Imager (AeSI). Credit: Kenneth Carpenter

The real challenge, greater even than assessing an exoplanets suitability for hosting life is where to begin looking in the first place. A paper authored by Franziska Menti from the Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics in Zurich and team has tackled just that problem. The LIFE mission teams have developed exoplanet target catalogs but it contains a large number of candidates. The intention was for it to facilitate the creation of further more refined target lists based upon specific criteria. The paper from Menti articulate this process. 

The catalog contains is compatible with the Virtual Observatory standards so is easily accessible to anyone with existing tools and contains stars, exoplanets, and protoplanetary disks. Anybody that has a need for a highly customised target list for exoplanetary research (such as the LIFE mission themselves or other projects like NASA’s World’s Habitable Worlds Observatory) can extract the necessary data themselves. The whole database (which contains data on as many as 10⁴ stellar systems within 30 parsecs of the Sun)is available online at the German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory

Source : Database of Candidate Targets for the LIFE Mission

The post Just Built a Giant, Next Generation Planet Hunting Space Telescope? Here’s Where to Point It appeared first on Universe Today.

NASA Is Seeking Ideas for Rescuing an Astronaut from the Moon

Space exploration is a dangerous business, especially when squishy living organisms, such as humans, are involved. NASA has always prided itself on how seriously it takes the safety of its astronauts, so as it gears up for the next big push in crewed space exploration, the Artemis program, it is looking for solutions to potentially catastrophic situations that might arise. One such catastrophe would be if one of the Artemis astronauts was incapacitated and couldn’t return to the lander. The only person who could potentially be able to save them would be their fellow astronaut, but carrying a fully suited human back to their base of operations would be a challenge for an astronaut similarly kitted out in their own bulky suit. So, NASA decided to address it as precisely that – a challenge – and ask for input from the general public, offering up to $20,000 for the best solution to the problem.

The challenge, “South Pole Safety: Designing the NASA Lunar Rescue System,” was announced on November 14th and accepts entries until January 23rd, 2025. It awards $45,000 to at least three winners, including $20,000 to the first-place winner. So, what does the challenge actually involve?

The work product is a design document for a system capable of moving fully suited astronauts at least two kilometers up a 20-degree slope without being attached to a rover. Oh, and it has to be able to operate in the harsh conditions of the lunar south pole. 

Fraser discusses what makes the lunar south pole so interesting.

Typically, a fully suited human wearing the new Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Suit, the new spacesuit explicitly designed for the Artemis missions, will weigh around 343 kg (755 lbs). However, lunar gravity is only about 1/6th that of Earth’s, so it will feel more like they weigh 57 kg (125 lbs). That’s still a lot to carry but much more manageable.

However, it’s probably infeasible for the other astronaut to fireman carry their unconscious comrade over that distance, especially since they are wearing their own spacesuit. So it’s up to technology to do the job. To do so, it will have to evade the pitfalls (in some cases literally) of the lunar south pole.

One hazard is the extreme temperatures—they can range from 54 C in full daylight to -203 C at night. Any materials used in the (especially electronics) would, therefore, need to be able to withstand such wild temperature swings. 

Dealing with lunar regolith for this challenge will be difficult, as Dr. Kevin Cannon discusses how annoying it can be.

Other hazards include razor-sharp lunar regolith, which is expected to cause havoc on most moving mechanical systems on the Moon. Navigating around craters and giant boulders while hopefully dodging micrometeoroid impacts adds to the complex nature of the rescue environment.

A panel of experts, including some NASA engineers, will judge this competition. Their scorecards will include categories like the overall mass of the solution, its ease of use, and how much it impacts the suit design, if any—luckily, treating the fallen astronaut while on the move back to safety is outside the scope of this challenge.

Suppose you’re interested in participating, potentially earning you or your team tens of thousands of dollars. In that case, NASA is accepting submissions through the HeroX portal (commonly used for public challenges) through January 25th. Maybe someday you’ll get to see your creation on the surface of the Moon—even if it will hopefully never be used.

Learn More:
NASA – South Pole Safety: Designing the NASA Lunar Rescue System
HeroX – South Pole Safety
UT – Lunar Astronauts Will Need Easy Walking Trails Around the Moon’s South Pole
UT – NASA, SpaceX Illustrate Key Moments of Artemis Lunar Lander Mission

Lead Image:
Logo of the South Pole Safety Challenge
Credit – NASA / HeroX

The post NASA Is Seeking Ideas for Rescuing an Astronaut from the Moon appeared first on Universe Today.