Many Worlds

Tag: moon

Metal Mini-Asteroids Detected Passing Near Earth, Offering Potentially Great Science and Maybe Future Mining

November 3, 2021 / / 0 Comments

An artist impression of a close flyby of the metal-rich Near-Earth asteroid 1986 DA. Astronomers using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility have confirmed that the asteroid is made of 85% metal. (Addy Graham/University of Arizona)

Metal asteroids offer something rare in the solar system — the core of a planet without all the rock that normally surrounds it.

Since it is impossible to directly examine a planetary or lunar core if the parent body remains intact, metal-rich asteroids where the upper mantle and crust layers have been lost to a cataclysmic crash offer a potential path to, in effect, peek inside the depths (and deep time) of an object.

The asteroid Psyche is such an object, and that’s why NASA approved a mission to the asteroid that is scheduled to launch next year.  Orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter in the largest asteroid belt, Psyche appears to be the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet, and as such reveals the early evolution of our solar system.

But Psyche is not the only metal-rich asteroid known to astronomers, and it certainly is not the closest.

Two much smaller “mini-Pysches” have been detected that are also comprised of iron, nickel, and other metals ranging from platinum to rare earth elements.  And these two mini-asteroids — 1986 DA and 2016 ED85 — were recently found to have their spectral signatures are quite similar to asteroid Psyche.

And unlike Psyche, which is between 180 million and 360 million miles away, these mini-Psyches orbit less than twenty million from Earth every 20 to 30 years.

“These kind of metal-rich Near-Earth asteroids are extremely rare,” said Vishnu Reddy of the University of Arizona, and co-author of a recent paper in Planetary Science Journal.  “There are some 27,000 known Near-Earth objects, and only these two are metal rich.  Of the 1.2 million asteroids that have been identified, only a little over a dozen are in that metal-rich category.”

Reddy  has been part of a group researching unusual near-Earth objects since 2005, and so these findings are most rewarding.

“In the years ahead we can study Psyche, a large metal-rich object that is quite far away,” Reddy said.  “And now we also know of two much smaller metal-rich objects that are also much, much closer to us.”

Artist’s conception of Psyche, with orbiter spacecraft.  The mission, led by Linda Elkins-Tanton at Arizona State University, is scheduled to launch next year. 

… Read more

New Discoveries of Water on the Sunlit Side of the Moon. Might the H2O Be Encased in Glass-like Beads?

October 26, 2020 / / 0 Comments

This illustration highlights the moon’s Clavius Crater with an illustration depicting water trapped in the lunar soil there, along with an image of NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) that found sunlit lunar water. (NASA)

The search for water on the moon has produced a discovery of tiny molecule-sized perhaps widespread amounts of H20 in a sunlit lunar crater.

The water is not in a liquid or ice or gaseous form, but rather apparently contained (and protected) inside glass beads formed when micrometeorites hit the surface.

The detection was made using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a high-flying modified airplane with an infrared telescope.

NASA scientists made clear that the lunar H2O in sunlight might prove to be too difficult to collect to be of use to astronauts, but future robotic and human missions on the lunar surface could also find more concentrated deposits now that they know some water is present.

“Prior to the SOFIA observations, we knew there was some kind of hydration” on the lunar surface said Casey Honniball, the lead author of a paper in the journal Nature Astronomy.  “But we didn’t know how much, if any, was actually water molecules – like we drink every day – or something more like drain cleaner.”

“Without a thick atmosphere, water on the sunlit lunar surface should just be lost to space,” said Honniball, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Yet somehow we’re seeing it. Something is generating the water, and something must be trapping it there.”

An artist rendering of ater and its chemical precursors spraying out from minerals on the moon’s surface after a micrometeorite impact. Researchers have delved deeper into this process in the lab, taking the influence of solar wind into account. (NASA Goddard Conceptual Image Lab.)

Scientists have searched for water on the moon since Apollo days, and have known for some time that frozen water exists in some always-dark craters of the lunar south pole. Prior lunar missions have also detected hydrogen on sunlit surfaces, and it was initially thought to be in the form of hydroxyl (OH) rather then  water (H2O.)

SOFIA offered a new means of looking at the moon. Flying at altitudes of up to 45,000 feet, this modified Boeing 747SP jetliner with a 106-inch diameter telescope reaches above 99% of the water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere to get a clearer view of the infrared universe.… Read more

Mapping the Surfaces of Our Solar System

May 4, 2020 / / 0 Comments

 

A portion of the new “unified” geological map of the moon. (NASA/GSFC/USGS.)

It was not all that long ago that a “map” of our  moon, of Mars, of a large asteroid such as Vesta, of Titan, or of any hard-surfaced object in our solar system would have some very general outlines, some very large features identified,  and  then the extraterrestrial equivalent of the warning on Earth maps of yore that beyond a certain point “there be dragons.”  Constructing a map of the topography and geology of a distant surface requires deep understanding and data and lot of hard work.

Yet such an in-depth mapping is underway and has already resulted in detailed surface rendering of Mars,  of Jupiter’s moons Ganymede and Io, and of our moon.  And now, using both Apollo-era data for the moon and measurements from the Japanese lunar orbiter and currently flying American orbiter, the U.S. Geological Survey, in partnership with NASA and the Lunar and Planetary Institute,  has produced a rendering of our moon that moves extraterrestrial mapping significantly further.

It unifies all the data collected using a variety of techniques and produces a map with well-defined geological units, with in-laid topography (on digital versions,) and with a guide of sorts for moon watchers on Earth.  The red sections in the map above are the basalt lava flows that have the fewest craters from asteroid hits and so are the youngest surfaces.  They are also the darker sections of the moon that we see when we look into the night sky at a full moon.

The maps are not at a detail to allow NASA mission planners to assess a landing site, but they do tell what the geological environs are going to be and so are a guide to what might be found.

 

Orthographic projections (presenting three-dimensional objects in two-dimensions)  of the new “Unified Geologic Map of the Moon” showing the geology of the moon’s near side (left) and far side (right) with shaded topography from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA). This geologic map is a synthesis of six Apollo-era regional geologic maps, updated based on data from recent satellite missions. It will serve as a reference for lunar science and future human missions to the Moon.  (NASA/GSFC/USGS.)

The chief purpose of the map — in which 5 kilometers of distance are represented by 1 millimeter on the map — is to summarize the current state of lunar geologic knowledge.… Read more

Back to the Future on the Moon

June 21, 2018 / / 0 Comments

There have been no humans on the surface of the moon since the Apollo program ended in 1972.  Now, in addition to NASA, space agencies in India, China, Russia, Japan and Europe and developing plans to land humans on the moon. (NASA/Robin Lee)

What does NASA’s drive to return to the moon have to do with worlds of exoplanets and astrobiology that are generally discussed here?  The answer is actually quite a lot.

Not so much about the science, although current NASA plans would certainly make possible some very interesting science regarding humans living in deep space, as well as some ways to study the moon, Earth and our sun.

But it seems especially important now to look at what NASA and others have in mind regarding our moon because the current administration has made a top priority of returning landers and humans to there, prospecting for resources on the moon and ultimately setting up a human colony on the moon.

This has been laid out in executive directives and now is being translated into funding for NASA (and commercial) missions and projects.

There are at least two significant NASA projects specific to the moon initiative now planned, developed and in some cases funded.  They are the placement of a small space station that would orbit the moon, and simultaneously a series of robotic moon landings — to be conducted by commercial ventures but carrying NASA and other instruments from international and other commercial partners.

The goal is to start small and gradually increase the size of the landers until they are large enough to carry astronauts.

And the same growth line holds for the overall moon mission.  The often-stated goal is to establish a colony on the moon that will be a signal expansion of the reach of humanity and possibly a significant step towards sending humans further into space.

A major shift in NASA focus is under way and, most likely in the years ahead, a shift in NASA funding.

Given the potential size and importance of the moon initiative — and its potential consequences for NASA space science — it seems valuable to both learn more about it.

 

Cislunar space is, generally speaking, the area region between the Earth and the moon. Always changing because of the movements of the two objects.

Development work is now under way for what is considered to be the key near-term and moon-specific project. … Read more

© 2023 Many Worlds

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑