SpaceX launched the military’s newest, most accurate GPS satellite Tuesday after a two-month delay due to the pandemic.
A Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying the GPS satellite to orbit. The brand new first-stage booster landed on an ocean platform several minutes later, to be recycled for future use.
The launch originally was scheduled for April, but the newly organized U.S. Space Force delayed it to keep staff healthy and safe during the coronavirus outbreak.
A Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket, with a global positioning satellite for the U.S. Space Force, lifts off from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., June 30, 2020.
(AP Photo/John Raoux)
This is the third in the most advanced line of GPS satellites, and joins a constellation of 31 GPS spacecraft in orbit, according to the Space Force.
The launch was dedicated to Col. Thomas Falzarano, commander of the 21st Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado who died in May at age 47.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Liftoff.
SpaceX launched the military’s newest, most accurate GPS satellite Tuesday after a two-month delay due to the pandemic.
A Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying the GPS satellite to orbit. The brand new first-stage booster landed on an ocean platform several minutes later, to be recycled for future use.
The launch originally was scheduled for April, but the newly organized U.S. Space Force delayed it to keep staff healthy and safe during the coronavirus outbreak.
This is the third in the most advanced line of GPS satellites, and joins a constellation of 31 GPS spacecraft in orbit, according to the Space Force.
The launch was dedicated to Col. Thomas Falzarano, commander of the 21st Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado who died in May at age 47.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. liftoff.
The beaver may be an unlikely agent of climate change, but the cuddly-looking creatures are transforming the Arctic landscape in a way that could be exacerbating global warming, a new study has suggested.
With their sharp teeth, beavers fell trees and shrubs and build dams, which flood small valleys and form new lakes that can cover several hectares of land.
These new water bodies contribute to the thawing of the frozen permafrost soil, which is a huge natural reservoir of methane — a potent greenhouse gas.
In the past few years, scientists have spotted beavers in the Alaskan tundra where they've previously never been seen before — and the animals have been enjoying a dam-building boom in their new neighborhood, according to the study of high-resolution satellite imagery published in the journal Environmental Research Letters Monday.
They also seem to be building their dams and creating new lakes in the very locations that are most likely to intensify the thawing of the permafrost.
"We're seeing exponential growth there. The number of these structures doubles roughly every four years," said Ingmar Nitze, a researcher from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, and author of the study.
"Their methods are extremely effective."
The study found that the number of beaver dams in a 100-square-kilometer area surrounding the city of Kotzebue, northwest Alaska, increased from just two in 2002 to 98 in 2019 — a 5,000% increase. Beaver dams in the larger, 430-square-kilometer area on Alaska's Baldwin Peninsula have increased from 94 in 2010 to 174 in 2013 and 409 last year.
"It's possible to see them and spot them (the dams) in the imagery. It's also possible to see the development of lakes. They had a distinctive signal," said Nitze.
BLAME IT ON THE BEAVERS?
Several different factors explain why the beavers have occupied a region they wouldn't normally call home, said Nitze. One is climate change, which is altering the typically treeless tundra.
"We see an increase in vegetation. There are more shrubs coming in there so all the stuff beavers need to build their dams, or as food, is there," he said. Furthermore, the lakes, which used to freeze solid, now offer friendlier conditions for beavers, as a result of their thinner seasonal winter ice cover
The tundra is also not the beavers' usual habitat so they face no predators or competition for resources, plus the animals are better protected now by U.S. federal law and hunted far less by humans than they used to be.
Because the lakes the beavers create contain water that is warmer than the surrounding soil, the new bodies of water accelerate the permafrost thawing.
"The thing about permafrost is that water interacts very strongly with the frozen ground beneath it," Nitze said. "The more surface water you have, the worse it is for the permafrost--because in the winter the cold air cannot penetrate again into the ground, and the water stores a lot of the heat and can even penetrate it into the ground," he said.
Lakes and water bodies influenced by beavers accounted for two-thirds of the 8.3% increase in total surface water area in the Kotzebue study area during a 17-year period, the study found.
The beavers also seemed to intuitively target drained lake basins, turbocharging the impact they had on the landscape and the permafrost.
"It's a special landscape. There's typically a lot of lakes but they are dynamic so they can drain and leave a lot of basins ... and these beavers are smart enough to block the outlet and refill the basin again. They dam up a lot of area with minimum effort."
Nitze said the beaver dam-building boom was also likely taking place in the Canadian tundra, and could also be happening in Siberia.
"We're working to expand the analysis on a bigger scale."
"There are a lot of people trying to quantify methane and CO2 emissions from lakes in the Arctic but not specifically yet from beaver lakes," said Nitze.
"It's a very new topic and something we have uncovered over the past few years. Beavers can have a quite significant impact on these landscapes, so there's no real quantification yet for these lakes but it will be done in the future."
And when he looked down, he couldn't recognize himself. Once a 215-pound athlete with chiseled muscles and astounding strength, the 40-year-old looked like a completely different person.
"I woke up and looked at my arms, my legs, and my muscles were gone," he said. "I was kind of freaking out, like where are my legs? Where did my legs go?"
Ayyad is a coronavirus survivor.
Doctors had placed him in an induced coma for 25 days to save his life.
It's been a little over two months since those touch-and-go days and he's still recovering. Still out of breath at times. Still nursing the damage to his lung and heart.
But he has a message -- for those who refuse to wear a mask during this pandemic, for those dismissive of public health guidance, for those in the prime of their health and feel invincible against coronavirus.
"It worries me a lot seeing people take this lightly," he told CNN on Tuesday. "I got it and survived, and I'm still terrified."
How it all began
It started with an overwhelming feeling of weakness.
One week, Ayyad was running his own restaurant and club in Washington, DC while working at his family's retail furniture business. He was racing marathons and competing in obstacle course races, taking weekly basketball classes, and boxing, one of his favorite sports.
The next week, his entire life had changed. Walking up the stairs left him exhausted. So did cooking, talking, and driving.
Then came the coughing and sneezing. Eventually it was a high fever, total loss of energy and appetite, and a difficulty breathing.
Ayyad thought he had the flu.
But after one of his friends, a physician assistant, urged him to go to the hospital, he took an Uber to Sibley Memorial Hospital on March 15. Their suspicions were confirmed; he tested positive for influenza and the coronavirus.
His condition continued to worsen. He was placed on a ventilator and immediately transferred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where he was put in an induced coma.
The majority of coronavirus patients who are placed on ventilators are placed in an induced coma as they are usually too uncomfortable to stay relaxed with a tube down their throat, which makes them feel like they can't breathe.
Ayyad became the hospital's third Covid-19 patient and the first to be placed on a ventilator, John Hopkins said.
While doctors remain unsure why the athlete was at more risk, especially with such good health and no preexisting conditions, "there could be factors" they still don't fully understand, Dr. Sandra Zaeh, who treated Ayyad in the hospital and continued to care for him after he returned home, said in a hospital news release.
"It was extremely emotional," Ayyad said. "I knew I would be in this completely alone. Then I called my friend and told him to pick up my dog. And that was it. I didn't know what was coming. I didn't know if this was the last time I would talk to them. I didn't know if I was about to die."
What happened next
Ayyad doesn't know for sure when or where he was exposed to the virus. A week before he began showing symptoms, he took a 3-day trip to Florida to visit his brother. It could have been then.
As he lay in a hospital bed, his family members were tormented they would lose him without even getting a chance to say goodbye.
When his mom, Zeinab Ayyad, first laid eyes on her son after he was released, she burst into tears. She longed to hold her son in her arms. Instead, she was forced to stand far away on a street and watch him go inside his apartment to self quarantine in solitude.
Every three days, she cooked for him Palestinian meals -- stuffed grape leaves, Molokhia, Maqluba -- and did her best to "fatten him back up," he joked.
"I had nightmares every night, calling the hospital at 3 a.m. just to make sure he was still alive," Zeinab told CNN.
How things are now
After nearly a month without solid food, Ayyad clearly remembers the moment he got to eat again.
"It was apple sauce," he said. "I was so happy. That first bite, it felt so satisfying. Well, before I realized I forgot how to swallow. It's like I didn't remember how to eat. I had to learn that all over again. But I won't forget the apple sauce."
It wasn't just swallowing that the athlete had to learn all over again. He couldn't talk or walk either. For the next three weeks, every movement knocked the breath out of him, raising his heart rate and leaving him gasping for air.
But he was far from discouraged.
Every day, Ayyad tried something new. First he started with leg extensions from his hospital bed using the blankets. Then it was side lunges. Eventually he was out of bed, squatting and walking laps after laps. He was determined.
After finally going home on April 22, Ayyad was 60 pounds lighter. He had a blood clot in his left arm, damage to his heart and lungs, and spent the next month struggling to do anything without losing his breath.
But everyday, little by little, he was gaining back his weight -- and muscles.
"He seems to be making a great recovery," Zaeh, the doctor, said.
"It was remarkable to go from seeing him at his sickest in the ICU — intubated, deeply sedated and on his stomach to help him breathe — to seeing him at home. He was smiling and talking about how happy he was to go for a short jog and sit outside with the sun on his face," Zaeh said.
Ayyad is now almost back to normal. While he's back to boxing, working out everyday, playing basketball and hopefully running marathons soon enough, he's still worried about the virus.
"People are acting like it's gone. It's not. Wear your mask. Don't gather in big groups. Take care of yourself and the people around you," Ayyad said.
"Take it seriously. It's not a joke. It can kill you, even if you think you're healthy and immune to it. You're not."
He knows. He hopes others don't have to find out the hard way.
Flying snakes are able to undulate their bodies as they glide through the air, and those unique movements allow them to take flight, scientists have found.
These snakes, such Chrysopelea paradisi, also known as the paradise tree snake, tend to reside in the trees of South and Southeast Asia. While up there, they move along tree branches and, sometimes, to reach another tree, they’ll launch themselves into the air and glide down at an angle.
For their research published in the journal Nature Physics, scientists from Virginia Tech put motion-capture tags on seven snakes and filmed them with high-speed cameras as the snakes flew across a four-story high theater.
Jack Socha, a professor in the department of biomedical engineering and mechanics at Virginia Tech who has studied these snakes for more than 20 years, worked with his colleagues to build a 3D model after measuring more than 100 live snake glides.
Their model factors in frequencies of undulating waves, their direction, forces acting on the body, and mass distribution. With it, the researchers have run virtual experiments to investigate aerial undulation.
“In all these years, I think I’ve seen close to a thousand glides,” said Socha in a statement. “It’s still amazing to see every time. Seeing it in person, there’s something a little different about it. It’s shocking still. What exactly is this animal doing? Being able to answer the questions I’ve had since I was a graduate student, many, many years later, is incredibly satisfying.”
In one set of experiments that aimed to discern why undulation was part of each glide, they simulated what would happen if it wasn’t. They did this by turning it off. When their virtual snake couldn’t undulate in the air, its body would fall.
That test, paired with simulated glides that kept the movement going, confirmed their hypothesis — that aerial undulation enhances rotational stability in flying snakes.
“This work demonstrates that aerial undulation in snakes serves a different function than known uses of undulation in other animals, and suggests a new template of control for dynamic flying robots,” the scientists conclude in their paper’s abstract.
This afternoon, SpaceX is set to launch a new GPS satellite for the US Space Force out of Cape Canaveral, Florida — part of an ongoing quest by the Department of Defense to update the GPS constellation already in orbit. This satellite will replace one of the older, less powerful GPS satellites currently in the system, maintaining the total number of satellites in space at 31.
This is the third GPS satellite model of its kind to launch into orbit and SpaceX’s second time launching a GPS spacecraft. Called GPS III SV03, it’s part of a block of satellites known as GPS III, designed and built by Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin claims that compared to older GPS spacecraft, the GPS III satellites “have three times better accuracy and up to eight times improved anti-jamming capabilities.”
The spacecraft also sport a number of new features. They can broadcast a new signal meant to help civilians and commercial users of the satellites, and they’re also able to communicate with other navigation satellites, such as Europe’s Galileo constellation. That way, people using the GPS system can connect with even more satellites in space. Plus, the spacecraft are meant to last longer in space than their predecessors.
The Space Force had been gearing up to launch the satellite in April, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced the military branch to delay the mission. There was particular concern about the crew’s ability to stay six feet apart while operating the satellite during its initial launch and deployment at the designated control center in Lockheed Martin’s facility in Colorado. “We focused on the people, the personnel, the processes and the procedures as well as the facility,” Col. Edward Byrne, senior materiel leader of the medium Earth orbit space systems division at the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, said during a press call. The Space Force reduced the amount of crew needed to handle the satellite at launch, moved some of the terminals around, and put up partitions for extra separation.
After rehearsing and adapting to the new system, the Space Force is now ready to fly. In the meantime, extra precautions are also being taken at the launch site at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is slated to launch. The 45th Space Wing, which oversees launches out of the Cape, has instituted temperature checks and face coverings for its personnel. Different sets of people are assigned to separate flights so that there is no “cross contamination” between personnel jumping from one mission to the next.
“A number of cases have increased in Florida and in Brevard County, but we’re taking necessary precautions to make sure that everyone is safe to go,” Brig. Gen. Doug Schiess, the 45th Space Wing commander, said during the call. He noted that the 45th Space Wing has overseen several launches during the pandemic — notably, the first crewed launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon that send two NASA astronauts to space — and that no one in the 45th Space Wing has gotten sick thus far.
Takeoff is scheduled for 3:55PM ET out of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. SpaceX only has a short window to launch — until 4:10PM ET. After takeoff, SpaceX will attempt to land its Falcon 9 rocket on one of the company’s drone ships in the Atlantic. So far, there is about a 60 percent chance that weather conditions will be favorable for the launch, but if SpaceX can’t launch today, the company has a backup launch date on Wednesday, July 1st. SpaceX’s live coverage of the mission will begin about 15 minutes before launch.
If you've ever wanted to be a part of the next trip to the Moon, NASA wants to hear from you.
Especially if you know anything about going to the washroom in zero gravity.
NASA is preparing to return to the Moon with the Artemis program landing the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024. The plan is to use innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.
Artemis astronauts will be using the most advanced space systems of the 21st century – but they need your help to come up with a new toilet.
NASA has launched the Lunar Loo Challenge, looking for novel design concepts for compact toilets that can operate in both microgravity and lunar gravity. If your design is chosen you could win $35,000 U.S., in total prize value, including public recognition from NASA and from HeroX.
Just like everyone else, astronauts need to eat, drink, and go to the washroom.
“Our astronauts accomplish amazing feats of science and space exploration. But at the end of the day, they’re still human. We need to provide them with the same necessities as here on Earth so they can continue to do their job,” said Mike Interbartolo, manager for the Lunar Loo Challenge.
There are two divisions, the Technical Prize and the Junior Prize.
The Technical Prize is open to anyone age 18 or older participating as an individual or as a team. The Junior Challenge is open to anyone under the age of 18, participating as an individual or as a team.
Getting back to the Moon by 2024 is an ambitious goal and NASA is already working on approaches to improve existing space toilets.
“The global community of innovators provides valuable insight and expertise we might not have in-house,” said Steve Rader, deputy manager of the NASA Tournament Lab. “Challenges like this allow us to tap into that creative thinking and find unknown or undeveloped solutions.”
Submissions will be evaluated based on proposed capabilities, technical maturity, safety, and overall innovation.
At first glance, Jupiter’s moon Europa doesn’t seem much like Earth. It’s a moon, not a planet, and it’s covered in ice. But it does have one important thing in common with Earth: a warm, salty ocean.
Now there’s even more evidence that Europa’s sub-surface ocean is habitable.
Scientists at NASA have developed a new model that supports Europa’s ability to support life. They presented their work at the 2020 Goldschmidt Conference, an annual conference on geochemistry and similar topics. It’s put on by the European Association of Geochemistry and the Geochemical Society.
“We believe that this ocean could be quite habitable for life.”
Europa is one of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, the smallest of the four. Its brethren Ganymede and Callisto may also host sub-surface oceans, while the fourth moon, Io, does not.
Europa’s ocean is buried beneath a frozen crust approximately 10–30 km (6–19 mi) thick, and liquid ocean underneath that may be 100 km (62 miles) thick. The likely source of heat for this liquid is tidal flexing due to Jupiter’s monstrous mass, and Europa’s orbital resonance with the other Galilean moons. The evidence for this ocean stretches back to the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft.
These artist’s drawings depict two proposed models of the subsurface structure of Europa. Geologic features on the surface, imaged by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, might be explained either by the existence of a warm, convecting ice layer, located several kilometers below a cold, brittle surface ice crust (top model), or by a layer of liquid water with a possible depth of more than 100 kilometers(bottom model). If a 100 kilometer (60 mile) deep ocean existed below a 15 kilometer (10 mile) thick Europan ice crust, it would be 10 times deeper than any ocean on Earth and would contain twice as much water as Earth’s oceans and rivers combined. Image: NASA/JPL.
This new research presented at the Goldschmidt Conference suggests that this sub-surface ocean formed endogenously. That means that it formed by breakdown of water-containing minerals due to either tidal forces or radioactive decay. That’s opposed to an exogenous ocean like Earth’s, which was likely delivered to Earth by comets and/or asteroids.
This work is primarily based on data from the Galileo mission, which arrived at Jupiter in 1995. Galileo performed a series of orbits of Jupiter and some of its moons, and the mission ended when it was de-orbited into Jupiter in 2003. But images from the Hubble Space Telescope played a role, too.
Newly re-processed Galileo images of Europa’s surface show details that are visible in the variety of features on the moon’s icy surface. This image of an area called Chaos Transition shows blocks that have moved and ridges possibly related to how the crust fractures from the force of Jupiter’s gravity. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
“We were able to model the composition and physical properties of the core, silicate layer, and ocean,” said lead author Daswani in a press release. “We find that different minerals lose water and volatiles at different depths and temperatures. We added up these volatiles that are estimated to have been lost from the interior, and found that they are consistent with the current ocean’s predicted mass, meaning that they are probably present in the ocean.”
While many researchers think that tidal flexing is responsible for the heating, radioactive decay may play a role, too. But whatever the source, as the heat and pressure increased inside Europa, water-containing minerals broke down and released that water.
Some scientific thinking says that the water might be too acidic for life as we know it, due to higher concentrations of calcium, sulfate, and carbon dioxide. But this new modelling suggests that that was temporary, and the ocean became chloride rich over time.
“Europa is one of our best chances of finding life in our solar system.”
M. MELWANI DASWANI, LEAD AUTHOR, JPL.
“Indeed it was thought that this ocean could still be rather sulfuric” said Daswani, “but our simulations, coupled with data from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing chloride on Europa’s surface, suggests that the water most likely became chloride rich. In other words, its composition became more like oceans on Earth. We believe that this ocean could be quite habitable for life.”
Artist’s concept of a Europa Clipper mission. NASA plans to launch this mission in the 2020s. Credit: NASA/JPL
Habitable is one thing, but inhabited is another. And that’s why there’s so much thinking about a mission to Europa to investigate further.
“Europa is one of our best chances of finding life in our solar system. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will launch in the next few years, and so our work aims to prepare for the mission, which will investigate Europa’s habitability,” said Daswani. “Our models lead us to think that the oceans in other moons, such as Europa’s neighbor Ganymede, and Saturn’s moon Titan, may also have formed by similar processes. We still need to understand several points though, such as how fluids migrate through Europa’s rocky interior.”
“…what reliable flow of electrons could be used by alien life to power itself in the cold, dark depths?”
Steve Mojzsis, Professor of Geology at the University of Colorado.
The issue of habitability might boil down to one question. And it’s one that can only be answered by sending a spacecraft to the moon. In a press release, Steve Mojzsis, Professor of Geology at the University of Colorado, elaborated on that question as an independent commenter not involved in the research.
“A long-standing question over whether a “cloaked ocean” world like Europa could be habitable boils down to whether it can sustain a flow of electrons which might provide the energy to power life. What remains unclear is whether such icy moons could ever generate enough heat to melt rock; certainly interesting chemistry takes place within these bodies, but what reliable flow of electrons could be used by alien life to power itself in the cold, dark depths? A key aspect that makes a world “habitable” is an intrinsic ability to maintain these chemical disequilibria. Arguably, icy moons lack this ability, so this needs to be tested on any future mission to Europa.”
Europa’s surface is a frigid place. The temperature at the equator averages about 110 K (?160 °C; ?260 °F) and only about 50 K (?220 °C; ?370 °F) at the poles. That means its surface is as hard as rock. But while scientists know that the sub-surface ocean is warm, they don’t know its temperature.
Another re-processed Galileo image. This one is of an area called Crisscrossing Bands, and it shows ridges which may form when a crack in the surface opens and closes repeatedly. In contrast, the smooth bands shown here form where a crack continues pulling apart horizontally, producing large, wide, relatively flat features. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
Right now we only have a tantalizing taste of the nature of Europa’s ocean. There’ll be more studies and more modelling and simulating as time goes on, and that work is necessary. But only a mission to the moon can really answer our questions. (And it’ll probably pose a few more questions, too.)
We’ll be relying on the Clipper to answer our questions about Europa and its ocean. And unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait a few years for that.
At first glance, Jupiter’s moon Europa doesn’t seem much like Earth. It’s a moon, not a planet, and it’s covered in ice. But it does have one important thing in common with Earth: a warm, salty ocean.
Now there’s even more evidence that Europa’s sub-surface ocean is habitable.
Scientists at NASA have developed a new model that supports Europa’s ability to support life. They presented their work at the 2020 Goldschmidt Conference, an annual conference on geochemistry and similar topics. It’s put on by the European Association of Geochemistry and the Geochemical Society.
“We believe that this ocean could be quite habitable for life.”
Europa is one of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, the smallest of the four. Its brethren Ganymede and Callisto may also host sub-surface oceans, while the fourth moon, Io, does not.
Europa’s ocean is buried beneath a frozen crust approximately 10–30 km (6–19 mi) thick, and liquid ocean underneath that may be 100 km (62 miles) thick. The likely source of heat for this liquid is tidal flexing due to Jupiter’s monstrous mass, and Europa’s orbital resonance with the other Galilean moons. The evidence for this ocean stretches back to the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft.
These artist’s drawings depict two proposed models of the subsurface structure of Europa. Geologic features on the surface, imaged by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, might be explained either by the existence of a warm, convecting ice layer, located several kilometers below a cold, brittle surface ice crust (top model), or by a layer of liquid water with a possible depth of more than 100 kilometers(bottom model). If a 100 kilometer (60 mile) deep ocean existed below a 15 kilometer (10 mile) thick Europan ice crust, it would be 10 times deeper than any ocean on Earth and would contain twice as much water as Earth’s oceans and rivers combined. Image: NASA/JPL.
This new research presented at the Goldschmidt Conference suggests that this sub-surface ocean formed endogenously. That means that it formed by breakdown of water-containing minerals due to either tidal forces or radioactive decay. That’s opposed to an exogenous ocean like Earth’s, which was likely delivered to Earth by comets and/or asteroids.
This work is primarily based on data from the Galileo mission, which arrived at Jupiter in 1995. Galileo performed a series of orbits of Jupiter and some of its moons, and the mission ended when it was de-orbited into Jupiter in 2003. But images from the Hubble Space Telescope played a role, too.
Newly re-processed Galileo images of Europa’s surface show details that are visible in the variety of features on the moon’s icy surface. This image of an area called Chaos Transition shows blocks that have moved and ridges possibly related to how the crust fractures from the force of Jupiter’s gravity. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
“We were able to model the composition and physical properties of the core, silicate layer, and ocean,” said lead author Daswani in a press release. “We find that different minerals lose water and volatiles at different depths and temperatures. We added up these volatiles that are estimated to have been lost from the interior, and found that they are consistent with the current ocean’s predicted mass, meaning that they are probably present in the ocean.”
While many researchers think that tidal flexing is responsible for the heating, radioactive decay may play a role, too. But whatever the source, as the heat and pressure increased inside Europa, water-containing minerals broke down and released that water.
Some scientific thinking says that the water might be too acidic for life as we know it, due to higher concentrations of calcium, sulfate, and carbon dioxide. But this new modelling suggests that that was temporary, and the ocean became chloride rich over time.
“Europa is one of our best chances of finding life in our solar system.”
M. MELWANI DASWANI, LEAD AUTHOR, JPL.
“Indeed it was thought that this ocean could still be rather sulfuric” said Daswani, “but our simulations, coupled with data from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing chloride on Europa’s surface, suggests that the water most likely became chloride rich. In other words, its composition became more like oceans on Earth. We believe that this ocean could be quite habitable for life.”
Artist’s concept of a Europa Clipper mission. NASA plans to launch this mission in the 2020s. Credit: NASA/JPL
Habitable is one thing, but inhabited is another. And that’s why there’s so much thinking about a mission to Europa to investigate further.
“Europa is one of our best chances of finding life in our solar system. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will launch in the next few years, and so our work aims to prepare for the mission, which will investigate Europa’s habitability,” said Daswani. “Our models lead us to think that the oceans in other moons, such as Europa’s neighbor Ganymede, and Saturn’s moon Titan, may also have formed by similar processes. We still need to understand several points though, such as how fluids migrate through Europa’s rocky interior.”
“…what reliable flow of electrons could be used by alien life to power itself in the cold, dark depths?”
Steve Mojzsis, Professor of Geology at the University of Colorado.
The issue of habitability might boil down to one question. And it’s one that can only be answered by sending a spacecraft to the moon. In a press release, Steve Mojzsis, Professor of Geology at the University of Colorado, elaborated on that question as an independent commenter not involved in the research.
“A long-standing question over whether a “cloaked ocean” world like Europa could be habitable boils down to whether it can sustain a flow of electrons which might provide the energy to power life. What remains unclear is whether such icy moons could ever generate enough heat to melt rock; certainly interesting chemistry takes place within these bodies, but what reliable flow of electrons could be used by alien life to power itself in the cold, dark depths? A key aspect that makes a world “habitable” is an intrinsic ability to maintain these chemical disequilibria. Arguably, icy moons lack this ability, so this needs to be tested on any future mission to Europa.”
Europa’s surface is a frigid place. The temperature at the equator averages about 110 K (?160 °C; ?260 °F) and only about 50 K (?220 °C; ?370 °F) at the poles. That means its surface is as hard as rock. But while scientists know that the sub-surface ocean is warm, they don’t know its temperature.
Another re-processed Galileo image. This one is of an area called Crisscrossing Bands, and it shows ridges which may form when a crack in the surface opens and closes repeatedly. In contrast, the smooth bands shown here form where a crack continues pulling apart horizontally, producing large, wide, relatively flat features. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
Right now we only have a tantalizing taste of the nature of Europa’s ocean. There’ll be more studies and more modelling and simulating as time goes on, and that work is necessary. But only a mission to the moon can really answer our questions. (And it’ll probably pose a few more questions, too.)
We’ll be relying on the Clipper to answer our questions about Europa and its ocean. And unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait a few years for that.
When you need a robotic arm in space, you call in the experts. Over the past several decades, the Canadian Space Agency has expertly provided robotic arms for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. And now it will build the next-generation of robotic systems for going to the Moon, called Canadarm3.
The CSA says the new robotic arm will be Canada’s contribution to the Lunar Gateway for NASA’s Artemis program, which is becoming the next major international collaboration in human space exploration. CSA leaders add that this is another important step forward in the country’s participation in the next chapter of Moon exploration.
“Canada will continue to push the boundaries of human ambition in space exploration, and inspire generations of kids – and adults – to always aim higher and aspire to something greater,” said Navdeep Bains, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. “Our commitment to contribute Canadarm3 to the Lunar Gateway will generate high-quality jobs and economic benefits for Canadians while ensuring that our space industry continues to lead and grow.”
Animation of Canadarm3, Canada’s contribution to the Lunar Gateway
Canadarm3 will be composed of several parts, including a large, 8.5-meter (28 feet) arm and a smaller, more dexterous arm, each with a set of detachable tools.
The main tasks of the arms will be to maintain, repair and inspect the Gateway as well as capturing visiting vehicles, relocating modules, assisting astronauts during spacewalks and enabling science both in lunar orbit and on the surface of the Moon, conducting research and experiments that can’t be done on Earth.
Logo for the new Canadarm3. Credit: CSA
Each end of Canadarm3’s arms will be able to attach to the Gateway using specially designed interfaces on the Gateway’s exterior. Like robotic inchworms, each anchoring “hand” will plug into an interface that supplies power, data, and video connections. These interfaces will also allow the large and small arms to work together to accomplish tasks, and will help store tools when not in use.
The smaller arm will be equipped to transfer mission-critical material between the interior and the exterior of the space station. Also, the small arm will be able to help repair the larger arm in space if necessary. Therefore, Canadarm3 will be able to maintain itself in space – swapping out parts and keeping itself constantly ready to perform precise operations.
Like the Canadarm2 on the ISS, the new arms will have seven degrees of freedom, very similar to the movements of a human arm, with three joints in the shoulder, one joint in the elbow and three joints in the wrist. Each joint will be able to rotate almost 360 degrees.
The prime contractor for the new arm is MacDonald, Dettwiler, and Associates, Inc. (MDA), but hundreds of Canadian companies are expected to be involved in the development of Canadarm3.
From left to right: Canadarm on the Space Shuttle, Canadarm2 on the ISS, and an artist’s concept of Canadarm3 as part of the Lunar Gateway. Credit: CSA.
Canadarm was the first Canadian robotic arm to go to space and was first tested and used on the space shuttle in 1981. Canadarm2 has been nobly servicing the International Space Station since 2001.
When you need a robotic arm in space, you call in the experts. Over the past several decades, the Canadian Space Agency has expertly provided robotic arms for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. And now it will build the next-generation of robotic systems for going to the Moon, called Canadarm3.
The CSA says the new robotic arm will be Canada’s contribution to the Lunar Gateway for NASA’s Artemis program, which is becoming the next major international collaboration in human space exploration. CSA leaders add that this is another important step forward in the country’s participation in the next chapter of Moon exploration.
“Canada will continue to push the boundaries of human ambition in space exploration, and inspire generations of kids – and adults – to always aim higher and aspire to something greater,” said Navdeep Bains, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. “Our commitment to contribute Canadarm3 to the Lunar Gateway will generate high-quality jobs and economic benefits for Canadians while ensuring that our space industry continues to lead and grow.”
Animation of Canadarm3, Canada’s contribution to the Lunar Gateway
Canadarm3 will be composed of several parts, including a large, 8.5-meter (28 feet) arm and a smaller, more dexterous arm, each with a set of detachable tools.
The main tasks of the arms will be to maintain, repair and inspect the Gateway as well as capturing visiting vehicles, relocating modules, assisting astronauts during spacewalks and enabling science both in lunar orbit and on the surface of the Moon, conducting research and experiments that can’t be done on Earth.
Logo for the new Canadarm3. Credit: CSA
Each end of Canadarm3’s arms will be able to attach to the Gateway using specially designed interfaces on the Gateway’s exterior. Like robotic inchworms, each anchoring “hand” will plug into an interface that supplies power, data, and video connections. These interfaces will also allow the large and small arms to work together to accomplish tasks, and will help store tools when not in use.
The smaller arm will be equipped to transfer mission-critical material between the interior and the exterior of the space station. Also, the small arm will be able to help repair the larger arm in space if necessary. Therefore, Canadarm3 will be able to maintain itself in space – swapping out parts and keeping itself constantly ready to perform precise operations.
Like the Canadarm2 on the ISS, the new arms will have seven degrees of freedom, very similar to the movements of a human arm, with three joints in the shoulder, one joint in the elbow and three joints in the wrist. Each joint will be able to rotate almost 360 degrees.
The prime contractor for the new arm is MacDonald, Dettwiler, and Associates, Inc. (MDA), but hundreds of Canadian companies are expected to be involved in the development of Canadarm3.
From left to right: Canadarm on the Space Shuttle, Canadarm2 on the ISS, and an artist’s concept of Canadarm3 as part of the Lunar Gateway. Credit: CSA.
Canadarm was the first Canadian robotic arm to go to space and was first tested and used on the space shuttle in 1981. Canadarm2 has been nobly servicing the International Space Station since 2001.
Artist's impression of the Rosalind Franklin Rover on Mars.
ESA/ATG medialab
NASA has stepped closer to allowing remote onboard computers to direct the search for life on other planets. Scientists from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have announced first results from new intelligent systems, to be installed in space probes, capable of identifying geochemical signatures of life from rock samples. Allowing these intelligent systems to choose both what to analyse and what to tell us back on Earth will overcome severe limits on how information is transmitted over huge distances in the search for life from distant planets. The systems will debut on the 2022/23 ExoMars mission, before fuller implementation on more distant bodies in the Solar System.
Presenting the work at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry conference, lead researcher Victoria Da Poian said, "This is a visionary step in space exploration. It means that over time we'll have moved from the idea that humans are involved with nearly everything in space, to the idea that computers are equipped with intelligent systems, and they are trained to make some decisions and are able to transmit in priority the most interesting or time-critical information."
Eric Lyness, software lead in the Planetary Environments Lab at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), emphasized the need to have smart instruments for planetary exploration:
"It costs a lot of time and money to send the data back to Earth which means scientists can't run as many experiments or analyze as many samples as they would like. By using AI to do an initial analysis of the data after it is collected but before it is sent back to Earth, NASA can optimize what we receive, which greatly increases the scientific value of space missions."
Da Poian and Lyness (both at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center), have trained artificial intelligence systems to analyze hundreds of rock samples and thousands of experimental spectra from the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA), an instrument that will land on Mars within the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Rover in 2023. MOMA is a state-of-the-art mass spectrometer-based instrument, capable of analyzing and identifying organic molecules in rocks samples. It will search for past or present life on the Martian surface and subsurface through analysis of rock samples. The system to be sent to Mars will still transmit most data back to Earth, but later systems for the outer solar system will be given autonomy to decide what information to return to Earth.
First results show that when the system's neural network algorithm processes a spectrum from an unknown compound, this can be categorized with up to 94 percent accuracy and matched to previously seen samples with 87 percent accuracy. This will be further refined until being incorporated into the 2023 mission.
Victoria Da Poian continued:
"What we get from these unmanned missions is data, lots of it; and sending data over hundreds of millions of kilometers can be very challenging in different environments and extremely expensive; in other words, bandwidth is limited. We need to prioritize the volume of data we send back to Earth, but we also need to ensure that in doing that we don't throw out vital information. This has led us to begin to develop smart algorithms which can for now help the scientists with their analysis of the sample and their decision-making process regarding subsequent operations, and as a longer-term objective, algorithms that will analyse the data itself, will adjust and tune the instruments to run next operations without the ground-in-the-loop, and will transmit home only the most interesting data."
The team used the raw data from initial laboratory tests with an Earth-based MOMA instrument to train computers to recognize familiar patterns. When new raw data is received, the software tells the scientists what previously encountered samples match this new data.
Eric Lyness said:
"The mission will face severe time limits. When we will be operating on Mars, samples will only remain in the rover for at most a few weeks before the rover dumps the sample and moves to a new place to drill. So, if we need to retest a sample, we need to do it quickly, sometimes within 24 hours. In the future, as we move to explore the moons of Jupiter such as Europa, and of Saturn such as Enceladus and Titan, we will need real-time decisions to be made onsite. With these moons, it can take five to seven hours for a signal from Earth to reach the instruments, so this will not be like controlling a drone, with an instant response. We need to give the instruments the autonomy to make rapid decisions to reach our science goals on our behalf."
Lyness commented: "When first gathered, the data produced by the MOMA life-searching instrument is difficult to interpret. It will not shout out, 'I've found life here,' but will give us probabilities which will need to be analyzed. These results will largely tell us about the geochemistry that the instruments find. We're aiming for the system to give scientists directions, for example our system might say, 'I've got 91 percent confidence that this sample corresponds to a real world sample and I'm 87 percent sure it is phospholipids, similar to a sample tested on July 24th, 2018 and here is what that data looked like.' We'll still need humans to interpret the findings, but the first filter will be the AI system."
The researchers note that data is expensive to send back from Mars, and gets more expensive as landers get further from Earth. "Data from a rover on Mars can cost as much as 100,000 times as much as data on your cell phone, so we need to make those bits as scientifically valuable as possible," said Lyness.
Commenting, Dr. Joel Davis (postdoctoral researcher in planetary geology at the Natural History Museum, London, who was not involved in this work) said: "One of the main challenges for planetary missions is getting the data back to Earth—it costs both time and money. On Mars, the travel time delay is around 20 minutes and this gets more the further you go out in the solar system. Given the finite lifespans of missions, scientists have to be very selective about the data they chose to bring back. These results certainly seem promising; having greater autonomy onboard spacecraft is one way of ensuring the usefulness of the data returned."
The Goldschmidt conference thanks the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for their assistance in the preparation of this material. ExoMars is a joint European-Russian, European Space Agency-Roskosmos project. One of the central goals of the mission is to search for traces of past and present life. A key instrument is the Mars Organic Molecule Analyser (MOMA), which is a joint German-French-American investigation led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen.
The Goldschmidt conference is the world's main geochemistry conference, hosted by the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry. Held annually, it covers such material as climate change, astrobiology, planetary and stellar development and conditions, chemistry of Earth materials, pollution, the undersea environment, volcanoes, and many other subjects. For 2020 the scheduled Hawaii congress was moved online, taking place from 21-26 June, see https://goldschmidt.info/2020/index. Future congresses are in Lyon, France (2021) and the rescheduled Hawaii congress (2022).
