Solar Orbiter sends closest images of Sun, reveals mysterious 'campfires'

Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) observed a unique phenomenon near the surface of the sun— miniature solar flares, dubbed “campfires.” The new revelation comes as Solar Orbiter, a new Sun-observing mission became the first spacecraft to take images of the Sun’s surface from a closer distance.
Releasing the first images on Thursday, Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission in a press briefing said, “These unprecedented pictures of the Sun are the closest we have ever obtained. These amazing images will help scientists piece together the Sun’s atmospheric layers, which is important for understanding how it drives space weather near the Earth and throughout the solar system.
The joint team operated the spacecraft over 152 million km away remotely as the coronavirus pandemic forced operations to be shut. As the spacecraft flew within 48 million miles of the Sun, all 10 instruments flicked on, and Solar Orbiter snapped the closest pictures of the giant star to date.
Sun phasesThe Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft took these images on 30 May 2020. (Source: ESA)
Flyby reveals new phenomenon- 'Campfires'
The campfires are little relatives of the solar flares that are observed from Earth, just million or billion times smaller. Scientists do not know yet whether the campfires are just tiny versions of big flares, or whether they are driven by different mechanisms.
There are, however, theories that these miniature flares could be contributing to one of the most mysterious phenomena— heat the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, to its temperature 300 times hotter than the solar surface.
ALSO READ: Nasa's Perseverance Mars mission: Sherlock's probe, & an Indian connection
The solar corona is the outermost layer of the Sun’s atmosphere that extends millions of kilometers into outer space. Its temperature is more than a million degrees Celsius, which in orders of magnitude is hotter than the surface of the Sun, a ‘cool’ 5500 degree Celsius. “These campfires are totally insignificant each by themselves, but summing up their effect all over the Sun, they might be the dominant contribution to the heating of the solar corona,” said Frédéric Auchère, of the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS) in a statement released by the ESA.
Seeing the far side of the Sun
In its bid to get a wider view of the Sun, which has been shrouded in mystery for decades, the joint team is monitoring active regions of the star with strong magnetic fields, which can explode solar flares.
Solar flares have been an active threat to Earth as it releases bursts of energetic particles that enhance the solar winds, which when interacts with Earth’s magnetosphere can cause magnetic storms disrupting telecommunication networks and power grids across the planet. Scientists are for the first time observing an area prone to solar flares, which was not observable from Earth due to its location on the dark side.
Solar orbiterESA’s Solar Orbiter carries both remote-sensing instruments to look at the Sun, and in situ instruments that sample the properties of the ‘solar wind’ around the spacecraft. (Source: ESA)
“Right now, we are in the part of the 11-year solar cycle when the Sun is very quiet. But because the Solar Orbiter is at a different angle to the Sun than Earth, we could actually see one active region that wasn’t observable from Earth. That is a first. We have never been able to measure the magnetic field at the back of the Sun,” said Sami Solanki, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany.
Solar Orbiter, launched on 10 February 2020, carries six remote-sensing instruments, or telescopes, that image the Sun and its surroundings, and four in situ instruments that monitor the environment around the spacecraft.

Curiosity resumes Martian mountain climb as Nasa team runs rover from home

The Curiosity rover has resumed the next leg of its trip on Mars, with scientists operating it and monitoring its movement remotely from their homes amid the coronavirus pandemic. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) said that the rover would continue through the summer across roughly a mile of terrain to ascend to the next section of a 3-mile-tall (5 km) Martian mountain that it has been exploring since 2014.
The rover is currently exploring Mount Sharp on the floor of the Gale Crater on the distant planet, looking for conditions that might have supported ancient microbial life. Nasa is studying sedimentary layers in the crater which indicate how Mars might have changed from being more Earth-like – with lakes, streams, and a thicker atmosphere – to the nearly airless freezing desert it is today.
The agency is planning to reach the "sulfate-bearing unit" of the mountain by early September. According to researchers, sulfates, like Gypsum and Epsom salts, usually form around water as it evaporates, and they are yet another clue to how the climate and prospects for life could have changed nearly 3 billion years ago.
Mount Sharp, Mars, NASANASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this view from "Greenheugh Pediment" on its Martian day. (Source: NASA)
Deploying mission control to living rooms
For the first time in the history of interplanetary exploration, scientists have shifted their base from high-tech mission controls to remote locations — their residence. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, scientists at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are executing commands from their living rooms to run a rover over 116 million km away, on Mars.
ALSO READ: Isro's Mangalyan sends images of Mars' biggest moon Phobos and its craters
“We are usually all in one room, sharing screens, images, and data. People are talking in small groups and to each other from across the room," said Alicia Allbaugh, who leads the Curiosity team in a statement released by JPL. They now conduct several video conferences at once while also relying on messaging apps and a continuous channel of communication among engineers, scientists, and other team members. "It's classic, textbook Nasa," she said, adding "We're presented with a problem and we figure out how to make things work. Mars isn't standing still for us; we're still exploring."
JPL team, NASAThe Curiosity rover team operating the rover fro their homes, (Source: JPL)
The uncharted journey ahead
As Curiosity begins its journey uphill, a vast patch of sand lies between the rover and the sulfate unit, forcing it to take a mile-long trip. Curiosity's top speeds range between 82 and 328 feet (25 and 100 meters) per hour and the team will deploy the rover’s automated driving abilities, which enable the Curiosity to find the safest paths forward on its own. The automotive driving will be enabled owing to the lack of terrain imagery since they are operating remotely. The ability allows the rover to make simple decisions along the way to avoid large rocks or risky terrain. It stops if it doesn't have enough information to complete a drive on its own.
Mount Sharp, Mars, NasaThese goosebump-like textures in the center of this image were formed by water billions of years ago. (Source: NASA)
The Gale terrain and the exploration for life
The Curiosity is currently moving out of the “clay-bearing unit” on the lower side of Mount Sharp, which is being investigated since early 2019. According to Nasa, “Scientists are interested in the watery environment that formed this clay and whether it could have supported ancient microbes.”
Extending across both the clay unit and the sulfate unit is a separate feature, the "Greenheugh Pediment", a slope with a sandstone cap. It likely represents a major transition in the climate of Gale Crater. “At some point, the lakes that filled the 154-kilometre-wide crater disappeared, leaving behind sediments that eroded into the mountain,” Nasa said in a statement.
ALSO READ: Nasa's Perseverance Mars mission: Sherlock's probe, & an Indian connection
Scientists were surprised to find small bumps along the sandstone surface that required water in order for them to form. These bumps or nodules have become a familiar sight throughout Mount Sharp, and suggest that water was present in Gale long after the lakes disappeared and the mountain took its present shape.
Curiosity rover, NASAThe northern end of the pediment spans the clay region, and though the slope is steep, the rover's team decided to ascend Greenheugh pediment. (Source: NASA)
NASA is in the final phase to launch its next mission to the Red Planet, the Perseverance rover, on July 20. The mission is being seen as the next big step ahead of the proposed future manned missions. The rover will not only look for signs of habitable conditions on the planet in the ancient past but also search for signs of past microbial life on the surface.

Vikram had hard landing; NASA releases images of Chandrayaan 2 landing site

NASA on Friday released high-resolution images captured by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) during its flyby of the lunar region where India's ambitious Chandrayaan 2 mission attempted a soft landing near the Moon's uncharted south pole, and found Vikram had a hard landing.
The Vikram lander module attempted a soft landing on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters before losing communication with ISRO on September 7.

"Vikram had a hard landing and the precise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands has yet to be determined, NASA said.
The scene was captured from a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Quickmap fly-around of the targeted landing site image width is about 150 kilometres across the centre.
Vikram was scheduled to touch down on September. 7. This event was India's first attempt at a soft landing on the Moon. The site was located about 600 kilometres from the south pole in a relatively ancient terrain, according to the US space agency.
The LRO passed over the landing site on September 17 and acquired a set of high-resolution images of the area; so far the LROC team has not been able to locate or image the lander.

NASA
✔
@NASA
Our @LRO_NASA mission imaged the targeted landing site of India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander, Vikram. The images were taken at dusk, and the team was not able to locate the lander. More images will be taken in October during a flyby in favorable lighting. More: https://go.nasa.gov/2n03HuV
Lunar surfaceLunar surface with names of locations
4,277
2:30 AM - Sep 27, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
1,354 people are talking about this
LRO will next fly over the landing site on October 14 when lighting conditions will be more favourable, John Keller, Deputy Project Scientist Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission, Goddard Space Flight Centre, told PTI via email.
"It was dusk when the landing area was imaged and thus large shadows covered much of the terrain; it is possible that the Vikram lander is hiding in a shadow. The lighting will be favourable when LRO passes over the site in October and once again attempts to locate and image the lander," NASA said.

Soon, you can buy a vacation to space. But, tickets won't be cheap

Becoming a NASA astronaut is far harder than getting into Harvard, but soon, ordinary people — at least rich ones with tens of millions of dollars to blow on a big vacation — will be able to buy a rocket ride into orbit.
NASA announced on Friday that for the first time it is allowing private citizens to fly, if not to the moon, at least to the International Space Station, the only place where people currently live off the planet.

NASA is not transforming into a space travel agency. Private companies will have to pay it about $35,000 a night per passenger to sleep in the station’s beds and use its amenities, including air, water, the internet and the toilet. (The companies would charge much more to cover rocket flights to and from space, and to make a profit.)
Friday’s announcement was one of several new policies designed to allow companies to take advantage of the space station as a place for business, something that NASA has often frowned on in the past.
“This is a huge different way for us to do business,” William H Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said during a news conference at Nasdaq in New York. The announcement could also help resolve questions about the space station’s future. The Trump administration last year created tumult when it proposed ending federal financing of the International Space Station by the end of 2024 and move to commercial alternatives that are far from being built.
On Friday, NASA officials said the goal was an eventual transition to orbital outposts fully operated by private companies, but there was no set date.
“We’re hoping new capabilities will develop that can one day take over for the space station,” said Robyn Gatens, the deputy space station director for NASA. “We won’t transition off station until we have something else to go to so we don’t have a date certain.”
Among the agency’s other announcements on Friday: It will allow some ventures that are purely for profit, without requiring some educational or research component. That could include flying trinkets to space and then selling them on Earth.
Later this month, NASA will seek proposals for adding a module to the space station that is owned and operated by a private company, and it will select a plan by the end of the year.
What is not up for sale are corporate sponsorships for parts of the station. NASA astronauts still would not be allowed to endorse products, but might perform off-camera production on commercials from orbit for paying customers. While pricey, the revenues generated by space tourism for NASA would not come close to covering the costs of operating the space station, which are one of the agency’s greatest expenses.

Nasa wants to send a mini-helicopter to explore secrets of the Red Planet

NASA currently has two cars roaming Mars — the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers. But the next one it will send there will carry a vehicle with a new approach for planetary exploration: A helicopter.
The space agency announced the decision on Friday to add a small helicopter — about four pounds with a fuselage the size of a softball and blades that span just over three and a half feet, tip to tip — to its Mars 2020 mission, which is to launch in July 2020 and arrive at Mars the following February.

“We’re very excited about this and the potential it has for opening up a whole new paradigm for how to explore Mars,” said David Lavery, the programme executive for solar system exploration at NASA headquarters.
He likened it to Sojourner, NASA’s first Mars rover, which was about the size of a microwave oven and trundled around Mars in 1997. “That said, ‘Hey, mobile exploration on another planet is not only possible, but adds a lot of value to how you do things,’” Lavery said.
For its trip to Mars, the helicopter will be packed on the underside of the rover.
After the rover lands, the helicopter will be placed on the ground. The rover will then drive 50 to 100 yards away — close enough to stay in radio contact, far enough to not be endangered by any mishaps.
The helicopter is to make five short flights over 30 days. The first will go up about 10 feet and hover for 30 seconds.
Later flights will be more ambitious, up to 90 seconds, and cover a few hundred yards. The helicopter will carry two cameras, one looking down and one pointed ahead. Between flights, a solar panel will recharge its batteries.
Flying on the red planet is not easy. The thin air at the surface of Mars is the equivalent of being 100,000 feet above Earth — well beyond the limits of terrestrial helicopters — although the weaker gravity helps. Two pairs of rotor blades will spin in opposite directions at nearly 50 revolutions per second. A prototype has been tested in a chamber that mimics the Martian atmosphere at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We’ve been able to develop it to the point that we’re able to make the case that we can actually test at Mars in the Martian environment,” Lavery said.
The $55-million project is not part of the main Mars 2020 mission, which is to look for signs of past ancient life in the rocks of Mars.
“It’ll be interesting to see what it is actually capable of doing,” Kenneth Farley, the mission’s project scientist, said of the helicopter. After the 30 days of testing are over, the helicopter will be left behind, and the rover will move on.
On future missions, a helicopter could act as a scout to help a rover navigate or even bring samples. The Mars copter is not the only such proposal NASA has considered.
A candidate in NASA’s New Frontiers competition would send a robotic drone to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. The quadcopter would be able to perform detailed explorations of the moon’s various terrains, including its seas of hydrocarbons.
If NASA selects the mission over another finalist next year, it could possibly launch as soon as 2025.