Science

Expedition 65 crew boards International Space Station

The Expedition 65 crew members boarded the International Space Station (ISS) Friday morning.

Traveling aboard the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov blasted off from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan at 3:42 a.m. ET.

NASA ASTRONAUT MARK VANDE HEI READIES FOR APRIL FLIGHT TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

After a two-orbit journey that spanned for more than three hours, the hatches between the ISS and the Soyuz opened at 9:20 a.m. ET, flying above the South Pacific.

The launch came just three days before the 60th anniversary of the first human flight to space by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and the 40th anniversary of the first launch of NASA’s space shuttle.

According to Space.com, the Soyuz MS-18 — named for Gagarin — is Russia’s 64th Soyuz spacecraft to launch for the ISS since 2000 and the 147th to fly since 1967.

While it’s Novitskiy’s third space mission and Vande Hei’s second, Dubrov is on his first mission.

Vande Hei, Dubrov and Novitsky will stay aboard the space station through at least October, though Vande Hei’s stay may be extended to a year.

While on board, the trio will work on hundreds of scientific experiments across various fields — in addition to spacewalks — and Dubrov will become the 243rd person to visit the unique microgravity laboratory, according to a NASA blog post.

In this image provided by NASA, from left, U.S. astronaut Mark Vande Hei, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov, members of the main crew to the International Space Station (ISS), attend a news conference in the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Thursday, April 8, 2021. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP

They are joining the seven Expedition 64 members, temporarily increasing the station’s population to 10.

NASA’s Flight Engineer Kate Rubins and Roscosmos’ Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov arrived at the station aboard the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft in October 2020.

NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi reached the ISS in November of last year on the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience.

Expedition 65 officially begins on Friday, April 16, with the departures of Rubins, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov.

A handoff ceremony is scheduled for 3:45 p.m. on April 15 and is set to be broadcast live on NASA Television, the NASA app and the agency’s website.

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During Expedition 65, the arrival of NASA’s Crew-2 aboard the second operational SpaceX Crew Dragon flight “Endeavour” will bring four more members to the ISS.

Crew-2 is slated for launch on April 22.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

3,000-year-old lost Egyptian city discovered by archaeologists

Archaeologists have discovered a 3,000-year-old “lost golden city” in Egypt — hailed by experts as the most important find since the tomb of Tutankhamun.

The city was unearthed by a team of archaeologists led by Zahi Hawass near Luxor, about 300 miles south of the capital, Cairo — and dates back to the period under King Amenhotep III of the 18th dynasty.

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“Many foreign missions searched for this city and never found it,” Hawass said in a statement.

Betsy Brian, professor of Egyptology at Johns Hopkins University, called the discovery the most important archaeological find since the 1922 discovery of King Tut’s tomb — found fully intact in the Valley of the Kings.

Archeological discoveries are seen in Luxor, Egypt, in this undated handout photo. Zahi Hawass Center for Egyptology and High Council of Antiquities Joint Mission/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

The city, built on the western bank of the Nile River, at one point served as the largest administrative and industrial settlement of the pharaonic empire, Hawass said.

Archaeologists initially began excavating the site in an attempt to search for the mortuary temple of King Tutankhamun. Excavations began in September 2020, the Guardian reported.

“Within weeks, to the team’s great surprise, formations of mud bricks began to appear in all directions,” the team’s statement said. “What they unearthed was the site of a large city in a good condition of preservation, with almost complete walls, and with rooms filled with tools of daily life.”

But within weeks, they uncovered the shocking find — well-kept mud brick formations that turned out to be a large city.

The newly unearthed city — discovered between the temple of King Rameses III and the colossi of Amenhotep III on the west bank of the Nile River in Luxor — even included rooms filled with utensils used in daily life.

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The city was used by Amenhotep III’s grandson Tutankhamun, as well as his successor King Ay.

“The archaeological layers have laid untouched for thousands of years, left by the ancient residents as if it were yesterday,” a press release said.

Mars Perseverance rover takes a selfie with Ingenuity helicopter ahead of historic flight

To the delight of social media users, NASA’s Perseverance rover used a camera on the end of its robotic arm to snap a selfie with the Mars Ingenuity helicopter this week ahead of its historic flight mission.

NASA GETS FIRST WEATHER REPORT FROM MARS ROVER LANDING SITE

Shown about 13 feet apart in the pictures taken on April 6, 2021, or the 48th Martian day of the mission, the rover used its WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering) camera on the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter, seen here about 13 feet (3.9 meters) from the rover. This image was taken by the WASTON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on April 6, 2021, the 46th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

In a release, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said Wednesday that the selfie had been constructed using 62 individual images — taken in sequence — that were stitched together.

It noted that the Curiosity Mars rover, which landed on the red planet in 2011, takes similar “selfies.”

Ingenuity, which has been released on the Martian surface, is scheduled to attempt the first-ever powered and controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet no sooner than April 11.

Once the team at JPL is ready, Perseverance will relay the helicopter’s final flight instruction from mission controllers, according to NASA.

If all final checks and atmospheric conditions look good, the helicopter will lift off climbing at a rate of 3 feet per second and hover at 10 feet above the surface for up to 30 seconds.

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After data and potentially images from the rover’s Navigation Cameras and Mastcam-Z are downloaded, the Ingenuity team will determine whether the flight was a success.

The results will be discussed by the team at a media conference that same day.

Mars ‘rainbow’ actually lens flare, NASA says

NASA has debunked speculation over an image from Mars that appeared to show what many believed to be a “rainbow” or “dustbow.”

In a Tuesday tweet, the NASA Perseverance Mars rover account wrote that the agency had seen comments online wondering about the bright arc captured in the April 4 photo from the rover’s onboard Rear Left Hazard Avoidance Camera.

NASA GETS FIRST WEATHER REPORT FROM MARS ROVER LANDING SITE

“Many have asked: Is that a rainbow on Mars?” they said. “No. Rainbows aren’t possible here.”

“Rainbows are created by light reflected off of round water droplets, but there isn’t enough water here to condense, and it’s too cold for liquid water in the atmosphere,” they continued. “This arc is a lens flare.”

A lens flare is caused by a non-image-forming bright light that shines into the lens.

Rainbows form when sunlight passes through raindrops in the atmosphere.

However, while a rainbow may not be possible on Mars’ thin, dry and extremely cold atmosphere, The Hill noted Tuesday that in a 2015 “Ask Me Anything” a NASA team member hinted at the prospect of “icebows” because snow has been observed at the red planet’s poles.

Mars Perseverance Sol 43: Rear Left Hazard Avoidance Camera (Hazcam) NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of the area in back of it using its onboard Rear Left Hazard Avoidance Camera. This image was acquired on Apr. 4, 2021 (Sol 43) at the local mean solar time of 15:17:19. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Nevertheless, lens flares are common in rover images.

A recent image of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter – scheduled for its first test flight no sooner than April 11 – shows another lens flare.

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Another April 4 image captured a lens flare and a close-up shot of Perseverance’s wheel using the same camera.

In addition to solar filters on its cameras, Perseverance has sunshades on its front Hazard Avoidance cameras. However, the Rear Hazcams do not have sun visors.

NASA’s JPL and DHS develop tech to help locate firefighters inside burning buildings

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) have teamed up to create technology that will help locate firefighters inside buildings.

On Tuesday, the agencies announced the development of the Precision Outdoor and Indoor Navigation and Tracking for Emergency Responders (POINTER) system, which was devised to help locate and track firefighters inside structures where other positioning technologies are ineffective.

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The idea was conceptualized in 2014 and the technology is now being matured for use around the country, according to a NASA release.

Notably, POINTER uses magnetoquasistatic (MQS) fields instead of radio waves.

Radiolocation, radio-frequency identification, acoustic sensors and GPS often lose signal in line-of-sight denied environments, according to S&T.

“This presents a significant difference to how remote wave-based position sensing works and performs,” JPL senior research technologist Darmindra Arumugam said. “Whereas radio waves become blocked, reflected, and attenuated by the metal, cement, and brick materials in buildings, magnetoquasistatic fields do not. They pass straight through walls, creating a means to navigate and communicate when direct line of sight is not available.”

MQS fields are electromagnetic fields that, while normally disregarded due to rapid drop-off as a function of distance, were able to be practically harnessed using lower frequencies.

They say that MQS fields will also have uses off of Earth, including long-range technology used to operate NASA space robot projects.

NASA GETS FIRST WEATHER REPORT FROM MARS ROVER LANDING SITE

The system is made of three parts including a receiver, transmitter and base station.

The firefighter would wear the receiver and a transmitter that generates the MQS fields would be attached to emergency vehicles outside of the building and track any receivers located inside a building at a range of 230 feet or more.

The data that comes back is then sent to a base station, like a computer, and 3D visualization software shows where the firefighter is, within an accuracy of centimeters.

POINTER is composed of three parts: a receiver, transmitter, and base station. Clockwise from left: The receiver prototype is worn by firefighters and communicates with the transmitter coil, which was attached to an out-of-service firetruck for testing purposes. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DHS S&T
(NASA/JPL-Caltech/DHS S&T)

POINTER can also determine whether a firefighter is standing up or lying down, still moving and in which direction they face.

S&T, JPL and industry partner Balboa Geolocation Inc. have worked with firefighters at Massachusetts’ Worcester Fire Department to test the system, and the team plans to conduct further demonstrations and a live stream of a test later this year.

A commercial version of POINTER will be made available to fire departments by next year.

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“Accurately tracking and locating first responders when they enter dangerous environments has been the number one priority for the emergency response community,” S&T first responder portfolio manager Greg Price told Fox News in an email on Wednesday. “For the past decade, firefighters have challenged industry, academia and government to develop a technology that can accurately track and locate firefighters and other first responders inside buildings and structures.”

“This groundbreaking technology will allow downed, disoriented and trapped firefighters to be quickly located and extracted from dangerous and potentially fatal environments they work in,” he said. “Bottom line, POINTER will save lives as it gets deployed and used by departments and agencies across the country.”

NASA gets first weather report from Mars rover landing site

Engineers at NASA have received the first weather report from Mars’ Jezero Crater, where the agency’s Perseverance rover landed in February.

The rover’s Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) system has sent back data on atmospheric conditions that will be used to inform future endeavors.

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As measurements were received, the rover’s team determined that the surface temperature on the red planet was just below minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit when MEDA’s system began recording on Feb. 19, a day after landing.

That temperature plummeted to minus 14 degrees Fahrenheit within a half-hour, according to a Tuesday release.

In addition, the MEDA radiation and dust sensor showed that the crater was experiencing a clearer atmosphere than the Martian Gale Crater around 2,300 miles away.

They compared the reading using reports from the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed inside the Gale Crater in November 2011.

The MEDA pressure sensors also noted that the pressure on Mar was within a predictable range of 718 Pascals.

While NASA has a relative understanding of the Mars climate, also receiving data from the InSight lander’s Temperature and Win senors (TWINS), predicting dust storms and dust lifting will help aid future exploration.

Over the course of the next year, MEDA will provide NASA will readings of solar radiation intensity, cloud formations and winds, dust cycles, and heat fluxes and temperature cycles.

MEDA, which contains environmental sensors, wakes itself up every hour to record more — independently of Perseverance’s operations.

It is able to record the temperature at three atmospheric heights and also records the radiation budget near the surface.

“We’re very excited to see MEDA working well,” Manuel de la Torre Juárez, deputy principal investigator for MEDA at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said a statement.

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“MEDA’s reports will provide a better picture of the environment near the surface. Data from MEDA and other instrument experiments will reveal more pieces of the puzzles on Mars and help prepare for human exploration. We hope that its data will help make our designs stronger and our missions safer,” he added.

In the coming days, NASA will use MEDA to determine the best atmospheric flight conditions for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter.

Ingenuity is scheduled to lift off no sooner than April 11 after surviving the first of its frigid Mars nights.

SpaceX determines cause of Starship SN11 prototype crash

SpaceX founder Elon Musk explained why the Starship prototype SN11 went up in flames last week.

In a tweet on Monday, the billionaire replied to a SpaceX-themed Twitter account that asked how the investigation into SN11’s “rapid unscheduled disassembly” — or RUD — was going.

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“Ascent phase, transition to horizontal & control during free fall were good. A (relatively) small CH4 leak led to fire on engine 2 & fried part of avionics, causing hard start attempting landing burn in CH4 turbopump,” he explained.

A “hard start” is when there’s ignition with too much fuel in the engine’s combustion chamber and pressure is too high, according to Space.com.

“This is getting fixed 6 ways to Sunday,” Musk said.

The failed test flight launched last March 30 from SpaceX’s South Texas Starship development center near Boca Chica Village.

After ascending to a maximum altitude of 6.2 miles, as planned, the 165-foot-tall stainless steel spacecraft broke apart right before touchdown.

Dense fog obscured live video of the explosion and onboard cameras froze after the SN11 made its signature flip maneuver in preparation for landing.

NASA MARS HELICOPTER SURVIVES COLD MARTIAN NIGHTIN FIRST STEP OF HISTORIC ENDEAVOR

CNET reported on Monday that other cameras directed at the landing pad had captured an orange glow and a storm of debris as it rained down on the exclusion zone around the pad.

“At least the crater is in the right place!” Musk tweeted on March 30.

SpaceX later confirmed that SN11 had “experienced” a RUD, marking the fourth Starship vehicle in a row SpaceX has lost since December.

Debris is recovered from a National Wildlife Refuge after uncrewed SpaceX Starship prototype rocket SN11 failed to land safely, in Boca Chica, Texas, U.S. March 31,2021. REUTERS/Gene Blevins
(REUTERS/Gene Blevins)

The CH4, or methane, powers the SN11’s three Raptor engines, giving it more than 1 million pounds of thrust.

The Raptors were supposed to shut down once reaching the desired altitude and reignite in the last stage of the rocket’s descent for a vertical landing.

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Both SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy — the booster stage — will be powered by Raptor engines and the company has already built the next updated Starship prototype, SN15.

The Starship is designed for orbital flight and will take both human passengers and cargo to the moon and eventually to Mars.

NASA Mars helicopter survives cold Martian night in first step of historic endeavor

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has cleared its initial hurdle before the first-ever attempt at powered and controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet.

On Monday, the agency reported that the helicopter had survived its first frigid night outside of the Perseverance Mars rover atop the red planet’s rocky surface.

MYSTERIOUS RUMBLINGS FROM INSIDE OF MARS DETECTED BY NASA LANDER

In Jezero Crater, where Perseverance landed almost two months ago, evening temperatures can drop as low as minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit.

At that temperature, unprotected electrical components could have frozen or cracked and solar-powered batteries required for the planned test flights could have been damaged in the process.

NASA’s Mars Helicopter Survives First Cold Martian Night on Its Own
(NASA)

NASA announced last week that the first of its maximum of five historic flights — within a time limit of 30 Martian days — will be attempted by the four-pound helicopter no earlier than April 11.

While Ingenuity initially received its charge from Perseverance, the autonomous rotorcraft will now rely on the sun to power up.

Unlike Perseverance, Ingenuity carries no scienctific instruments.

Perseverance, which has multiple cameras and microphones for imaging and taking audio and video, will observe Ingenuity’s flight characteristics from the “Van Zyl Overlook” — named for longtime NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) mentor and colleague Jakob van Zyl, who passed away unexpectedly in August 2020.

Until then, Ingenuity will gather data regarding the performance of its thermal-control and power systems in order to ensure the vehicle is able to survive each night during the length of the flight experiment period.

On Wednesday, restraints that have secured its rotor blades will be released and the following days will involve more testing of the blades and the helicopter’s motor.

In addition, the team at JPL will have to monitor Ingenuity’s onboard computers, solar array power and six lithium-ion batteries and its inertial measurement unit: an electronic device that measures a body’s orientation and angular rate.

Then, the helicopter will be ready to lift off in its 33-by-33-foot “airfield.”

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“This is the first time that Ingenuity has been on its own on the surface of Mars,” MiMi Aung, Ingenuity project manager at JPL, said in the Monday release. “But we now have confirmation that we have the right insulation, the right heaters, and enough energy in its battery to survive the cold night, which is a big win for the team.”

“We’re excited to continue to prepare Ingenuity for its first flight test,” she said.

Mysterious rumblings from inside of Mars detected by NASA lander

Scientists at NASA have reported an exciting detection by its Insight lander on Mars – mysterious rumblings coming from the interior of the planet.

The researchers believe the seismic events may be caused by a sudden release of energy from the planet’s interior, but the nature of that release remains unknown and puzzling.

Intriguingly, the new rumblings are believed to have originated in a location on Mars called Cerberus Fossae, where two other previous candidate events are believed to have originated.

Although these rumblings have sometimes been called “Marsquakes” the planet is not believed to have a similarly active tectonic system like Earth’s that causes earthquakes.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

And curiously, the previous seismic events detected by the space agency’s InSight lander – which arrived on the planet’s surface in 2018 – occurred almost a full Martian year ago, or two Earth years, during the Martian northern summer.

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Scientists had predicted this season would offer the lander its best opportunity to listen for quakes because the winds on the planet would become calmer.

InSight’s seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), is so sensitive that it has to be covered by a dome-shaped shield to block it from wind and prevent it from freezing when in use.

Despite that, the wind can still cause enough vibration to mask the seismic signals it is looking for, and so the NASA team has begun to trying to insulate the sensitive cable.

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To do this the team deployed the scoop on the end of InSight’s robotic arm to shimmy soil on top of the dome-shaped shield, allowing it to trickle down onto the cable.

The intention is to allow the soil to get as close to the shield as possible without interfering with its seal with the ground.

Burying the seismic tether itself is one of the goals of the next phase of the mission, which NASA recently extended by two years to December 2022.

SEE IT: NASA’S CURIOSITY ROVER TAKES MARS SELFIE

But despite the interruption that the wind is causing to InSight’s seismometer, it isn’t giving much of a hand to the lander’s solar panels which remain covered with dust.

Power is now running low as Mars moves away from the sun, although energy levels are expected to pick up against after July when the planet begins to approach the sun again.

Until then, the team is going to turn off InSight’s instruments one by one so it can hibernate, waking only periodically to check its own health and sent a message back to Earth.

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NASA said the team hopes to keep the seismometer on for another month or two before it has to be turned off.

To read more of Sky News, click here.

NASA researchers discover first X-rays from Uranus

Astronomers at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have detected X-rays from the planet Uranus for the first time.

Researchers used observations of the ice giant taken in 2002 and 2017 to detect the radiation as part of a new study published Tuesday in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

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In an examination and with further analysis, they saw clear detection of X-rays from the first observation and possible flare of X-rays from those 15 years later.

The scientists believe that the sun could be the driving force causing Uranus to emit the X-rays.

Uranus at approximately the same orientation as it was during the 2002 Chandra observations. 2017 HRC Composite Image (Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXO/University College London/W. Dunn et al; Optical: W.M. Keck Observatory)
(NASA)

Astronomers have previously observed that both Jupiter and Saturn scatter X-ray light from the sun.

However, while the study’s authors say they believe the X-rays detected would also be from “scattering,” another source of X-rays is also likely.

Like Saturn, they say, Uranus’ rings could be producing the X-rays itself or even the planet’s aurora — a phenomenon created when high-energy particles interact with the atmosphere.

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“Uranus is surrounded by charged particles such as electrons and protons in its nearby space environment,” the Chandra X-ray Observatory wrote in a release. “If these energetic particles collide with the rings, they could cause the rings to glow in X-rays.”

X-rays are emitted in Earth’s auroras and Jupiter has auroras, as well, though X-rays from auroras on Jupiter come from two sources.

However, a nearly identical NASA release notes that researchers remain uncertain about what causes the auroras on Uranus.

The agency wrote that the unusual orientations of its spin axis and magnetic field may cause the planet’s auroras to be “unusually complex and variable.”

The rotation axis of Uranus is nearly parallel to its path around the sun — unlike the axes of other planets in the solar system — and while Uranus is tilted on its side, its magnetic field is tiled by a different amount.

“Determining the sources of the X-rays from Uranus could help astronomers better understand how more exotic objects in space, such as growing black holes and neutron stars, emit X-rays,” NASA wrote.

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Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun in the solar system. It has two sets of rings around its equator. Its diameter is four times that of Earth.

Because Voyager 2 was the only spacecraft to ever fly by Uranus, astronomers rely on telescopes like Chandra to learn more about the cold planet that is made up almost entirely of hydrogen and helium.

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