Dominique Luchart's Blog, page 659
April 6, 2021
Mars Helicopter Ingenuity snaps 1st color photo on Red Planet, ,
NASA’s little Mars helicopter has opened its eyes on the Red Planet.
The 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) chopper, known as Ingenuity, snapped its first color photograph on Saturday (April 3), shortly after being lowered to the Martian dirt by the Perseverance rover.
The tableau shows “the floor of Mars’ Jezero Crater and a portion of two wheels of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover,” agency officials wrote in a description on Monday (April 5), when the photo was released.
Video: Watch NASA’s Mars helicopter unfold like a butterfly
The car-sized Perseverance landed inside the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero on Feb. 18 with Ingenuity firmly attached to its belly. The rover deployed Ingenuity on Saturday and has since moved a short distance away, allowing the Martian sunlight to reach the solar-powered rotorcraft.
Over the next few days, Perseverance will drive still farther away, to a place called Van Zyl Overlook, which provides a good view of the airfield that mission team members have chosen for Ingenuity. If all goes according to plan, Ingenuity will lift off as soon as Sunday (April 11), conducting the first-ever powered flight in the skies of a world beyond Earth.
The goal is to demonstrate that this exploration mode is feasible on Mars. If Ingenuity performs well during its month-long, five-flight campaign, future Red Planet missions could commonly include helicopters, as scouts for rovers and as explorers in their own right, NASA officials have said.
Ingenuity doesn’t carry any science instruments. But the little flyer will capture imagery during its flights, and those photos should be sharper than the grainy one it snapped on Saturday from beneath Perseverance, NASA officials said.
The six-wheeled rover will attempt to document Ingenuity’s flight program from Van Zyl Overlook using its high-resolution MastCam-Z camera system. There’s even a chance that Perseverance could record audio of Ingenuity’s sorties using its two onboard microphones, mission team members have said. There are certainly no guarantees on the audio front, however, given how quickly sound attenuates in the thin Martian atmosphere.
Ingenuity’s flight program is hard-capped at one month, because Perseverance has business of its own to attend to. The $2.7 billion rover will search for signs of ancient Mars life on the floor of Jezero, which hosted a river delta and a big lake billions of years ago.
Perseverance will also collect and cache several dozen samples, which will be returned to Earth by a joint NASA-European Space Agency campaign, perhaps as early as 2031.
Mike Wall is the author of “ Out There ” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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Dark matter ‘annihilation’ may be causing the Milky Way’s center to glow, ,
A mysterious glow coming from the center of the Milky Way might be caused by annihilating dark matter — elusive matter that emits no light.
According to new research, heavy dark matter particles may be destructively colliding at the center of the galaxy, creating elementary particles, as well as gamma rays — the unexplained light seen emanating from the galactic center.
The source of this unexplained light, called the galactic center excess (GCE), has been debated by scientists ever since it was discovered in 2009. When analyzing data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, scientists noticed a faint glow of gamma rays that couldn’t be explained by known sources. In the years since, scientists have proposed a range of sources, from dark matter to more conventional sources, such as extremely fast-spinning stars called millisecond pulsars.
Related: The 11 biggest unanswered questions about dark matter
Now, a new look at over a decade’s worth of data from the Fermi telescope, combined with data from an experiment on the International Space Station and observations of nearby dwarf galaxies, suggests that heavy dark matter particles at the center of the galaxy may explain the glow.
“I think the most interesting finding is that dark matter can explain the galactic center excess,” while also matching observations from nearby galaxies, said study lead author Mattia di Mauro, a researcher of the Turin division of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics in Italy. “This result has never been found with a model where everything, dark matter density and particle physics model, is taken consistently.”
In the new analysis, di Mauro carefully studied the excess gamma ray light to map its position, shape and energy levels. The results, published on March 22 in the journal Physical Review D, found the glow to be fairly spherical and symmetrically centered in the middle of the Milky Way.
In a follow-up study, posted to the preprint database arXiv, di Mauro and collaborator Martin Wolfgang Winkler, a researcher at Stockholm University and The Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics in Sweden, investigated what the gamma ray glow could reveal about these dark matter particles. By looking for similar gamma ray glows from dwarf spheroidal galaxies and observations from an experiment aboard the International Space Station of excess positrons, or the positively charged antimatter partners of electrons, coming from those galaxies, the researchers were able to constrain the mass and cross-section of the dark matter candidates.
The results suggest that the dark matter particles have a mass of about 60 gigaelectron volts — roughly 60 times that of a proton. When these dark matter particles collide, they annihilate into muons and antimuons, or electrons and positrons. If this hypothesis is correct, dark matter particles like these could be made and detected here on Earth with existing experiments, such as the Large Hadron Collider, and will help scientists narrow their search.
However, not all scientists are convinced by the new results. Several groups have previously ruled out GCE contributions by dark matter particles that are less massive than 400 gigaelectron volts. Other skeptics argue that the excess light is from undiscovered stars, as the light distribution maps closely to where stellar populations should be.
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“They have opted for not including the [stellar distributions] in their analysis, which to me is not understandable from both a statistical and physical point of view,” said Oscar Macias Ramirez, an astronomer at the University of Amsterdam who was not involved in the new research. “From the physics point of view, one should not forget that there are just too many potential gamma-ray emitters that live with stars.”
If the excess light is indeed from millisecond pulsars or other stars, Macias Ramirez said, upcoming radio telescopes, such as the Square Kilometer Array in the Australian Outback, X-ray telescopes or high-energy gamma ray telescopes, such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array currently under construction in Chile’s Atacama Desert, could detect these stellar populations and close the debate within the next five years.
Originally published on Live Science .
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Watch NASA drop an Orion crew spacecraft into a pool today for water impact test, ,
NASA plans to make a splash today (April 6) by dropping a test version of its Orion crew capsule into a big pool, and you can watch all the action live online.
The 14,000-lb. (6,400 kilograms) test capsule will plunge into the Hydro Impact Basin at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, at 1:45 p.m. EDT (1845 GMT), and you can watch it live here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV.
Today’s drop test is part of a series of tests NASA began March 23 “to finalize computer models for loads and structures prior to the Artemis II flight test, NASA’s first mission with crew aboard Orion,” NASA officials said in a statement.
NASA’s Orion Crew and Service Module manager Debbie Korth will provide live commentary during the test on NASA TV, along with Jacob Putnam, a data analyst at Langley.
Photos: Astronauts test Orion spacecraft exit methods in the Gulf of Mexico
The first planned mission with NASA’s Orion capsule will be an uncrewed test flight called Artemis 1, currently scheduled to launch in late 2021 on a Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket — the rocket NASA plans to use for all Orion missions. The real Orion capsule that will fly on Artemis 1 arrived in Florida in March 2020 to begin preparations for the big debut.
Artemis 2, the first crewed Orion mission that will carry astronauts on a loop around the moon, is currently scheduled to launch in 2023, followed by the Artemis 3 crewed lunar landing mission in 2024.
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The drop test will take place at NASA Langley Research Center’s Landing and Impact Research Facility in Hampton, Virginia. (Image credit: NASA)Whether NASA will stick to that schedule under the new presidential administration — President Trump in 2017 directed NASA to land on the moon by 2024 — remains to be seen. Both Orion and SLS have faced numerous delays in their development, the latest being a result of shutdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to several delays, the pandemic is expected to cost NASA $3 billion overall.
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Celestron NexStar 6SE telescope: Full review, ,
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The Celestron NexStar 6SE is a telescope that’s an all-arounder, fit for a plethora of skywatching needs: especially since it can be used by beginners, who are just venturing into astronomy, and more seasoned observers with an excellent knowledge of the night sky.
Given its capabilities, this telescope is quite difficult to outgrow — it can be used as an observer’s main instrument or even as an add-on to existing kit, providing the astronomer with the flexibility of a quicker, fuss-free skywatching experience over more complex setups. The NexStar 6SE is easy to accessorize with additional eyepieces, red dot finders, filters and star diagonals, which is essential for bettering your views of solar system and deep-sky targets.
The telescope offers the opportunity to dabble in astrophotography, however, you will require a T-ring or adapter if you choose to image with a CCD, CMOS or DSLR or a smartphone adapter for photography with your iPhone or Android. Many beginners might find the idea of using a GoTo telescope daunting, but Celestron’s comprehensive manuals and software will put any worries to bed.
Related: Best telescopes
Celestron NexStar 6SE key specs
Optical design: Schmidt-Cassegrain
Aperture: 150 mm (5.91″)
Focal length: 1499 mm (59″)
Focal ratio: f/10
Eyepiece focal length: 25 mm (60x)
Total kit weight: 21 lbs. (9.53 kg)
Mount type: Single-arm fork, alt-azimuth
A single 25mm Plossl eyepiece is supplied with the Celestron 6SE to provide a magnification of 60x, but so much more can be achieved from the optical system, so we advise purchasing a selection of eyepieces and filters — bearing in mind that the highest useful magnification is 354x — to get the very best out of this telescope.
Setting this Schmidt-Cassegrain up took next to no time at all, and we were impressed with the quality of many of its components, especially its red dot finder and sturdy stainless steel tripod. The robust build of the NexStar 6SE promises to last years of observing sessions, provided it is treated with care. Additionally, since catadioptric telescopes can succumb to moisture during observations, a dew shield would be a worthy investment to protect the optical system and prolong the telescope’s lifetime.
Weighing in at 21 lbs. (9.53 kilograms), the Celestron 6SE is a touch on the heavy side due to the technology and components compacted into it: a minor inconvenience for those who might need assistance in transporting their ‘scope from one location to another. Despite this, the NexStar 6SE boasts quality over lighter instruments, so we don’t consider this to be a major setback in the design.
What is quite a large flaw is the requirement of eight AA batteries to operate the computerized alt-azimuth fork mount. Sadly the NexStar 6SE drains batteries quite quickly, making using it quite frustrating when the computer “clocks out” whilst you’re engrossed in observing. Over time — and with constantly replacing the batteries — using the telescope has the potential to become quite an expensive enterprise.
Undeterred, we tried out rechargeable batteries as a means to investigate an alternative route for powering the NexStar 6SE, but discovered that the telescope would act strangely with low power and found a quick loss of charge was still a problem. We strongly recommend purchasing an AC power cord from Celestron — unfortunately, this is not included with the telescope.
Celestron promises a great deal when it comes to the operational abilities of this instrument, so we were delighted to discover that the NexStar 6SE did exactly what it says on the tin when we took it out to test on a clear December evening.
For one, the star alignment — which employs Celestron’s SkyAlign technology and enables calibration for accurately finding targets — was impressively simple, and it wasn’t long before we were all set up and ready to tour the winter night sky.
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(Image credit: Celestron)Noisy motorized mount and obvious vibrationAccurately tracks targets No colour-fringing or visual defectsOur first target was the Orion Nebula (Messier 42), which can be found just below Orion’s Belt and is easily visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch, glowing at magnitude +4. Using the control to instruct the NexStar to view this diffuse nebula, the computerized mount ran smoothly and the GoTo technology was very accurate in locating objects. The Trapezium Cluster, for instance, is nestled at the heart of the Orion Nebula and was found to be aligned close to the centre of the field of view.
When we brought the heart of the star-forming region into view we did notice a degree of vibration while focusing but, once finished, observations could be taken in without any hindrance. Thanks to the excellent StarBright XLT optical coating our observations of the nebula and its stellar members were very crisp, bright and clear, with no defects in the optics.
While the telescope slews to its target — this model possesses nine speeds — the mount does make a great deal of noise, particularly when we used the moderate to fast settings. If you find the noise off-putting and are happy to observe without a computerized mount, it’s quite easy to switch over to a manual one given that the tube possesses a Vixen-style dovetail. Remember though, you will need a Vixen adapter if you want to fit the tube to another Celestron mount.
Heading back inside to warm up with a hot drink, we decided to give the NexStar’s lunar, solar and sidereal tracking a test and left it focused on a star. Upon returning to the telescope 30 minutes later, we found that our target hadn’t drifted out of the field of view, highlighting the instrument’s suitability for long-exposure astrophotography.
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(Image credit: Celestron)With the nearly-full moon taking pride of place quite late into the evening, we took the opportunity to view our natural satellite’s cratered surface. The lunar views that we saw were impressive: the NexStar revealed well-defined crater walls and lunar mare to a very high standard — the craters Copernicus and Tycho were particularly impressive and crystal clear using the modest 5.91″ aperture.
With gas giant Jupiter also at a good position in the sky and a few degrees away from the moon, the NexStar made short work of locating the planet and its four largest satellites: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Jupiter was visible in the field of view as a bright disk, with Ganymede and Europa appearing as sharp points of white light flanking the giant’s left limb, while Io and Callisto could be found relatively near to the planet’s right. Faint brown and cream bands were visible across Jupiter’s surface.
As we discovered when observing the Orion Nebula, views through the Schmidt-Cassegrain’s optics were impressively clear and bright with no chromatic aberration — or colour fringing — evident. Jupiter will only continue to make an excellent target by increasing the telescope’s magnification, something we highly recommend either by using a Barlow lens as well as additional eyepieces with a 1.25″ fitting. A blue filter will provide excellent contrast, playing up the rills and festoons in the gas giant’s cloud layers and promote easy viewing of the planetary king’s famous storm: the Great Red Spot.
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The NexStar 6SE is a great representation of Celestron’s iconic telescope range. Given its capabilities and revolutionary technology, the price tag is reasonable, but the package does lack a good selection of eyepieces that would provide an even greater variety of views. The setup offers a lifetime of observations provided it is treated with care and little-to-no maintenance is carried out on the optics and computerized mount.
The NexStar 6SE’s alignment technology takes the hassle out of calibrating the instrument and, once completed, the GoTo system is exceedingly accurate in locating targets at the touch of a button. The telescope’s database boasts 40,000 targets to slew to but, despite the useful magnification of 354x, it’s not possible to view all objects with clarity even with extra accessories, such as eyepieces and a Barlow Lens. In some cases though, astrophotography picks out some of the fainter targets that are visible in telescopes with larger apertures.
The GoTo facility does drain batteries and is a tad on the noisy side when in operation, but a constant power supply and taking the telescope to a remote location (if you’re concerned about waking the neighbors!) are easy fixes to an otherwise superb instrument.
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Pixel 5 reportedly gets big GPU performance boost with new update,
Google has started rolling out the April Android security update for Pixel phones, and it looks like it’s brought some performance improvements to the most recent devices. Google says the update includes “performance optimizations for certain graphics-intensive apps and games” on the Pixel 5 and 4A 5G, and, as noted by XDA Developers, some testers are noticing substantially improved GPU performance on the Pixel 5.
Anandtech previously found that the Pixel 5 turned in much worse GPU results than other phones using the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chip. Now, the site’s reviewer Andrei Frumusanu says that performance on his Pixel 5 has been “essentially doubled” from the review’s initial figures and is now “in line or better than other 765G phones.” Benchmarks don’t necessarily translate into real-world results, of course, but combined with Google’s reference to optimizations for graphics-intensive apps, it does sound like GPU performance should be better with the new release.
In addition, Google says that the Pixel 5 and 4A 5G should receive “improvements to camera quality” in some third-party apps. There’s also a fix for a startup freezing bug on Pixel 4 and 5 devices, as well as one for missing home grid settings on the Pixel 3 and 4 generations of phones.
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A look at the rise and fall of India’s missed call industry, which was transformed by Twitter-owned ZipDial that serviced 5M missed calls a day at its peak (Atul Bhattarai/Rest of World)
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April 5, 2021
As the pandemic drags on, new shows are harder to come by for streaming services; report: the number of originals Netflix released so far in ’21 is down 12% YoY (Lucas Shaw/Bloomberg)
The post As the pandemic drags on, new shows are harder to come by for streaming services; report: the number of originals Netflix released so far in ’21 is down 12% YoY (Lucas Shaw/Bloomberg) appeared first on NEWDAWN Blog.
On This Day in Space! April 5, 1973: Pioneer 11 launches to Jupiter & Saturn, ,
On April 5, 1973, NASA launched the Pioneer 11 mission into the outer solar system. Pioneer 11 would become the first spacecraft to fly by Saturn, and it flew by Jupiter and the asteroid belt along the way. It launched about a year after its twin, Pioneer 10.
Both spacecraft brought along gold plaques with pictures and messages pertaining to Earth, just in case they encountered any extraterrestrials out in space. The plaques include drawings of naked humans and some symbols and diagrams that explain where the spacecraft came from.
Seventeen years after it launched, Pioneer 11 became the fourth spacecraft to leave the planetary part of the solar system when it flew past Neptune. Pioneer 11 is now on its way toward interstellar space.
Catch up on our entire “On This Day In Space” series on YouTube with this playlist.
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Still not enough space? Don’t forget to check out our Space Image of the Day, and on the weekends our Best Space Photos and Top Space News Stories of the week.
Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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NASA’s InSight lander detects two medium marsquakes on the Red Planet, ,
NASA’s InSight lander on Mars has detected two more crisp quakes on the Red Planet, both stemming from the same region where the mission’s previous best observations originated.
The robotic geophysicist landed on Mars in November 2018 and, after a few months of preparation, its seismometer began feeling for so-called “marsquakes.” The mission identified more than 500 quakes in its first Martian year but lately, heavy winds have prevented the clear signal that scientists need to detect small rumbles in the Red Planet. Now, the weather has turned and in March, mission personnel detected two quakes stronger than magnitude 3.0.
“It’s wonderful to once again observe marsquakes after a long period of recording wind noise,” John Clinton, a seismologist who leads InSight’s Marsquake Service at ETH Zurich, said in a statement. “One Martian year on, we are now much faster at characterizing seismic activity on the Red Planet.”
Related: InSight Mars lander snaps dusty selfie on Red Planet (photo)
The two new marsquakes, which InSight detected on March 7 and March 18, both occurred in a region called Cerberus Fossae. That’s the same area where the two biggest quakes InSight detected in its first Martian year also took place, suggesting that the area is particularly active, seismically speaking.
Scientists are particularly intrigued because the four quakes also appear to match geophysically speaking, according to NASA. “Over the course of the mission, we’ve seen two different types of marsquakes: one that is more ‘moon-like’ and the other, more ‘Earth-like,'” Taichi Kawamura, a seismologist at France’s Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, said in the statement. “Interestingly … all four of these larger quakes, which come from Cerberus Fossae, are ‘Earth-like.'”
Meanwhile, the lander is also working on a task that scientists hope will sharpen marsquake observations as the mission continues for another Mars year (which lasts about 687 Earth days). Mission personnel suspect that the vast temperature changes between day and night on Mars may be creating “popping sounds and spikes” in the seismometer’s data as the cable connecting the instrument to the main lander expands and contracts.
To try to buffer the cable from these changes, the InSight team is using the lander’s robotic arm to scoop Martian soil onto the cable.
However, NASA warns that it’s a tricky time for the lander, which is powered by solar panels. The worst of the planet’s harsh dust-storm season is over, but InSight’s lily-pad panels are still covered in dust, despite strong winds in the area. At the same time, the Red Planet is drifting away from the sun along its elliptical orbit, reducing power production. And it’s winter by the lander, which means that cold temperatures threaten the robot’s electronics.
Given the conditions, the mission team expects to need to briefly put the lander and its instruments into hibernation mode later this spring to manage those energy shortages. In July, the orbit of Mars will begin to carry it back toward the sun and reduce the strain on InSight’s systems.
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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Antimatter cooled to near absolute zero by laser beam, ,
Researchers have cooled antimatter to near absolute zero for the first time — by capturing it in a magnetic trap and blasting it with concentrated laser light.
The method enabled scientists in Canada working at CERN’s Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) experiment to cool antimatter to temperatures just one-twentieth of a degree above absolute zero, making it over 3,000 times colder than the coldest recorded temperature in the Antarctic.
In theory, this extra-chilled antimatter could help reveal some of the universe’s biggest secrets, such as how antimatter is affected by gravity and whether some of the fundamental theoretical symmetries proposed by physics are real.
Antimatter is the ethereal opposite to regular matter. The theory of antimatter was first put forward by Paul Dirac in 1928 and was discovered just four years later. Antimatter particles are identical to their matter twins except for their mirrored physical properties — where an electron has a negative charge, its antimatter counterpart, the positron, has a positive one. The reason we don’t encounter antimatter as often as we do regular matter is that the two annihilate each other upon contact, making it extremely difficult to store and study antimatter when living in a material world.
Related: Beyond Higgs: 5 Elusive Particles That May Lurk in the Universe
However, through a series of ingenious technical feats, the researchers have been able to do just that. After accelerating regular matter particles to near light speed, then smashing them together, the team was able to create antiparticles. The team then steered and slowed the speeding antiparticles using extremely strong magnetic and electric fields. Finally, the team confined clouds of positrons and antiprotons inside a magnetic field until they had combined to form antihydrogen. At this point the researchers cooled the antihydrogen cloud by blasting it with a laser.
But how do you cool something down with a laser? The movement of particles creates heat. So, the trick lies in having the photons (light particles) in the laser beam travel in the opposite direction of the moving antimatter particles. Because photons have their own momentum, getting absorbed by the antihydrogen while traveling in the opposite direction can actually slow the antihydrogen down. But light can only interact with the antimatter if tuned to the very specific wavelengths at which light can be absorbed by an antiatom.
“Think of the antihydrogen as like a curling stone and the photons like little hockey pucks,” said Makoto Fujiwara, ALPHA’s Canada team spokesperson. “We were trying to slow down the curling stone by firing the pucks at it only when it was moving towards us. That’s really hard at an atomic scale, so we take advantage of the doppler effect to tune the pucks so they can only interact with the stone when it’s traveling towards us, not away from us or sitting at rest.”
The Doppler effect — where the observed wavelength of light is squished or lengthened if the light source is traveling towards or away from the observer — enabled the scientists to very precisely tune the wavelength of the photons so that they were only absorbed by the antihydrogen particles if they were coming towards them, slowing the antihydrogen particles down.
The cooled antimatter will help researchers to perform much more precise measurements, opening up a range of experiments to probe some of physics’ deepest mysteries. By dropping an antimatter cloud across a certain distance, for example, they can test if it responds to gravity in the same way as regular matter. Or, by shining light on this cloud, they can compare the energy levels of the antihydrogen to those of regular matter with unprecedented precision.
Fujiwara is particularly excited to use his cooled antimatter in an interferometer experiment.
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“We want to get one anti-atom in a vacuum and split it into a quantum superposition so that it creates an interference pattern with itself” Fujiwara told Live Science. Quantum superposition allows very small particles, like antihydrogen, to appear in more than one place simultaneously. As quantum particles behave like both a particle and a wave, they can interfere with themselves to create a pattern of peaks and troughs, much like how waves from the sea move through breakers.
“That way we can really precisely study the way it interacts with other forces and what its general properties are.”
The team has also proposed sending the anti-atoms into free space, as well as combining them to manufacture the world’s first antimatter molecules.
The researchers’ findings were published March 31 in the journal Nature.
Originally published on Live Science
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