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spacetimewithstuartgary · 1 year

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NASA InSight Study Provides Clearest Look Ever at Martian Core A pair of quakes in 2021 sent seismic waves deep into the Red Planet’s core, giving scientists the best data yet on its size and composition. While NASA retired its InSight Mars lander in December, the trove of data from its seismometer will be pored over for decades to come. By looking at seismic waves the instrument detected from a pair of temblors in 2021, scientists have been able to deduce that Mars’ liquid iron core is smaller and denser than previously thought. The findings, which mark the first direct observations ever made of another planet’s core, were detailed in a paper published April 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Occurring on Aug. 25 and Sept. 18, 2021, the two temblors were the first identified by the InSight team to have originated on the opposite side of the planet from the lander – so-called farside quakes. The distance proved crucial: The farther a quake happens from InSight, the deeper into the planet its seismic waves can travel before being detected. “We needed both luck and skill to find, and then use, these quakes,” said lead author Jessica Irving, an Earth scientist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. “Farside quakes are intrinsically harder to detect because a great deal of energy is lost or diverted away as seismic waves travel through the planet.” Irving noted that the two quakes occurred after the mission had been operating on the Red Planet for well over a full Martian year (about two Earth years), meaning the Marsquake Service – the scientists who initially scrutinize seismographs – had already honed their skills. It also helped that a meteoroid impact caused one of the two quakes; impacts provide a precise location and more accurate data for a seismologist to work with. (Because Mars has no tectonic plates, most marsquakes are caused by faults, or rock fractures, that form in the planet’s crust due to heat and stress.) The quakes’ size was also a factor in the detections. “These two farside quakes were among the larger ones heard by InSight,” said Bruce Banerdt, InSight’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “If they hadn’t been so big, we couldn’t have detected them.” One of the challenges in detecting these particular quakes was that they’re in a “shadow zone” – a part of the planet from which seismic waves tend to be refracted away from InSight, making it hard for a quake’s echo to reach the lander unless it is very large. Detecting seismic waves that cross through a shadow zone is exceptionally difficult; it’s all the more impressive that the InSight team did so using just the one seismometer they had on Mars. (In contrast, many seismometers are distributed on Earth.) “It took a lot of seismological expertise from across the InSight team to tease the signals out from the complex seismograms recorded by the lander,” Irving said. A previous paper that offered a first glimpse of the planet’s core relied on seismic waves that reflected off its outer boundary, providing less precise data. Detecting seismic waves that actually traveled through the core allows scientists to refine their models of what the core looks like. Based on the findings documented in the new paper, about a fifth of the core is composed of elements such as sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. “Determining the amount of these elements in a planetary core is important for understanding the conditions in our solar system when planets were forming and how these conditions affected the planets that formed,” said one of the paper’s co-authors, Doyeon Kim of ETH Zurich. That was always the central goal of InSight’s mission: to study the deep interior of Mars and help scientists understand how all rocky worlds form, including Earth and its Moon. More About the Mission JPL manages InSight for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supported spacecraft operations for the mission. A number of European partners, including France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and JPL. The Marsquake Service is headed by ETH Zurich, with significant contributions from IPGP; the University of Bristol; Imperial College; ISAE (Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l’Espace); MPS; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain’s Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors. TOP IMAGE....This artist’s concept shows a cutaway of Mars, along with the paths of seismic waves from two separate quakes in 2021. Detected by NASA’s InSight mission, these seismic waves were the first ever identified to enter another planet’s core. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Maryland LOWER IMAGE....This is one of the last images ever taken by NASA’s InSight Mars lander. Captured on Dec. 11, 2022, the 1,436th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, it shows InSight’s seismometer on the Red Planet’s surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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uaox · 18 days

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Season 2, Episode 3: Mars and InSight with Bruce Banerdt

With its seismometer and heat probe instruments, InSight will investigate the deep dynamics of Mars, helping scientists discover what lies within its core and learn more about how rocky bodies form throughout the solar system.

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jcmarchi · 3 months

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Earth sciences isn’t just for Earth - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/earth-sciences-isnt-just-for-earth-technology-org/

Earth sciences isn’t just for Earth - Technology Org

W. Bruce Banerdt dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Space fascinated him as a young boy, and the thought of rockets and satellites surging through the universe sparked curiosity and excitement.

Saturn’s moon Titan could harbor life, and USC Dornsife’s Maya Yanez is helping NASA’s JPL look for it. Image credit: NASA

But Banerdt’s academic career pushed in other directions. He earned an undergraduate degree in physics in 1975 followed by a PhD in geological sciences in 1983, both from the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and he seemed tethered to studying the history, nature, materials and processes of Earth, not outer space. That is until a graduate school colleague mentioned a summer internship studying the moon at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

“To use the skills and knowledge I had acquired in physics and geology but in connection to space, well, it seemed too good to be true,” Banerdt says.

At JPL, Banerdt discovered Earth scientists played a significant role in understanding planets beyond our own, a mission Banerdt himself embraced with an inquisitive and enterprising spirit as an intern and, later, as a research scientist. Over a 45-year career at JPL, Banerdt worked extensively on projects investigating Mars while also contributing to efforts exploring Venus and Jupiter’s satellites.

As it turns out, space exploration isn’t merely the domain of pioneering astronauts like Neil Armstrong ’70 or James Lovell ’61, or the bailiwick of those at NASA or SpaceX. Banerdt, in fact, is among a number of USC Dornsife-connected Earth scientists — faculty, students and alumni among them — expanding human understanding of the solar system and laboring to unpack its many mysteries.

Trojans exploring the universe

Like Banerdt, Maya Yanez developed an early fascination with outer space. Holding an undergraduate degree in astronomy, the Los Angeles native is now a fifth-year PhD candidate in USC Dornsife’s Department of Earth Sciences and a former JPL intern.

Yanez’s doctoral studies focus on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon and, by some metrics at least, the solar system’s most Earth-like body. Titan is also one of only six places in the entire universe on which humans have landed a robot. In studying Titan’s current conditions, Yanez inspects similarities between where Titan is today and where the Earth might have been eons ago.

“We don’t know what we’re going to find, but everything — the data and the observations we make — informs our next steps, future projects, instrumentation and studies as well as the goals we’re setting for our next mission,” says Yanez, who works in the lab of Jan Amend, professor of Earth sciences and biological sciences.

The overarching goal, Yanez continues, is to better understand the habitability of Titan, the solar system’s only other world with stable liquids on its surface.

“In Earth, we have one example of life we have poked, prodded and studied, and we can use that to explore how life evolved elsewhere,” she says.

Many other USC-affiliated Earth scientists are similarly researching outer space.

Two USC Dornsife alumni, Laurie Barge ’09 and Scott Perl ’19, for instance, lead JPL’s Origins and Habitability Lab. Barge, Perl and their team of astrobiologists continue exploring the origin of life on Earth as well as if, and how, life could have started on other worlds. The lab also investigates how Earthly life persists amid extreme environments and the geochemical processes that make a planet habitable.

Professor of Earth Sciences Frank Corsetti, meanwhile, is a geologist who studies biosignatures, or signs of life. Corsetti’s research, heavily fueled by funding from NASA, aims to understand the evolution of life on Earth as well as the necessary parameters to create and sustain life. His work informs the search for clues and patterns of potential biosignatures on Mars.

And Banerdt capped his JPL career by directing the center’s Mars InSight Mission, which included designing, building and landing a seismometer on Mars. The instrument measured quakes and vibrations on Mars’s surface, offering rich insights into the basic building blocks of Earth’s closest planetary neighbor to help scientists develop theories and craft future experiments.

The Mars InSight lander explored the red planet, partially guided by USC Dornsife Earth sciences alum Bruce Banerdt. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“It’s almost like doing an MRI of Mars,” says Banerdt, who likened InSight to scientists’ early 20th-century examinations of the Earth’s interior. “The composition and structure of a planet’s interior affects the surface environment of that planet, which is what makes life possible or impossible there.”

Earth scientists looking beyond the planet

While Earth scientists often focus on pressing global challenges like sustainability, water resources, climate change and natural resources, Corsetti and others say taking Earth sciences to outer space isn’t as wild or disconnected as it might initially seem. Studying the Earth — its origins, its environment and its materials — extends human knowledge of the solar system in powerful ways.

“When you step back 10 million miles, you realize Earth is just a planet, like many other planets, orbiting the sun,” says Banerdt, who retired from JPL last summer. “The same tools we use to study Earth can be used to study other planets and, similarly, we can use the study of other planets to inform our understanding of Earth.”

Such efforts position Earth’s inhabitants to address one of humanity’s most burning questions: Are we alone? Society can only begin to answer that question by first understanding how life evolved on Earth. Thereafter, Earth scientists can leverage their toolkits, like processes for chemical analysis, and instruments such as robotic rovers, particle detectors and spectrographs to develop greater clarity.

“Maybe we won’t find the evidence, but at least we can constrain what is possible, which is scientific progress,” Corsetti says.

It’s an undeniably energizing pursuit for Earth scientists like Yanez, who recalls looking up into the nighttime sky as a child and wondering about life beyond the planet.

“We have no idea what we don’t know,” she says. “To begin to use what we know to understand what we don’t know is super exciting to me, and I’m constantly being surprised because there are so many firsts left in space to discover.”

Source: USC

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recentlyheardcom · 8 months

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As Mars’ most recent homeowner works out in, World Planet is working with 3 even more landers as well as at the very least 2 orbiters to sign up with the clinical Martian brigade. NASA’s Understanding spacecraft touched down on the sweeping, red equatorial levels Monday, much less than 400 miles (640 kilometres) from Interest, the just various other functioning robotic on Mars. That has to do with the range from San Francisco to Pasadena, The golden state, residence to Goal Control for Mars. Understanding– the 8th effective Martian lander– ought to be concluding 2 years of excavating as well as quake tracking by the time vagabonds get here from the UNITED STATE, Europe as well as China. NASA’s Mars 2020 will certainly search for rocks that may hold proof of old microbial life as well as stash them in a refuge for go back to Planet in the very early 2030 s. It’s targeting a once-wet river delta in Jezero Crater. The European-Russian ExoMars likewise will certainly seek feasible previous life, piercing a pair meters down for chemical fossils. A spacecraft that became part of an ExoMars objective in 2016 crash-landed on the red world. The Chinese Mars 2020 will certainly include both an orbiter as well as lander. The United Arab Emirates, at the same time, intends to send its initial spacecraft to Mars in 2020; the orbiter is called Hope, or Amal in Arabic. It appears our neighbor Mars holds an alarm track for Earthlings, also as NASA changes its instant interest back to our. Simply 3 days after Understanding’s touchdown, NASA revealed a brand-new business lunar shipment program. The area firm has actually picked 9 UNITED STATE business to complete in obtaining scientific research as well as innovation experiments to the lunar surface area. The initial launch might be following year. NASA intends to see exactly how it precedes attempting something comparable on Mars. ” The moon is where it goes to now about business area,” claimed Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s scientific research objective workplace, which is leading the lunar haul task. It the exact same time, NASA is promoting an orbiting station near the moon for astronauts, at the Trump management’s instructions. It would certainly function as a stepping-off factor for moon touchdowns, according to NASA Manager Jim Bridenstine, as well as supply crucial experience near residence prior to people start a 2- to three-year objective to Mars. Bridenstine visualizes a journey to Mars for astronauts in the mid-2030 s, undoubtedly a “really hostile” objective. ” The fact is, yes, your country now is incredibly devoted to reaching Mars,” Bridenstine claimed adhering to Understanding’s goal, “as well as utilizing the moon as a device to accomplish that goal as rapid as feasible.” Mars is the evident location for “boots on the ground” after the moon, claimed Zurbuchen. What makes Mars so engaging– for robot as well as, at some point, human expedition– is its reasonably simple gain access to, claimed Understanding’s lead researcher, Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Research laboratory. One-way traveling time is 6 months, every 2 years when the worlds are closest. Problems are rough, however reasonably welcoming. “Sort of like remaining in Antarctica without the snow,” claimed Banerdt. In addition to that, Mars might be just one of one of the most likely locations to locate life beyond Planet, according to Banerdt. Jupiter’s moon Europa might have nurtured or perhaps still hold life, however it would certainly take a lot longer as well as expense a lot even more to arrive that Banerdt claimed it’s tough to picture accomplishing such an objective anytime quickly. life-seeking objective to Europa may transpire every years, Banerdt claimed, while it’s possible to have robot sniffers introducing to Mars every 2 years. That’s 5 Mars goals for each solitary one at Europa, he kept in mind. Mars presently has 2 operating spacecraft externally– Understanding as well as Interest–

as well as 6 satellites in functioning order from the UNITED STATE, Europe as well as India. The UNITED STATE is the only nation to effectively land as well as run a spacecraft on Mars. Interest has actually been strolling the red surface area considering that2012 NASA’s much older Chance vagabond was functioning up until June when an international black blizzard impaired it. In search of the geological however not organic keys deep inside Mars, Understanding currently is giving impressive photos of a place “no human has actually ever before seen prior to,” explained JPL supervisor Michael Watkins. These pictures advise us that in order to do scientific research similar to this, “we need to be strong as well as we need to be travelers.” NASA’s Mars 2020 launch home window opens up July 17 of that year. Goal would certainly be Feb. 18, 2021. ” You’re all welcomed back,” Watkins informed Monday’s pleased landing-day group.

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spacenutspod · 10 months

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In December 2022, NASA lost contact with its Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) Mars lander, which had been operating on the Martian surface for just over four years. In the time since InSight’s mission was declared over, scientists have continued to analyze the incredible data the lander collected and have made some exciting discoveries. One team of scientists, led by Sebastien Le Maistre of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, recently published research that utilized InSight’s Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE) instrument to show that Mars’ rotational speed is increasing. The measurements are the most precise measurements of Mars’ rotation ever taken, and even show how the planet wobbles due to the movement of the planet’s molten metal core. As mentioned, Le Maistre et al. used InSight’s RISE instrument, which is a collection of radio transponders and antennas, to make their measurements. They ultimately found that Mars’ rotational speed is accelerating by approximately four milliarcseconds per year squared. The increase in rotational speed corresponds to the length of the Martian day decreased by a fraction of a millisecond per year. Artist’s depiction of InSight on the surface of Mars. Note the RISE antennas on the lander. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) “It’s really cool to be able to get this latest measurement — and so precisely. I’ve been involved in efforts to get a geophysical station like InSight onto Mars for a long time, and results like this make all those decades of work worth it,” said Bruce Banerdt, InSight’s principal investigator of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. See AlsoInSight UpdatesSpace Science CoverageL2 Future SpacecraftClick here to Join L2 While the acceleration is quite small, scientists are still unsure of its cause. One scenario that scientists believe could’ve caused the acceleration is that ice accumulated on the polar ice caps or post-glacial rebound (the rising of landmasses after being buried under ice). By conservation of angular momentum, a significant shift in the mass of a planetary body leads to an acceleration in rotation — similar to how a spinning ice skater speeds up after pulling their arms inward. Using radio waves to learn more about Mars’ characteristics is not unique to InSight. Previous Mars landers, such as the two Viking landers and Pathfinder, employed the use of radio waves to learn more about Mars’ interior and characteristics. However, InSight’s access to advanced radio technology and upgrades to NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) allowed InSight to provide scientists with data that was five times more accurate than that from Pathfinder and the Vikings. So, how did Le Maistre et al. measure the rotational speed of Mars? When InSight was still operational, the scientists used the DSN to beam a radio signal at InSight, which operated in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars. When InSight received the signal, RISE reflected the signal back to Earth. When the DSN received the reflected signal, scientists would take a look at the data and look for small changes in the signal’s frequency caused by the Doppler shift. Measuring the shift in frequency allowed the scientists to determine the rotational speed of Mars. “What we’re looking for are variations that are just a few tens of centimeters over the course of a Martian year. It takes a very long time and a lot of data to accumulate before we can even see these variations,” said Le Maistre. Given the extremely small variations in the signal frequencies, Le Maistre et al. had to look at frequency data from InSight’s first 900 Martian days, or sols, to notice the variations. Furthermore, the slight variations in frequency meant that eliminating sources of noise, such as moisture from Earth’s atmosphere and solar wind, from the data would be a challenge. “It’s a historic experiment. We have spent a lot of time and energy preparing for the experiment and anticipating these discoveries. But despite this, we were still surprised along the way — and it’s not over, since RISE still has a lot to reveal about Mars,” Le Maistre said. As mentioned, the RISE data used by Le Maistre et al. was so precise that it picked up Mars’ nutation — the planet’s wobbling motion caused by the sloshing of Mars’ molten metal core. The RISE data allowed the team to measure the size of the core, which they found to have a radius of approximately 1,835 kilometers. Additionally, the nutation gave scientists further insight into the shape and characteristics of the core. Mars is spinning faster! Before it retired last December, @NASAInSight sent back radio science data that’s providing new details about how fast Mars rotates and how much it wobbles. See what the latest findings mean: https://t.co/G47N5oY89s — NASA Mars (@NASAMars) August 7, 2023 But Le Maistre et al. didn’t stop there. They continued with their research of the core and compared their measurement of the core’s size to other measurements derived from data collected by InSight’s seismometer. Specifically, the team looked at whether seismic waves within Mars reflected off of the core or if they traveled through the core uninterrupted, which allowed them to estimate the radius of the core. All three measurements showed that the core was anywhere between 1,790 and 1,850 kilometers. “RISE’s data indicate the core’s shape cannot be explained by its rotation alone. That shape requires regions of slightly higher or lower density buried deep within the mantle,” said co-author Attilio Rivoldini of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Le Maistre et al.’s results are just the beginning. The team will continue to analyze the RISE data in hopes of learning more about Mars’ rotation, core, and other planetary characteristics. Although InSight’s mission may be over, the incredible data it gathered during its four-year mission will continue to allow scientists to make groundbreaking discoveries in planetary science for the months, years, and decades to come. Le Maistre et al.’s data and results were published in the journal Nature in June 2023. (Lead image: InSight takes a selfie on April 24, 2022, the 1,211th sol of the mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) The post Using data from InSight, scientists discover that Mars is rotating faster appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.

#space #astronomy #news #science

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astroimages · 10 months

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MARTE ESTÁ GIRANDO MAIS RÁPIDO

ACOMPANHE O PROJETO SERJÃO DOS FOGUETES!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dR7zXLmbMA&t=4s VOTE NO SPACE TODAY NO PRÊMIO IBEST: https://app.premioibest.com/votacao/cultura-curiosidades ECLIPSE ANULAR DO SOL!!! https://spacetoday.com.br/eclipse23/ Os cientistas fizeram as medições mais precisas da rotação de Marte, detectando pela primeira vez como o planeta oscila devido ao “espalhamento” de seu núcleo de metal fundido. As descobertas, detalhadas em um artigo recente da Nature , dependem de dados do módulo de pouso InSight Mars da NASA, que operou por quatro anos antes de ficar sem energia durante sua missão estendida em dezembro de 2022. Para rastrear a taxa de rotação do planeta, os autores do estudo contaram com um dos instrumentos do InSight: um transponder de rádio e antenas chamadas coletivamente de Experimento de Rotação e Estrutura Interior, ou RISE . Eles descobriram que a rotação do planeta está acelerando em cerca de 4 milissegundos por ano² – correspondendo a um encurtamento da duração do dia marciano em uma fração de milissegundo por ano. É uma aceleração sutil e os cientistas não têm certeza da causa. Mas eles têm algumas ideias, incluindo o acúmulo de gelo nas calotas polares ou a recuperação pós-glacial, onde as massas de terra se elevam depois de serem soterradas pelo gelo. A mudança na massa de um planeta pode fazer com que ele acelere um pouco como um patinador no gelo girando com os braços esticados e, em seguida, puxando os braços para dentro. “É muito legal poder obter essa medição mais recente – e com tanta precisão”, disse o principal investigador da InSight, Bruce Banerdt, do Laboratório de Propulsão a Jato da NASA no sul da Califórnia. “Estive envolvido em esforços para colocar uma estação geofísica como a InSight em Marte por um longo tempo, e resultados como este fazem todas essas décadas de trabalho valerem a pena.” No caso do InSight, os cientistas transmitiriam um sinal de rádio para o módulo de pouso usando a Deep Space Network. RISE então refletiria o sinal de volta. Quando os cientistas recebiam o sinal refletido, eles procuravam pequenas mudanças na frequência causadas pelo efeito Doppler (o mesmo efeito que faz com que uma sirene de ambulância mude de tom conforme se aproxima e se afasta). Medir a mudança permitiu aos pesquisadores determinar a velocidade com que o planeta gira. “O que estamos procurando são variações de apenas algumas dezenas de centímetros ao longo de um ano marciano”, disse o principal autor do artigo e principal investigador do RISE, Sebastien Le Maistre, do Observatório Real da Bélgica. “Leva muito tempo e muitos dados para acumular antes que possamos ver essas variações.” O artigo examinou os dados dos primeiros 900 dias marcianos do InSight – tempo suficiente para procurar tais variações. Os cientistas tiveram muito trabalho para eliminar as fontes de ruído: a água retarda os sinais de rádio, de modo que a umidade na atmosfera da Terra pode distorcer o sinal vindo de Marte. Assim como o vento solar, os elétrons e prótons lançados do Sol para o espaço profundo. “É um experimento histórico”, disse Le Maistre. “Gastamos muito tempo e energia nos preparando para o experimento e antecipando essas descobertas. Mas, apesar disso, ainda fomos surpreendidos ao longo do caminho – e ainda não acabou, já que RISE ainda tem muito a revelar sobre Marte.” Os dados do RISE também foram usados pelos autores do estudo para medir a oscilação de Marte – chamada de nutação – devido à agitação em seu núcleo líquido. A medição permite aos cientistas determinar o tamanho do núcleo: com base nos dados do RISE, o núcleo tem um raio de aproximadamente 1.140 milhas (1.835 quilômetros). Os autores então compararam esse número com duas medições anteriores do núcleo derivadas do sismômetro da espaçonave. Especificamente, eles observaram como as ondas sísmicas viajavam pelo interior do planeta – se refletiam no núcleo ou passavam por ele sem impedimentos. Levando em consideração todas as três medições, eles estimam que o raio do núcleo esteja entre 1.112 e 1.150 milhas (1.790 e 1.850 quilômetros). Marte como um todo tem um raio de 2.106 milhas (3.390 quilômetros) – cerca de metade do tamanho da Terra. A medição da oscilação de Marte também forneceu detalhes sobre a forma do núcleo. “Os dados do RISE indicam que a forma do núcleo não pode ser explicada apenas por sua rotação”, disse o segundo autor do artigo, Attilio Rivoldini, do Observatório Real da Bélgica. “Essa forma requer regiões de densidade ligeiramente superior ou inferior enterradas no fundo do manto.” FONTES: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-insight-study-finds-mars-is-spinning-faster #MARS #INSIGHT #UNIVERSE

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delectablywaywardbeard-blog · 10 months

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I giorni su Marte si stanno accorciando VIDEO

La rotazione di Marte sta accelerando, a indicarlo sono le analisi dei dati della sonda Nasa InSight. Secondo lo studio pubblicato sulla rivista Nature dal gruppo di ricerca coordinato da Bruce Banerdt, del Jpl della Nasa e responsabile scientifico di InSight, si tratta di una variazione annuale minuscola, di meno di un milionesimo di secondo, ma che permette di scoprire dettagli nel nucleo…

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sciencespies · 1 year

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NASA InSight Mars Mission Is Dead After 4 Years Listening for Marsquakes

https://sciencespies.com/news/nasa-insight-mars-mission-is-dead-after-4-years-listening-for-marsquakes/

NASA InSight Mars Mission Is Dead After 4 Years Listening for Marsquakes

After four years of making important discoveries about the interior of the red planet, the stationary lander lost power because of Martian dust covering its solar panels.

NASA’s Mars InSight spacecraft is dead.

For months, mission managers have been expecting this as dust accumulated on the lander’s solar panels, blocking the sunlight the stationary spacecraft needs to generate power.

InSight, which arrived on the surface of Mars more than four years ago to measure the red planet’s seismological shaking, was last in touch on Dec. 15. But nothing was heard during the last two communication attempts, and NASA announced on Wednesday that it was unlikely for it ever to hear from InSight again.

“I feel sad, but I also feel pretty good,” said Bruce Banerdt, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview. “We’ve been expecting this to come to an end for some time.”

He added, “I think that it’s been a great run.”

InSight — the name is a compression of the mission’s full name, Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — was a diversion from NASA’s better known rover missions, focusing on the mysteries of Mars’s deep interior instead of searching for signs of water and possible extinct life on the red planet. The $830 million mission aimed to answer questions about the planet’s structure, composition and geological history.

Mars lacks plate tectonics, the sliding of pieces of crust that shape the surface of our planet. But marsquakes occur nonetheless, driven by other stresses like the shrinking and cracking of the crust as it cools.

The mission’s final year proved particularly eventful, as its instruments detected vibrations from a sizable space rock, 15 to 40 feet in diameter, hitting Mars 2,000 miles away from the spacecraft on Christmas Eve last year. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was then able to photograph the new crater and chunks of underground ice that were kicked up to the surface by the impact. That ice discovery was closer to the equator than any spotted previously, a potential resource for future astronauts.

In May, InSight measured a marsquake registering 4.7-magnitude, the largest of the mission.

Sunset on Mars on April 25, 2019.NASA/JPL-Caltech

The spacecraft’s seismometer lived up to scientists’ expectations. It was the first time that quakes have been detected on another planet. (It was, however, not the first detection of off-Earth quakes. During the Apollo missions, NASA astronauts left seismometers on the moon, and those registered numerous moonquakes.)

The seismic waves bouncing around the interior of Mars essentially provided a sonogram of the planet, offering new details about the crust, mantle and core.

This was the biggest result of the mission, Dr. Banerdt said, “to actually map out the deep interior of the planet.”

The crust below InSight turned out thinner than expected, about 15 to 25 miles. The red planet’s core is still molten, somewhat a surprise to scientists because Mars is much smaller than Earth. The core is also larger than expected — 1,120 miles in diameter — and less dense than predicted, which points to lighter elements mixed in with the iron. Those elements would lower the melting point, which could help explain why the core is not solid.

The geological structure helps scientists understand how quickly heat is seeping out of Mars, and that in turn helps them reconstruct what the surface may have been like several billion years ago, and how habitable the surface may have been back then.

“We broke new ground, and our science team can be proud of all that we’ve learned along the way,” Philippe Lognonné of Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, principal investigator of InSight’s seismometer, said in a statement from NASA.

However, a second instrument, which was designed to burrow 16 feet underground, was never able to go far beneath the surface, foiled by unexpectedly clumpy soil. The device, nicknamed “the mole,” was to measure heat flow coming from the deep interior of Mars.

“That was a big disappointment,” Dr. Banerdt said.

A selfie taken by InSight on April 24, 2022, showing the lander covered in Martian dust collected over four years.NASA/JPL-Caltech

Other instruments on InSight measured Martian weather and remnants of an ancient magnetic field that are preserved in the rocks.

Dr. Banerdt said it was still possible that InSight could pop back to life, especially if one of the small dust devil cyclones that skitter across the Martian landscape passes over the spacecraft and cleans off the dust.

If the solar panels can charge up the batteries, InSight would try to restart and try to get back in touch. Radio transmissions from a revived InSight could show up as interference in communications sent from other NASA spacecraft at Mars.

“If we start seeing that signal consistently, that would tell us that perhaps InSight is back in business,” Dr. Banerdt said.

As InSight comes to an end, one of the other active NASA spacecraft on the surface of Mars, the Perseverance rover, is setting the stage for a future mission. It has started dropping onto the ground 10 tubes containing rock samples that are about the size of a stick of chalk.

Perseverance has been drilling a variety of rocks in the Jezero Crater where it landed. A follow-up mission still in the planning stages, Mars Sample Return, is to bring the rocks back to Earth for scientists to study in their laboratories.

The rover is still carrying other tubes — for the rocks drilled so far, two samples have been drilled — and the plan is for the rover to bring the sample tubes to the Mars Sample Return lander.

The samples that are being dropped on the ground now are in essence a backup in case something goes wrong with Perseverance before the Mars Sample Return lander gets there. In that case, the plan would be for the lander to set down near the samples that Perseverance had already dropped and then helicopters, similar to the Ingenuity Marscopter that is currently accompanying the rover, would retrieve the samples.

#News

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not-close-to-straight · 5 years

Text

Heart Emoji (Two)

PART THREE

***********************

“Okay, this is my favorite store.” Natasha held the door open and waved Steve and Tony through. “Not only is everyone who works here a literal darling, but Bound is also twenty one and over only store because they give free shots of tequila while you’re trying things on, which means you don't have to deal with barely legals thinking they have any idea what to do with all this stuff.”

“Eighteen year olds have sex, Nat.” Tony pointed out and Natasha sent him a positively evil smile.

“Oh not like this, they aren't.”

“Uh--” Steve wasn’t so much speechless as he was absolutely flabbergasted by not only the size of the store but also the contents. And not just the contents but also the sheer amount of whatever the hell was on the walls and the shelves and draped across various surfaces and oh god the pictures were enough to make him turn a horrible shade of tomato red. “Tony, get me out of here right now.”

“Yikes, Tash.” Tony ducked when he nearly put his eyes out on an enthusiastically nipply mannequin. “I consider myself fairly adventurous but this is a little much even for me. It’s going to severely cramp Steve’s good ol boy persona.”

“Nonsense.” Natasha waved when one of the sale associates called her name. “This is where I buy most of my stuff and I know for a fact they have virgin section.”

“I’m not a virgin.” Steve protested, hands firmly in his pockets, sunglasses firmly on his face to avoid any errant nipples as well as to hide the fact that his eyes were wide as saucers. “I’m not!”

“Aw.” Natasha patted his cheek sympathetically. “In here you are.”

“But Thor is super adventurous!” Steve insisted. “I even wear a--” nearly whispering-- “a ring with him sometimes. You know, one that goes around my--” he inclined his head towards his pants. “You know?”

“Ooh!” Natasha waggled her eyebrows. “A cock ring? What a fancy little deviant you are! The Pope would be horrified.”

“Okay, lets maybe not talk about major religious leaders while I’m staring at a--” Tony pulled a dildo off the wall and hefted it. “--at a cock the literal size of my arm. Who uses this sort of thing? Is this fun for people? How do you walk afterwards? How do you even get this--”

Tony placed the base of the dildo on the ground and stared at it suspiciously, standing up on his toes and spreading his legs and tilting his head as he tried to figure out how the fuck--. “I mean, you wouldn't be so much bouncing on this as impaling yourself on it, right? What do they even call this thing? King Kong?”

Natasha giggled and Tony tried again, “King Dong?” Steve made a sound like his very soul was being set on fire and Tony tried a third time-- “Andre the Giant?”

He checked the packaging tag for the name of the toy. “Oh. Vlad the Impaler. That seems rather appropriate.”

“Tony.” Natasha elbowed Tony and pointed over at Steve, hiding a laugh in her hand. “Look at Spangles.”

“Oh god.” Tony rolled his eyes when he saw Steve staring slack jawed at the wall of nudie magazines. “Those aren't even the bad ones. How long do you think it will be until he finds the--”

“AH!” Steve jerked away, covering his still sunglassed eyes with his hand.

“The kink mags.” Tony finished. “He found the kink mags. Is he having a seizure right now?”

“I think his hands are just shaking.” Natasha countered. “Wait until he realizes the bench he is leaning against is actually a--”

“AHHHH!”

“-- yep. A spanking bench. That’s a spanking bench.” Natasha sighed when Steve whipped around and sent them a terrified look. “Alright, bring him back towards this section. Massively over sized dildos are about as tame as this store gets.”

“Steve.” Tony motioned for him. “Steve, come here.”

Steve was frozen in place though, hands up in the air so he wouldn’t touch anything, sunglasses askew, mouth open in shock.

“Steve.” Tony took a few steps closer and thwapped Steve in the face with the rubbery--and hilariously flexible-- tip of the silicone cock. “Steve. Wake up. Stop making Vlad dick slap you and--”

“Stop that!” Steve snatched the cock and pointed it at Tony in an attempt to look threatening, the attempt entirely ruined by the way the veined thing wobbled and wibbled and bobbed in the air between them. “Get me out of here. Now. I wanted pretty underwear not--not--” he looked around wildly. “Not whatever that is!”

“A spreader bar.” Natasha confirmed. “Keeps your legs where they need to be. Or keeps someone else’s legs where they need to be. Clint is so flexible we hardly need one anymore but--”

“Annnnnnnnd he’s gone.” Tony broke in, pointing to the spot where Steve had been standing, nothing left but a discarded dildo flopped on the floor and a vaguely Captain America shaped path through the racks of fetish wear.

“Okay okay okay.” Nat pulled a hundred dollar bill out of her bra and shoved it at Tony. “You win that bet. We probably should have started out at Victoria’s Secret.”

“Little bit.” Tony stuck the money in his pocket. “Shall we have a shot of tequila before we track down our All American Virgin?”

“How much you wanna bet he took off running and is currently hightailing it down the freeway?” Natasha mused. “By the way, not a virgin remember? He even wears a ring down there sometimes for Thor.”

“Oh god.” Tony sighed. “Alright, lets go find him.”

*****************

From Thor: THIS IS THOR ODINSON OF ASGARD

From Thor: I AM IN THE LIVING ROOM AND WISH TO HAVE A CONVERSATION BUT DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE MY CHAIR

From Thor: I WISH TO JOIN THE GROUP TEXT

From Clint: Uh, what’s up big guy? You don’t have to text all in caps you know, it sort of sounds like you’re yelling.

From Thor: I AM NOT YELLING, THIS IS SIMPLY A TEXT. YOU CANNOT HEAR MY VOICE, WHY WOULD YOU SAY I WAS YELLING.

From Bucky: Yeah, you’re not going to win that argument Clint. Thor, what brings you to the group text?

From Thor: I REQUIRE HELP FOR GIFTS FOR MY BELOVED FOR THE UPCOMING HOLIDAY. ASGARD CELEBRATES DIFFERENT DAYS, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND SOME OF YOUR CUSTOMS

From Clint: You don’t know what to get Steve for Valentines Day?

From Bucky: Alright look, I don’t want to be the one to suggest this, but I don’t want to hear Clint say it either, so I’ll just say it-- just hammer dick him Steve he’s droolin. He'll be all stupid after wards and wont even remember what day it is. Sick face emoji.

From Thor: HAMMER DICKING IS OUR NIGHTLY OCCURRENCE, I WISH THIS DAY TO BE SPECIAL. THE USUAL LOVING WILL NOT SUFFICE.

From Clint: Idk if I’m laughing harder over ‘hammer dicking is our nightly occurrence’ or Bucky’s sick face emoji.

From Bucky: Murder scowl emoji

From Clint: You mean frowny face?

From Thor: WHAT IS AN EMOJI

From Clint: Okay. First of all. Thor do you see the up arrow on your phone keyboard? Tap that until your letters aren’t in all caps.

From Thor: This seems less interesting. I am a god, a near eternal being, I require to be heard and seen above others. This smaller texting is not ideal.

From Clint: And yet it’s better for everyone. Second of all, Bucky, just use the frowny face emoji.

From Bucky: I use what I want. Tongue sticking out smiley face.

From Clint: Why is this my life? Someone save me from all these old men who don’t understand literally anything about technology.

From Thor: Clint, you have been complaining much lately, has your wife not been loving you regularly? A man with no outlet is a frustrated man indeed, are you aware that you can self soothe? Tis not ideal, but there is some joy to be had in knowing your body in such an intimate way.

From Clint: … thank you? For that advice?

From Bucky: Clint. Did you know you can self soothe? Did you know that? Hm?

From Thor: We can discuss Clint’s lack of sexual prowess later, I need ideas for a perfect evening with my beloved. What are typical Midgardian St. Valentines Day customs?

From Clint: MY LACK OF WHAT

From Thor: WHY IS HE ABLE TO USE THE CAPITOL LETTERS

From Bucky: Good Christ, no one use the capital letters. Clint, you have no sexual prowess, every bit of sexiness in that relationship is Natasha.

From Clint: WHAT

From Bucky: And as far as Valentines Day, it doesn’t have to be anything special, just the usual stuff, Thor. Chocolate hearts, flower bouquets, wearing pretty things. Stevie’s real easy, you could just compliment him a bunch and he’d get all goofy and dumb for ya.

From Thor: Chocolate hearts. Chocolate in the shape of a human heart?

From Bucky: No.

From Clint: OH MY GOD YES EXACTLY LIKE THAT IN THE SHAPE OF A HUMAN HEART

From Clint: PROBABLY FILLED WITH JELLY TO MAKE IT REALISTIC

From Clint: THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

From Bucky: Oh my god.

From Thor: Clint, you will help me then? You seem to know the intricacies of this celebration, and despite my lack of faith in your bedroom abilities, your bride is almost always pleased.

From Clint: Yes. I do in fact know the intricacies and for the record my bride is ALWAYS DEFINITELY pleased. I will help. I am the best man for the job. Ignore whatever Bucky says after this.

From Bucky: I got nothing. Just gonna get some popcorn and watch the chaos. Thumbs up.

From Clint: Okay dude, we have got to talk about your issues with emojis at some point.

*************

“Hey.” Tony stood on his toes to give Bucky a kiss and the soldier put his plate down immediately to gather his boyfriend even closer. “Hey.” Tony said again, giggling against Bucky’s mouth. “What’s up?”

“Something’s gotta be up for me to want to kiss you?” Bucky murmured, the plates in his left arm whirring and tightening until Tony gasped as their bodies rubbed together. “I’m not saying I’m not up, but--”

“Bucky.” Tony smothered a laugh in another kiss, too head over heels in love to even care that he looked completely ridiculous with his feet not touching the ground. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I’m excited for Valentines Day.” Bucky admitted, running gentle fingers through Tony’s hair. “Holidays with you are so fun, sweet thing. I can’t wait to spend another one with you.”

“You definitely can’t wait to spend it with me.” Tony confirmed, kicking his feet in the air and grinning when Bucky held him higher. “I got a suite in a ridiculous hotel and we are going to have the best food you’ve ever eaten. I ordered a--”

“Hey hey.” Bucky shushed him. “Don’t tell me everything you got planned, sugar. I want to be surprised, and I want to see that goofy look you get on your face when you’re excited to show me something. That’s my favorite thing, did you know that? You’re eyes get all big and you try to keep your smile small but it never works and you end up grinning and sorta vibrating with excitement--” he smiled when Tony blushed. “--You’re gorgeous, Tony.”

“I love you very much.” Tony whispered, and Bucky whispered back, “And I love you very much.”

“Christ, they’re cute.” From across the kitchen, Natasha sipped at her coffee and watched the couple. “Look at them. It’s almost gross. They started out with Tony jerking Bucky off because Frosty was horned up enough to die and now they are smooshing noses and saying they love each other and it’s just so cute.”

“You’re cute.” Clint murmured into her ear, holding her a little more securely on his lap. “And sweet. And so sexy…” his voice trailed off into a moan as he nibbled along her throat. “So sexy, Nat. I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too, my love.” Natasha smiled indulgently, snuggling into his chest. “But surely after our past few nights together you aren’t quite so needy, hm?”

“I will always be needy for you.” He insisted, crooning the words into her ear and twining their left hands together. “That’s why I put a ring on it, remember?”

“Vividly.” Natasha allowed, admiring the glint of her modest-yet-gorgeous wedding band. “I remember why you put a ring on it vividly, husband.”

“I have a surprise for you this Valentines Day.” Clint buried his nose in Natasha’s hair to breathe in the scent of her strawberry shampoo. “Do you want to get a hotel or stay here that night?”

“We can just stay here.” She answered, gracefully turning in the chair so she was straddling him, pushing their foreheads together and sighing when Clint lifted beneath her, asking-- “We were together this morning, husband, aren’t you tired of me yet?”

“I’ll always be needy for you.” Clint repeated. “Whether we're together every minute of every day or not.”

“I love you viciously.” Natasha pressed closer. “And I bought something to wear that will make your brain explode.”

“I got something to wear that will make your brain explode.” Clint countered and Natasha laughed in delight. “I don’t know why you’re laughing wife, I’m being very serious.”

Bruce was sitting at the kitchen island reading through the news paper when Sam slid onto the stool next to him and elbowed him in the side.

“Um, ow?” Frowning, Bruce folded the paper and tucked it away. “You couldn’t have just said hello? You had to assault me?”

“Stop whining, Brucie.” Sam waved him off. “I just wanted to make sure you’re still feeling legit about our bromantic non date and in case you weren’t--”

He raised his voice when Bruce started to interject. “-- in case you weren’t feeling great about our Valentines Day plan, I invite you to take a gander around the kitchen and see how the various couples are acting without actually having Valentines Day yet, and just imagine how bad things will be after Valentines Day without someone--” a quick point to himself. “-- to crack terrible jokes and make gagging noises at the sheer amount of love crap that will be happening.”

“Well, I mean--” Bruce glanced around the kitchen, first at Bucky who was still holding Tony off the floor as they kissed, both of them giggling and teasing each other, then at Clint and Natasha who had given up any and all pretenses of talking and were just trying to apparently eat each others souls through a tongue slurping, lip biting kiss that was wet enough that Bruce actually pushed his tea away with a grimace.

“And you know, Thor and Steve aren’t even here.” Sam raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “And they’re gross just on normal days.”

“Yeah alright.” Bruce nodded. “Yep. Bromantic non date sounds amazing. Are we still on for that thing late Thursday night?”

“So on for it.” Sam high fived Bruce happily. “We are good to….” his voice trailed off as he looked at something over Bruce’s head. “Uh, hey Cap. Everything alright?”

“Hey.” Steve was scowling, rubbing at his shoulder as he dug through the freezer for an ice pack. “What are you guys doing?”

“Just… just hanging out.” Sam took a closer look at Steve’s shoulder. “Is that a hole in your shoulder? Steve, why do you have a hole in your shoulder?”

“OH, I’m glad you asked!” Steve slammed the freezer door and Bruce jumped. “So glad you asked Sam! Would you like to know why I have a hole in my shoulder?”

“Well I mean--” Sam shrugged a little. “I asked you twice already and you’re sort of bleeding on the floor so--”

“Thor shot me in the shoulder with a goddamn arrow!” Steve shouted and everyone in the kitchen turned and stared.

“Did Spangles just swear?” Tony asked quietly, and Bucky nodded slowly. “What is happening?”

“THOR SHOT ME IN THE SHOULDER WITH A GODDAMN ARROW!” Even louder this time, and Natasha leaned away from Clint, eyeing her husband suspiciously.

“Easy does it, Stevie.” Bucky said cautiously. “I’m sure it was an accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident at all.” Steve scowled, dabbing a towel over the wound. “We were sparring, then he suggested target practice, yelled something about Cupid being in the room and literally put an arrow into my shoulder.”

Across the kitchen, Clint made a noise that landed somewhere between a snorting laugh and a strangled sort of wheeze and Steve’s eyes narrowed in his direction. “Clint? You don’t happen to know anything about this, do you?”

“Oh no.” Bucky muttered a curse. “Oh no no no. Clint didn’t--”

“I had nothing to do with this.” Clint insisted loudly. “I mean, Thor asked for suggestions for Valentines Day and all I did was walk him through several customs and sayings we have!”

“And how exactly does Valentines Day include--” Steve set his jaw angrily. “Cupid. You told him Cupid shoots people with arrows to get them to fall in love.”

“I mean,” Clint spread his hands innocently. “I might have.”

“Wait wait wait.” Natasha twisted around on Clint’s lap. “Wait. So Clint told Thor that Cupid shoots people with arrows, and then he turned around and shot you with an arrow? I know the big guy isn’t exactly on board with all of our lingo, but he’s smart enough to realize that he shouldn’t be the one shooting you, right?”

Steve sulked a little but didn’t answer.

“Yeah, Cap.” Tony wriggled out of Bucky’s arms. “No way Thor would have actually just binged an arrow at you because of some random story about a Cupid. What actually happened?”

Still no answer from Steve.

“Alright, let’s do it the easy way then.” Tony shrugged. “JARVIS can I have the video feed from the gym for the last hour please?”

“No no no no--!” Steve started to protest, but it was too late, a large television folding down from the ceiling and a video starting to play.

“Alright, there’s Steve.” Bruce pointed to the figure who was clearly Steve working a punching bag on the far corner of the screen. “And here comes Thor who is wearing… uh, what is Thor wearing, exactly?”

“Good god, and I don’t mean the Thunder God, I mean the god that would be horrified by what Thor is currently wearing.” Sam’s jaw was practically on the counter. “Is that-- is he-- I didn’t know they made diapers that big??”

“Clint, what exactly did you tell Thor?” Tony couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen, watching Thor wearing nothing but a diaper, carrying a bow and arrow creeping across the gym towards an oblivious Steve. “Tell me the exact words you told Thor about Cupid.”

“I told him that Cupid is a demi god that wears a diaper and carries a bow, goes flying around and shoots arrows into the hearts of people who need to fall in love. Those who fall in love thanks to Cupids arrow are destined to be together for life!” Clint was still trying not to laugh. “I didn’t know he was actually going to--”

“Oh god, look at him trying to fly.” Bucky broke in, and everyone turned to in time to see Thor launch himself into the air, ready an arrow and send it flying towards Steve.

“I turned at the last minute and it caught me in the shoulder.” Steve grumbled, and the video cut out just as on-screen Steve started shrieking and Thor started running over to check on him. “Clint, I’m going to kill you. I swear I’m going to kill you. Gonna kick your ass from here clear to next--”

“Steve, my love.” Thor rushed through the kitchen door and the kitchen went completely silent when they all saw him slicked up with baby oil, swaddled in what looked like an XXL Depends, still carrying a bow with a pair of hilariously small wings set on his back. “I am so sorry, I never intended to harm you or to--”

Natasha broke first, laughing out loud and then screaming as she inhaled a terrible amount of ungodly hot coffee and Clint was cackling too hard to even help her. Bruce flipped his paper open, holding it high enough that he didn’t have to see the room anymore, Sam sat with his mouth wide open and Tony and Bucky just-- well they just stared because honestly what the fuck.

“Is your shoulder alright?” Thor fussed over it quietly, gathering Steve close and cursing when his hands slipped slick on Steve’s skin. “Forgive me. I assumed you were wearing something of armor, thought it would be just a symbolic gesture and nothing more, something to make you laugh.”

“You could have not used real arrows.” Steve pointed out, steadfastedly ignoring the chaos behind him. “You could have not used real arrows, Thor. You could have used the prank ones with little plungers on the tips.”

“I suppose so.” Thor nodded gravely. “Next time I will not use real arrows.”

“Next time?” Steve yelped, throwing his hands up as he stomped from the kitchen “What do you mean next time? Why the hell is there going to be a next time?!”

It took ten full minutes for everyone to stop laughing, for Sam to wipe the tears from his eyes, for Natasha to quit pinching at Clint, for Tony to stop guffawing at the top of his lungs while Bucky wondered how hard it would be scrub his eyes with bleach so he wouldn't have to think about Thor in a goddamn diaper ever again.

Bruce just very calmly turned to the ‘housing’ section of the newspapers and began circling ads for roommates wanted and homes for rent.

Life in this place was absolutely ridiculous.

****************

From Clint: Natasha my ridiculously hot wife who owns my very soul and each breath I take, are we all set for tomorrow night?

From Bucky: Okay well lets never let Clint talk like that every again, please and thank you.

From Clint: So what, Thor can wax stupidly poetic but I can’t?

From Thor: THAT IS CORRECT HAWKEYE

From Tony: Thor texts? And also, why does Thor text in all caps?

From Thor: A GOD DESERVES TO BE HEARD BY ALL

From Tony: I honestly don’t know what I was expecting. Carry on Hammer man.

From Thor: I SHALL

From Natasha: Clint, you could have just texted me. This might shock you but not all of our conversations need to be group texts.

From Bruce: Oh thank god, someone finally said it. Clint please take your wife’s advice. Please stop making every conversation a group text.

From Sam: Brucie bear, I just don’t really see that happening. Everyone in this place loves to gossip way too much.

From Steve: Sam’s right, and I hate to be the one to say this especially considering how much I hated these damn things in the beginning, but I do think the group chats have brought us closer as a group. I’ve started to enjoy the insights into everyone’s relationships and being able to ask for advice without having to feel awkward about it is very refreshing.

From Natasha: Captain Rogers, does this mean you forgive Tony and I for the arm length dildo dick slapping session?

From Steve: It means nothing of the sort, after Valentines Day I’m going to do something really awful to both of you to make up for it.

From Tony: That’s absolutely fair.

From Clint: Okay, no wait

From Bucky: Uh Tony, obviously there’s a story you haven’t told me yet?

From Tony: I had to buy something named Vlad the Impaler. Its-- it's a long story.

From Thor: Steven, I thought dick slapping was off the table for us? Yet you let Natasha and Tony manhandle you in such a manner?

From Sam: Whoops, where did the all caps go, Thor?

From Thor: A subject just as this felt like it should be whispered about.

From Sam: Right, that seems like it makes perfect sense. But also, I definitely need to know what happened between Steve and Nat and Tony and who’s wang was doing the wapping.

From Bruce: This is literally the worst conversation. I thought the ones about dicking down and sexy shenanigans were bad, but nope. This is it. This is the worst.

From Steve: Bruce is right, let’s just move on.

From Clint: NO NO NO. Cap just got done talking bullshit about how these things draw us closer as a group, and now you’re not going to share? SHARE Captain. Let’s grow through this experience together.

From Natasha: Well said, my love. Captain should I tell the story or do you want to?

From Steve: I am NOT telling this story and neither is anyone else.

From Tony: You literally are the worst wet blanket in the entire world and I cannot believe we are best friends.

From Steve: Thanks for that Tony.

From Clint: ANYWAY. Natasha is everything set for tomorrow night?

From Natasha: Yes, my love. I have all required supplies, enough protein to get us through the night, I pulled our saddle out of storage, and our box from Costco was at the post office this morning.

From Clint: We get boxes from Costco?

From Natasha: I was trying to spare everyone else. It’s actually from Castle Mega Store.

From Clint: YES! WHOO! BOXES FROM SEX WAREHOUSES! YES!

From Steve: I take back what I said about group bonding, lets stop doing this right now.

********************

#ncts fics #valentines day #thundershield #winteriron #clintasha #sam wilson #bruce banerdt

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aiaalalv · 4 years

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(September 5, 2020) Bill Gerstenmaier (SpaceX)(ISS’s critical role in enabling human exploration beyond low Earth orbit) | Dr. Bruce Banerdt (JPL)(Mars InSight) | Frank Czopek (Introduction to GPS/Pre-History of GPS)

RSVP and Information: https://conta.cc/3eMyMrp

*Recorded video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0LdnzdJh9f8 (Also uploaded below) *AIAA LA-LV YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCJrx_vB7oxnU6T1yinEapg

*Agenda Upload September 5, 2020

Agenda September 5 *Bill-Gertenmaier-1Download *Bll-Gerstenmaier-2Download

*Slides (PDF) from Frank Czopek (How GPS works and…

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#Aerospace #AIAA #Bill Gerstenmaier #Bruce Banerdt #Frank Czopek #GPS #Honorary Fellow #How it works #International Space Station #Introduction #ISS #JPL #Las Vegas #Los Angeles #Mars InSight #NASA #Pre-History of GPS #Space #SpaceX

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spaceexp · 4 years

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A Year of Surprising Science From NASA's InSight Mars Mission

NASA - InSight Mission patch. Feb. 24, 2020

Image above: In this artist's concept of NASA's InSight lander on Mars, layers of the planet's subsurface can be seen below and dust devils can be seen in the background. Image Credits: IPGP/Nicolas Sarter. A new understanding of Mars is beginning to emerge, thanks to the first year of NASA's InSight lander mission. Findings described in a set of six papers published today reveal a planet alive with quakes, dust devils and strange magnetic pulses. Five of the papers were published in Nature. An additional paper in Nature Geoscience details the InSight spacecraft's landing site, a shallow crater nicknamed "Homestead hollow" in a region called Elysium Planitia. InSight is the first mission dedicated to looking deep beneath the Martian surface. Among its science tools are a seismometer for detecting quakes, sensors for gauging wind and air pressure, a magnetometer, and a heat flow probe designed to take the planet's temperature.

Image above: A cutaway view of Mars showing the InSight lander studying seismic activity. Image Credits: J.T. Keane/Nature Geoscience. While the team continues to work on getting the probe into the Martian surface as intended, the ultra-sensitive seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), has enabled scientists to "hear" multiple trembling events from hundreds to thousands of miles away. Seismic waves are affected by the materials they move through, giving scientists a way to study the composition of the planet's inner structure. Mars can help the team better understand how all rocky planets, including Earth, first formed. Underground Mars trembles more often — but also more mildly — than expected. SEIS has found more than 450 seismic signals to date, the vast majority of which are probably quakes (as opposed to data noise created by environmental factors, like wind). The largest quake was about magnitude 4.0 in size — not quite large enough to travel down below the crust into the planet's lower mantle and core. Those are "the juiciest parts of the apple" when it comes to studying the planet's inner structure, said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at JPL. Scientists are ready for more: It took months after InSight's landing in November 2018 before they recorded the first seismic event. By the end of 2019, SEIS was detecting about two seismic signals a day, suggesting that InSight just happened to touch down at a particularly quiet time. Scientists still have their fingers crossed for "the Big One." Mars doesn't have tectonic plates like Earth, but it does have volcanically active regions that can cause rumbles. A pair of quakes was strongly linked to one such region, Cerberus Fossae, where scientists see boulders that may have been shaken down cliffsides. Ancient floods there carved channels nearly 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) long. Lava flows then seeped into those channels within the past 10 million years — the blink of an eye in geologic time. Some of these young lava flows show signs of having been fractured by quakes less than 2 million years ago. "It's just about the youngest tectonic feature on the planet," said planetary geologist Matt Golombek of JPL. "The fact that we're seeing evidence of shaking in this region isn't a surprise, but it's very cool."

Image above: The two largest quakes detected by NASA's InSight appear to have originated in a region of Mars called Cerberus Fossae. Scientists previously spotted signs of tectonic activity here, including landslides. This image was taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona. At the Surface Billions of years ago, Mars had a magnetic field. It is no longer present, but it left ghosts behind, magnetizing ancient rocks that are now between 200 feet (61 meters) to several miles below ground. InSight is equipped with a magnetometer — the first on the surface of Mars to detect magnetic signals. The magnetometer has found that the signals at Homestead hollow are 10 times stronger than what was predicted based on data from orbiting spacecraft that study the area. The measurements of these orbiters are averaged over a couple of hundred miles, whereas InSight's measurements are more local. Because most surface rocks at InSight's location are too young to have been magnetized by the planet's former field, "this magnetism must be coming from ancient rocks underground," said Catherine Johnson, a planetary scientist at the University of British Columbia and the Planetary Science Institute. "We're combining these data with what we know from seismology and geology to understand the magnetized layers below InSight. How strong or deep would they have to be for us to detect this field?" In addition, scientists are intrigued by how these signals change over time. The measurements vary by day and night; they also tend to pulse around midnight. Theories are still being formed as to what causes such changes, but one possibility is that they're related to the solar wind interacting with the Martian atmosphere In the Wind InSight measures wind speed, direction and air pressure nearly continuously, offering more data than previous landed missions. The spacecraft's weather sensors have detected thousands of passing whirlwinds, which are called dust devils when they pick up grit and become visible. "This site has more whirlwinds than any other place we've landed on Mars while carrying weather sensors," said Aymeric Spiga, an atmospheric scientist at Sorbonne University in Paris. Despite all that activity and frequent imaging, InSight's cameras have yet to see dust devils. But SEIS can feel these whirlwinds pulling on the surface like a giant vacuum cleaner. "Whirlwinds are perfect for subsurface seismic exploration," said Philippe Lognonné of Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), principal investigator of SEIS. Still to Come: The Core InSight has two radios: one for regularly sending and receiving data, and a more powerful radio designed to measure the "wobble" of Mars as it spins. This X-band radio, also known as the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE), can eventually reveal whether the planet's core is solid or liquid. A solid core would cause Mars to wobble less than a liquid one would. This first year of data is just a start. Watching over a full Martian year (two Earth years) will give scientists a much better idea of the size and speed of the planet's wobble. About InSight: A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.

InSight lander & Mission logo

A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain's Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors. Related links: Nature: https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/mission/science/research-papers/ Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS): https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/mission/instruments/seis/ Physical Properties Package (HP3): https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/mission/instruments/hp3/ InSight Mars Lander: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/insight/main/index.html Images (mentioned), Animation, Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/Alana Johnson/JPL/Andrew Good. Greetings, Orbiter.ch Full article

#space #science

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 10 months

Text

NASA InSight study finds Mars is spinning faster

Scientists have made the most precise measurements ever of Mars's rotation, for the first time detecting how the planet wobbles due to the "sloshing" of its molten metal core. The findings, detailed in a recent Nature paper, rely on data from NASA's InSight Mars lander, which operated for four years before running out of power during its extended mission in December 2022.

To track the planet's spin rate, the study's authors relied on one of InSight's instruments: a radio transponder and antennas collectively called the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment, or RISE. They found the planet's rotation is accelerating by about 4 milliarcseconds per year—corresponding to a shortening of the length of the Martian day by a fraction of a millisecond per year.

It's a subtle acceleration, and scientists aren't entirely sure of the cause. But they have a few ideas, including ice accumulating on the polar caps or post-glacial rebound, where landmasses rise after being buried by ice. The shift in a planet's mass can cause it to accelerate a bit like an ice skater spinning with their arms stretched out, then pulling their arms in.

"It's really cool to be able to get this latest measurement—and so precisely," said InSight's principal investigator, Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "I've been involved in efforts to get a geophysical station like InSight onto Mars for a long time, and results like this make all those decades of work worth it."

How RISE works

RISE is part of a long tradition of Mars landers using radio waves for science, including the twin Viking landers in the 1970s and the Pathfinder lander in the late '90s. But none of those missions had the advantage of InSight's advanced radio technology and upgrades to the antennas within NASA's Deep Space Network on Earth. Together, these enhancements provided data about five times more accurate than what was available for the Viking landers.

In the case of InSight, scientists would beam a radio signal to the lander using the Deep Space Network. RISE would then reflect the signal back. When scientists received the reflected signal, they would look for tiny changes in frequency caused by the Doppler shift (the same effect that causes an ambulance siren to change pitch as it gets closer and farther away). Measuring the shift enabled researchers to determine how fast the planet rotates.

"What we're looking for are variations that are just a few tens of centimeters over the course of a Martian year," said the paper's lead author and RISE's principal investigator, Sebastien Le Maistre at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. "It takes a very long time and a lot of data to accumulate before we can even see these variations."

The paper examined data from InSight's first 900 Martian days—enough time to look for such variations. Scientists had their work cut out for them to eliminate sources of noise: Water slows radio signals, so moisture in the Earth's atmosphere can distort the signal coming back from Mars. So can the solar wind, the electrons and protons flung into deep space from the sun.

"It's a historic experiment," said Le Maistre. "We have spent a lot of time and energy preparing for the experiment and anticipating these discoveries. But despite this, we were still surprised along the way—and it's not over, since RISE still has a lot to reveal about Mars."

Martian core measurements

RISE data was also used by the study authors to measure Mars's wobble—called its nutation—due to sloshing in its liquid core. The measurement allows scientists to determine the size of the core: Based on RISE data, the core has a radius of roughly 1,140 miles (1,835 kilometers).

The authors then compared that figure with two previous measurements of the core derived the from spacecraft's seismometer. Specifically, they looked at how seismic waves traveled through the planet's interior—whether they reflected off the core or passed through it unimpeded.

Taking all three measurements into account, they estimate the core's radius to be between 1,112 and 1,150 miles (1,790 and 1,850 kilometers). Mars as a whole has a radius of 2,106 miles (3,390 kilometers)—about half the size of Earth's.

Measuring Mars's wobble also provided details about the shape of the core.

"RISE's data indicate the core's shape cannot be explained by its rotation alone," said the paper's second author, Attilio Rivoldini of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. "That shape requires regions of slightly higher or lower density buried deep within the mantle."

While scientists will be mining InSight data for years to come, this study marks the final chapter for Banerdt's role as the mission's principal investigator. After 46 years with JPL, he retired on Aug. 1.

TOP IMAGE....NASA’s InSight lander captured this selfie on April 24, 2022, the 1,211th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Dust on its solar panels caused the lander to lose power in December of that year, but data recorded by InSight’s instruments is still leading to new science. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

LOWER IMAGE....This annotated artist’s concept of NASA’s InSight lander on Mars points out the antennas on the spacecraft’s deck. Along with a radio transponder in the lander, these antennas made up an instrument called the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment, or RISE. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #astrophysics #mars #MARS INSIGHT

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scifigeneration · 4 years

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A year of surprising science from NASA's InSight Mars mission

A new understanding of Mars is beginning to emerge, thanks to the first year of NASA's InSight lander mission. Findings described in a set of six papers published today reveal a planet alive with quakes, dust devils and strange magnetic pulses.

Five of the papers were published in Nature Geoscience. An additional paper in Nature Communications details the InSight spacecraft's landing site, a shallow crater nicknamed "Homestead hollow" in a region called Elysium Planitia.

InSight is the first mission dedicated to looking deep beneath the Martian surface. Among its science tools are a seismometer for detecting quakes, sensors for gauging wind and air pressure, a magnetometer, and a heat flow probe designed to take the planet's temperature.

While the team continues to work on getting the probe into the Martian surface as intended, the ultra-sensitive seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), has enabled scientists to "hear" multiple trembling events from hundreds to thousands of miles away.

Seismic waves are affected by the materials they move through, giving scientists a way to study the composition of the planet's inner structure. Mars can help the team better understand how all rocky planets, including Earth, first formed.

Underground

Mars trembles more often -- but also more mildly -- than expected. SEIS has found more than 450 seismic signals to date, the vast majority of which are probably quakes (as opposed to data noise created by environmental factors, like wind). The largest quake was about magnitude 4.0 in size -- not quite large enough to travel down below the crust into the planet's lower mantle and core. Those are "the juiciest parts of the apple" when it comes to studying the planet's inner structure, said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at JPL.

Scientists are ready for more: It took months after InSight's landing in November 2018 before they recorded the first seismic event. By the end of 2019, SEIS was detecting about two seismic signals a day, suggesting that InSight just happened to touch down at a particularly quiet time. Scientists still have their fingers crossed for "the Big One."

Mars doesn't have tectonic plates like Earth, but it does have volcanically active regions that can cause rumbles. A pair of quakes was strongly linked to one such region, Cerberus Fossae, where scientists see boulders that may have been shaken down cliffsides. Ancient floods there carved channels nearly 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) long. Lava flows then seeped into those channels within the past 10 million years -- the blink of an eye in geologic time.

Some of these young lava flows show signs of having been fractured by quakes less than 2 million years ago. "It's just about the youngest tectonic feature on the planet," said planetary geologist Matt Golombek of JPL. "The fact that we're seeing evidence of shaking in this region isn't a surprise, but it's very cool."

At the Surface

Billions of years ago, Mars had a magnetic field. It is no longer present, but it left ghosts behind, magnetizing ancient rocks that are now between 200 feet (61 meters) to several miles below ground. InSight is equipped with a magnetometer -- the first on the surface of Mars to detect magnetic signals.

The magnetometer has found that the signals at Homestead hollow are 10 times stronger than what was predicted based on data from orbiting spacecraft that study the area. The measurements of these orbiters are averaged over a couple of hundred miles, whereas InSight's measurements are more local.

Because most surface rocks at InSight's location are too young to have been magnetized by the planet's former field, "this magnetism must be coming from ancient rocks underground," said Catherine Johnson, a planetary scientist at the University of British Columbia and the Planetary Science Institute. "We're combining these data with what we know from seismology and geology to understand the magnetized layers below InSight. How strong or deep would they have to be for us to detect this field?"

In addition, scientists are intrigued by how these signals change over time. The measurements vary by day and night; they also tend to pulse around midnight. Theories are still being formed as to what causes such changes, but one possibility is that they're related to the solar wind interacting with the Martian atmosphere.

In the Wind

InSight measures wind speed, direction and air pressure nearly continuously, offering more data than previous landed missions. The spacecraft's weather sensors have detected thousands of passing whirlwinds, which are called dust devils when they pick up grit and become visible. "This site has more whirlwinds than any other place we've landed on Mars while carrying weather sensors," said Aymeric Spiga, an atmospheric scientist at Sorbonne University in Paris.

Despite all that activity and frequent imaging, InSight's cameras have yet to see dust devils. But SEIS can feel these whirlwinds pulling on the surface like a giant vacuum cleaner. "Whirlwinds are perfect for subsurface seismic exploration," said Philippe Lognonné of Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), principal investigator of SEIS.

Still to Come: The Core

InSight has two radios: one for regularly sending and receiving data, and a more powerful radio designed to measure the "wobble" of Mars as it spins. This X-band radio, also known as the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE), can eventually reveal whether the planet's core is solid or liquid. A solid core would cause Mars to wobble less than a liquid one would.

This first year of data is just a start. Watching over a full Martian year (two Earth years) will give scientists a much better idea of the size and speed of the planet's wobble.

About InSight

A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.

#science #science news #mars #nasa #astrogeology #space exploration #insight mission

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