The 100 Best Science Photos of 2019 Livescience.com
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiPGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxpdmVzY2llbmNlLmNvbS9iZXN0LXNjaWVuY2UtcGhvdG9zLW9mLTIwMTkuaHRtbNIBQGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxpdmVzY2llbmNlLmNvbS9hbXAvYmVzdC1zY2llbmNlLXBob3Rvcy1vZi0yMDE5Lmh0bWw?oc=5
For almost 350 years, physicists have been trying to decode Newton’s three-body problem - the problem of figuring out how three similar objects or bodies are going to travel in space in a way that fits in with the laws of motion and gravity. The three laws of motion laid down by Isaac Newton in 1687 are these: objects remain in a state of inertia unless acted upon by force, that the relationship between acceleration and applied force is force equals mass times acceleration (F=ma), and that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
So far, Newton’s basic physics of the universe could be explained. But when the same rules were applied to the Moon, Earth and the Sun, Newton ran into difficulty as it became much harder to track these three original bodies with these mathematical rules. However now, scientists have found fixes for special cases. They’ve found the general formula to be elusive and developed a statistical formula that fits the infamous the ‘oldest open question in astrophysics’ in certain scenarios.
While the researchers point out that they have not come up with an exact, complete solution for the three-body problem, they have cracked a statistical method that covers a lot of these three-body to two-body events, one which can be very useful in helping physicists visualise complicated processes. They looked up a couple of centuries of previous research that puts forward the following idea: in unstable, chaotic three-body systems, one of those bodies eventually gets expelled, leaving behind a stable binary relationship between the remaining two.
As per the study, the researchers applied a probability hypothesis called ergodicity to help guide them to their answers, which uses the principle of averages to work out what's going to happen in a particular system. Importantly, over time, ergodic processes bear little relation to their original state (just like a three-body system). What the new solution does is give scientists an understanding of how the two survivors of a three-body problem are going to behave in a variety of newly stable scenarios. That sort of understanding can be crucial in astrophysics.
Astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Nicholas Stone reportedly explains, “Take three black holes that are orbiting one another," says Stone. "Their orbits will necessarily become unstable and even after one of them gets kicked out, we're still very interested in the relationship between the surviving black holes."
The 12 Most Important and Stunning Quantum Experiments of 2019 Livescience.com
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiUmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxpdmVzY2llbmNlLmNvbS9tb3N0LWltcG9ydGFudC1zdXJwcmlzaW5nLXF1YW50dW0tcGh5c2ljcy1vZi0yMDE5Lmh0bWzSAVZodHRwczovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vYW1wL21vc3QtaW1wb3J0YW50LXN1cnByaXNpbmctcXVhbnR1bS1waHlzaWNzLW9mLTIwMTkuaHRtbA?oc=5
10 Things We Learned About Humans in 2019 Livescience.com
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiR2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxpdmVzY2llbmNlLmNvbS8xMC10aGluZ3Mtd2UtbGVhcm5lZC1hYm91dC1odW1hbnMtMjAxOS5odG1s0gFLaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGl2ZXNjaWVuY2UuY29tL2FtcC8xMC10aGluZ3Mtd2UtbGVhcm5lZC1hYm91dC1odW1hbnMtMjAxOS5odG1s?oc=5
NASA engineers witnessed their newest Mars rover take its first steps in preparation for its next mission that will search for fossilized remains of ancient life on the red planet.
The test took place inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Engineers clad in white bunny suits—special cleanroom attire worn in order to keep the rover’s delicate instruments very, very clean—watched the yet-to-be-named rover inch forward as part of the crucial pre-flight test, which lasted just over 10-hours.
“Mars 2020 has earned its driver’s license,” Rich Rieber, the lead mobility systems engineer for Mars 2020, said in a news release. “The test unambiguously proved that the rover can operate under its own weight and demonstrated many of the autonomous-navigation functions for the first time. This is a major milestone for Mars 2020.”
During the test, NASA engineers noticed no problems, as the six-wheeled rover successfully performed all its required tasks: it rolled forward and backward and even pirouetted. According to NASA, the rover’s systems, all working in concert, enabled it to steer, turn and drive with ease.
The testing of the vehicle’s autonomous navigation system went well. Since these systems performed perfectly under Earth’s gravity, engineers expect them to perform just as well under Mars’ gravity, which is only 38% of what we experience on Earth.
The test went so well that NASA says the “next time the Mars 2020 rover drives, it will be rolling over Martian soil.” The Mars 2020 rover is scheduled to launch in July 2020, followed by a landing in Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.
“A rover needs to rove, and Mars 2020 did that,” John McNamee, project manager for Mars 2020, said in a statement. “We can’t wait to put some red Martian dirt under its wheels.”
During its initial test drive, the rover crept forward in small, 3-feet ( 1-meter) increments, enabling the engineers to properly assess its movement and steering abilities. The rover also drove over small ramps designed to simulate uneven Martian terrain.
Engineers were also able to collect data from the vehicle’s Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX)—an instrument that uses radar waves to scan the ground below the rover. Depending on the terrain, once on Mars, RIMFAX will penetrate the ground, probing the red planet’s subsurface to depths of more than 30-feet (or 10-meters).
Engineers have outfitted the Mars 2020 rover with more durable wheels. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity, the Mars 2020 rover’s predecessor currently roaming around on Mars, is predominantly commanded by people back on Earth. However, the rover does have the ability to autonomously choose where to fire its laser spectrometer. As part of its onboard science arsenal, the instrument—called ChemCam—is designed to analyze the chemical composition of nearby rocks and soil.
Mars 2020, on the other hand, will be more independent than any of its predecessors. Equipped with advanced auto-navigation software, the rover will drive with the help of a dedicated onboard computer operating on data collected from the vehicle’s high-resolution, wide-field color cameras.
NASA engineers estimate that the rover will travel an average of 650 feet (200 meters) per day. For comparison, Curiosity’s current distance record for a single day is 702 feet (214 meters), although that’s not typical. The Mars 2020 rover will also be sporting more durable wheels. Curiosity’s wheels are visibly worn after seven years on the Martian surface; engineers hope Mars 2020’s wheels will hold up better.
NASA’s Mars2020 rover will explore Jezero Crater in search of life. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Once on Mars, the rover will land at Jezero Crater—a former lake bed, rich in mineral deposits known for preserving microfossils here on Earth. In this crater, the rover will search for any signs that life may have once existed on Mars.
While acting as a remote scientist, the rover will unlock clues about the planet’s climate and geology as well as collect samples that will be returned to Earth sometime in the future.
Following the loss of the Opportunity rover, Curiosity has been the sole robot roaming the Martian surface. That will change in 2021, but they won’t be the only ones.
They will be joined by another: The European Space Agency is teaming up with Russia to send their version of the Mars 2020 rover. The Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover will arrive on Mars at a soon-to-be-announced location, in 2021.
Watch NASA’s Mars 2020 Rover go for a test drive in preparation for landing on Martian soil
Sponsored Content
CORDURA® has teamed up with Sorona® and Susterra® to create a sustainable, game-changing fabric.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch is making history again. Breaking the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, Koch will have been in space for 288 days on December 28. She spoke with CNN's Christi Paul about what the record means to her and her work in space.
Have you noticed that Orion the Hunter—one of the most iconic and familiar of the wintertime constellations—is looking a little… different as of late? The culprit is its upper shoulder star Alpha Orionis, aka Betelgeuse, which is looking markedly faint, the faintest it has been for the 21st century.
When will this nearby supernova candidate pop, and what would look like if it did?
The story starts, as all good astronomy and space stories seem to, on Friday night going into a holiday weekend. We started seeing discussion on Betelgeuse trending on social media on the evening of Friday, December 20th, and dug down to the source of the excitement: a December 8th paper, "The Fainting of the Nearby Red Supergiant Betelgeuse," by researchers at Villanova University. Light curve estimates courtesy of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) verified the assertion that the star had, indeed, faded about one magnitude, or a little over one-half from its usual magnitude +0.5 to +1.5. Noticing the sky was clear, we headed up to our parking garage rooftop observing site in downtown Norfolk, Virginia, to take a look. Betelgeuse was, indeed, noticeably fainter, about a shade dimmer than nearby +1 magnitude Aldebaran.
Now, a change in one magnitude isn't unusual for a variable star such as Betelgeuse. But such a large dip always gives the astronomical community pause. A red giant star 12 times as massive as the sun and about 700 light years distant, the variability of red-orange Betelgeuse was first noted by astronomer Sir John Herschel in 1836. Physically, the star is currently bloated out to a radius of perhaps eight astronomical units (AU). If you plopped it down in the center of our solar system, Betelgeuse might extend all the way out past the orbit of Jupiter.
Our (puny) host star, versus the neighbors, including Betelgeuse. Credit: Dave Dickinson
This fact also allowed astronomers to use the first crude optical interferometric measurements from the 2.5 meter telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory to measure Betelgeuse's physical diameter of 50 milliarcseconds. In the late 1980s, astronomers used an emerging technique of aperture masking interferometry to obtain the first direct 'image' of Betelgeuse.
Betelgeuse is always worth keeping an eye on, as it's one of the closest candidates in our galaxy for a nearby supernova. We see supernovae frequently in distant galaxies, but such an event has not been witnessed in our galaxy in the telescopic era: Kepler's Star in 1604 in the constellation Ophiuchus was the last supernova observed in the Milky Way, though a supernova in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud put on a good show in 1987. A red giant like Betelgeuse lives fast and dies young, exhausting its supply of hydrogen fuel in just under 10 million years. The star is destined to undergo a core implosion and massive collapse and rebound as a Type II supernova. Such an explosion could occur 100,000 years from now… or tonight.
Is the fading act a prelude to a truly spectacular show, or a false alarm? Astronomers are unsure, but a supernova event just 700-odd light-years away would be an unrepresented opportunity to study one up close. Not only would every optical telescope get trained on the exploding star, but assets such as the Laser Interferometry Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) could detect gravitational waves from a nearby supernova, and neutrino observatories such as Ice Cube buried in the Antarctic ice could detect the event, as well.
A pulsating Betelgeuse in the ultraviolet. Credit: NASA/HST
Fortunately for us, we're safely out of the 50 light-year 'kill zone' for receiving any inbound lethal radiation from Betelgeuse: A supernova would simply be a scientifically interesting event, and put on a good show. Ancient supernovae may have had a hand in the evolution of life on Earth, and a recent study suggests that one might even have forced early humans to walk upright.
What would a supernova in Orion look like? Well, using the last supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud (also a Type IIb event) as a guide, we calculate that when it does blow, Betelgeuse would shine at magnitude -10. That's 16 times fainter than a full moon, but 100 times brighter than Venus, making it easily visible in the daytime sky. A Betelgeuse-gone-supernova would also easily cast noticeable nighttime shadows.
Nearby supernova candidates out to 1,000 light-years. Credit: Dave Dickinson
But see the ongoing fading event for yourself. Betelgeuse is easy to find in December, rising to the east at dusk. In fact, northern hemisphere winter is the very best time for the star to blow, as it's roughly opposite to the sun, and would dominate the night sky. Summer would be the worst time, as it would tease us from beyond the far side with the sun in the daytime sky.
Betelgeuse, versus the stars of the Winter Hexagon with annotated magnitudes (note: this was taken prior to the current dimming event). Credit: Steve Brown.
What's next? Well, expect Betelgeuse to brighten again in early 2020… though if it rebounds into negative magnitude territory past Rigel and Sirius, well, then things could get really exciting.
For now though, we're in a wait-and-see-mode for any New Year's Eve fireworks from Betelgeuse. Such an occurrence would be bittersweet: We would be extraordinarily lucky to see Betelgeuse go supernova in our lifetime… but familiar Orion the Hunter would never look the same again.
Citation:
Waiting for Betelgeuse: what's up with the tempestuous star? (2019, December 27)
retrieved 27 December 2019
from https://phys.org/news/2019-12-betelgeuse-tempestuous-star.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.
On the human spaceflight front, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing while also asking serious questions about the feasibility of Artemis, NASA’s plan to return to the moon’s surface by 2024. This year will also be remembered as a dance of slow progress and setbacks for Boeing and SpaceX.
Beyond the U.S., Israel and India found both success and failure in reaching the moon with uncrewed missions—success in that much of the feat is in the journey, and failure in that both landers failed to reach the lunar surface intact (though India’s moon satellite is operational). Japan’s Hayabusa2 pointed tiny projectiles at an asteroid and shot it in order to recover samples from beneath the surface; it’s now on its way home from Ryugu. We said goodbye to the Mars Opportunity rover. And who can forget the downright bizarre milestones as well, like the first alleged crime committed in space and the headache of unlicensed tardigrades on the moon?
But the talk of 2019 has been a new kind of space race. Not the battle for supremacy among the major private companies (like those of billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and, to a lesser extent, Richard Branson) and other space-focused startups, but one around something much smaller, with potentially bigger implications: satellite constellations.
Established companies and startups alike are zeroing in on launching large networks of small satellites (generally considered anything under 500 kilograms—in comparison, the Hubble Space Telescope is more than 11,000 kilograms). These are poetically called constellations, and they join most other satellites and the International Space Station in low Earth orbit. These small satellites are cheaper, easier to manufacture, and less expensive to send to space than their larger counterparts. And by working in concert, they can collectively cover a much bigger portion of the Earth than standard satellites, making them perfect for goals such as blanketing the globe in affordable high-speed internet.
Providing low-cost, fast internet to hard-to-reach areas is a worthy goal. It would give people in rural areas and areas with poor infrastructure an affordable way to connect to the internet and participate in the digital economy—in the U.S., roughly 25 million people still don’t have access to broadband internet. And there’s real competition in this space (pun intended): SpaceX has already launched the first satellites of its Starlink constellation, with a proposed final number of 42,000. Earlier this year, Blue Origin announced its intention to create its own constellation for satellite internet (with more than 3,000 satellites), and OneWeb has already launched the first satellites in its endeavor (about 2,500).
These small satellites would be joining an already crowded orbital zone. As of March 2019, there were roughly 1,300 operating satellites in low Earth orbit, along with thousands of pieces of junk—nonworking satellites that haven’t been de-orbited, and other debris (including what might be an empty trash bag). The idea of sending up this many more satellites (which would effectively double the current operational number by the end of 2020) is a real cause for concern for many in the space community.
SpaceX has been a particular focal point for this discussion. That’s partly because its constellation is proposed to be so massive, but also because anything the company does makes headlines. “SpaceX is at the center of this debate because not only are they launching more quickly than other planned megaconstellations, they may launch more than 10 times more satellites in their Starlink constellation than their competitors,” said Laura Forczyk, founder of the space consulting firm Astralytical. Really, though, SpaceX is just the easiest target, bearing the brunt of criticism that is particularly intense because of a massive, systemic problem. “It’s the difference between dealing with a dripping faucet versus turning on the water,” Forczyk said.
The first-ever collision between two satellites occurred earlier this year, between a defunct Russian communications satellite and an operational U.S. one. It’s likely the first of many, considering how crowded it’s getting up there. SpaceX’s Starlink satellites have collision detection software onboard, but earlier this year a Starlink satellite almost collided with one from the European Space Agency in something of a game of chicken: Apparently the anti-collision features worked as expected, but SpaceX decided not to move the satellite, forcing the ESA to take action. “If a satellite collides with something bigger than a dime, it may be seriously damaged,” said Brian Weeden, space junk expert and director of program planning at the Secure World Foundation. “If it collides with something bigger than a baseball, it will likely be catastrophically destroyed into thousands of new pieces.”
The bottom line is that it’s getting crowded upthere.
This becomes even more complicated when satellites die and become pieces of space junk. SpaceX does have a plan for that: Placing these satellites in an even lower orbit means that once they are offline, the Earth’s gravity will slowly pull them back toward the surface, where they will almost completely burn up in the atmosphere after about five years. Every company planning on launching these types of satellites has a similar de-orbiting plan. But that doesn’t solve the sheer volume problem for when these satellites are operational (and no one knows what the environmental impacts will be of thousands of tiny satellites burning up in the atmosphere). The bottom line is that it’s getting crowded up there.
There’s another issue here as well. Starlink has had an immediate negative impact on Earth-based astronomy—and only a small fraction of the planned constellation has been launched. This particular constellation is much more reflective than expected. Forczyk acknowledged that astronomers regularly compensate for aircraft and satellites in their observations. But new satellite constellations have made the problem much worse. “With Starlink, astronomers are seeing many more streaks than they’re accustomed to, and they worry about a future flood of light streaks in their images,” she said. In the view below, you can see a shot of the night sky, with definite streaks shooting across it. These streaks are Starlink satellites.
SpaceX’s chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, told reporters that the company is working on a fix for the issue: an anti-reflective coating that will make the satellites less bright in the night sky. There’s no guarantee that this fix will work, but Shotwell said, “We’re going to get it done.”
However, these problems weren’t impossible to foresee—astronomers were warning about Starlink’s impact on observation work well before the first satellites launched. And even if SpaceX and others wanted to proceed with their plans without care or caution, satellite launches are ostensibly regulated. Low Earth orbit is an international zone, after all.
Right now, that regulation happens at the national level (though countries do cooperate on issues such as radio frequency use). Governments are responsible for regulating the space activities of companies that operate and launch from within their borders. But that outdated scheme isn’t sophisticated enough to regulate what private spaceflight companies are actually doing in orbit—there are no specific regulations for either space debris or satellite constellations, which leaves corporations to regulate themselves. According to Weeden, there is consensus among experts that satellite licensing requirements need to change. Unfortunately, though, we aren’t quite sure how to deal with the problem. It’s fully baked into the system, not the result of political changes of mood, so until the space community and the organizations that regulate it figure it out, these problems will continue to pile up.
2019 will likely be remembered as the year we really began to understand the costs of unregulated innovation. Let 2020 be the year we tackle the problem head-on at the national and international levels. “The problem of space junk is more challenging, akin to the struggle we have to clean up junk here on Earth,” said Forczyk. “Future generations are counting on us to solve these problems on and around the planet.”
GREAT FALLS — We have received reports and several photos from people in northern Montana of strange lights in the sky.
People in Browning and Rocky Boy shared photos with KRTV on Wednesday evening that show a row of bright lights in the sky.
Based on similar reports in recent days in other media outlets and similarities in the photos, they are likely small satellites passing overhead that were launched recently by SpaceX.
Meteorologist John Belski of TV station WLKY reported on Monday
that SpaceX has launched two sets of satellites this year called Starlink. Each launching had 60 small satellites that eventually will orbit the earth at an altitude of over 300 miles.
And on Sunday, meteorologist Will Haenni of station WWMT posted
: "The bright dots in the sky are satellites, approximately 175 miles above the surface of the Earth. They appear bright due to their solar array reflecting sunlight back to the dark side of the globe."
On Monday, November 11th, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The SpaceX website
explains: "SpaceX is developing a low latency, broadband internet system to meet the needs of consumers across the globe. Enabled by a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites, Starlink will provide fast, reliable internet to populations with little or no connectivity, including those in rural communities and places where existing services are too expensive or unreliable."
If you saw a row of UFO like lights in the sky in IL, IA, MI (like this but spaced out), that was SpaceX Starlink Satellites! You'll be able to see them in the next few days, too! Check here for a map (and set the time back to see their track today) https://t.co/wtkU9xSFY9pic.twitter.com/cZ4UUvj5Zc
The 10 Strangest Animal Stories of 2019 Livescience.com
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiQmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxpdmVzY2llbmNlLmNvbS8xMC10aW1lcy1hbmltYWxzLWFjdGVkLXdlaXJkLTIwMTkuaHRtbNIBRmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxpdmVzY2llbmNlLmNvbS9hbXAvMTAtdGltZXMtYW5pbWFscy1hY3RlZC13ZWlyZC0yMDE5Lmh0bWw?oc=5
Scientists applied a set of algorithms to laser-ranging telescopes and succeeded in increasing accurate detection of the space litter in Earth’s orbit threatening spacecraft safety.
Chinese researchers have improved the accuracy in detecting space junk in earth’s orbit, providing a more effective way to plot safe routes for spacecraft maneuvers.
“The possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to one!” exclaimed C-3PO as Han Solo directed the Millennium Falcon into an asteroid field in “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.” Earth’s orbit is nowhere near as dangerous, but after more than half a century of space activity, collisions between jettisoned engines and disintegrated spacecraft have formed a planetary scrapheap that spacecraft need to evade.
Scientists have developed space junk identification systems, but it has proven tricky to pinpoint the swift, small specks of space litter. A unique set of algorithms for laser ranging telescopes, described in the Journal of Laser Applications, by AIP Publishing, has significantly improving the success rate of space debris detection.
“After improving the pointing accuracy of the telescope through a neural network, space debris with a cross sectional area of 1 meter squared and a distance of 1,500 kilometers can be detected,” said Tianming Ma, from the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping, Beijing and Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin.
Laser ranging technology uses laser reflection from objects to measure their distance. But the echo signal reflected from the surface of space debris is very weak, reducing the accuracy. Previous methods improved laser ranging pinpointing of debris but only to a 1-kilometer level.
Application of neural networks — algorithms modeled on the human brain’s sensory inputs, processing and output levels — to laser ranging technologies has been proposed previously. However, Ma’s study is the first time a neural network has significantly improved the pointing accuracy of a laser-ranging telescope.
Ma and colleagues trained a back propagation neural network to recognize space debris using two correcting algorithms. The Genetic Algorithm and Levenberg-Marquardt optimized the neural network’s thresholds for recognition of space debris, ensuring the network wasn’t too sensitive and could be trained on localized areas of space. The team demonstrated the improved accuracy by testing against three traditional methods at the Beijing Fangshen laser range telescope station.
The observation data of 95 stars was used to solve the algorithm coefficients from each method, and the accuracy of detecting 22 other stars was assessed. The new pointing correction algorithms proved the most accurate, as well as easy to operate with good real-time performance.
Ma aims to further refine the method. “Obtaining the precise orbit of space debris can provide effective help for the safe operation of spacecraft in orbit.”
Reference: “Research on Pointing Correction Algorithm of Laser Ranging Telescope Oriented to Space Debris” by Tianming Ma, Chunmei Zhao and Zhengbin He, 24 December 2019, Journal of Laser Applications. DOI: 10.2351/1.5110748
Artist’s conception of NASA’s Artemis mission, which is slated to deliver American astronauts to the Moon by 2024—but we’ll likely know if this timeline is for real in 2020. Image: NASA
It’s time to look ahead to the coming year and all things that will be happening in space exploration. With new missions to Mars, a probe returning to Earth with samples taken from an asteroid, and even more batches of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites going into orbit, it’s going to be another fascinating year.
We’ll learn if NASA is returning to the Moon in 2024
Earlier this year, the Trump Administration accelerated the timeline for returning Americans to the Moon. The space agency was told, in rather blunt terms, that the Artemis lunar mission has to be done by 2024, but Congress raised serious concerns about this rather aggressive deadline.
Advertisement
Artist’s conception of the Artemis ascent stage. Image: NASA
For NASA to be able to pull this off, it needs the requisite funding. The U.S. government will be passing its fiscal 2021 budget in March of 2020, at which time we’ll learn how much money NASA will be receiving and how feasible it will be for the space agency land astronauts on the Moon by 2024.
In terms of specifics, NASA has suggested it’ll need an additional $25 billion over the next 5 years to speed things along. That said, NASA hasn’t provided the House Appropriations Committee will full cost estimate. Should Congress fail to provide sufficient funds—whatever the real total may be—it’ll likely spell doom for the admittedly ambitious 2024 timeline but not necessarily for the Artemis mission as a whole. Both the President and the House see a mission to the Moon as an important stepping stone to a manned Mars mission.
Advertisement
In 2020, we should also find out which private company will get to design and build a lunar lander for the Artemis mission. Contenders include Boeing and Blue Origin, with rumors that SpaceX might also be interested.
As for the inaugural test of NASA’s Space Launch System—the rocket that’s supposed to get astronauts and their equipment to the Moon—that’s not supposed to happen until 2021. That’s cutting it close for a 2024 deadline.
Advertisement
New missions to Mars
Due to the unfortunate death of NASA’s Opportunity rover, there remains just one mobile probe on the Red Planet: the Curiosity rover (with all due respect to the stationary InSight lander). That’s set to change as three new rover missions will be launched to Mars in 2020: NASA’s Mars 2020 rover (still not named), the European Space Agency/Roscosmos ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover, and China’s Mars Small Rover.
Advertisement
All three rovers will be launched in late July and early August to take advantage of a three-week launch window known as the Hohmann transfer orbit, in which Mars and Earth are optimally aligned in their respective orbits. All rovers are expected to arrive at Mars in 2021.
Advertisement
NASA’s 2020 Mars rover will land in Jezero crater, where it will scour a former lake in search of signs of ancient microbial life. The probe will be capable of extracting surface samples and leaving them in caches for future missions to retrieve and deliver to Earth. Excitingly, the Mars 2020 rover is equipped with a drone, called the Mars Helicopter Scout, so we’ll finally have a bird’s eye view of the Red Planet.
NASA’s Mars 2020 rover during testing.Image: NASA
Advertisement
The Rosalind Franklin will also search for signs of ancient life, but a landing site has yet to be chosen for this mission. The rover will be deployed by Russia’s Kazachok lander. The mission could be delayed due to ongoing problems with the parachute, which must safely transport the probe through the achingly thin Martian atmosphere and onto the Martian ground. Missing the Hohmann transfer window would result in a 26-month delay.
We know less about the Chinese mission, which will reportedly involve an orbiter, a 240-kilogram (530-pound) rover, and 13 science payloads, according to SpaceNews. The orbiter will be equipped with a high-resolution camera, and the rover will be capable of performing spectroscopy, among other sciencey tasks. The Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) has selected two preliminary sites near Utopia Planitia, and a final decision is pending, according to IEEE Spectrum.
Advertisement
Not to be outdone, the United Arab Emirates will launch its Hope Mars Mission to the Red Planet next year. It will be the first interplanetary mission headed by an Arab-Islamic country, reports Space.com, and the orbiter will be launched atop a Japanese rocket. Once in orbit around Mars, the satellite will study Martian weather, the reasons why Mars has leaked so much oxygen and hydrogen, and possible connections between the upper and lower atmosphere, according to Space.com. Like the other missions, it won’t arrive until 2021.
So many SpaceX Starlink satellites
To date, SpaceX has launched 120of its Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The broadband megaconstellation is expected to consist of 42,000 individual satellites, a tally SpaceX is hoping to achieve by the mid 2020s. That’s obviously going to require plenty of Falcon 9 rocket launches—many of which will happen next year.
Advertisement
A train of SpaceX Starlink satellites, as seen on May 24, 2019.Image: Marco Langbroek via SatTrackBlog
The private space company is hoping to launch 24 Starlink missions next year, according to SpaceNews. That’s a breakneck pace of two launches per month, which would result in approximately 1,440 new Starlink satellites in Earth orbit by the end of the year. For context, there were approximately 4,987 satellites in Earth orbit at the start of 2019, many of which are no longer functional, according to United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA).
Advertisement
These SpaceX launches and their associated light shows in the night sky will most assuredly ruffle the feathers of some astronomers, who prefer an unhindered view into space. SpaceX is aware of the problem, and is reportedly working on a special coating that will darken the satellites to reduce their reflectivity.
Advertisement
In other SpaceX news to expect next year, the company will begin orbital testing of its next-gen Starship. Once ready, Starship “will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed,” according to SpaceX, capable of transporting crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars.
Launching Americans from American soil
If NASA wants to send astronauts to the Moon, it’ll need the capacity to launch astronauts to space—something the country hasn’t been able to do independently since the retirement of the Space Shuttle program in 2011. Happily, 2020 could finally be the year in which this ability is restored, with “could” being a key caveat here. Currently, both private participants in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Program, SpaceX and Boeing, are behind schedule.
Advertisement
Artist’s depiction of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner.Image: Boeing
But there’s good reason for optimism. On December 20, Boeing finally launched an uncrewed CST-100 Starliner, though the spacecraft was unable to dock with the space station owing to an apparent automation software malfunction. NASA chief Jim Bridenstine downplayed the incident, hinting that a crewed test could be imminent.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, SpaceX is planning to perform an in-flight abort test of its Crew Dragon early next year, possibly in January. The Elon Musk-led company would then have to conduct an uncrewed test followed by a crewed test, assuming no more setbacks, such as the testing anomaly that happened earlier this year.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Will Sample an Asteroid
Since its arrival at Bennu on December 3, 2018, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has mapped the oddly shaped asteroid and studied its strange surface emissions. The primary goal of the mission, however, is still yet to come. The probe is getting ready to briefly touch down and extract sample materials from the asteroid’s surface. Should all go well, OSIRIS-REx will be the first American mission to collect samples from an asteroid and bring them back to Earth for analysis.
Advertisement
After choosing four candidate locations on the surface, NASA has selected a boulder-free zone dubbed Nightingale. The asteroid is basically a rock pile, so finding an area with easily extractable dust proved to be a difficult exercise. In early 2020, OSIRIS-Rex will fly over the site at lower altitudes to take higher resolution photos, and touchdown is expected in July 2020. The probe should return to Earth with its 2.1 ounces (60 grams) of Bennu in 2023.
Advertisement
Speaking of probes visiting asteroids and then returning their samples back to Earth, JAXA’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is expected to arrive back at Earth in December 2020 with materials scooped up from asteroid Ryugu. These samples will land somewhere in Australia’s protected outback.
China’s first lunar sample-return mission
With the successful Chang’e 4 mission all but wrapped up, China is now preparing for its next mission to the Moon, which will feature an important new element.
Advertisement
Artist’s conception of the Chang’e 5 mission. Image: NAOC
With the Chang’e 5 mission, China is hoping to land a probe in Oceanus Procellarum and scoop up 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of dusty lunar regolith, possibly from a depth of around 2 meters (6.5 feet). This sample will then be returned to Earth for analysis, a feat the CNSA has never tried before (it’ll be the first sample-return mission from the Moon since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission in 1974).
Advertisement
NASA says the mission will consist of four modules:
Two of the modules will land on the Moon, one designed to collect samples and transfer them to the second module, designed to ascend from the lunar surface into orbit, where it will dock with a third module. Finally the samples will be transferred to the fourth module, also in lunar orbit, which will return them to Earth.
Advertisement
The Chang’e 5 mission will launch in late 2020, according to NASA.
China is also expected to begin the construction of its own space station, called Tianhe, but this could be delayed until 2021 as the CNSA still needs to test its Long March 5B rocket, which will make this project possible.
Advertisement
More stellar encounters
Launched in 2018, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is getting progressively closer to the Sun with each passing orbit. The spacecraft is taking unprecedented measurements of the Sun’s corona, and the closer it gets, the more exotic the data.
Advertisement
Artist’s conception of the Parker Solar Probe.Image: NASA
The Parker Solar Probe is scheduled for four perihelions in 2020, when the spacecraft comes closest to the Sun during its elliptical orbit: January 29, June 7, July 11, and September 27. During the September perihelion, the Parker Solar Probe will come to within 14.2 million kilometers (8.8 million miles) of the Sun, when it will be moving at 129 kilometers per second (80 miles per second). The spacecraft will continue with this pattern until 2025, when it’s expected to come to within 6.9 million kilometers (4.3 million miles) of the Sun, at which time the spacecraft is likely to burn up.
Advertisement
In related news, the NASA/ESA Solar Orbiter will be launched from Kennedy Space Center on February 5, 2020. The Solar Orbiter will “study the Sun, its outer atmosphere and what drives the constant outflow of solar wind which affects Earth,” according to NASA.
A refined look at distant exoplanets
With the ESA’s new CHEOPS satellite now in space, we can expect to see tantalizing new details emerge about planets outside our solar system.
Advertisement
Artist’s conception of CHEOPS, with an exoplanetary system in the background (not to scale, obviously). Image: ESA
Importantly, CHEOPS won’t be on the hunt for new exoplanets. Rather, it’ll take a closer look at previously discovered exoplanets to study them in greater detail, particularly planets between the size of Earth and Neptune. CHEOPS will also observe exoplanetary atmospheres and take better recordings of their transits across their host stars.
Advertisement
Celestial happenings near you
And finally for you amateur stargazers out there, a full list of astronomical events for next year can be found at Sea and Sky. Nothing too spectacular is scheduled for 2020 (well, as far as we know—we could be visited by another interstellar object or a surprise comet, for example), but there are some neat things to be aware of.
Advertisement
A number of partial solar eclipses will happen in 2020, but whether you’ll be able to enjoy them depends on where you live. A total solar eclipse visible in parts of South America will happen on December 14. A rare full moon will appear on Halloween, and that should be pretty cool for trick-or-treaters—it won’t happen again until 2035. A conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter will occur on December 21, causing the gas giants to appear as a bright double planet.
So, lots of neat space-related happenings to watch in 2020. As always, it’ll be our pleasure at Gizmodo to report on these events as they unfold.
