tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/space-science-10316/articlesSpace science – The Conversation2024-01-21T14:03:29Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215702024-01-21T14:03:29Z2024-01-21T14:03:29ZJapan is now the 5th country to land on the Moon – the technology used will lend itself to future lunar missions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570427/original/file-20240119-27-p6esw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=249%2C0%2C4597%2C3248&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Data from the SLIM mission projected at JAXA's Sagamihara Campus during the craft's landing. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/JapanMoonLanding/03b3de9eaaba4dda9bfbe0236b3b28db/photo?Query=slim&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3883&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Japan landed its <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sas/slim/">Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon</a>, or SLIM, craft on the surface of the Moon on Jan. 20, 2024. Despite a power issue with the lander, the event holds both political and technical importance. It’s Japan’s first lunar landing – making it only the fifth country in the world to successfully land on the Moon. This is a significant achievement and solidifies Japan’s position as a leader in space technology. </p>
<p>While the craft <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXLt3ET9mE">landed successfully on the lunar surface</a> and deployed its rovers, SLIM’s solar cells were not functioning properly – meaning that the craft could likely <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/science/japan-slim-moon-landing.html">only operate for a few hours</a>. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aESo-coAAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of international affairs</a> who studies space. Like NASA and other space agencies, the <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/">Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA</a>, wants to advance research and technology by demonstrating new techniques and collecting scientific data. The landing is also a part of something bigger – a <a href="https://theconversation.com/returning-to-the-moon-can-benefit-commercial-military-and-political-sectors-a-space-policy-expert-explains-209300">growing global interest in lunar activity</a>. </p>
<h2>Precision technology</h2>
<p>Japan’s achievement isn’t only symbolic – Japan is demonstrating a number of new technologies with the lander. The name, Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, refers to the spacecraft’s <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/countdown/slim/SLIM-mediakit-EN_2310.pdf">new precision-landing technology</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UEZO4jj7v0I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">SLIM’s landing technology allowed it to detect and avoid potential obstacles.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This technology could assist future landings by allowing spacecraft to land in relatively small areas amid rocky or uneven terrain, rather than having to find large clearings. This ability will be particularly important in the future as countries focus on very specific <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-suspect-theres-ice-hiding-on-the-moon-and-a-host-of-missions-from-the-us-and-beyond-are-searching-for-it-216060">areas of interest</a> at <a href="https://theconversation.com/chandrayaan-3s-measurements-of-sulfur-open-the-doors-for-lunar-science-and-exploration-212950">the lunar south pole</a>. </p>
<p>The lander also carried two small rovers, each of which will demonstrate a new technology for moving on the Moon. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/slim-japans-precision-lunar-lander">Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1</a> includes a camera, as well as scientific equipment, and uses a hopping mechanism to maneuver on the Moon. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Artist's illustration of Japan's SLIM lander, which looks like a metal box with cones and lights on one end, attempting its lunar touchdown" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570455/original/file-20240120-25-vl1x3l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration of the SLIM lander touching down.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">JAXA/ISAS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/activity/pr/jaxas/no088/03.html">Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2</a>, developed in a partnership among government, industry, and academia, is a sphere small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Once on the surface, its two halves separate slightly, allowing it to roll around.</p>
<p>SLIM is designed to land <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/countdown/slim/SLIM-mediakit-EN_2310.pdf">within a 328-foot (100-meter) zone</a>, far smaller than previous lunar landers which have had landing zones spanning multiple kilometers. </p>
<p>SLIM used a <a href="https://global.jaxa.jp/countdown/slim/SLIM-mediakit-EN_2310.pdf">vision-based navigation system</a> that took images of the lunar surface. Its system rapidly compared these images to crater patterns on lunar maps that JAXA developed with data from previous missions. </p>
<p>As countries identify areas that are most likely to hold useful resources, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-suspect-theres-ice-hiding-on-the-moon-and-a-host-of-missions-from-the-us-and-beyond-are-searching-for-it-216060">water in the form of ice</a>, precision landing technology will allow agencies to avoid nearby hazards and reach these areas without incident.</p>
<h2>International relations back on Earth</h2>
<p>There is a geopolitical element to these activities. China, India and Japan – the three nations that have successfully landed on the Moon since 2000 – engage in regional competition across a number of areas, including space. In addition to regional considerations, these accomplishments help to establish nations as leaders on a global scale – capable of something that few nations have ever done. </p>
<p>Japan’s launch comes only six months after <a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-chandrayaan-3-landed-on-the-south-pole-of-the-moon-a-space-policy-expert-explains-what-this-means-for-india-and-the-global-race-to-the-moon-212171">India’s Moon landing</a> and just weeks after <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/science/moon-lander-peregrine-nasa.html">a failed attempt</a> by a U.S. company, Astrobotic. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russias-moon-mission-falters-after-problem-entering-pre-landing-orbit-2023-08-20/">Both Russia</a> and <a href="https://ispace-inc.com/news-en/?p=4655">the private company iSpace</a> made unsuccessful landing attempts in 2023. Japan’s success in landing on the Moon – even with solar panel issues shortening the timeline for the mission – demonstrates that JAXA is a major player in this global endeavor. </p>
<p>Despite recent setbacks, such as <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-shares-progress-toward-early-artemis-moon-missions-with-crew/">NASA announcing delays</a> to its next Artemis mission, the U.S. is still a clear leader in space and lunar exploration. NASA has <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/general/does-anything-orbit-the-moon-we-asked-a-nasa-technologist/">multiple spacecraft orbiting the Moon</a> right now, and it’s already successfully launched the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/space-launch-system/">SLS rocket</a>, which is capable of taking humans back to the Moon. </p>
<p>NASA is developing very large and complex systems internally – like the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission/gateway/">Gateway space station</a>, planned to orbit near the Moon, and the infrastructure for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-next-four-people-headed-to-the-moon-how-the-diverse-crew-of-artemis-ii-shows-nasas-plan-for-the-future-of-space-exploration-203214">Artemis human Moon missions</a>. It’s not uncommon for these large and complex efforts to experience some delays. </p>
<p>NASA has also turned many smaller-scale efforts over to commercial entities lately – like in the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/commercial-lunar-payload-services/">Commercial Lunar Payload Services program</a> that supported Astrobotic’s attempt. This is a new approach that involves some risk, but provides the opportunity for commercial innovation and growth of the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/growing-the-lunar-economy/">lunar economy</a> while giving NASA the ability to focus on big, complex aspects of the mission.</p>
<p>With regard to the Moon, JAXA has partnered with the U.S. and taken on a very important component of the Artemis missions – the development of a <a href="https://www.toyota-europe.com/news/2023/lunar-cruiser">pressurized lunar rover</a>. This is a new and complex technology that will be critical to human missions on the Moon in coming years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mariel Borowitz receives funding from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Department of Defense. </span></em></p>Japan is one of several countries that weren’t part of the space race of the 1950s and 1960s looking toward the Moon. They’ve now become the 5th country to have landed on its surface.Mariel Borowitz, Associate Professor of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2188322024-01-15T11:39:04Z2024-01-15T11:39:04Z20 years ago South Africa had 40 qualified astronomers – all white. How it’s opened space science and developed skills since then<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568811/original/file-20240111-21-fbk2ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Southern African Large Telescope.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SAAO</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African astronomy started an important journey two decades ago, when an initiative to attract and train future scientists in the field welcomed its first group of students under the <a href="https://www.star.ac.za/">National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme</a>. </p>
<p>World class facilities have been established during this period, the most notable of which are the <a href="https://www.salt.ac.za/">Southern African Large Telescope</a> (SALT) and the <a href="https://www.sarao.ac.za/science/meerkat/">MeerKAT radio telescope</a>, a precursor to the international <a href="https://www.sarao.ac.za/about/the-project/">Square Kilometre Array</a>. They add to the <a href="https://www.saao.ac.za/">South African Astronomical Observatory</a> and <a href="https://www.sarao.ac.za/about/hartrao/">Hartebeesthoek Radio Observatory</a> which existed already.</p>
<p>The National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme has played a vital role in ensuring that these facilities were not simply operated for the benefit of international partners. It has also contributed individuals with crucial data analysis skills to the country’s growing high-tech workforce.</p>
<p>As astronomers who were part of this journey – organisers, contributors and beneficiaries – we are using the 20th anniversary date to reflect on the programme’s impact and its significance for the country.</p>
<h2>The history</h2>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-astronomy-has-a-long-rich-history-of-discovery-and-a-promising-future-152777">astronomical history</a>, spanning over 200 years, took a leap in 2000 with the cabinet’s approval for the construction of the Southern African Large Telescope. </p>
<p>Beyond its scientific impact, the idea was to attract and nurture young talent, addressing shortages in scientific and engineering fields in South Africa.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568554/original/file-20240110-19-8im4w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Large white dish-shaped structures in a dry landscape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568554/original/file-20240110-19-8im4w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568554/original/file-20240110-19-8im4w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568554/original/file-20240110-19-8im4w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568554/original/file-20240110-19-8im4w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568554/original/file-20240110-19-8im4w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568554/original/file-20240110-19-8im4w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568554/original/file-20240110-19-8im4w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">MeerKAT.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the time, there were only about 40 astronomers with PhDs in the country. All were white. This was the result of the racially skewed education system during the apartheid era.</p>
<p>In 2001, astronomers began preparing for SALT and future projects. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-australia-and-south-africa-construction-has-started-on-the-biggest-radio-observatory-in-earths-history-195818">Square Kilometre Array</a> (SKA) emerged as an opportunity to host a big international radio telescope which could, among other things, investigate the beginnings of the Universe. Unfortunately the shortage of South African astronomers posed a threat to the success of the two projects, and to Africa’s participation.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-visionary-scientist-bernie-fanaroff-put-african-astronomy-on-the-map-183248">How visionary scientist Bernie Fanaroff put African astronomy on the map</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Developing a pipeline</h2>
<p>Becoming a professional astronomer requires a PhD in astronomy, physics, or a related subject. It takes about 10 years to qualify after completing secondary school. At that time <a href="https://repository.hsrc.ac.za/handle/20.500.11910/7864">fewer than 1% of black school leavers qualified to study for a BSc in physics or astronomy</a>. </p>
<p>It became clear that universities needed to start co-operating if the landscape was to change. The country’s small astronomical community was spread across eight universities and two national facilities. </p>
<p>A decision was taken to pool resources to establish the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme. In this way, university lecturers and professionals at the national observatories could all contribute to teaching, while students could choose from a wide range of research projects. </p>
<p>This collaboration, including the organisation that became the <a href="https://www.sansa.org.za/">South African National Space Agency</a>, focused on guiding students through honours and master’s degrees. It emphasised cooperation over institutional interests and targeted young scientists, especially those from previously disadvantaged communities.</p>
<p>The primary objectives were clear: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>attract students post-Bachelor of Science</p></li>
<li><p>recruit from other countries in Africa</p></li>
<li><p>entice school leavers into BSc physics programmes</p></li>
<li><p>make participation in the programme a selling point for all participating universities. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Bursaries covering basic needs were crucial to attract smart students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Funding from private foundations, particularly from the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation and the Canon Collins Trust, added to very basic grants from the <a href="https://www.nrf.ac.za/">National Research Foundation</a>. </p>
<p>Today, the government’s Department of Science and Innovation is the primary funder. </p>
<p>Grants are adequate, rather than generous. Nevertheless, students have developed successful careers through the programme, transforming astronomy and space science in South Africa and beyond.</p>
<p>Programme participant Pfesesani van Zyl <a href="https://nassp-at-20.saao.ac.za/testimonials/">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The journey to SALT was a truly transformative experience for me … As a child growing up in a small town, the notion of pursuing a career in astronomy seemed like an unattainable dream, especially as a female of colour … However, that visit shattered those limiting beliefs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As former beneficiary <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/roger-deane-1344758">Roger Deane</a>, now a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, put it, the programme was pivotal in</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://nassp-at-20.saao.ac.za/testimonials/">giving us exposure to the leading astronomers in the country … This was extremely helpful in assessing astronomy as a career.</a></p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Track record</h2>
<p>By mid 2023, the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme had produced 439 honours graduates and 215 master’s degrees in astrophysics and space science. Another 27 honours and 21 master’s students are set to graduate shortly, and similar numbers of students will complete their degrees in 2024. </p>
<p>A 2023 survey of programme graduates had 230 respondents, including 53 graduates from 19 other African countries. The largest numbers were from Uganda, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia and Sudan. Many have returned home.</p>
<p>Former participant <a href="https://africanscientists.africa/business-directory/nyamai/">Miriam Nyamai</a> <a href="https://nassp-at-20.saao.ac.za/testimonials/">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Collaboration with international researchers through the programme enabled me to do world-class research, attend international conferences, and give talks on my work.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Impact</h2>
<p>The impact of the programme’s graduates extends far beyond academia. Many have embarked on successful careers across diverse sectors, including industry, education and government. </p>
<p>Graduates have participated in exciting astronomical discoveries. These include producing the <a href="https://theconversation.com/african-scientists-and-technology-could-drive-future-black-hole-discoveries-183139">first images of black holes</a> with the Event Horizon Telescope, finding some of the most distant galaxies yet known, and using SALT to investigate the remnants of some very massive binary stars and unusual active black holes at great distances. </p>
<p>The work of many individuals has been recognised by national and international bodies and programme graduates are in key teaching and research posts in South African universities. Over 30 are employed in the astronomy national facilities and the national space agency, while some have prestigious positions elsewhere in the world. South Africa now has over 200 qualified astronomers, not all of them from the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it remains a challenge to fill vacant astronomer posts in South Africa. Many factors contribute to this, including funding, opportunities outside academia, and the lack of clear career paths. The National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme can only ever be part of the solution to these complex systemic problems.</p>
<h2>Future directions</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562413/original/file-20231129-31-7ta15v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562413/original/file-20231129-31-7ta15v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562413/original/file-20231129-31-7ta15v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562413/original/file-20231129-31-7ta15v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562413/original/file-20231129-31-7ta15v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562413/original/file-20231129-31-7ta15v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562413/original/file-20231129-31-7ta15v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562413/original/file-20231129-31-7ta15v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NASSP students visit the SAAO 1-m telescope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SAAO</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The programme has evolved since its establishment. Students now have to navigate extensive volumes of intricate data of different kinds, from various sources. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are indispensable. Students must know what these tools can and cannot do as they push the boundaries of our comprehension. This is a challenge for both students and their mentors.</p>
<p>The main obstacle now lies, as it did 20 years ago, in helping university staff to collaborate across institutions in such a way that their work is recognised and rewarded. This requires senior administrators to understand that inter-university collaborations are an investment in their own institutions as well as in the advancement of South African science.</p>
<p><em>To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme, a two-day <a href="https://nassp-at-20.saao.ac.za/">symposium</a> has been organised in January 2024, hosted at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218832/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia Ann Whitelock receives research funding from the National Research Foundation and the University of Cape Town.. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Cunnama receives funding from the National Research Foundation. He works for the South African Astronomical Observatory, a business unit of the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalind Skelton receives funding from the National Research Foundation. She works for the South African Astronomical Observatory, a business unit of the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>The astronomical community has thrived and world-class astronomical facilities have been established in South Africa.Patricia Ann Whitelock, Former director of SAAO and honorary professor at UCT, South African Astronomical ObservatoryDaniel Cunnama, Science Engagement Astronomer, South African Astronomical ObservatoryRosalind Skelton, SALT Astronomer and Head of Research at the South African Astronomical Observatory, National Research FoundationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2157072023-10-17T19:08:01Z2023-10-17T19:08:01ZNASA’s Psyche asteroid mission: a 3.6 billion kilometre ‘journey to the centre of the Earth’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554157/original/file-20231017-17-gr95ww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C41%2C3982%2C3652&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24471">NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Psyche was the Greek goddess of the soul, born a mere mortal and later married to Eros, the God of love. Who knows why the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis gave her name to a celestial object he observed one night in 1852?</p>
<p>Psyche was only the 16th “asteroid” ever discovered: inhabitants of the Solar System that were neither the familiar planets nor the occasional visitors known as comets. Today we know the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter contains millions of space rocks, ranging in size from the dwarf planet Ceres down to tiny pebbles and grains of dust.</p>
<p>Among all these, Psyche is still special. With an average diameter of around 226km, the potato-shaped planetoid is the largest “M-type” asteroid, made largely of iron and nickel, much like Earth’s core. </p>
<p>Last week NASA <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/psyche">launched a spacecraft to rendezvous with Psyche</a>. The mission will take a six-year, 3.6 billion kilometre journey to gather clues that Earth scientists like me will interrogate for information about the inaccessible interior of our own world. </p>
<h2>Natural laboratories</h2>
<p>M-type asteroids like Psyche are thought to be the remnants of planets destroyed in the early years of the Solar System. In these asteroids, heavier elements (like metals) sank toward the centre and lighter elements floated up to the outer layers. Then, due to collisions with other objects, the outer layers were torn away and most of the material was ejected into space, leaving behind the metal-rich core.</p>
<p>These metallic worlds are perfect “natural laboratories” for studying planetary cores.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nasas-psyche-mission-is-set-for-launch-heres-how-it-could-unveil-the-interior-secrets-of-planets-215547">Nasa's Psyche mission is set for launch – here's how it could unveil the interior secrets of planets</a>
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<p>Our current methods for studying Earth’s core are quite indirect. We sometimes get tiny glimpses into the Solar System’s early history – and hence our planet’s own history – from metallic meteorites, parts of asteroids that fall to Earth. However, this view is very limited.</p>
<p>Another way to study the core is using seismology: studying how the vibrations caused by earthquakes travel through the planet’s interior, in much the same way doctors can use ultrasound to see the inside of our bodies.</p>
<p>However, on Earth we have fewer seismographs in the oceans and in the Southern Hemisphere, which restrict what we can see of the core.</p>
<p>What’s more, the core is buried beneath the planet’s outer layers, which obscure our view even further. It is like looking at a distant object through an imperfect lens.</p>
<p>As well as seismology, we learn about the core through lab experiments attempting to recreate the high pressures and temperatures of Earth’s interior.</p>
<p>We take the observations from seismology and lab experiments and try to explain them using computer simulations. In <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41725-5">a recent paper in Nature Communications</a>, we discussed the current challenges in studying Earth’s core – and the ways forward.</p>
<h2>What the Psyche mission hopes to discover</h2>
<p>We can think of NASA’s mission to Psyche as a journey to the centre of Earth without having to travel down through the planet’s rocky crust, the slowly moving mantle and the liquid core.</p>
<p>The mission aims to find out whether Psyche really is the core of a destroyed planet, that was initially hot and molten but slowly cooled and solidified like the core of our planet. On the other hand it’s possible Psyche is made of material that was never melted at all.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-asteroids-made-of-a-sample-returned-to-earth-reveals-the-solar-systems-building-blocks-176548">What are asteroids made of? A sample returned to Earth reveals the Solar System's building blocks</a>
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<p>NASA also wants to discover how old Psyche’s surface is, which would reveal how long ago it lost its outer layers. The mission will also investigate the asteroid’s chemical composition: whether it contains lighter elements alongside iron and nickel, such as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, silicon and sulphur. The presence or absence of these could give us clues about our own planet’s evolution.</p>
<p>Information about Psyche’s shape, mass, and gravity distribution will also be gathered. Also, the potential for future mineral exploration should be studied.</p>
<p>All of this will be possible with the broad-spectrum cameras, spectrometers, magnetometers, gravimeters and other instruments the spacecraft carries. Scientists like me will follow with impatience the mission’s long journey through space.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215707/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hrvoje Tkalčić receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>A distant lump of space rock may have a surprising amount in common with the core of our own planet.Hrvoje Tkalčić, Professor, Head of Geophysics, Director of Warramunga Array, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2061152023-07-12T14:37:12Z2023-07-12T14:37:12ZCôte d’Ivoire is launching its first satellite for Earth observation – and it’s locally made<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533450/original/file-20230622-19-z1rzbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Illustration of a view of Africa from space. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Côte d’Ivoire has <a href="https://www.ecofinagency.com/telecom/0205-44484-cote-d-ivoire-to-launch-its-first-satellite-in-space-by-august-2024">announced plans</a> to launch its first satellite within the next two years. A team of scientists in the fields of astrophysics and geology tell The Conversation Africa about the potential benefits of this development and how the country plans to realise its space industry ambitions.</em> </p>
<h2>What kind of satellite does Côte d'Ivoire plan to launch?</h2>
<p>YAM-SAT-CI 01 will be a nanosatellite for the observation of the Earth. A nanosatellite is a small satellite, weighing from 1kg to 10kg. It will be equipped with a camera which can provide images of the coast, forests, natural parks and urban areas of the country. </p>
<p>The construction of the satellite is 100% Ivorian. It has been entrusted to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/UNIVERSALKONSTRUCTORSASSOCIATED/?locale=ms_MY">Universal Konstructors Associated</a>, a private Ivorian company promoting scientific and technological development in Côte d'Ivoire, in partnership with the <a href="https://inphb.ci/">Institut National Polytechnique Félix Houphouët-Boigny</a> of Yamoussoukro.</p>
<p>It’s the first step towards more sophisticated satellites and sensors which have many <a href="https://theconversation.com/nanosatellite-launch-is-a-big-step-forward-for-african-space-science-175069">applications</a>. For example they can detect, monitor and map threats to national security, illegal migration, <a href="https://theconversation.com/technique-developed-in-kenya-offers-a-refined-way-to-map-tree-cover-76709">deforestation</a>, illegal gold mining activities, <a href="https://theconversation.com/dust-in-the-atmosphere-is-a-sign-of-trouble-in-south-africas-maize-fields-147939">soil humidity</a> and water reservoirs. They can help minimise the consequences of floods or droughts. </p>
<p>In Côte d’Ivoire, such a satellite could assist the government’s efforts to regulate artisanal mining and combat illegal activities and destruction of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/eyes-in-the-sky-and-on-the-ground-are-helping-forest-conservation-in-cameroon-73695">environment</a>. </p>
<p>These applications rely on sophisticated image processing algorithms, including the use of artificial intelligence.</p>
<h2>What are the other potential benefits and spinoffs?</h2>
<p>Earth observation provides data for agriculture, disaster management and urban planning. The satellite supports various applications, including monitoring vegetation health, mapping water resources, and analysing urban growth patterns.</p>
<p>Aside from the technology’s direct benefits, it serves the scientific and economic development of the nation.</p>
<p>The project of building and launching a satellite is generally accompanied by capacity building in many sectors related to the space industry. It involves engineers and scientists to develop sensors and the ground segment to track and communicate with the satellite. </p>
<p>Other important benefits of such projects include a wider use of space-science technology. A satellite launch may lead to greater use of Earth observations data and products, provided by numerous satellites orbiting around our planet. </p>
<h2>Who will be involved in this project?</h2>
<p>The academic and private sectors all have a role to play in this scientific, technical and political adventure. </p>
<p>The Institut National Polytechnique Félix Houphouet-Boigny has already planned to set up new curricula in the domain of space and aeronautics. This will directly benefit a new generation of young engineers. And an <a href="https://lastronomieafrique.com/author/davidbaratoux/">Ivoirian Association for Astronomy</a> has been launched. Its outreach activities to promote astronomy and space science to the wider public will increase the scientific literacy of the population. It may inspire the younger generation towards scientific careers. </p>
<p>Lastly, the University Félix Houphouët-Boigny has a laboratory specialising in the observation of the Earth from space: the <a href="https://www.curat-edu.org/">Centre Universitaire de Recherche et d'Application en Télédétection</a>. Its students may also contribute to the design, mission strategy and applications of Côte d’Ivoire’s satellites.</p>
<h2>What are other African countries doing in space technology?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://spaceinafrica.com/reports/">2022 space industry report</a> of the consulting company Space in Africa says the value of the industry in Africa is expected to reach US$22.64 billion in 2026. That’s up from US$19.49 billion in 2021. The report indicates that African nations allocated US$534.9 million to space programmes in 2022 compared to US$523.2 million in 2021. These investments indicate that African countries are preparing for wider use of space technology in handling <a href="https://theconversation.com/starlink-spacexs-new-internet-service-could-be-a-gamechanger-in-africa-200746">challenges</a> affecting the continent.</p>
<p>For instance, on 23 April 2023 <a href="https://ksa.go.ke/taifa-1-satellite/">Kenya launched its first satellite</a>, called Taifa-1, with the help of SpaceX. The satellite is equipped with an optical camera and is expected to provide agricultural and environmental monitoring data for Kenya. </p>
<p>In 2021, Tunisia <a href="https://www.lepoint.fr/afrique/la-tunisie-lance-son-premier-satellite-23-03-2021-2418938_3826.php#11">launched</a> its first 100% Tunisian-made satellite. <a href="https://www.un-spider.org/news-and-events/news/zimbabwe-and-uganda-launched-their-first-satellites-zimsat-1-and">Zimbabwe, Uganda</a>, <a href="https://www.pixalytics.com/egyptsat-a-launched/">Egypt</a> and Angola have also launched satellites in the last 12 months. In April 2023, President Macky Sall announced <a href="https://africanews.space/president-macky-sall-announces-the-launch-of-the-senegalese-space-study-agency/">the launch of the Senegalese Agency of Space Studies</a>. </p>
<p>Egypt, <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-case-for-nigeria-and-south-africa-to-cooperate-on-outer-space-activities-174635">Nigeria</a> and South Africa are the most advanced African countries on space issues. For instance, ZACube, launched in December 2018, is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/cool-cubes-are-changing-the-way-we-play-in-space-41621">nanosatellite</a> developed by the South African National Space Agency and local universities. It focuses on the safety of maritime traffic in South African coastal waters.</p>
<p>Nigeria’s National Space Research and Development Agency was established in 1999. It has launched five satellites since 2003. In December 2022, Nigeria and Rwanda became the first African countries to sign the <a href="https://theconversation.com/outer-space-rwanda-and-nigeria-sign-an-accord-for-more-responsible-exploration-why-this-matters-203202">Artemis Accords</a>, a NASA-led framework outlining best practices for sustainable space exploration. </p>
<p>It’s clear that more and more African countries are investing in space technologies. </p>
<p>The first step is to educate the population about space and the benefits of investing in space technologies. We need to create space-related training courses and promote space science in African countries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Baratoux receives funding from French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development and from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aziz Diaby Kassamba is affiliated with Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny and Association Ivoirienne d'Astronomie. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Harris Yao Fortune, Marie Korsaga, and Pancrace Aka do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Côte d’Ivoire’s nanosatellite is the first step towards applications that monitor environmental harm and illegal activities and assist in planning for development.David Baratoux, Geologist, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD)Aziz Diaby Kassamba, Enseignant chercheur en physique de l'espace, Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Cocody, Côte-d'IvoireMarc Harris Yao Fortune, Enseignant-chercheur, astrophysicien , Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Cocody, Côte-d'IvoireMarie Korsaga, Enseignant-Chercheur en physique chimie, Université Joseph Ki-ZerboPancrace Aka, Épistémologue, Historien des sciences et Logicien, Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Cocody, Côte-d'IvoireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1994122023-02-26T04:45:22Z2023-02-26T04:45:22ZGhana needs more astronomers, astrophysicists, aerospace engineers and astronauts – how to develop them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509728/original/file-20230213-18-kxg17h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A satellite image of Lake Bosumtwi. It filled a meteorite impact crater.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">USGS/ NASA Landsat/Orbital Horizon/Gallo Images/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Perhaps when you think of scientific research in Africa you think of the continent’s amazing natural resources, buried out of sight under soil or rocks. Or maybe your mind goes to its ancient history of human evolution. </p>
<p>But there’s another important, huge expanse that’s garnering attention among African researchers: the Universe. Planetary and space scientists study our solar system. They draw from the disciplines of astronomy, Earth sciences, geology, robotics and aerospace research, among others, to understand the Universe and humans’ place in it. </p>
<p>The study of planets and of outer space also helps to advance technology. Familiar consumer products such as GPS, LED lighting, wireless devices and even memory foam are all <a href="https://now.northropgrumman.com/how-technology-from-the-space-race-changed-the-world/">spinoff technologies from space research</a>. </p>
<p>Research in this field offers a way to study Earth’s environment, atmosphere and climate through remote sensing and Earth observations such as satellite data. And it’s an opportunity to explore other planets for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190647926.013.13">alternative natural and energy resources</a>.</p>
<p>Some African countries, like South Africa, Morocco and Senegal, have already <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2017EO075833">established themselves</a> as major players in planetary and space science. There have been<a href="https://africapss.org">some pan-African attempts</a> to develop and promote planetary and space science.</p>
<p>For the most part, though, planetary and space science doesn’t <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2017EO075833">garner much interest</a> beyond research scholars. Many Ghanaians, for example, don’t know about the country’s growing <a href="https://gssti.gaecgh.org/">planetary</a> and <a href="https://sstl.anuc.edu.gh/">space science</a> community. They may not know that Ghana is home to West Africa’s only planetarium, or that the region’s largest natural lake, Lake Bosumtwi, was formed in the crater caused by a meteorite striking Earth. </p>
<p>As a planetary scientist working and conducting research in Ghana, I think it’s time to get more people interested in this fascinating, important aspect of science – and to cement the country’s place as a major player in planetary and space science. This could also be a valuable way to develop Ghana’s knowledge economy, which developed nations <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-ska-telescope-is-boosting-south-africas-knowledge-economy-96228">have harnessed</a> to drive their economic growth.</p>
<h2>Education and outreach</h2>
<p>The first step to growing interest in planetary and space science is through educational outreach. This consists of educational, entertaining programmes and activities in both informal and formal learning environments. Here, Ghana could learn from Senegal. The Senegalese Association for the Promotion of Astronomy has developed several successful projects, most notably the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/spacebus/">Spacebus</a>. </p>
<p>The Spacebus is a caravan that promotes astronomy and scientific culture. It travels across Senegal, presenting exhibits and giving members of the public access to science kits and telescopes.</p>
<p>This could be replicated in Ghana. Space science and planetary researchers could also visit schools, conduct workshops and take part in career fairs to get young people interested in this sort of work. The <a href="http://ghanaplanetarium.com/">Ghana Planetarium</a> in the capital city, Accra, could play a key role here: it already organises events and activities centred on robotics and astronomy, among others.</p>
<p>There’s also the Ghana Radio Astronomical Observatory in Kuntunse, in the Greater Accra region. Its 32-metre telescope allows it to image distant space objects, as well as tracking satellites and spacecrafts. It is already an educational centre for the general public and this capacity could be developed.</p>
<p>Getting young people interested is important because Ghana needs more astronomers, astrophysicists, aerospace engineers, cosmochemists – and, for the especially adventurous, astronauts. These sorts of experts can boost the country’s scientific knowledge and output and this, in turn, can benefit Ghana economically through the development of the knowledge economy.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-ska-telescope-is-boosting-south-africas-knowledge-economy-96228">How the SKA telescope is boosting South Africa's knowledge economy</a>
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<p>There is no data on the precise numbers of people working in these fields in Ghana, but in my own experience and based on how few planetary and space science-related institutions there are in the country, it is clear that more should be done to boost these professions’ ranks.</p>
<h2>A unique site</h2>
<p>Perhaps another way to get Ghanaians engaged is to show them how space and Earth sometimes interact. The country has one of the world’s best examples of this interaction, dating back more than a million years. Lake Bosumtwi is West Africa’s largest natural lake and Ghana’s only naturally occurring inland freshwater lake. Located about 25km south-east of Kumasi in the Ashanti region, it fills a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1130/0016-7606(1981)92%3C342:TLBICG%3E2.0.CO;2">1.07 million year old meteorite impact crater</a>. </p>
<p>Many impact craters around the world, including South Africa’s <a href="https://geology.com/articles/vredefort-dome.shtml">Vredefort Crater</a>, are popular tourist attractions. People visit these sites to learn about Earth’s relationship with space, asteroids and meteorites. The same can be done with the Bosumtwi impact crater, making it a boon for Ghana’s tourism industry – and another way to get Ghanaians excited about planetary and space science.</p>
<p>Planetary and space science has become an integral part of the world’s development. Ghana has the opportunity to build on its existing facilities and to capture people’s imaginations so that the country can boost its contribution to global efforts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199412/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marian Selorm Sapah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s time to get more Ghanaians interested in this fascinating, important aspect of science.Marian Selorm Sapah, Lecturer/Research Scientist, University of GhanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1894472022-08-26T19:05:48Z2022-08-26T19:05:48ZNASA’s Artemis 1 mission to the Moon sets the stage for routine space exploration beyond Earth’s orbit – here’s what to expect and why it’s important<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495693/original/file-20221116-24-4yuyjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C4346%2C3591&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">NASA is going back to the Moon.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/52503608660/">NASA/Bill Ingalls</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>NASA’s Space Launch System rocket <a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2022/11/16/artemis-i-liftoff/">lifted off</a> from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the early hours of Nov. 16, 2022. The rocket carried the Orion Crew Capsule as the centerpiece of the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-1">Artemis 1</a> mission. The journey to the Moon and back is a shakedown cruise with no people aboard – it will test how the Orion Crew Capsule holds up in space. The mission is a key step toward returning humans to the Moon after a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo-17">half-century hiatus</a>. The launch was initially scheduled for the morning of Aug. 29, 2022, but was <a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/">postponed three times, twice for technical reasons and once for Hurricane Ian</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>The spacecraft is scheduled to travel to the Moon, deploy some small satellites and then settle into orbit. NASA aims to practice operating the spacecraft, test the conditions crews will experience on and around the Moon, and assure everyone that the spacecraft and any occupants can safely return to Earth.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation asked <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/faculty/burns/">Jack Burns</a>, a professor and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jack-Burns-5">space scientist</a> at the University of Colorado Boulder and former member of the Presidential Transition Team for NASA, to describe the mission, explain what the Artemis program promises to do for space exploration, and reflect on how the space program has changed in the half-century since humans last set foot on the lunar surface.</em></p>
<h2>How does Artemis 1 differ from the other rockets being launched routinely?</h2>
<p>Artemis 1 is the first flight of the new <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/index.html">Space Launch System</a>. This is a “heavy lift” vehicle, as NASA refers to it. It is the most powerful rocket engine ever flown to space, even more powerful than <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-was-the-saturn-v-58.html">Apollo’s Saturn V</a> system that took astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and ‘70s. </p>
<p>It’s a new type of rocket system, because it has both a combination of liquid oxygen and hydrogen main engines and two strap-on solid rocket boosters derived from the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html">space shuttle</a>. It’s really a hybrid between the space shuttle and Apollo’s <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-was-the-saturn-v-58.html">Saturn V</a> rocket. </p>
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<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/nasas-artemis-1-mission-to-the-moon-sets-the-stage-for-routine-space-exploration-beyond-earths-orbit-heres-what-to-expect-and-why-its-important-189447&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>Testing is very important, because the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/about/index.html">Orion Crew Capsule</a> is going to be getting a real workout. It will be in the space environment of the Moon, a high-radiation environment, for a month. And, very importantly, it will be testing the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/heat-shield-milestone-complete-for-first-orion-mission-with-crew">heat shield</a>, which protects the capsule and its occupants, when it comes back to the Earth at 25,000 miles per hour. This will be the fastest capsule reentry since Apollo, so it’s very important that the heat shield function well.</p>
<p>This mission is also carrying a series of small satellites that will be placed in orbit of the Moon. Those will do some useful precursor science, everything from looking further into the permanently shadowed craters where scientists think there is water to just doing more measurements of the radiation environment, seeing what the effects will be on humans for long-term exposure.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481324/original/file-20220826-26-zbdpp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A diagram showing the earth, moon and flight path of a spacecraft" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481324/original/file-20220826-26-zbdpp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481324/original/file-20220826-26-zbdpp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481324/original/file-20220826-26-zbdpp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481324/original/file-20220826-26-zbdpp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481324/original/file-20220826-26-zbdpp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481324/original/file-20220826-26-zbdpp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481324/original/file-20220826-26-zbdpp3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The plan is for Artemis 1 to lift off, travel to the Moon, deploy satellites, orbit the Moon, return to Earth, safely enter the atmosphere and splash down in the ocean.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/artemis-i-map">NASA</a></span>
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<h2>What’s the goal of the Artemis project? What’s coming up in the series of launches?</h2>
<p>The mission is a first step toward <a href="https://www.space.com/artemis-3-moon-landing-mission">Artemis 3</a>, which is going to result in the first human missions to the Moon in the 21st century and the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo-17">first since 1972</a>. Artemis 1 is an uncrewed test flight. </p>
<p>Artemis 2, which is scheduled to launch a few years after that, will have astronauts on board. It, too, will be an orbital mission, very much like <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo-8.html">Apollo 8</a>, which circled the Moon and came back home. The astronauts will spend a longer time orbiting the Moon and will test everything with a human crew. </p>
<p>And, finally, that will lead to a journey to the surface of the Moon in which Artemis 3 – sometime middecade – will rendezvous with the <a href="https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/index.html">SpaceX Starship</a> and transfer crew. Orion will remain in orbit, and the lunar Starship will take the astronauts to the surface. They will go to the south pole of the Moon to look at an area scientists haven’t explored before to investigate <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/ice-confirmed-at-the-moon-s-poles">the water ice there</a>.</p>
<h2>Artemis is reminiscent of Apollo. What has changed in the past half-century?</h2>
<p>The reason for Apollo that Kennedy envisioned initially was to <a href="https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-missions/jfk-space-race-moon-shot-speech/">beat the Soviet Union to the Moon</a>. The administration didn’t particularly care about space travel, or about the Moon itself, but it represented an audacious goal that would clearly put America first in terms of space and technology. </p>
<p>The downside of doing that is the old saying “You live by the sword, you die by the sword.” When the U.S. got to the Moon, it was basically game over. The United States beat the Russians. So it put some flags down and did some science experiments. But pretty quickly after Apollo 11, within a few more missions, <a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/09/ending-apollo-1968/">Richard Nixon canceled the program</a> because the political objectives had been met.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481319/original/file-20220826-14-lqw3h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a large rocket with two boosters attached to its sides standing between two massive gantries" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481319/original/file-20220826-14-lqw3h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481319/original/file-20220826-14-lqw3h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481319/original/file-20220826-14-lqw3h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481319/original/file-20220826-14-lqw3h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481319/original/file-20220826-14-lqw3h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481319/original/file-20220826-14-lqw3h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481319/original/file-20220826-14-lqw3h3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NASA’s new Space Launch System is seen here being moved from the rocket assembly building to a launchpad.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/KSC-20220816-PH-JBS01_0092/KSC-20220816-PH-JBS01_0092~thumb.jpg">NASA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So fast-forward 50 years. This is a very different environment. The U.S. is not doing this to beat the Russians or the Chinese or anybody else, but to begin a sustainable exploration beyond Earth’s orbit.</p>
<p>The Artemis program is driven by a number of different goals. It includes <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190025283/downloads/20190025283.pdf">in situ resource utilization</a>, which means using resources at hand like water ice and lunar soil to produce food, fuel and building materials.</p>
<p>The program is also helping to establish a lunar and space economy, starting with entrepreneurs, because SpaceX is very much part of this first mission to the surface of the Moon. NASA doesn’t own the Starship but is buying seats to allow astronauts to go to the surface. SpaceX will then use the Starship for other purposes – to transport other payloads, private astronauts and astronauts from other countries.</p>
<p>Fifty years of technology development means that going to the Moon now is much less expensive and more technologically feasible, and much more sophisticated experiments are possible when you just figure the computer technology. Those 50 years of technological advancement have been a complete game-changer. Almost anybody with the financial resources can send spacecraft to the Moon now, though not necessarily with humans. </p>
<p>NASA’s <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/content/commercial-lunar-payload-services">Commercial Lunar Payload Services</a> contracts private companies to build uncrewed landers to go to the Moon. My colleagues and I have a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/abdfc3">radio telescope</a> that’s scheduled to go to the Moon on one of the landers in March. That just wouldn’t have been possible even 10 years ago.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7toE-Cd5S2w?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Artemis is an ambitious program, but technology has advanced tremendously in the 50 years since humans last went to the Moon.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What other changes does Artemis have in store?</h2>
<p>The administration has said that in that first crewed flight, on Artemis 3, there <a href="https://www.space.com/nasa-artemis-astronauts-for-moon-landing-unveiled">will be at least one woman</a> and very likely a person of color. They may be one and the same. There may be several. </p>
<p>I’m looking forward to seeing more of that diversity, because young kids today who are looking up at NASA can say, “Hey, there’s an astronaut who looks like me. I can do this. I can be part of the space program.”</p>
<p><em>This article was updated on Nov. 16, 2022, to indicate that NASA launched the rocket.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189447/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Burns receives funding from NASA for science research.</span></em></p>When the Orion Crew Capsule orbits the Moon there will be no one on board. But the mission will mark a key step in bringing humans back to Earth’s dusty sidekick.Jack Burns, Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1856012022-06-23T02:55:08Z2022-06-23T02:55:08ZAustralia just flew its own ‘vomit comet’. It’s a big deal for zero-gravity space research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470423/original/file-20220623-52178-3o78bp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C14%2C1590%2C1183&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Steve Gale (pilot) and Gail Iles (right) next to the Marchetti jet.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kieran Blair</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last Saturday, a two-seater SIAI-Marchetti S.211 jet took off from Essendon Fields Airport in Melbourne with an expert aerobatic pilot at the controls and a case full of scientific experiments in the passenger seat. </p>
<p>Pilot <a href="https://www.anyfoolcanfly.com/">Steve Gale</a> took the jet on Australia’s first commercial “parabolic flight”, in which the plane flies along the path of a freely falling object, creating a short period of weightlessness for everyone and everything inside.</p>
<p>Parabolic flights are often a test run for the zero-gravity conditions of space. This one was operated by Australian space company <a href="https://beingssystems.com">Beings Systems</a>, which plans to run regular commercial flights in coming years. </p>
<p>As Australia’s space program begins to take off, flights like these will be in high demand.</p>
<h2>What was on the plane?</h2>
<p>The experiments aboard the flight were small packages developed by space science students at RMIT University. As program manager of RMIT’s space science degree, I have been teaching these students for the past three years, preparing them for a career in the Australian space industry. </p>
<p>The experiments investigate the effect of zero gravity on plant growth, crystal growth, heat transfer, particle agglomeration, foams and magnetism.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470227/original/file-20220622-26999-hzbn34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470227/original/file-20220622-26999-hzbn34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470227/original/file-20220622-26999-hzbn34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470227/original/file-20220622-26999-hzbn34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470227/original/file-20220622-26999-hzbn34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470227/original/file-20220622-26999-hzbn34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470227/original/file-20220622-26999-hzbn34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470227/original/file-20220622-26999-hzbn34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">RMIT University science payloads designed for parabolic flight.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gail Iles</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scientific phenomena behave differently in zero gravity than in labs on Earth. This is important for two main reasons. </p>
<p>First, zero gravity, or “microgravity”, provides a very “clean” environment in which to conduct experiments. By removing gravity from the system, we can study a phenomenon in a more “pure” state and thus understand it better. </p>
<p>Second, microgravity platforms such as parabolic flights, sounding rockets and drop towers provide test facilities for equipment and science before it is sent into space.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-carve-out-a-niche-in-space-industries-australia-should-focus-on-microgravity-research-rockets-119225">To carve out a niche in space industries, Australia should focus on microgravity research rockets</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Lab on a plane: a mini ISS</h2>
<p>Last Saturday’s flight was a success, with the six experiments recording a variety of data and images. </p>
<p>The plants experiment observed broccoli seedlings throughout the flight and found no adverse reactions to hyper- or micro-gravity. </p>
<p>Another experiment formed a crystal of sodium acetate trihydrate in microgravity, which grew much larger than its counterpart on the ground. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470282/original/file-20220622-24-u5clgq.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470282/original/file-20220622-24-u5clgq.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470282/original/file-20220622-24-u5clgq.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=205&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470282/original/file-20220622-24-u5clgq.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=205&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470282/original/file-20220622-24-u5clgq.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=205&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470282/original/file-20220622-24-u5clgq.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470282/original/file-20220622-24-u5clgq.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470282/original/file-20220622-24-u5clgq.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Insulin crystals grown in standard gravity (left) are smaller than those grown in microgravity (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The biggest zero-gravity lab is of course the International Space Station (ISS), where studies of plant growth, crystal growth and physical science phenomena are commonplace. At any one time 300 experiments are taking place on the ISS. </p>
<p>Turning a benchtop experiment into a self-contained science payload for space is not easy. Each one must be rigorously tested before launch to make sure it will work once it gets there, using parabolic flights or other testing platforms.</p>
<h2>Going ‘zero-g’</h2>
<p>There’s a common misconception that you have to go into space to experience microgravity. In fact, it’s the condition of freefall that makes things apparently weightless and that can be experienced here on Earth too. </p>
<p>If you throw a ball to a friend, it traces an arc as it flies through the air. From the moment it leaves your hand it’s in freefall – yes, even on the way up – and this is the exact same arc that the aircraft flies. Instead of a hand, it has an engine providing the “push” it needs to travel and fall through the air, tracing out a parabolic arc as it goes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Diagram showing the speed, acceleration and direction of flight of an aeroplane in parabolic flight." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470252/original/file-20220622-22-habw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470252/original/file-20220622-22-habw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470252/original/file-20220622-22-habw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470252/original/file-20220622-22-habw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470252/original/file-20220622-22-habw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470252/original/file-20220622-22-habw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470252/original/file-20220622-22-habw01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The flight trajectory during the parabolic manoeuvre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03170-5">Van Ombergen et al., Scientific Reports (2017)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even the International Space Station is experiencing the very same freefall as the ball or the aircraft. The only difference for the ISS is it has enough velocity to “miss the ground” and keep going forwards. The combination of the forward velocity and the pull towards Earth keep it going around in circles, orbiting the planet.</p>
<h2>Human spaceflight</h2>
<p>Parabolic flights in the USA and Europe occur every two or three months. On the flights, researchers conduct science, companies test technologies and astronauts receive training in preparation for spaceflight missions. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1537970435538976768"}"></div></p>
<p>As a researcher at the European Space Agency and former <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/careers/careers-blog/changing-direction-becoming-an-astronaut-instructor">astronaut instructor</a>, I am a veteran of five parabolic flight campaigns in Europe. I’ve completed over 500 parabolas on board the Novespace Airbus A300. </p>
<p>While I have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyZYP0jUyBU">never become sick on these flights</a>, up to 25% of people aboard do vomit in the zero-g conditions. This is why they are sometimes called “vomit comets”.</p>
<h2>Why now?</h2>
<p>So why does Australia need parabolic flights all of a sudden? Since the Australian Space Agency was established in 2018, several space projects have received funding, including a <a href="https://www.industry.gov.au/news/gday-moon-australias-boldest-adventure-yet">lunar rover</a>, <a href="https://www.spaceconnectonline.com.au/industry/5371-budget-australia-will-build-and-operate-four-new-satellites">four Earth-observation satellites</a> and a <a href="https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2020/jun/locally-designed-space-suits">space suit</a>. </p>
<p>For these projects to succeed, all their various systems and components will need to be tested. That’s where parabolic flights come in. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470398/original/file-20220622-39985-9leckq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470398/original/file-20220622-39985-9leckq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470398/original/file-20220622-39985-9leckq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470398/original/file-20220622-39985-9leckq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470398/original/file-20220622-39985-9leckq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470398/original/file-20220622-39985-9leckq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470398/original/file-20220622-39985-9leckq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470398/original/file-20220622-39985-9leckq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The plane flying over Melbourne (top left), with students (bottom left) and readying for flight (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beings Systems</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the demand increases, so too will the Australian aircraft. Beings Systems has plans to offer a larger aircraft –- such as a Lear jet – by 2023, such that researchers and companies alike can test their equipment, large and small, without leaving the country.</p>
<p>In addition to reading exciting scientific papers on the latest phenomena observed in microgravity, we’ll begin to see footage of satellites testing deployment of their antennae and people donning and doffing spacesuits on board parabolic flights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gail Iles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A freefalling ‘parabolic flight’ launched from Essendon airport is a leap for home-grown space science in Australia.Gail Iles, Senior Lecturer in Physics, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1796672022-03-24T19:04:14Z2022-03-24T19:04:14ZTiny satellites are changing the way we explore our planet and beyond<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454025/original/file-20220324-27-kowwka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2044%2C1361&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://secure.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/12801808743/in/set-72157629601396498">NASA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Want to go to space? It could cost you. </p>
<p>This month, the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft will make the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/26/private-space-flight-axiom/">first fully-private, crewed flight</a> to the International Space Station. The going price for a seat is US$55 million. The ticket comes with an eight-day stay on the space station, including room and board – and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2021/06/photos-beauty-earth-orbit/619218/">unrivalled views</a>. </p>
<p>Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin offer cheaper alternatives, which will fly you <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/where-is-the-edge-of-space-and-what-is-the-karman-line">to the edge of space</a> for a mere <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2021/10/13/how-much-will-a-ticket-to-space-cost/">US$250,000-500,000</a>. But the flights only last between <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin_NS-16">ten</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Galactic_Unity_22">15 minutes</a>, barely enough time to enjoy an in-flight snack.</p>
<p>But if you’re happy to keep your feet on the ground, things start to look more affordable. Over the past 20 years, advances in tiny satellite technology have brought Earth orbit within reach for small countries, private companies, university researchers, and even do-it-yourself hobbyists.</p>
<h2>Science in space</h2>
<p>We are scientists who study our planet and the universe beyond. Our research stretches to space in search of answers to fundamental questions about how our ocean is changing in a warming world, or to study the supermassive black holes beating in the hearts of distant galaxies.</p>
<p>The cost of all that research can be, well, astronomical. The <a href="https://jwst.nasa.gov">James Webb Space Telescope</a>, which launched in December 2021 and will search for the earliest stars and galaxies in the universe, had a final price tag of US$10 billion after <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/25/science/webb-telescope-cost.html">many delays and cost overruns</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-james-webb-space-telescope-has-taken-its-first-aligned-image-of-a-star-heres-how-it-was-done-178315">The James Webb Space Telescope has taken its first aligned image of a star. Here's how it was done</a>
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<p>The price tag for the International Space Station, which has hosted almost <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03085-8">3,000 scientific experiments</a> over 20 years, ran to US$150 billion, with another US$4 billion each year to keep the lights on. </p>
<p>Even weather satellites, which form the backbone of our space-based observing infrastructure and provide essential measurements for weather forecasting and natural disaster monitoring, cost up to US$400 million each <a href="https://globalcomsatphone.com/costs/">to build and launch</a>.</p>
<p>Budgets like these are only available to governments and national space agencies – or a very select club of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/space-billionaires-jeff-bezos-richard-branson/619383/">space-loving billionaires</a>.</p>
<h2>Space for everyone</h2>
<p>More affordable options are now democratising access to space. So-called <a href="https://www.nanosats.eu/cubesat">nanosatellites</a>, with a payload of less than 10kg including fuel, can be launched individually or in “swarms”. </p>
<p>Since 1998, more than <a href="https://www.nanosats.eu">3,400 nanosatellite missions</a> have been launched and are beaming back data used for disaster response, maritime traffic, crop monitoring, educational applications and more. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-many-satellites-are-orbiting-earth-166715">How many satellites are orbiting Earth?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A key innovation in the small satellite revolution is the standardisation of their shape and size, so they can be launched in large numbers on a single rocket. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cubesat.org">CubeSats</a> are a widely used format, 10cm along each side, which can be built with commercial off-the-shelf electronic components. They were developed in 1999 by two professors in California, Jordi Puig-Suari and Bob Twiggs, who wanted graduate students to get experience designing, building and operating their own spacecraft. </p>
<p>Twiggs says the shape and size were <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48533945">inspired</a> by Beanie Babies, a kind of collectable stuffed toy that came in a 10cm cubic display case. </p>
<p>Commercial launch providers like <a href="https://www.spacex.com">SpaceX</a> in California and <a href="https://www.rocketlabusa.com">Rocket Lab</a> in New Zealand offer “rideshare” missions to <a href="https://www.space.com/rocket-lab.html">split the cost of launch</a> across dozens of small satellites. You can now build, test, launch and receive data from your own CubeSat for <a href="https://www.sps-aviation.com/story/?id=2060">less than US$200,000</a>. </p>
<h2>The universe in the palm of your hand</h2>
<p>Small satellites have opened exciting new ways to explore our planet and beyond. </p>
<p>One project we are involved in uses CubeSats and machine learning techniques to <a href="https://www.unsw.edu.au/news/2021/10/unsw-led-team-awarded-a-uk-australia-spacebridge-grant-to-study-">monitor Antarctic sea ice from space</a>. Sea ice is a crucial component of the climate system and improved measurements will help us better understand the impact of climate change in Antarctica. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454056/original/file-20220324-15-1qkdh82.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454056/original/file-20220324-15-1qkdh82.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454056/original/file-20220324-15-1qkdh82.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454056/original/file-20220324-15-1qkdh82.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454056/original/file-20220324-15-1qkdh82.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454056/original/file-20220324-15-1qkdh82.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454056/original/file-20220324-15-1qkdh82.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spire Global operates a fleet of more than 110 nanosatellites.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Spire Global</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sponsored by the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AHQraRi1LM">UK-Australia Space Bridge program</a>, the project is a collaboration between universities and Antarctic research institutes in both countries and a UK-based satellite company called <a href="https://spire.com">Spire Global</a>. Naturally, we called the project IceCube. </p>
<p>Small satellites are starting to explore beyond our planet, too. In 2018, <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-cube-one-marco">two nanosatellites</a> accompanied the NASA Insight mission to Mars to provide real-time communication with the lander during its decent. In May 2022, Rocket Lab will launch <a href="https://www.rocketlabusa.com/missions/lunar/">the first CubeSat to the Moon</a> as a precursor to NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon by 2024. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454030/original/file-20220324-15-1ugzx8x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454030/original/file-20220324-15-1ugzx8x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454030/original/file-20220324-15-1ugzx8x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454030/original/file-20220324-15-1ugzx8x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454030/original/file-20220324-15-1ugzx8x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454030/original/file-20220324-15-1ugzx8x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454030/original/file-20220324-15-1ugzx8x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A nanosatellite took this photo of Mars.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia22833-farewell-to-mars">NASA/JPL</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tiny spacecraft have even been proposed for a voyage to another star. The <a href="https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/3">Breakthough Starshot</a> project wants to launch a fleet of 1,000 spacecraft each centimetres in size to the Alpha Centauri star system, 4.37 light-years away. Propelled by ground-based lasers, the spacecraft would “sail” across interstellar space for 20 or 30 years and beam back images of the Earth-like exoplanet <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1706680114">Proxima Centauri b</a>. </p>
<h2>Small but mighty</h2>
<p>With advances in miniaturisation, satellites are getting ever smaller. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454031/original/file-20220324-25-5gslfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454031/original/file-20220324-25-5gslfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454031/original/file-20220324-25-5gslfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454031/original/file-20220324-25-5gslfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454031/original/file-20220324-25-5gslfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454031/original/file-20220324-25-5gslfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454031/original/file-20220324-25-5gslfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454031/original/file-20220324-25-5gslfp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For a few hundred dollars you can build and launch a tiny working satellite.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ambasat.com/ambasat-2/ambasat-1/">Ambasat</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Picosatellites”, the size of a can of soft drink, and “femtosatellites”, no bigger than a computer chip, are putting space within reach of keen amateurs. Some can be assembled and launched for <a href="https://ambasat.com">as little as a few hundred dollars</a>. </p>
<p>A Finnish company is experimenting with a more sustainably built CubeSat <a href="https://www.wisaplywood.com/wisawoodsat/">made of wood</a>. And new, smart satellites, carrying computer chips capable of artificial intelligence, can decide what information to beam back to Earth instead of sending everything, which dramatically reduces the cost of phoning home.</p>
<p>Getting to space doesn’t have to cost the Earth after all. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Shane Keating and Clare Kenyon will be discussing CubeSats and the Space Bridge program at <a href="https://museumsvictoria.com.au/scienceworks/whats-on/design-beyond-earth-the-future-of-earth-observation/">Design beyond Earth: The future of Earth observation</a>, an in-person and online event at Scienceworks in Melbourne on Sunday March 27, 12pm-1pm.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Shane Keating and the IceCube project are funded by the UK-Australian Space Bridge program, which is managed and led by SmartSatCRC in collaboration with the other funding partners and supported by Austrade, the Australian Space Agency, the UK Government and UK Space Agency. The IceCube project has also received in-kind support from Spire Global (UK). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clare Kenyon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Shrinking satellites are making it cheaper and more accessible to do science in space.Shane Keating, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics and Oceanography, UNSW SydneyClare Kenyon, Astrophysicist and Science Communicator, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1746352022-02-24T15:12:19Z2022-02-24T15:12:19ZThere’s a case for Nigeria and South Africa to cooperate on outer space activities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448018/original/file-20220223-13-1bd49vs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari (L) and South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa perhaps need to extend their hand shakes into the outer space. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.dirco.gov.za/abuja/bilateral.html">Nigeria-South Africa Bi-National Commission</a> is a laudable idea. It was established in 1999 to strengthen the relationship between Nigeria and South Africa on trade, economy, politics and governance.</p>
<p>But it has one missing element. That is cooperation on space activities. Cooperation on space between the two countries would advance the efforts of the African Outer Space Programme.</p>
<p>The space programme is one of the priority areas of the <a href="https://au.int/en/agenda2063/overview">Agenda 2063</a>, the African Union’s framework for regional integration and socio-economic development.</p>
<p>African Heads of States and Governments adopted the <a href="https://africanews.space/african-space-policy-strategy-redefining-satellite-navigation-and-positioning-in-africa/">African Space Policy and Strategy</a> in 2016. The policy guides the implementation of the African Outer Space Programme. There is also <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/statute-african-space-agency">the African Space Agency</a> which was established in 2018 to coordinate space activities in the continent.</p>
<p>But the successful implementation of the AU’s space programme depends on cooperation between Nigeria and South Africa. They are the top two countries in the region in terms of economy, science and space.</p>
<p>Space cooperation between Nigeria and South Africa is not only advantageous on its own. It can be used to achieve other goals, including job creation for both Nigerians and South Africans through joint research.</p>
<p>There are four thematic areas which could underpin their cooperation. They are earth observation, satellite communication, navigation and positioning, as well as space science and astronomy.</p>
<h2>Potential areas of cooperation</h2>
<p><strong>Earth Observation:</strong> This entails taking pictures of the Earth surface from an elevated platform. These are then analysed, interpreted, and the findings used for policy and decision making.</p>
<p>Among platforms that are used for taking these pictures are balloons, aircraft, High-Altitude Platforms (HAPs) and satellites. Of these, only satellites are the most stable.</p>
<p>Nigeria has three Earth Observation satellites - the <a href="https://nasrda.gov.ng/nigersat-1/">NigeriaSat-1</a>, <a href="https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/n/nigeriasat-2">NigeriaSat-2 </a>and <a href="https://nasrda.gov.ng/nigersat-x/">NigeriaSat-X</a>. </p>
<p>These polar-orbting satellites would be more useful to South Africa because it is closer to the Antarctic. In addition, South Africa has the capability to process, analyse and interpret data.</p>
<p>Cooperation on space between the two nations would give South Africa access to images from these Nigerian satellites. Nigeria would, in turn, gain access to South Africa’s technical knowledge.</p>
<p>Nigeria and South Africa are among the four signatories to the <a href="https://iinitiative.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/african-resource-management-satellite/">African Resource Management Constellation</a>. Signatories donate a satellite to the constellation, giving them access to data from other satellites. Of the four signatories (Algeria and Kenya being the other two), only Nigeria and South Africa have contributed satellites, though the satellites have passed their life-time. Nigeria-South Africa space cooperation could be a step towards reviving the initiative.</p>
<p>Each country would also benefit from the other’s networks. But this would require that Nigeria and South Africa have a working data access and sharing agreement. Nigeria is part of the <a href="https://www.sstl.co.uk/space-portfolio/the-disaster-monitoring-constellation">disaster monitoring constellation</a> (DMC), alongside Algeria, Turkey and the United Kingdom. South Africa is part of the <a href="https://www.unoosa.org/documents/pdf/hlf/HLF2017/presentations/Day2/Session_7a/1._Progress_of_BRICS_Remote_Sensing_Satellite_Constellation-dubai.pdf">BRICS remote sensing satellite constellation</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Satellite communication:</strong> This is used for long-distance communication and for connecting remote parts of a country. Satellite communication services in Nigeria and South Africa are mostly run by foreign companies.</p>
<p>In 2011, Nigeria procured from China a communication satellite, <a href="https://spacenews.com/nigcomsat-1r-launched-successfully-long-march/">Nigcomsat-1R</a>. The objective was to reduce communication costs and to increase rural connectivity.</p>
<p>South Africa is building its first communications satellite, but this is being delayed by <a href="https://www.proshareng.com/news/Tech%20Trends/South-Africa-Plans-to-Develop-Communication-Satellites-on-a-Fast-Track/60783#">funding</a>.</p>
<p>South Africa could licence <a href="https://sky-brokers.com/supplier/nigcomsat-ltd/">Nigcomsat Limited </a> to operate which could reduce the cost of communication services in South Africa.</p>
<p><strong>Navigation and Positioning:</strong> <a href="https://novatel.com/tech-talk/an-introduction-to-gnss/what-are-global-navigation-satellite-systems-gnss">The Global Navigation Satellite System</a> is used in a number of applications, including precision agriculture, exact timing, and surveying.</p>
<p>The Chinese and the European Union are pushing for their navigation satellite services to be used across Africa. The EU has extended the operation of its <a href="https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/73600/PB_2022_01_STG.pdf?sequence=1">Space-based augmentation system</a> into Africa. China is advocating for the use of its <a href="https://africanews.space/china-and-africa-to-strengthen-collaboration-on-beidou-satellite-system/">Beidou system </a>. </p>
<p>The interoperability and compatibility of these global navigation satellite systems hasn’t been resolved. This leaves the African continent at a risk of errors, inconsistencies or total loss of satellite navigation services. </p>
<p>Hence, there is an urgent need for African countries to cooperate, coordinate and harmonise satellite services. South Africa and Nigeria can take the lead. </p>
<p><strong>Space Science and Astronomy:</strong> Astronomy is the study of objects and processes that occur outside the Earth’s atmosphere.</p>
<p>South Africa has several astronomical facilities. These include the <a href="http://www.hartrao.ac.za/">Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory</a>; <a href="https://www.salt.ac.za/">South African Large Telescope</a>; <a href="https://www.sarao.ac.za/">South African Radio-Astronomy Observatory</a>; <a href="https://www.saao.ac.za/">South African Astronomical Observatory</a>; and <a href="https://www.sansa.org.za/">SANSA Space Science</a> (formerly called Hermanus Magnetic Observatory). </p>
<p>The South African Astronomical Observatory’s optical telescopes at the Sutherland station have been upgraded. They can now be operated remotely from anywhere in the world via the Internet. Thus, astronomers in Nigeria can tap into the South African telescopes from their desktop computers. </p>
<p>They only need to negotiate observing slots with the South African Astronomical Observatory. </p>
<p>There is increasing interest in how the Sun affects the Earth and its environment, referred to as Space weather. This phenomenon can disrupt power supply and satellite navigation signals.</p>
<p>It is therefore mutually beneficial for Nigeria and South Africa to cooperate on space weather and atmospheric research. This will further their understanding of the solar weather phenomenon, predict its occurrence and then prepare for it.</p>
<h2>Recommendations</h2>
<p>To facilitate space cooperation, there are some immediate actions Nigeria and South Africa could take.</p>
<p>These include establishing a Nigeria-South Africa Space forum. This will serve as a platform for interaction and exchanges between professionals from both countries. An example of such is the <a href="https://saadiapekkanen.com/usjsf">U.S-Japan Space Forum</a>. </p>
<p>The forum could advise governments on common positions, including policy issues such as long-term sustainability of outer space and spectrum management. </p>
<p>The cooperative agreement between Nigeria’s National Space Research and Development Agency and the South African National Space Agency should be strengthened.</p>
<p>Nigeria and South Africa could appoint experts on space as science attachés in their respective embassies. This would ensure speedy exchanges and necessary support for visiting professionals.</p>
<p>Nigeria and South Africa need to develop a comprehensive strategy for space knowledge and related workforce development. This includes a review of school curriculum as well as the training programmes of institutions dedicated to space education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174635/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Etim Offiong works with the African Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in English (ARCSSTE-E), Obafemi Awolowo University campus, Ile-Ife. He has interned at South Africa's Department of Science and Technology. He previously received fellowship funding from the European University Institute (EUI), Florence, Italy.</span></em></p>Nigeria-South Africa bi-national commission is a laudable initiative but missing the space cooperation element.Etim Offiong, Scientific Officer, Obafemi Awolowo UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1765592022-02-16T01:14:24Z2022-02-16T01:14:24ZFresh from the ISS: how a group of high school students is leading an experiment on space-made yoghurt<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446438/original/file-20220215-27-1bm8y8s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C1273%2C848&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.nasa.gov/details-iss049e009355">NASA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s probably no surprise that keeping healthy in space is incredibly important. And without the typical resources found on Earth, creative solutions have to be explored.</p>
<p>Right now, some excited Year 10 and 11 students from around Victoria are waiting with anticipation as their space-made yoghurt – fresh off the International Space Station (ISS) – heads back to Australia from NASA facilities in the United States.</p>
<p>The students worked with researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology to design an experiment investigating the nutritional values of space-made yoghurt. The results could provide insight into how to best help astronauts with vital nutrition during long-haul spaceflight.</p>
<h2>The human gut</h2>
<p>A critical factor in human health is the overall health of our gut microbiome, which is estimated to host more than 100 trillion bacteria. </p>
<p>Maintaining the health and diversity of these bacteria might be even more important in space than on Earth. In 2019, NASA released groundbreaking <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8650">results</a> from a year-long study on astronaut twins Mark and Scott Kelly. </p>
<p>In 2016, Scott spent 365 days on the ISS, experiencing reduced gravity, while Mark remained on Earth. A fascinating result from the study was that Scott experienced significant changes to his gastrointestinal microbiome when in space – and which didn’t persist after he returned to Earth. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445430/original/file-20220209-17-1kvdk10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445430/original/file-20220209-17-1kvdk10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445430/original/file-20220209-17-1kvdk10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445430/original/file-20220209-17-1kvdk10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445430/original/file-20220209-17-1kvdk10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445430/original/file-20220209-17-1kvdk10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445430/original/file-20220209-17-1kvdk10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2016, Mark and Scott Kelly were part of a study on how living in space can affect the human body.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA/Robert Markowitz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s theorised the changes in microbiome experienced by astronauts are due to the lack of exposure to the “everyday” microbes encountered on Earth. Additionally, astronauts in space are exposed to less gravity, and high levels of radiation, which increase as they travel further away.</p>
<p>Understanding how to supplement astronauts’ gut bacteria and sustain its health is one of <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments_category">NASA’s current research goals</a>. NASA is exploring this through both the use of capsule probiotics and <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20140013481">simulated gravity</a> experiments.</p>
<h2>Why yoghurt?</h2>
<p>Yoghurt is made by the bacterial fermentation of milk. The lactic acid produced in this process acts on the milk’s proteins to create yoghurt’s signature tart taste and thick texture. We wanted to see how this process is affected in the space environment. </p>
<p>Our student-led experiment is investigating whether different probiotic strains of bacteria can be used to make yoghurt directly in space. The ideal outcome would be to show that healthy, living bacteria cultures can be generated from frozen bacteria and milk products sent to space. This has not yet been achieved, although yoghurt has been made using bacteria returned from space <a href="https://www.livescience.com/1068-space-yogurt-astro-bacteria.html">previously</a>.</p>
<p>This would be hugely beneficial during long space flights, where fresh food is limited and typical probiotic capsules would lose potency. Yoghurt also offers the nutritional benefits of the milk the bacteria are feeding off. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-simulated-mars-mission-taught-me-about-food-waste-132010">What a simulated Mars mission taught me about food waste</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The road to space</h2>
<p>Our brilliant students began this journey via two paths. Through the ongoing <a href="https://www.shineinspace.com/">SHINE program</a>, six exceptional STEM students from Victoria’s <a href="https://www.haileybury.com.au">Haileybury school</a> worked with Swinburne staff and student mentors to develop, prototype and produce an experiment for the ISS. </p>
<p>In the past, this program has sent <a href="https://www.swinburne.edu.au/news/2019/04/swinburne-backed-shine-microcavity-experiment-blasts-off-to-international-space-station/">human teeth</a>, <a href="https://www.shineinspace.com/sproutstranauts-experiment">chia seeds</a> and <a href="https://knowing.swinburne.edu.au/post/171877367129/swinburne-students-shine-in-space-program">magnetorheological fluid</a> to the ISS. For the 2021-22 experiment the students had 24 five-millilitre vials (things have to be tiny in space) in which to build their detailed experiment. </p>
<p>The second path was via the inaugural <a href="https://www.swinburne.edu.au/news/2021/02/launching-students-ideas-into-space/">Swinburne Youth Space Innovation Challenge</a> (SYSIC), which provides the opportunity to send an experiment to space as part of the Swinburne/<a href="https://www.rhodiumscientific.com/press">Rhodium Scientific</a> payload. </p>
<p>Teams from four Victorian schools undertook an 11-week crash course in space applications before pitching their dream experiment. The winning team from Viewbank College was assigned six dedicated experimental vials, with all other teams also awarded a vial – all working towards the goal of investigating probiotics, bacteria and yoghurt in space. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446207/original/file-20220214-25-swdzaw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446207/original/file-20220214-25-swdzaw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446207/original/file-20220214-25-swdzaw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446207/original/file-20220214-25-swdzaw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446207/original/file-20220214-25-swdzaw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446207/original/file-20220214-25-swdzaw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446207/original/file-20220214-25-swdzaw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2021 SYSIC winning team from Viewbank College blew the judges away with their insightful idea of investigating magnetic fields on plant growth in space. Pictured (L-R): Tarnie Jones, Belle Shi, Madeline Luvaul and Paisley Noble.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Aboard the ISS</h2>
<p>Once ready for flight, the final bacteria samples were prepared and put into deep freeze by our Rhodium Scientific partners at the Kennedy Space Centre in the US. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445435/original/file-20220209-21-1mlv2px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445435/original/file-20220209-21-1mlv2px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445435/original/file-20220209-21-1mlv2px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445435/original/file-20220209-21-1mlv2px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445435/original/file-20220209-21-1mlv2px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445435/original/file-20220209-21-1mlv2px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445435/original/file-20220209-21-1mlv2px.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=670&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The experiment samples were prepared at the Kennedy Space Centre (left), which involved putting them through a rapid-spinning vortex procedure (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rhodium Scientific</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All 33 vials boarded their rideshare to the ISS via the SpaceX Crew Dragon 24, and were launched on December 24. Once onboard, the samples were removed from deep freeze by Astronaut Mark Vande Hei and set aside in a room-temperature experiment chamber in the <a href="https://iss.jaxa.jp/en/kibo/">Japanese Experiment Module</a>, named Kibo. </p>
<p>After the allotted 48- and 72-hour timestamps (the time it takes to typically make yoghurt on Earth) the samples were placed back in deep freeze to preserve the progress. It’s expected they would have become yoghurt during this time. </p>
<p>The samples <a href="https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/01/crs-24-return/">returned to Earth</a> in late January and will be investigated by staff and students in the coming months, once they return to Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445423/original/file-20220209-13-k1diwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445423/original/file-20220209-13-k1diwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445423/original/file-20220209-13-k1diwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445423/original/file-20220209-13-k1diwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445423/original/file-20220209-13-k1diwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445423/original/file-20220209-13-k1diwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445423/original/file-20220209-13-k1diwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Rhodium Probiotic Challenge samples were boarded on the SpaceX Crew Dragon 24 spacecraft.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What we might find</h2>
<p>The students chose to explore six different bacteria strains mixed together in various combinations, as well as certain strains isolated. With both the space-based experiment and control experiments conducted on Earth, we’ll be able to determine whether the bacteria sent to the ISS were significantly affected by reduced gravity. </p>
<p>Working from the lab at Swinburne, we will use methods such as DNA sequencing to isolate any variations in the genetic makeup of the bacteria, and investigate how many generations (or cell divisions) have occurred in the samples. </p>
<p>The students also purposely designed the experiment to test both dairy and non-dairy milk options, to see the potential differences in nutritional output. But perhaps the most exciting part for all involved will be the final taste test – and finding out if space yoghurt really is out of this world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The students produced 33 experiment vials, which were boarded on the SpaceX Crew Dragon 24 and launched in December.Sara Webb, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of TechnologyRebecca Allen, Coordinator Swinburne Astronomy Online | Program Lead of Microgravity Experimentation, Space Technology and Industry Institute, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1750692022-01-23T08:56:46Z2022-01-23T08:56:46ZNanosatellite launch is a big step forward for African space science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441242/original/file-20220118-15-wkuc3j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's important to have satellites collecting data about Africa, for Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Immersion Imagery/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African space science had a big day on 13 January 2022. The Cape Peninsula University of Technology, based in Cape Town, <a href="https://www.cput.ac.za/newsroom/news/article/4397/cput-mdasat-1-launch-spacex-mission-plan">launched</a> its third satellite mission into space from the Cape Canaveral rocket launch site in Florida in the US.</p>
<p>The nanosatellite constellation – consisting of three satellites – is called MDASat (Marine Domain Awareness). A nanosatellite is smaller than standard satellites, weighing between 1kg and 10kg; it’s an affordable, functional option. The mean mass of each of our satellites is 2.1kg.</p>
<p>MDASat is designed to collect data that will enhance the security and protection of South African marine resources. The constellation will detect, monitor and identify foreign vessels within the country’s <a href="https://marineregions.org/gazetteer.php?p=details&id=8396">exclusive economic zone</a>. This could help track illegal dumping and fishing.</p>
<p>Our hope, as the team that developed and designed the constellation – I am the acting chief engineer on the project – is that MDASat will enhance the country’s ocean sovereignty and protect our marine resources.</p>
<p>This mission follows on from the successful development, launch and operation of two other nanosatellites: ZACUBE-1, known as <a href="https://www.sansa.org.za/2013/11/21/successful-launch-of-tshepiso-sat/">TshepisoSat</a>, and <a href="https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/v-w-x-y-z/zacube-2">ZACUBE-2’s</a>.</p>
<p>It’s an exciting moment not just for the institution and for South Africa, but for the African continent more broadly: this is the first constellation of satellites developed and designed in Africa. Other African countries, among them Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and Ghana, <a href="https://qz.com/africa/2051243/africa-joins-global-space-race-to-boost-connectivity-and-security/">have sent satellites into space</a>. But these were not developed and designed on the continent; they involved partnerships with non-African nations or companies.</p>
<p>This is important because the more countries and scientists are involved in space the better: this provides better collaborations and presents new technical techniques to process information. Different data can be used for all sorts of purposes, like tracking space weather and monitoring natural and marine resources. </p>
<h2>MDASat’s role</h2>
<p>The January 13 launch sent three satellites of the MDA constellation (we hope to launch nine in total as part of this constellation) into space. MDASat-1 will use Automatic Identification System data to monitor ships’ movements within South Africa’s exclusive economic zone. Automatic Identification System is a radio system used for the tracking of maritime traffic. The location messages received by the satellites from ships in the ocean beneath is downloaded daily from the satellite when it passes over the ground station at the university’s Bellville, Cape Town campus.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A device that looks like a computer tower with helicopter rotor blades attached to the top" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441037/original/file-20220117-19-dwci8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441037/original/file-20220117-19-dwci8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441037/original/file-20220117-19-dwci8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441037/original/file-20220117-19-dwci8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441037/original/file-20220117-19-dwci8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441037/original/file-20220117-19-dwci8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441037/original/file-20220117-19-dwci8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the nanosatellites that forms part of the MDASat constellation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cape Peninsula University of Technology</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The satellites can do a number of things. For instance, they can receive over the air upgrades, meaning software can be developed and uploaded to the orbiting satellite when ready. They can also collect raw data, enhancing the opportunity for diagnostic testing on signal interference and decoding messages. This information allows us to track the satellites’ health status – if they experience software bugs or electronic malfunctions we can study that information, then apply fixes or backup manoeuvres. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cool-cubes-are-changing-the-way-we-play-in-space-41621">Cool cubes are changing the way we play in space</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>MDASat also has an enhanced data interface. This means it uses the entire available bandwidth so it’s operating optimally and can put through maximum data.</p>
<p>These enhancements pave the way for the future MDASat-2’s development and launch. They also minimise the risk of damage to the current payload from space weather conditions.</p>
<p>Each satellite will initially pass the ground station an average of four times a day, but that will steadily increase. The satellites will drift apart over time and, as they eventually spread further apart, we will have an average of 12 passes per day. We expect an average of 1883k bytes of data to be generated per pass per satellite.</p>
<p>At the same time we are also still tracking the previously launched ZACUBE-2. It is also tracking ships, as well as forest and vegetation fires. Since its launch in 2018, ZACube-2 has provided cutting-edge very high frequency data exchange communication systems to the country’s maritime industry, as a contribution to <a href="https://www.operationphakisa.gov.za/Pages/Home.aspx">Operation Phakisa</a>. This government initiative aims to fast track several priority projects. </p>
<h2>Another African connection</h2>
<p>Space engineering projects started at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in 2008. Today these are coordinated by the institution’s <a href="https://blogs.cput.ac.za/fsati/">African Space Innovation Centre</a>.</p>
<p>We work from laboratories near the institution’s Bellville campus. Our satellites are built to last and to stay the course: they undergo a rigorous flight acceptance review that confirms not only that they’re fit to go into space but that they’ll work once they get there. The review includes environmental testing to ensure mechanical shocks don’t obliterate satellite and thermal testing to ensure they can operate within designated temperature ranges.</p>
<p>There was another South African element to the 13 January launch: MDASat was launched by <a href="https://www.spacex.com/">SpaceX</a>, the company founded by SA-born entrepreneur Elon Musk. SpaceX provides affordable ride share options into space and MDASat was just one project launched aboard the aerospace company’s Falcon 9 rocket on this occasion. The rocket carried a total of 105 spacecraft which will all gather data for different entities.</p>
<p>This project represents a big step towards autonomy of South Africa’s precious natural resources: data from and about the country, for its own use.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175069/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The MDASat constellation project received funding from the Department of Science and Innovation.</span></em></p>The nanosatellite constellation will detect, monitor and identify foreign vessels within the country’s maritime borders.Nyameko Royi, Acting Chief Engineer, MDASat constellation project, Cape Peninsula University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1664092021-08-23T00:36:08Z2021-08-23T00:36:08ZWe’re launching Western Australia’s first scratch-built satellite, and it’s a giant leap towards the Moon<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417185/original/file-20210820-27-egkifp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C416%2C3010%2C2625&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Curtin University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On August 28, a SpaceX rocket will blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, carrying supplies bound for the International Space Station. But also on board will be a small satellite that represents a giant leap into space for our research program here in Western Australia.</p>
<p>Our satellite, called <a href="https://www.binarspace.com/about-binar/">Binar-1</a> after the Noongar word for “fireball”, was designed and built from scratch by our team at Curtin University’s <a href="https://sstc.curtin.edu.au/">Space Science and Technology Centre</a>. </p>
<p>We chose this name for two reasons: to acknowledge the Wadjuk people of the Noongar Nation, and to recognise the relationship between our satellite program and Curtin’s <a href="https://dfn.gfo.rocks/">Desert Fireball Network</a>, which has successfully searched for meteorites in the Australian desert.</p>
<p>Binar-1 is a CubeSat — a type of small satellite made from <a href="https://www.cubesat.org/">10-centimetre cube-shaped modules</a>. Binar-1 consists of just one such module, meaning it’s technically a 1U CubeSat. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Binar-1 CubeSat" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417182/original/file-20210820-27-1h7jr2f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C2994&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417182/original/file-20210820-27-1h7jr2f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417182/original/file-20210820-27-1h7jr2f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417182/original/file-20210820-27-1h7jr2f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417182/original/file-20210820-27-1h7jr2f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417182/original/file-20210820-27-1h7jr2f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417182/original/file-20210820-27-1h7jr2f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Binar-1 satellite is a 10cm cube.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Curtin University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-do-meteorites-come-from-we-tracked-hundreds-of-fireballs-streaking-through-the-sky-to-find-out-160096">Where do meteorites come from? We tracked hundreds of fireballs streaking through the sky to find out</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Its main objective is to prove the technology works in space, thereby taking a first step towards future missions in which we hope ultimately to send CubeSats to the Moon. </p>
<p>Binar-1 is equipped with two cameras, with two objectives: first, to photograph Western Australia from space, thus testing the performance of our instruments and hopefully also capturing the imagination of young WA students; and second, to image stars. The star camera will precisely determine which way the satellite is facing — a crucial capability for any future Moon mission. </p>
<h2>Bespoke build</h2>
<p>Our centre is the largest planetary research group in the southern hemisphere, and we participate in space missions with agencies like NASA and the European and Japanese space agencies. To understand the various planets and other bodies in the Solar System, we need to build spacecraft to visit them. But for most of the space age, the costs of building and launching this technology have been a major barrier to participation for most nations.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the rise of consumer electronics has produced smart phones that are significantly more capable than Apollo-era computers. Combined with new launch options, the cost of launching a small satellite is now within reach of research groups and start-ups. As a result, the market for “COTS” (consumer off-the-shelf) satellite components has boomed over the past decade. </p>
<p>Like other Australian research groups, we began our journey into space with a specific mission in mind: to build instruments that can observe flaming meteors from orbit. But we quickly found the cost of buying the satellite hardware repeatedly for multiple missions would be huge. </p>
<p>But then we realised our research group had an advantage: we already had prior experience building space observatories for the remote outback, such as the Desert Fireball Network. This expertise gave us a head start in developing our own satellites from scratch.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Binar-1 researchers and equipment" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417188/original/file-20210820-21-11av6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417188/original/file-20210820-21-11av6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417188/original/file-20210820-21-11av6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417188/original/file-20210820-21-11av6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417188/original/file-20210820-21-11av6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417188/original/file-20210820-21-11av6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417188/original/file-20210820-21-11av6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Binar-1 team testing their satellite in a vacuum chamber.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Curtin University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Outback observatories and orbital satellites have a surprising amount in common. Both need to monitor the skies, and operate in harsh conditions. Both depend on solar power and have to function autonomously — in space, just like in the desert, nobody is out there to fix things on the fly. They both also experience intense vibration while travelling to their destination. It is up for debate whether rocket launches or corrugated outback roads make for a bumpier ride.</p>
<p>So in 2018, we set to work building a bespoke satellite. For the first two and half years, we made prototype circuit boards and tested them to their limits, refining our design with each version. The testing took place in our space environment lab where we have vacuum chambers, liquid nitrogen and shaker tables, to simulate the different space environments the satellite will experience.</p>
<p>Onboard the International Space Station astronauts will unload Binar-1 and deploy it from an airlock in the Japanese Kibo module. To begin with the satellite will maintain a similar orbit to the station, about 400 kilometres above Earth. At that altitude there is enough atmosphere to cause a tiny amount of drag that will eventually cause the satellite to fall into the thicker part of the atmosphere. </p>
<p>In the end it will become a fireball, like its namesake, and if we are extremely lucky we will catch images of it on one of our ground-based observatories. We expect this to happen after about 18 months, but this time frame can vary because of many factors, such as solar weather. For as long as we can, we will gather data to help refine future missions, and we have already begun to look at ways to collect data as the next satellites crash into the atmosphere.</p>
<h2>Jam-packed with cubesats</h2>
<p>Launching on the same rocket with Binar-1 will be <a href="https://www.cuava.com.au/projects/cuava-1/">CUAVA-1</a>, the first satellite built by the Australian Research Council’s CubeSat development program. But although the two satellites will share the same ride to space, their development paths have been completely different. </p>
<p>As was our original plan, the CUAVA team has focused on the development of instrument payloads, while buying navigation systems and other components from Dutch and Danish suppliers.</p>
<p>Our satellite was designed and built completely in-house, which means we can drive down costs by making multiple versions, while constantly testing and refining our hardware for future missions.</p>
<p>There are already six more 1U satellites scheduled in the Binar program, each representing a step towards our ultimate goal of a lunar mission.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Satellite testing equipment" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417190/original/file-20210820-13-ujzb7m.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417190/original/file-20210820-13-ujzb7m.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417190/original/file-20210820-13-ujzb7m.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417190/original/file-20210820-13-ujzb7m.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417190/original/file-20210820-13-ujzb7m.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417190/original/file-20210820-13-ujzb7m.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417190/original/file-20210820-13-ujzb7m.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Binar undergoing testing at the National Space Test Facility.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Curtin University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shooting for the Moon</h2>
<p>As part of the Australian government’s <a href="https://www.industry.gov.au/funding-and-incentives/moon-to-mars-opportunities-for-australian-businesses">Moon to Mars</a> initiative, we are carrying out a feasibility study for our Binar Prospector mission, which we hope will involve two six-unit CubeSats making close-up observations of the Moon while in low-altitude lunar orbit. </p>
<p>The earliest we expect this mission to launch is 2025, when NASA begins its commercial lunar payload service. There are multiple opportunities to launch CubeSats to the Moon by the end of this decade, so there will be plenty of options. Most of these questions are the subject of the feasibility study and are confidential at the moment. </p>
<p>Shooting for the Moon isn’t just scientifically fascinating — it will benefit Australia too. By developing completely home-grown technology, we can avoid relying on expensive imported components, meaning the Australian space industry can stand on its own two feet while reaching for the heavens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166409/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Hartig works for Curtin University as a researcher in the Space Science and Technology Centre.</span></em></p>The Binar-1 mission is the first in a series that will hopefully culminate in a mission to the Moon, with satellites developed using know-how gained from designing tough instruments for the WA outback.Ben Hartig, PhD Candidate, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1419772020-07-05T19:49:37Z2020-07-05T19:49:37ZWhy outer space matters in a post-pandemic world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345467/original/file-20200703-33939-1hk8d0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C1159%2C874&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Defence</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With all of the immense challenges we face on Earth this year, space can feel like an afterthought. </p>
<p>Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the hope of a growing space industry was palpable. Ribbons were cut, <a href="https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2020/australian-space-agency-unveils-adelaide-headquarters.html">buildings were dedicated</a> and Australia’s space industry was going to triple in size in just ten years. But a few weeks into March, Europe and then Australia were slowly grinding to a halt as the reality of COVID-19 set in. </p>
<p>Satellite images from ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission in space showed the extent to which the virus lockdown was affecting major cities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345457/original/file-20200703-33931-ebc44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345457/original/file-20200703-33931-ebc44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345457/original/file-20200703-33931-ebc44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345457/original/file-20200703-33931-ebc44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345457/original/file-20200703-33931-ebc44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345457/original/file-20200703-33931-ebc44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345457/original/file-20200703-33931-ebc44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345457/original/file-20200703-33931-ebc44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Air pollution plummeted as countries went into lockdown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-5P/Coronavirus_lockdown_leading_to_drop_in_pollution_across_Europe">ESA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Next came the dramatic global economic downturn that seemed certain to crush Australia’s space ambitions. Consultants began sending a flurry of email surveys to see how everyone in the industry was coping. How would this change the future of our nation’s newest dream? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-essential-reads-to-catch-up-on-australian-space-agency-news-108671">Ten essential reads to catch up on Australian Space Agency news</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Suddenly, space is everywhere</h2>
<p>Work in the space industry has always continued even under the most difficult circumstances. Missions take years to plan and launch. The global space industry has, out of necessity, always embraced uncertainty. Innovation will not stop. International cooperation is still strong. Missions are continuing. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345463/original/file-20200703-33943-llfw0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345463/original/file-20200703-33943-llfw0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345463/original/file-20200703-33943-llfw0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1175&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345463/original/file-20200703-33943-llfw0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1175&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345463/original/file-20200703-33943-llfw0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1175&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345463/original/file-20200703-33943-llfw0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345463/original/file-20200703-33943-llfw0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345463/original/file-20200703-33943-llfw0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first test flight of a Europa-1 first stage rocket, a repurposed British Blue Streak missile, from Woomera, Australia, 5 June 1964.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/Fifty_years_since_first_ELDO_launch">ESA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was just announced that the European Union is signing a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/eu-ramps-up-space-efforts-with-1bn-deal-20200629-p5576b.html">billion-euro agreement</a> with French global launch services company Arianespace, with the hope of injecting another 16 billion euros into the European space industry by 2027. This is big news for Australia’s space industry too. Our history with Arianespace goes back to its predecessor, which <a href="https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/Fifty_years_since_first_ELDO_launch">launched the Europa rocket</a> for the first time ever in South Australia in 1964. </p>
<p>NASA and SpaceX are <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-31/space-x-launches-astronauts-to-iss-from-nasa-pad/12304294">making headlines</a> for the first trip to the International Space Station in a commercially built and operated American spacecraft with astronauts on board. China’s space program is rapidly developing and an <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/24/china/china-mars-mission-intl-scli-scn/index.html">upcoming mission</a> could make it the second country to land and operate a spacecraft on Mars.</p>
<h2>Australia’s space capabilities</h2>
<p>In this multinational mix, Australia has much to offer. We are currently leaders in advanced and <a href="https://www.cqc2t.org/">quantum communication</a> that would make deep space communication possible, as well as creating unhackable communications on Earth. </p>
<p>Our government has taken steps to realise these opportunities through its first round of funding to accelerate the industry and galvanise the future of our space agency. </p>
<p>Ten strategic space projects <a href="https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/karenandrews/media-releases/11m-space-grants-boost-businesses-and-local-jobs">just received government funding</a> to help Australia build relationships with other international space agencies. In defence funding announcements last week, space was <a href="https://www.aumanufacturing.com.au/space-the-new-defence-spending-frontier">highlighted</a> as one of the five defence domains for a strong Australian Defence Force.</p>
<h2>A quick recovery</h2>
<p>We are now seeing some amazing post-COVID wins for Australia. Planet Innovation, a Melbourne-based company, was the <a href="https://medeng.jpl.nasa.gov/covid-19/ventilator/registration/">only Australian manufacturer</a> to be chosen by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to make an innovative COVID ventilator. More than 300 companies around the world applied for the opportunity. </p>
<p>SpaceX chief Elon Musk <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-18/elon-musk-names-incat-as-potential-launch-pad-builder/12368032">suggested</a> Hobart-based boat builder, Incat, could help build “floating, superheavy-class space ports for Mars, Moon and hypersonic travel around the Earth.” Fleet Space Technologies and Oz Minerals were <a href="https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/sa-business-journal/fleet-space-wins-share-of-29m-in-sa-mining-grants-to-boost-exploration/news-story/a43577a993f39154b53e9883ef2c2596">just awarded a grant</a> to use space technology in mineral exploration.</p>
<p>A few weeks ago, the Australian National University National Space Test Facility (NSTF) was the <a href="https://inspace.anu.edu.au/news/anu-reopens-space-testing">first non-COVID research facility</a> at the university to reopen. Its first project was testing a piece of space equipment created by Australian company Gilmour Space Technologies that will fly on an Australian space mission in 2022. </p>
<p>Next, the NSTF team performed testing for Fleet Space Technologies, who drove their components from Adelaide to Canberra as there were no connecting flights. The NSTF has been continuously testing other space components for Australian missions since it reopened. </p>
<p>These are all hard-won successes in the face of COVID, and they speak volumes about the promise of Australia’s space industry. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/spacexs-historic-launch-gives-australias-booming-space-industry-more-room-to-fly-139760">SpaceX's historic launch gives Australia's booming space industry more room to fly</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Space will help Australia recover</h2>
<p>Our space industry also enables others. Space technologies are transferrable to Earth-bound sectors such as health and mining, and the industry helps economic recovery because it operates at many scales from small research projects to large multi-disciplinary initiatives. </p>
<p>Our nation is set to give rise to bespoke satellites that are proprietary to Australia. We will have our own satellite constellations to address critical issues like <a href="https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/new-satellites-show-worrying-view-of-droughts-and-ice-loss">drought</a>, <a href="https://www.spatialsource.com.au/remote-sensing/smartsat-crc-launches-aquawatch-other-projects">water quality management</a> and <a href="https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/eyes-in-space-to-spot-bushfire-danger-zones">bushfires</a>.</p>
<p>Our innovation will protect our sovereignty, and global space industry titans like NASA can see our <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-mars-rover-detects-ancient-life-australia">promise</a> with missions like Artemis: Moon to Mars.</p>
<p>Australia’s space industry began in uncertainty, and – despite bushfires, pandemics and massive change – it will succeed under uncertainty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141977/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Anna Moore works for the Australian National University that hosts the National Space Test Facilities. ANU has received funding from UNSW-Canberra, the ACT state government, DSTG, and the New Zealand Space Agency to operate the NSTF.</span></em></p>Australia’s space industry is booming despite the impact of coronavirus.Anna Moore, Director of The Australian National University Institute for Space and the Advanced Instrumentation Technology Centre, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1382052020-05-12T19:47:10Z2020-05-12T19:47:10ZExperts solve the mystery of a giant X-shaped galaxy, with a monster black hole as its engine<p>A team of US and South African researchers has <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.02723">published</a> highly detailed images of the largest X-shaped “radio galaxy” ever discovered – PKS 2014-55.</p>
<p>Notably, they’ve helped resolve ongoing confusion about the galaxy’s unusual shape.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334265/original/file-20200512-175224-f1dbkn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334265/original/file-20200512-175224-f1dbkn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334265/original/file-20200512-175224-f1dbkn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334265/original/file-20200512-175224-f1dbkn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334265/original/file-20200512-175224-f1dbkn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=732&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334265/original/file-20200512-175224-f1dbkn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334265/original/file-20200512-175224-f1dbkn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334265/original/file-20200512-175224-f1dbkn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The MeerKAT image of the giant X-shaped radio galaxy PKS 2014-55.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of SARAO and Bill Cotton et al/Author provided (no reuse)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.sarao.ac.za/media-releases/south-africas-meerkat-solves-mystery-of-x-galaxies/">spectacular new images</a> were taken using the 64-antenna <a href="https://www.sarao.ac.za/science-engineering/meerkat/about-meerkat/">MeerKAT</a> telescope in South Africa, by an international research team led by Bill Cotton of the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory. </p>
<h2>Zooming in on a cosmic giant</h2>
<p>Our research team also took detailed images of galaxy PKS 2014-55 last year, as part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_Map_of_the_Universe">Evolutionary Map of the Universe project</a> led
by astrophysicist <a href="https://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/Ray.Norris/">Ray Norris</a>. We used CSIRO’s <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Astronomy/ASKAP-and-the-Square-Kilometre-Array/SKA">Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder</a> (ASKAP) telescope in Western Australia, which just completed its first set of pilot astronomical surveys. </p>
<p>Thanks to its innovative “radio cameras”, ASKAP can rapidly map very large areas of the sky to catalogue millions of objects emitting radio waves, from nearby supernova remnants to distant galaxies.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334287/original/file-20200512-175219-s8xxo0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334287/original/file-20200512-175219-s8xxo0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334287/original/file-20200512-175219-s8xxo0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334287/original/file-20200512-175219-s8xxo0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334287/original/file-20200512-175219-s8xxo0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334287/original/file-20200512-175219-s8xxo0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334287/original/file-20200512-175219-s8xxo0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Our ASKAP image of the giant X-shaped radio galaxy PKS 2014-55.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CSIRO and the EMU team/Author provided (no reuse).</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The prominent X-shape of PKS 2014-55 is made up of two pairs of <a href="https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2014/02/03/the-curious-lives-of-radio-galaxies-part-one/">giant lobes</a> consisting of hot jets of electrons. These jets spurt outwards from a <a href="https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/S/Supermassive+Black+Hole">supermassive black hole</a> at the galaxy’s heart.</p>
<p>The lobes emit electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio waves, which can only be detected by radio telescopes like <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Facilities/ATNF/ASKAP">ASKAP</a>. Humans can’t see radio waves. But if we could, from Earth PKS 2014-55 would look about the same size as the Moon.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-universe-looks-like-when-viewed-with-radio-eyes-66381">What the universe looks like when viewed with radio eyes</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What makes a radio galaxy?</h2>
<p>Typically, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_galaxy">radio galaxies</a> have only one pair of lobes. One is a “jet” and the other a “counter-jet”. </p>
<p>These jets expand into the surrounding space at nearly the speed of light. They initially move in a straight line, but twist and bend into many marvellous shapes as they encounter their surroundings. </p>
<p>Centaurus A, seen below, is an example of a giant elliptical galaxy with two prominent radio lobes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334245/original/file-20200512-66657-3w0228.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334245/original/file-20200512-66657-3w0228.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334245/original/file-20200512-66657-3w0228.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334245/original/file-20200512-66657-3w0228.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334245/original/file-20200512-66657-3w0228.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334245/original/file-20200512-66657-3w0228.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334245/original/file-20200512-66657-3w0228.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334245/original/file-20200512-66657-3w0228.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is an artist’s impression of the famous Centaurus A galaxy, which has two prominent radio lobes emerging from its central black hole.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/18199018792/in/photolist-tJbJf5-2dNEVuC-29htjhd-EEHmKy-rzqGTD-95Yds7-VWRqoY-9KgqiH-qLsNuo-2hREZpf-2i9UMm7-U7eWMd-2h9dNaZ-2hcZa9a-2gGzwWB-2g2YXPm-26Twqde-2iyBv3a-D2Jexx-2dYDFz5-HbrkoD-2iKYoeb-2ecFGiW-S9bNa5-2hn6G22-2i2DXQD-2icZgrT-2f7Tk25-YW3jMi-dyhNrD-tv7Viw-2ioaJLK-2cPDMFH-2iw39Y4-Nf1txG-wTUY9C-2hmvcEb-25jHWii-2hSYj8B-dxh7au-2iRWf2C-2iw2z2v-YW3DJX-PNyWWK-fue4yp-6JLH7w-2hUxAFv-7Hb1Zt-6Zfmp7-9KgqhX">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Galaxy PKS 2014-55’s <a href="https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2014/02/04/the-curious-lives-of-radio-galaxies-part-two/">giant X-shape</a>, with two pairs of lobes emerging at very different angles, is highly unusual. </p>
<h2>What makes the lobes?</h2>
<p>To understand why having two pairs of lobes is unusual, we first need to understand what creates the lobes.</p>
<p>Nearly all big galaxies have a supermassive black hole at their centre. </p>
<p>In an active galaxy, powerful jets of charged particles can emerge from the area around the supermassive black hole. Astronomers believe these are emitted from near the poles of the black hole, which is why there are two of them, and they usually point in opposite directions.</p>
<p>When the black hole’s activity stops, the jets stop growing and the material in them flows back towards the centre. Thus, what we see as one lobe of a radio galaxy is made up of both a jet spurting out, and the backflow material.</p>
<h2>A mystery solved</h2>
<p>In the past, there were two major theories for why PKS 2014-55 has two pairs of lobes. </p>
<p>The first suggested there were actually <em>two</em> massive active black holes at the galaxy’s centre, each emitting two <a href="https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2014/01/22/how-do-black-holes-form-jets/">powerful jets</a>. </p>
<p>The second theory suggested the supermassive black hole had undergone a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin-flip">spin flip</a>. This is when a rotating black hole’s spin axis has a sudden change in orientation, resulting in a second pair of jets at a different angle from the first pair.</p>
<p>But the recent observations from the South African MeerKAT telescope strongly suggest a third possibility: that the two larger lobes are the fast-moving particles zooming out from the black hole, while the two smaller lobes are the backflow looping around to fall back in.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334263/original/file-20200512-175262-bogw1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334263/original/file-20200512-175262-bogw1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334263/original/file-20200512-175262-bogw1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334263/original/file-20200512-175262-bogw1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334263/original/file-20200512-175262-bogw1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334263/original/file-20200512-175262-bogw1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334263/original/file-20200512-175262-bogw1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334263/original/file-20200512-175262-bogw1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory’s MeerKAT telescope array consists of 64 radio dishes (pictured). Computers combine signals from these antennas to synthesise a telescope eight kilometres in diameter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SARAO/Author provided (no reuse)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The MeerKAT team achieved high-resolution images ten times more sensitive than our ASKAP pilot observations conducted here in Australia last year. </p>
<h2>A cosmic wonder</h2>
<p>Using <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Facilities/ATNF/ASKAP">CSIRO’s ASKAP</a> telescope, our team observed the “purple butterfly” of PKS 2014-55 to be an enormous cosmic structure. It spans at least five million light years – about 20 times the size of our own Milky Way galaxy. </p>
<p>PKS 2014-55 is located on the outskirts of a massive cluster of galaxies known as Abell 3667. It was discovered more than 60 years ago using the <a href="https://www.atnf.csiro.au/news/newsletter/jun02/Flowering_of_Fleurs.htm">Mills Cross Telescope</a> at CSIRO’s old <a href="https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/heritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?id=2260832">Fleurs field station</a> in New South Wales. </p>
<p>The galaxy was first seen by <a href="https://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/rekers/">Ron Ekers</a> using the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/publications-of-the-astronomical-society-of-australia/article/parkes-interferometer/9EB4F096050C7F3A8020E3770444C1E7">Parkes Interferometer</a> in 1969.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brain-transplant-for-one-of-australias-top-telescopes-129138">A brain transplant for one of Australia's top telescopes</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>ASKAP</h2>
<p>The ASKAP telescope we used to capture PKS 2014-55 is an array of 36 radio dishes laid out in a pattern six kilometres in diameter. Together, the dishes make up a large radio telescope that uses Earth’s rotation to produce sharp images of astronomical sources near and far. </p>
<p>Each dish is 12m wide and <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Astronomy/ASKAP-and-the-Square-Kilometre-Array/PAFs">equipped</a> with new technologies developed by CSIRO and industry partners. ASKAP is a fast survey machine, taking radio images over very wide areas of the sky. Several surveys of the entire sky are expected to start next year.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333671/original/file-20200508-49546-110hle4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333671/original/file-20200508-49546-110hle4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333671/original/file-20200508-49546-110hle4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333671/original/file-20200508-49546-110hle4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333671/original/file-20200508-49546-110hle4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333671/original/file-20200508-49546-110hle4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333671/original/file-20200508-49546-110hle4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Australian Square Kilometre Array (ASKAP) radio telescope, located in the Murchison Shire in Western Australia.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p><em>We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji as the traditional owners of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory site.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138205/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Baerbel Koribalski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Like a cosmic butterfly in the sky, radio galaxy PKS 2014-55 was observed by CSIRO researchers with the Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope.Baerbel Koribalski, Senior research scientist, CSIROLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1120672019-05-23T00:39:05Z2019-05-23T00:39:05ZCurious Kids: how was the Earth made?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274810/original/file-20190516-69195-162c6fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C6%2C2041%2C2038&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Earth is really ancient, and humans have only been around for a tiny part of that time. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/1-bluemarble_west.jpg">NASA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/curious-kids-36782">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au You might also like the podcast <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/kidslisten/imagine-this/">Imagine This</a>, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.</em> </p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>How was the Earth made? - Audrey, age 5.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>More than <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6107/651">4,500,000,000 years ago</a> – before even the dinosaurs existed, before even the Earth existed – there was space.</p>
<p>And in one part of space, there was a huge collection of stars mixed in with massive clouds of gas and dust, that today we call the Milky Way galaxy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274794/original/file-20190516-69199-13uc9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274794/original/file-20190516-69199-13uc9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274794/original/file-20190516-69199-13uc9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274794/original/file-20190516-69199-13uc9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274794/original/file-20190516-69199-13uc9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274794/original/file-20190516-69199-13uc9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274794/original/file-20190516-69199-13uc9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274794/original/file-20190516-69199-13uc9qz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Milky Way is just one of many galaxies. This is Galaxy NGC 4414, a spiral galaxy just like our own Milky Way.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NGC_4414_(NASA-med).jpg">NASA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-the-milky-way-is-huge-but-just-how-huge-117023">Curious Kids: The Milky Way is huge. But just how huge?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In a small corner of that huge galaxy, in an area that would later become our solar system, there was a big cloud of gas that had been swirling around since the <a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-what-started-the-big-bang-79845">Big Bang</a>. There were also some dusty remains of an old star that had exploded long ago. </p>
<p>The gas and dust were floating, swirling and spinning past each other - but they were all quite far apart. But then… a nearby star exploded, in what we call a supernova.</p>
<p>This supernova sent a shockwave of light and energy rippling across space, pushing some of the gas and dust towards each other. This gas and dust soon became a ball, which started to get bigger and bigger because of gravity. </p>
<p>Gravity makes everything in the universe move towards everything else - and when things get really big (like, planet-size big), they start to pull all nearby things towards it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274806/original/file-20190516-69195-15ftlvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274806/original/file-20190516-69195-15ftlvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274806/original/file-20190516-69195-15ftlvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274806/original/file-20190516-69195-15ftlvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274806/original/file-20190516-69195-15ftlvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274806/original/file-20190516-69195-15ftlvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274806/original/file-20190516-69195-15ftlvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274806/original/file-20190516-69195-15ftlvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Eagle Nebula, filled with gas and dust, and currently the birthplace of lots of new stars.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eagle_nebula_pillars.jpg">Hubble Telescope/NASA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the ball of gas and dust got bigger, the gas and dust started to crush in on itself until something called a “nuclear reaction” happened right in the middle of the ball. A nuclear reaction is super powerful, and this particular one turned our Sun into a brilliantly shining star, throwing light across the rest of the gas and dust that was still spinning around it.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-has-nobody-found-any-life-outside-of-earth-105128">Curious Kids: why has nobody found any life outside of Earth?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Gas and dust started clumping together to form planets</h2>
<p>Some of those other swirling, twirling chunks of gas and dust (that hadn’t been sucked into the Sun) were bumping and clumping into each other. Soon, those clumps got big enough that gravity started pulling in all the other gas and dust around it, all while still going round and round the giant shining Sun. </p>
<p>Some of these twirling bits clumped together to make our Earth. Others clumped together to make Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – and all of their moons too.</p>
<p>All these baby planets swirled and spun, and pulled in all the nearby matter. They squished together to become super-tight big giant hot balls of spinning stuff. </p>
<p>Our own Earth was getting hit by rocks that were falling towards it. It kept getting bigger and hotter until it was a giant ball of melted rock. </p>
<p>Then, a <em>really</em> huge rock smashed into Earth and made it even bigger. And a little bit of <em>that</em> rock flew off and floated into space to make the Moon.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274809/original/file-20190516-69178-18t2acm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274809/original/file-20190516-69178-18t2acm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274809/original/file-20190516-69178-18t2acm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274809/original/file-20190516-69178-18t2acm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274809/original/file-20190516-69178-18t2acm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274809/original/file-20190516-69178-18t2acm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274809/original/file-20190516-69178-18t2acm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274809/original/file-20190516-69178-18t2acm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Early on, a big bit of rock hit Earth. And a little bit of it flew off and floated into space to make the Moon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/support-for-a-catastrophic-formation-of-the-moon/">NASA/JPL-CALTECH/T. PYLE</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-is-there-anything-hotter-than-the-sun-105748">Curious Kids: Is there anything hotter than the Sun?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>So the Earth was just out there floating in space, near the Sun. But it looked totally different to the Earth we live on today. There were volcanoes all over the place, with hot lava and gas everywhere. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274808/original/file-20190516-69174-1pteuj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274808/original/file-20190516-69174-1pteuj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274808/original/file-20190516-69174-1pteuj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274808/original/file-20190516-69174-1pteuj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274808/original/file-20190516-69174-1pteuj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274808/original/file-20190516-69174-1pteuj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274808/original/file-20190516-69174-1pteuj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274808/original/file-20190516-69174-1pteuj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artist’s impression of a hot planet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA15808">NASA/JPL-Caltech</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Cooling down</h2>
<p>But slowly over many years, Earth started to cool down. Some rocks full of ice and gas hit it and melted to make the sea. </p>
<p>This is continuing today - every year more than three tonnes of space rocks hit the Earth.</p>
<p>But slowly, over many years, the top layer of the Earth was cool enough to harden. This is the ground we walk on today. We call it the Earth’s crust, like a crust of bread. Deep down underground, the Earth is still full of melted hot rock. </p>
<p>And gradually, over a long time, plants started to grow, bugs started to live and life on Earth began to form (which is a whole story on its own).</p>
<p>Earth is really ancient, and humans have only been around for a tiny part of that. All the buildings and the cars and the restaurants, and the phones and even everything that’s inside of you… it all started with an exploding star, billions of years ago. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-what-existed-before-the-big-bang-did-something-have-to-be-there-to-go-boom-103742">Curious Kids: What existed before the Big Bang? Did something have to be there to go boom?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au</em></p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/168011/original/file-20170505-21620-huq4lj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Niraj Lal is a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, Director of First Principles Consulting, Senior Manager for Technology at Solar Victoria in the Victorian Government, and presenter of ABC Sciencey on iView. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Physics, Australian Science Communicators, IEEE, and the Australian Greens Party, and his consultancy has received funding from the ABC.</span></em></p>All the buildings and the cars and the restaurants, and the phones and even everything that’s inside of you… it all started with an exploding star, billions of years ago.Niraj Lal, Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1037052018-09-21T11:40:45Z2018-09-21T11:40:45ZThe Conversation: special preview film screening of First Man & space science Q&A<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237470/original/file-20180921-129865-r0gtis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">First Man: Neil Armstrong.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>==SOLD OUT==</p>
<p>We have an exclusive preview film screening for The Conversation readers of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/29/first-man-review-ryan-gosling-shoots-for-the-moon-in-neil-armstrong-biopic">First Man</a>, the story of Neil Armstrong’s mission to be the first person to walk on the moon. The screening is at 18:30 on Thursday September 27th at the Soho Hotel in central London, with a drinks reception from 18:00.</p>
<p>Directed by Damien Chazelle (La La Land, Whiplash), First Man (12A) stars Ryan Gosling and Emmy Award winner Claire Foy in a drama covering the decade in the lead up to the first manned Apollo 11 mission to the moon and the intense and nail-biting physical and emotional challenges faced by early astronauts.</p>
<p>The Universal screening will include a drinks reception and Q&A hosted by Conversation science editor, Miriam Frankel, with leading UK space scientist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/monica-grady-125306">Monica Grady</a>, space plasma scientist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/martin-archer-232541">Martin Archer</a>, and psychologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jennifer-wild-94615">Jennifer Wild</a>, an expert on stress and memories, on some of the themes and issues raised by the film.</p>
<p>The event is free and the screening is an opportunity for you to see the film before it lands in UK cinemas – and to put your questions to the panel about space exploration then and now, and how humans perform in extreme circumstances.</p>
<p>First Man is officially released on October 12th 2018.</p>
<p><em>As not everyone who asks for tickets uses them we send out a few more tickets than there are places. This means that admission is on a first come first served basis and is not guaranteed.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The screening will include a Q&A hosted by Conversation science editor, Miriam Frankel, with leading UK space scientist Monica Grady, space plasma scientist Martin Archer, and psychologist Jennifer Wild.Jo Adetunji, EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/663012016-09-30T05:09:13Z2016-09-30T05:09:13ZSwansong for Rosetta as it lands on the duck-shaped comet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139856/original/image-20160930-9905-za3e08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Artist's impression of Rosetta's descent.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ESA</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been an epic journey, much more than 12 years in the making, but Rosetta is just about to <a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Rosetta_finale_set_for_30_September">go out in a blaze of glory.</a> The final commands were uploaded to the spacecraft mid-morning on September 29 – and now there is no going back. Rosetta is programmed to touch down on comet 67P sometime in the late morning of September 30. </p>
<p>It is not a suicide crash, as some have described the manoeuvre, but should (we all hope) be a graceful, slow-motion glide onto the comet’s surface. </p>
<p>So what has been achieved by this mission? What do we know now that we didn’t know before? For a start, a new discipline has been invented: cometary morphology – the study of a comet’s surface. The images sent back, first by the navigation cameras and then by the <a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Ride_along_with_Rosetta_through_the_eyes_of_OSIRIS">higher resolution Osiris instrument</a>, have been unbelievable. Take a black and white picture of a dried up river bed, or the layers of rock exposed in the walls of a narrow, steep-sided canyon on Earth, and compare them with <a href="https://planetgate.mps.mpg.de:8114/Image_of_the_Day/public/OSIRIS_IofD_2016-07-22.html">some of the landscapes we have seen on 67P</a>, and you could be looking at the same features. </p>
<p>But we know that rivers have never carved their way across the surface of a comet, or sediments laid down in shallow seas. So how do we interpret these landscapes if we do not understand the processes that have caused them?</p>
<p>There have been other discoveries, too. Scientists analysing the data from the comet discovered <a href="https://theconversation.com/building-blocks-of-life-found-among-organic-compounds-on-comet-67p-what-philae-discoveries-mean-45379">molecules that can form sugars and amino acids</a> – which are the building blocks of life as we know it. Another paper unveiled the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rosetta-scientists-unveil-the-source-of-ice-and-dust-jets-on-comet-67p-48122">source of ice and dust jets</a> on the comet.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139858/original/image-20160930-9894-jvuany.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139858/original/image-20160930-9894-jvuany.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139858/original/image-20160930-9894-jvuany.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139858/original/image-20160930-9894-jvuany.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139858/original/image-20160930-9894-jvuany.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139858/original/image-20160930-9894-jvuany.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139858/original/image-20160930-9894-jvuany.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Close up view of the comet as Rosetta is coming down to surface.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ESA</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, perhaps the most spectacular achievement of the Rosetta mission was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-at-work-from-rosetta-mission-control-as-philae-lands-34152">landing of Philae</a> on the surface of 67P. Although the lander bounced a couple of times before finally coming to rest on its side, in the dark, under a cliff – rather than in the middle of a flat, open, sunlit plain – the instruments on-board Philae managed to achieve <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-philae-did-in-its-60-hours-on-comet-67p-34289">almost all the planned science goals.</a> Those that were not completed required specimens to be retrieved by the drill – which was not possible, given that Philae was not upright. </p>
<p>More than a year ago, the Philae teams were resigned to the idea that their direct involvement in the Rosetta mission was over and that the lander was <a href="https://theconversation.com/farewell-to-philae-54676">consigned to eternal hibernation</a>. But, at the beginning of September, months of close and careful investigation of images of 67P’s surface paid off and <a href="https://theconversation.com/philae-has-been-found-heres-why-its-important-64978">Philae’s resting place was discovered</a>. </p>
<p>The delight of the instrument teams was not merely an emotional response to locating the missing lander – finding Philae has enabled additional information to be recovered from data acquired by the lander’s instruments, as the physical context in which the data were gathered is now known. This will enable a more complete interpretation of structural and environmental data, which had been recorded without knowing the conditions under which they were collected.</p>
<h2>Dangerous mission</h2>
<p>Rosetta’s sojourn close to the cometary nucleus has not been without peril – <a href="https://theconversation.com/that-sinking-feeling-could-cavities-on-comet-pose-yet-another-risk-to-philae-44155">sudden jets from the pits described as “goosebumps”</a> released bursts of gas and dust which, on several occasions, confused Rosetta. This was because the spacecraft navigated by the stars – and a cloud of dust grains reflecting sunlight bears a close resemblance to a star field of many thousands of stars, resulting in sending Rosetta’s star tracker astray.</p>
<p>Each time this happened, Rosetta might have crashed into 67P, or sent itself flying off into the deep unknown – but each time, swift response by engineers back on Earth were able to rescue the craft from the brink of danger. </p>
<p>During its closest approach to the sun, Rosetta wove a convoluted path around the comet – sometimes nearer, sometimes further away, depending on surface activity. This behaviour ensured that there was always at least one very happy instrument team – and one very irritated one. This is because some of the scientists are interested in dust, so are happy to see it. To other teams, however, dust gets in the way of images, and is a concern for navigation.</p>
<p>Downloading and reducing results from Rosetta and Philae’s instruments is well underway and <a href="https://theconversation.com/rosetta-will-teach-us-more-about-comets-than-we-have-learnt-in-50-years-30295">efforts are in progress</a> to interpret the data and understand their significance. But it will be some time yet before we manage to integrate all the findings into updated models of solar system formation. Maybe we will have got it finished before the next cometary mission launches?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Grady works for the Open University and receives funding from the STFC and the EU's Horizon 2020 programme. She is a Trustee of Lunar Mission One, and a Co-I of the EURO-CARES project</span></em></p>It has been an epic journey, much more than 12 years in the making, but Rosetta is just about to go out in a blaze of glory. The final commands were uploaded to the spacecraft mid-morning on September…Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/341002014-11-12T13:21:10Z2014-11-12T13:21:10ZEverything you need to know about cometary exploration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64381/original/pcjwhmqj-1415797020.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jumping off a spacecraft.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/02/Philae_descent">ESA/ATG medialab</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Exciting as it is (and it is incredibly exciting), the Rosetta mission is the latest in a history of comet exploration that has added to our knowledge of these icy dirtballs. </p>
<p>Comets are usually just a few kilometres across and consist of a mixture of ice, carbon-based material and rock dust. A comet can develop a spectacular million kilometre-long tail of gas and dust when its elongated orbit brings it close to the sun. </p>
<p>The warmth of the sun vaporises water, carbon monoxide and other volatile substances that are otherwise held as ice. Jets of gas escape from the solid part of the comet (its nucleus) to feed the growing tail. However, for most of the time a comet is far from the sun, and it is simply a dark, dusty object too faint to detect using even the largest telescopes.</p>
<p>It is hoped that access to a comet will provide a pristine, deep-frozen sample of the material from which the planets were built. Comets have been hitting the Earth since the Earth was formed. We currently do not know what fraction of Earth’s ocean water was delivered to the surface by comets after the Earth was formed, as opposed to water which escaped from inside and condensed on the early Earth. </p>
<p>Comets also carry organic molecules – and one theory has it that these building blocks for life on Earth were delivered by comets rather than forming here. Recent <a href="http://www.astronomy.com/news/videos/2014/08/alma-confirms-comets-forge-organic-molecules-in-their-dusty-atmospheres">observations by the ALMA telescope</a> in Chile revealed very simple organic molecules – two sorts of hydrogen cyanide and also formaldehyde – being made in comets today.</p>
<h2>Missions to comets</h2>
<p>Small wonder, then, that comets have been the targets of several space missions. To date, eight comets have been visited over the course of ten successful missions. In 1982, a probe called <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/content/isee-3-an-old-friend-comes-to-visit-earth/">ISEE-3</a>, which had already been in space for four years, was renamed International Cometary Explorer (ICE) and re-tasked to fly past comet Giacobini-Zinner, at a minimum distance of 7,862km. The probe had no cameras on board, but other sensors gathered data on the interplay between the solar wind and the comet’s atmosphere. ICE subsequently joined a fleet of two Soviet, two Japanese and one European Space Agency probe that studied Halley’s comet in 1986. ESA’s mission, <a href="http://sci.esa.int/giotto/">Giotto</a>, was the best equipped. It got to within nearly 600km, and sent back the first close-up pictures of a comet’s nucleus.</p>
<iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="480" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/ITS_Impact.gif"></iframe>
<p>The most spectacular mission before Rosetta was NASA’s Deep Impact, which in 2005 dropped an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_%28spacecraft%29#mediaviewer/File:ITS_Impact.gif">impactor</a> into the nucleus of comet Tempel 1, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_%28spacecraft%29#mediaviewer/File:121520main_HRI-Movie.gif">while the mother-ship watched</a>. The impact excavated more dust and less ice than had been expected. Another surprise was that much of this material was clays and carbonates, which usually require liquid water for their formation.</p>
<p>Only one mission has brought back samples from a comet. This was NASA’s <a href="http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html">Stardust</a>, which in 2003 collected dust that was escaping from comet Wild 2. The sample return capsule made it back in 2006 and included grains that seemed to have formed at high temperatures in the inner solar system before heading out to the cold comet-forming region, as well as traces of an amino acid – glycine – adding weight to the idea that comets could be source of the building blocks of life. Remarkably, the Stardust mother-ship was redirected to Tempel 1, the only comet to have been visited on two different occasions. In 2011 sent back pictures of the crater that had been made by Deep Impact’s impactor.</p>
<h2>Rosetta images</h2>
<p>It is early days for <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/science/research/rosetta/mission/objectives">Rosetta</a>, and the team have yet to release more than a few images and other data from the main instruments. However <a href="http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/11/top-10-at-10-km/">navigation camera images</a> reveal a startling landscape in far greater detail than has previously been achieved. There are boulders up to several metres in size, patchily distributed across the surface.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64295/original/y4839qtk-1415723670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C945%2C604&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64295/original/y4839qtk-1415723670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64295/original/y4839qtk-1415723670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64295/original/y4839qtk-1415723670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64295/original/y4839qtk-1415723670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64295/original/y4839qtk-1415723670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64295/original/y4839qtk-1415723670.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A view from Rosetta’s navigation camera on 26 October, about 8 km above the comet’s surface, from which range the field of view is less than 1 km across.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ESA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Are they pure ice? Dust cemented by ice? Will the apparently smooth areas turn out to be just as rugged on a smaller scale when the Philae lander gets close enough to see finer detail? What are the exposed layers that can be seen in some areas, and how did they form? And how is all this compatible with the extremely low-bulk density of the comet, which Rosetta’s orbit and shape-mapping have revealed to be only about 40% the density of solid ice? The interior must be porous, but there’s precious little sign of that at the surface.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34100/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Rothery works for the Open University, and several of his colleagues (but not himself) work on the Rosetta project. He receives funding from the UK Space Agency and the Science & Technology Facilites Council.</span></em></p>Exciting as it is (and it is incredibly exciting), the Rosetta mission is the latest in a history of comet exploration that has added to our knowledge of these icy dirtballs. Comets are usually just a…David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/341162014-11-12T06:30:44Z2014-11-12T06:30:44ZVideo: the amazing Rosetta spacecraft and Philae lander<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64351/original/54zj9422-1415775151.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Conquering a comet.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/02/Philae_separation">ESA/ATG medialab</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rosetta is a first-class mission, because it is a mission of firsts. First to fly-by asteroid Steins, a rare metal-poor asteroid. First to travel past asteroid Lutetia, which might be related to a class of rare, metal-rich meteorites. First to attempt to detect an atmosphere on an asteroid. First to catch up to a comet and travel alongside it. First to listen to the plasma “wind” from a comet. First to orbit a comet. First to capture high resolution images of the surface of a comet. First to see the boulders, canyons and cliffs that cover the surface of the oddest-shaped comet yet observed. </p>
<p>These are what the mission has achieved so far. Still to come, we hope: the first mission to travel with a comet as it develops its tails. The first mission to travel around the sun with a comet. The first mission to observe a comet returning to dormancy. And of course, the Rosetta mission is the first in which there will be an attempt to land on the nucleus of a comet. Not just land there, but stay there, sample the comet and analyse its water and dust, checking for the building blocks of life. </p>
<p><em>In the video below, space scientist Monica Grady, a member of the Rosetta mission’s science team, talks to science editor Akshat Rathi about humanity’s fascination with these dirty iceballs and explains how Rosetta hopes to answer some of the most fundamental questions about life on Earth.</em></p>
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<p><strong>So, Monica, humans have been fascinated by comets for a very long time. Can you tell me more about it?</strong></p>
<p>Ever since the Chinese astronomers from 2,000 years ago observed the night sky, comets have been harbingers of doom and disaster. There is a picture of a comet in the Bayeux apestry which commemorates the Battle of Hastings from 1066. There are pictures of comets in one of Giotto’s famous pictures. There’s connections, or connections have been made, between comets and the Star of Bethlehem; between comets and battles, disasters, the birth of kings, the death of kings. All this is in sorts of history, mythology and religion going on for thousands and thousands of years.</p>
<p>Edmund Halley predicted that comets came into and out of the solar system and in regular orbits and there is a comet which takes his name, Halley’s Comet, which comes round every 76 years.</p>
<p>One of the most famous of cometary scientists was somebody called Fred Whipple, who described them as “dirty snowballs”, the idea that they were a mixture of rock and snow. Now we call them more like “icy dirtballs”. It’s actually more dust there than there is ice.</p>
<p><strong>What about scientific explorations of comets?</strong></p>
<p>There have been several space missions to comets. The first one was the Giotto mission of 1985. That was a European Space Agency mission and it went to Halley’s Comet and it flew past the cometary nucleus and took the first picture that we have of a comet’s nucleus. But it just went straight past. But that mission sowed the seeds of the Rosetta Mission.</p>
<p>There have been two other missions to comets: there’s been the Stardust Mission, which was a NASA mission which went through the tail of a comet and collected material from the comet’s tail and brought it back to the Earth.</p>
<p>And then, there was Deep Impact which was a NASA mission where a comet ran into a copper projectile. So, NASA let go this great, big copper thing and the comet ran into it. What Deep Impact did was it excavated a big crater in the side of the comet and we could observe the interior of a comet for the first time. So we could see what actually happened when the impact evaporated the ice and release a lot of the dust and we could see what was deeper down.</p>
<p>The Stardust Mission brought back a bit of Comet Wild 2. But it only brought back solid material. It didn’t bring back any gas and it didn’t bring back any ice. And of the solid material that came back, it’s a bit difficult to disentangle some of the data for the organic compounds because of the way the material was collected.</p>
<p><strong>Why was 67P – and I can never pronounce its full name – chosen as the target comet and not the many billions out there?</strong></p>
<p>Comet 67P is also known as Churyumov–Gerasimenko, which is a bit of a tongue-twister. It’s named after two astronomers Churyumov and Gerasimenko, who observed it first. It’s a comet which is part of the inner solar system so it travels round partly under the influence of Jupiter but, of course, mainly under the influence of the sun. The reason it was chosen is because its orbit is in the plane of the solar system. So all the planets, the Earth, orbit the sun, right? Now some comets have really inclined orbits and that makes it very difficult to track them. So, Comet C-G has got this orbit, which is more or less what we call the plane of the ecliptic so we could track it relatively easily.</p>
<p><strong>People assume that comets come from the outer edges of the solar system. But 67P is different. What about it is different?</strong></p>
<p>There are two big groups or classes of comets: there are the long-period comets and the short-period comets. </p>
<p>The long-period comets are ones which live at the outermost fringes of the solar system. They inhabit a region called the Oort Cloud, which nobody’s ever seen or observed but we believe it’s there because when you observe the paths, the orbits, of some comets, especially the ones that are really steeply inclined, they always go out to this region, which is about 50,000 times as far away from the sun as the Earth is. So, these are the really long-period comets. They only might come in and out of the solar system every three or five thousand years. </p>
<p>The short-period comets are ones that used to be long-period comets but they’ve been grabbed by Jupiter or they’ve been scattered inwards by some events, perhaps the passage of a nearby star or something like that. That is why Halley’s Comet comes round every 76 years. The difference between the two types of comets is the length of their orbits and the length of time they stay within the solar system.</p>
<p><strong>From when the planning began, to the actual comet landing, it has taken 20 years. Why did it take so long?</strong></p>
<p>The Rosetta mission has been a long time in the planning. The roots of its mission was in the success of the Giotto mission from 1985 to 1986. Once the results had come back, it was, hey, we’ve learnt a lot about comets but there’s even more we need to know. So, planning started more or less then. </p>
<p>But there aren’t that many space missions. You’ve got to wait your turn in the queue for one thing. You’ve got to have an excellent science case so that the European Space Agency will accept that there is really interesting work to be done. You’ve got to get the science team together, you’ve got to persuade the politicians of the different countries. So all that took from say 1986 to 1996. </p>
<p>Then you’ve got to build the instruments and when you have built your instruments you have to deliver it to the rocket for it to be launched. Now, usually an instrument has to be delivered, maybe one, maximum of two years, prior to launch, where they’re all integrated because you know, the Brits have built this one and the French have built that one and the Germans have built that one, and the Italians have built that one and you’ve got to make sure that all the plugs and sockets all fit together and that they all communicate with each other and that, you know, if you switch this one on, it doesn’t fuse that one … That sort of thing, so integration takes a lot of time. So, you’re allowed two years for integration and so Rosetta was integrated, it was delivered almost to the rocket. </p>
<p>Unfortunately what then happened was that the launch previous to the one Rosetta was going to go on exploded on takeoff. That was the mission which was going to launch the Cluster mission. And that put everything back another two years because there had to an investigation into the explosion of Cluster so it’s actually taken two years longer than it should have done. </p>
<p>It took all that time to actually get into the launchpad but didn’t mean that we were really to actually start taking any data. The mission had to be launched and it doesn’t just go from Earth to comet, it had to go twice around the Earth and once around Mars. But to build up enough speed and thrust so that it start to get on the right trajectory so that it would catch up with the comet. So that’s what it did, it took nearly ten years to actually catch up with the comet. </p>
<p>For the first eight years, it was doing tests, it passed a couple of asteroids and took some measurements. For the last two of those years, it was asleep. It rested, saved its batteries and it woke up in January of this year. In August of this year, it actually caught up with the comet and between August and November, it has been doing a whole load of manoeuvres to bring it closer and closer into the comet so now it’s only a few kilometres away from the comet’s surface.</p>
<p><strong>The mission’s objectives are to understand more about the origin and the evolution of our solar system. That is a big goal. What have you achieved so far?</strong></p>
<p>The aims of the Rosetta mission are very grand: it’s to understand the origin and evolution of the solar system by looking at primitive material that was formed when the solar system was formed. It’s going to look at the water and the carbon and the organics to see how they relate to the water and the organics on Earth, and to life on Earth.</p>
<p>Now, the main part of that scientific investigation will take place when the Philae lander actually arrives on the comet’s surface. But till now, we’ve been doing a lot of science. Obviously, we’ve had the fantastic images of the comet’s nucleus, we know its temperature, we know its density, we know its angular momentum, we know its spin speed, we’ve got some idea of the differences in composition of the surface of the comet. And so, there’s been a lot of information so far about the comet itself taken remotely from the instruments actually on the Rosetta spacecraft.</p>
<p><strong>If the comet landing succeeds, what are the realistic expectations?</strong></p>
<p>Assuming that Philae lands successfully on the surface of the comet, what the instruments on board will do is drill a small amount of material from the surface and the sub-surface regions of the comet and this will be brought up and placed in the ovens on the comet, where they will be heated up and melted and then eventually burned. The melting will melt the ice, so that we get an idea of what gases are trapped in the ice, we’ll get an idea of the composition of the ice – its hydrogen and its oxygen – and then we’ll get an idea of the composition of the more solid material. How much carbon there is there? How much sulphur?</p>
<p><strong>Can Rosetta give us a definitive answer to whether water of Earth came from the water on comets?</strong></p>
<p>One of the aims of the Rosetta mission is to see what the relationship is between the water in the comet and water on the Earth. Now assuming they all formed in the same place at the same time, they should be the same. But when the Earth formed, it got very, very hot. Its surface was completely molten and it is assumed that it lost practically all of its water. And so when the Earth cooled down and after the moon had formed, the Earth would have been quite a dry planet. What we want to see is how much of its water it managed to retain in the early times when it was molten and how much has been added subsequently by bodies like comets.</p>
<p><strong>The mission is to end in late 2015 when the comet comes close to the sun. Do you think Philae will survive? And what about Rosetta?</strong></p>
<p>The comet keeps going. It’s going to get close to the sun and then it’s going to go round the sun and then it’s going to come back out again. As it goes on that journey, it will develop a huge big tail as more and more of the ice from the surface of the cometary nucleus sublimes.</p>
<p>Now, it’s very unlikely that Philae will actually survive the growth of those tails because these are very strong jets of gas. These will be coming up as geysers and if one comes up just underneath where Philae is then it won’t survive for very long. However the Rosetta mother-craft will be flying alongside the comet, it will watch as the tail develops, it will go with the comet as it swings round the sun and then continue to track Comet C-G as the tail then decays away. So, Rosetta is planned to actually survive the tail formation but sadly Philae isn’t. But it might do, you never know.</p>
<p><strong>What about applications on Earth for the technologies that have been developed to build Rosetta?</strong></p>
<p>One of the really great things about being involved with a space mission is that you do lots of experiments first in the laboratory using huge, great, big pieces of equipment. And then the real challenge is to shrink down those bits of equipment into instruments that don’t weigh very much, and don’t need much power. Colleagues at the Open University have done that successfully. </p>
<p>They’ve taken a piece of equipment, which is the size of a room, they’ve shrunk it down to something which is about the size of a shoe box – and that’s the Ptolemy instrument which is on board of the Philae lander. This is great, it’s going to go and sniff the comet, it’s going to measure the gas and the dust in the comet and we’ll learn about the formation of the early solar system, which is fantastic for planetary scientists.</p>
<p>What the taxpayer does benefit from though is that we can take the know-how that we’ve got from taking something very big and making it very small – we’ve made it portable. And it’s something which can test for volatile compounds and so we can use that it all sorts of applications: you can use it on submarines to test their quality; you can use it out in field hospitals to test for disease; you can put it on an orbiting satellite going round the Earth to look at carbon dioxide emissions from forests and so on. As soon as you’ve built something small and portable then you can do all sorts of things with it. And that is where a lot of the value of space research comes in to.</p>
<p>For the scientist, it’s valuable to do research. But for the taxpayer, we also get that additional spin-off as well.</p>
<p><strong>What next for cometary exploration after Rosetta?</strong></p>
<p>The Rosetta mission has been very ambitious. But it’s limited. It’s sending something to the comet – and making very sophisticated measurements using very sophisticated instruments – but it’s a sort of one-shot. What we really need to do is to be able to repeat these things to much more sophisticated experiments that we can do, that we couldn’t do ten, 15 years ago when the mission was being planned. What we really need to do, what we want to do, is bring some of that comet nucleus back to the Earth. That, I think, would be the next step in the age of cometary exploration: planning a comet nucleus sample return mission.</p>
<p><strong>That would be great, and I hope that happens in my lifetime. Thank you so much for your time today, Monica.</strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Grady receives funding from the STFC and the AHRC</span></em></p>Rosetta is a first-class mission, because it is a mission of firsts. First to fly-by asteroid Steins, a rare metal-poor asteroid. First to travel past asteroid Lutetia, which might be related to a class…Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/340372014-11-11T20:44:21Z2014-11-11T20:44:21ZExplainer: why Rosetta comet mission is such a big deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64255/original/hrbxhst2-1415706975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Firing harpoons in space.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/11/How_Philae_lands_on_the_comet">ESA/ATG medialab</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first attempted landing on the surface of a comet is a huge landmark in the history of space exploration that will not only uncover further details about comets but could unlock further clues about the origins of our solar system and the development of life on Earth.</p>
<p>Comets are the icy remnants of the phase of planet building in our solar system, some 4.5 billion years ago. Thousands of them have been seen orbiting our sun and hundreds have been studied by Earth-based astronomers. From these measurements we know that a <a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Rosetta/Comets_-_an_introduction">large proportion of a comet is made of water-ice</a>. This turns to vapour when heated by the sun, producing a transient atmosphere around the comet together with microscopic “dust” particles, eventually flowing into the the tails for which they are so well known.</p>
<p>Not only are comets fascinating bodies in their own right, they may also be the original source of much of the water on our planet. Many lines of research point to a hot, dry Earth in the early days of the solar system. While it is possible that some water was released from the Earth’s interior at this time, the suspicion has always been that comets delivered the rest when crashing into Earth.</p>
<h2>Visiting a comet</h2>
<p>We have been afforded a clearer picture of the composition and physical evolution of comets since 1986 when the European Space Agency (ESA) sent the Giotto spacecraft to study <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/252831/Halleys-Comet">Halley’s Comet</a>. Several others have followed, but all have only provided fleeting glimpses. Now the robotic Rosetta spacecraft is carrying out the first proper rendezvous with a comet.</p>
<p>Rosetta launched in 2004 and completed three fly-bys of Earth and one of Mars en route to its destination. On August 6 this year it matched trajectories with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and arrived within 100km of the icy nucleus. Since then European and American scientists have analysed the 2.5 mile-long body via optical and infra-red imaging, and sampled the gas and small solid particles – comet dust – being released from its surface. The onboard spectrographs, mass-spectrometers, microscopes and plasma sensors have been used to characterise the nucleus of the comet and the material it is already releasing while still more than 250m miles from the sun.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
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<span class="caption">Philae’s first science sequence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/11/Philae_s_first_science_sequence">ESA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Landing on a comet</h2>
<p>Once the attached Philae lander is released, it will spend seven hours slowly descending to the surface. Philae has its own suite of instruments and cameras which will enable it to fully characterise the surface environment of a comet for the first time. The isotopic, molecular and structural properties of a 4.5 billion-year-old time capsule will be freshly revealed.</p>
<p>Philae is an engineering marvel in itself – the gravity on the comet’s surface is so weak that an astronaut could easily jump up and escape from its gravitational pull. To make matters more complicated, the structure of the surface is relatively unknown. So how do you make sure a lander sticks to the surface and doesn’t bounce back into space?</p>
<p>For Philae, the answer comes in the form of two harpoons, ice screws on its three landing legs, and a small thruster to hold it down. Plus, given the surprisingly rugged surface of the comet as photographed by the Rosetta spacecraft, a few crossed fingers back at mission control.</p>
<p>Assuming success, Rosetta and Philae will spend the coming months refining their measurements at comet 67P and showing us for the first time how these bodies evolve and erode as they approach the sun. Central to this will be studies of the comet led by Ian Wright at the Open University.</p>
<p>By the time comet is closest to the sun next August, Philae will almost certainly be dead. Rosetta is due to stay with the comet until at least December 2015 – but right now, a scientific treasure trove awaits.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Fitzsimmons receives funding from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council and the Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>The first attempted landing on the surface of a comet is a huge landmark in the history of space exploration that will not only uncover further details about comets but could unlock further clues about…Alan Fitzsimmons, Professor, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/264812014-05-08T22:32:28Z2014-05-08T22:32:28ZColin Pillinger was not one to compromise or toe the line<p>Almost all of the reflections and eulogies of Colin Pillinger, who passed away on May 8, will focus on his role in the Beagle 2 space mission to Mars. But this only occupied a small part of his career, lasting about five years from start to finish. What is perhaps surprising, and something most people don’t know, is that his work on Beagle 2 was the result of a chance set of circumstances. Colin wasn’t a man to waste such an opportunity. </p>
<p>So how did he arrive at the <a href="http://beagle2.open.ac.uk/index.htm">Beagle 2</a> starting gate? By background he was an organic chemist who was in the right place at the right time to study Apollo 11 lunar samples returned to Earth in 1969. This was no ordinary challenge – dedicated laboratories had to be set up, levels of cleanliness and contamination control had to rise to new heights and new methods of sample handling had to be devised. There was only one problem: the returned samples didn’t contain any organic (carbon and hydrogen containing) compounds. </p>
<p>Lunar samples had <a href="http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_11/samples/">many interesting secrets</a> to divulge. Thousands of people have worked on them for all kinds of different reasons and they are still being studied actively today. For Colin in the early 1970s the challenge was to study what little carbon, which was not organic because it didn’t have any hydrogen in them, was present in the samples. This required a completely new set of analytical approaches. </p>
<p>The moon may seem a simple celestial body, but it isn’t. The material at the very surface (the “regolith”) presented seemingly intractable problems for interpretation. Some of these still exist today and look increasingly likely to remain unresolved until further exploration missions are undertaken. This is something that continued to drive Colin right up until the end; he desperately wanted a return to the moon.</p>
<h2>Moving home</h2>
<p>We met Colin as PhD students at the University of Cambridge. Colin didn’t have a tenured position at Cambridge being effectively a postdoc. It was clear that his uncompromising attitude to almost everything didn’t exactly align with the ethos of one of the UK’s oldest educational establishments. </p>
<p>During his search for a more secure future he happened upon a possible opportunity at the Open University (at the time, one of the youngest educational establishments). This would require moving his operation and his foot soldiers, like us PhD students. </p>
<p>However, it also gave us an opportunity to set up a world-class analytical facility. And soon the research group began to grow in size. And, scientifically, the work started at Cambridge changed gear over the following few years. These resulted in a raft of seminal papers in areas such as martian weathering, deep-Earth processes, atmospheric science and pre-solar grains.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/relief-as-rosetta-wakes-up-but-still-we-hold-our-breath-22137">Then came Rosetta</a>, the space probe that is currently on its way to land on a comet. It gave us the chance to start building space hardware. But a project with a 20-year projected lifetime wasn’t something that ultimately appealed to Colin. And so this is where some of the work we had been doing on martian meteorites began to start Colin thinking about attempting to replicate the measurements on Mars itself (since, in principle, a mission to Mars could be done in months). </p>
<h2>On to Mars</h2>
<p>We had already identified organic compounds in samples of Mars analysed in the laboratory. While we disagreed on the interpretation of those results, we all agreed that there was always going to be a nagging doubt that these samples could have been contaminated on Earth before we studied them. </p>
<p>So the only way to find out if those organic compounds actually came from Mars was to take our laboratory there. We could once and for all address the issue of organic carbon without having to worry about contamination.</p>
<p>The experience of working on Rosetta had shown that we had the skills necessary to develop an instrument to study the martian surface. All that was needed was a spacecraft, a launcher, an operations centre, and a facility in which to build the spacecraft under conditions that were aseptic and conformed to international laws on planetary protection. Just the kind of challenges that Colin liked to have for breakfast.</p>
<p>This is how Colin started working on the Beagle 2 project. Much media coverage has been devoted to the plucky little spacecraft and its eccentric-looking parent. But Beagle 2 is not the only, or even the most important, legacy left by Colin Pillinger. His infectious enthusiasm, coupled with his appearance of having just parked his tractor, inspired a generation of school students to take an interest in the search for life on Mars. </p>
<p>Somewhat in contrast to his public face as a “larger than life” exuberant and extrovert boffin, in private and with his colleagues, Colin was a serious, dedicated and professional scientist. He is responsible for training almost 100 students and post-doctoral scientists who are now scattered across the globe, occupying significant posts in academia, industry and enterprise. We remember Colin with affection and gratitude for the opportunities that he gave us, and the worlds he opened up for us.</p>
<p>He retired a couple of years ago and assumed a role as Emeritus Professor. When this happens one of two things ensue: the person is never really seen again, or they spend more time at work than they used to. Colin was in the latter category. </p>
<p>But it wasn’t an opportunity to take it easy and engage in the “scholarship of synthesis” – no, he only remained interested in new projects. These could be either small in scale (tolerated) or big (positively nerve-jangling at management level). One thing that united all of them was that it didn’t matter to him whether they fitted into anyone’s strategic plan, or not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26481/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Wright receives funding from STFC and the UK Space Agency.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Grady receives funding from the STFC.</span></em></p>Almost all of the reflections and eulogies of Colin Pillinger, who passed away on May 8, will focus on his role in the Beagle 2 space mission to Mars. But this only occupied a small part of his career…Ian Wright, Professor of Planetary Sciences, The Open UniversityMonica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Science, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.