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China continues to take great strides as part of its goal to become a superpower in space and a direct competitor with NASA. In addition to its proposed expansion of the Tiangong space station and the creation of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), China is also planning on sending crewed missions to Mars in the coming decade. In preparation for the arrival of taikonauts on the Red Planet, China is gearing up to return samples of Martian soil and rock to Earth roughly two years ahead of the proposed NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return (MSR).

This mission will be the third in the China National Space Administration’s (CNSA) Tianwen program (Tianwen-3) and will consist of a pair of launches in 2028 that will return samples to Earth in July 2031. According to a new study recently published in the journal Chinese Science Bulletin, Chinese scientists announced that they have developed a new numerical model to simulate the atmospheric environment of Mars. Known as the Global Open Planetary atmospheric model for Mars (aka. GoPlanet-Mars, or GoMars), this model offers research support in preparation for the Tianwen-3 mission.

The paper, titled “Development of a new generation of Mars atmosphere model GoPlanet-Mars,” was performed by researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences (IAP-CAS), the State Key Laboratory of Numerical Simulation of Atmospheric Science and Geohydrodynamics (LASG), and the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (SEPS-UCAS). The study was led by Wang Bin, a Senior Researcher with the CAS-IAP who specializes in climate modeling.

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A wireless camera took this ‘group photo’ of China’s Tianwen-1 lander and rover on Mars’ surface. Credit: Chinese Space Agency

In the past two decades, the number of missions and space agencies engaged in the exploration of Mars has increased considerably. At present, ten robotic missions are exploring its surface and atmosphere, including seven orbiters, two rovers, and one helicopter. And with many more destined for Mars in the next decade (as well as crewed missions), the demand for Martian weather forecasts is growing. As they indicate in their paper, “The world’s aerospace powers have developed Mars atmosphere models to provide meteorological environment protection for landing exploration.”

To provide information on the meteorological conditions around the Tianwen-3 mission’s potential landing sites, the research team built a global open planetary atmospheric model for Mars. They then used this model to replicate the three critical cycles of the Martian atmosphere: dust, water, and carbon dioxide. They then tested the model using the Open access to Mars Assimilated Remote Soundings (OpenMARS) dataset, a global record of Martian weather from 1999 to 2015, as well as observations made by China’s Zhurong rover (part of China’s Tianwen-1 mission) and NASA’s Viking 1 and 2 landers.

Their results showed that the GoMars model successfully reproduced the unique characteristics of surface pressure on Mars and provided good simulation performance for the surface temperature, zonal wind, polar ice, and dust. According to Wang, the Tianwen-3 mission will expand upon Tianwen-1 by adding the additional tasks of landing, sampling, and returning, which requires detailed information about Mars’ atmospheric conditions. This is crucial given how sandstorms caused multiple missions to be lost, such as Opportunity, Insight, and Zhurong – all due to the buildup of dust on their solar panels.

In addition, the Perseverance rover suffered damage to one of its wind sensors during a sandstorm due to airborne pebbles colliding with it. Since observation data is in short supply for Mars, the model also has applications for virtual reality simulations. This is necessary when prepping missions to remote planets, which helps them design vehicles and select appropriate landing sites. In this respect, a “virtual Mars” program that incorporates GoMars and future observations could take a lot of the guesswork out of future mission planning.

Since the 1960s, when the Soviet and American space programs began sending probes to Mars, scientists have been developing Martian atmospheric models in the hopes of
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Iran Sent a Capsule Capable of Holding Animals into Orbit.

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Despite popular opinion, the first animals in space were not dogs or chimps, they were fruit flies launched by the United States in February 1947. The Soviet Union launched Laika, the first dog into space in November 1957 and now, it seems Iran is getting in on the act. A 500kg capsule known as the “indigenous bio-capsule” with life support capability was recently launched atop the Iranian “Salman” rocket. It has been reported by some agencies that there were animals on board but no official statement has been released.

The Iranian Space Agency (ISA) are gearing up to getting humans into space before 2029 but is testing its launch capability with animal passengers. The capsule was launched on December 6 2023 and attained an orbital altitude of 130 kilometres. According to their Telecommunications Minister Isa Zarepour, it is aimed at sending Iranian astronauts to space by 2029.

The “Salaman” solid-fuelled rocket was designed by the aerospace division of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and built and launched by the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics. It has already been used to launch a data collecting satellite and in 2013 successfully sent and returned monkeys into space.

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Ham, a chimpanzee, became the first great ape in space during his January 31, 1961, suborbital flight aboard Mercury-Redstone 2 (Credit : NASA)

To date, only three counties have human spaceflight capability; USA, Russia and China. India are attempting to become the fourth as they work on their Gaganyaan program. Will Iran become the fifth!? Iran plans further tests with further launches bearing animal occupants before attempting to send humans up.

According to the Iranian Space Agency, its satellite program is purely for scientific research and other civilian applications. There is however, international suspicion because there are suspicions that the Salamn rockets could very easily be converted to long range missiles.

Source : Iran says it sent a capsule capable of carrying animals into orbit as it prepares for human missions

The post Iran Sent a Capsule Capable of Holding Animals into Orbit. appeared first on Universe Today.

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What Could a Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Do?

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Telescopes have come a long way in a little over four hundred years! It was 1608 that Dutch spectacle maker Hans Lippershey who was said to be working with a case of myopia and, in working with lenses discovered the magnifying powers if arranged in certain configurations. Now, centuries on and we have many different telescope designs and even telescopes in orbit but none are more incredible than the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Images las year revealed the supermassive black hole at the centre of our Galaxy and around M87 but now a team of astronomers have explored the potential of an even more powerful system the Next Generation EHT (ngEHT).

There is no doubt that our understanding of the processes within our Universe have come on leaps and bounds since the invention of the telescope. The resolution of these space piercing instruments is dictated by the telescope’s aperture. The technique known as interferometry hooks individual telescopes together and combines their signal so they act as one BIG telescope, boosting the resolution. 

Telescopes like the EHT have been using interferometry to great advantage to study black holes. These enigmatic and mysterious stellar corpses defy our probing; we do not fully understand their origins and processes and indeed our laws of physics break down if you get too close to the point source in the centre, the singularity. Due to their interaction with space and time, understanding the full nature of black holes will – hopefully – unlock our understanding of the Universe. 

Previously, observations have only revealed the movement of stars around galactic centre suggesting an object was lurking there weighing in at around 4 million times the mass of the Sun. Data from the EHT collected during 2022, finally revealed an image of the object at the centre – SgrA* – a super massive black hole and the matter in the immediate vicinity of the event horizon. Whilst this image did not reveal the black hole itself – another article required to explain that – it certainly revealed the telltale signs. 

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Sag A* compared to M87* and the orbit of Mercury. Credit: EHT collaboration

A recently published paper explores the possibilities of the ngEHT and how they might be able to unpick some of the physics around black holes. The ngEHT will increase the geographical footprint of EHT by 10 further instruments that span across the Earth.  Making use of the significant improvement in resolution, the ngEHT will also improve image dynamics range, provide a multi-wavelength capability and facilitate long term monitoring. 

The team conclude that future enhancements in measurement sensitivity and data analysis techniques in ngEHT will substantially advance our understanding of black holes and the immediate environments surrounding them with particular focus on the photon ring, mass and spin analysis, binary supermassive black holes and more besides.

Source : Fundamental Physics Opportunities with the Next-Generation Event Horizon Telescope

The post What Could a Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Do? appeared first on Universe Today.

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Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park

By Michael Lanza

In the second week of September, the cool air in the shade of the forest nips at our cheeks as we leave our first night’s camp beside Glenns Lake in the backcountry of Glacier National Park, starting at a reasonably early hour for a day where we will walk nearly 16 miles and 6,000 feet of combined uphill and downhill. I’m hiking in a fleece hoodie, pants, and gloves and my friends Pam Solon and Jeff Wilhelm are similarly layered up. Once the sun reaches us within an hour, we’ll strip down to shorts and T-shirts.

Where the trail crosses a meadow, the expansive view west across a calm and insistently blue Cosley Lake reveals what looks like a long wall of overlapping stone shields jammed into the earth, each 2,000 or more feet tall and tilting at different angles. At the lake’s outlet—now in warm sunshine—we ford the Belly River, ankle- to calf-deep here with just a few tiny riffles and not very cold. More hiking through quiet forest brings us to the refrigerated, cliff-shaded alcove below Dawn Mist Falls, which spills thunderously over a sheer drop and crashes onto fallen boulders at its base, its force releasing a perpetual mist. Moss wallpapers the alcove’s short cliffs.

A backpacker hiking the Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail in Glacier National Park.
” data-image-caption=”Pam Solon backpacking the Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail in Glacier National Park.
” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Gla7-35-Pam-Solon-backpacking-the-Ptarmigan-Tunnel-Trail-in-Glacier-National-Park.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Gla7-35-Pam-Solon-backpacking-the-Ptarmigan-Tunnel-Trail-in-Glacier-National-Park.jpg?fit=900%2C600&ssl=1″ src=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Gla7-35-Pam-Solon-backpacking-the-Ptarmigan-Tunnel-Trail-in-Glacier-National-Park.jpg?resize=900%2C600&ssl=1″ alt=”A backpacker hiking the Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail in Glacier National Park.” class=”wp-image-61144″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Gla7-35-Pam-Solon-backpacking-the-Ptarmigan-Tunnel-Trail-in-Glacier-National-Park.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Gla7-35-Pam-Solon-backpacking-the-Ptarmigan-Tunnel-Trail-in-Glacier-National-Park.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Gla7-35-Pam-Solon-backpacking-the-Ptarmigan-Tunnel-Trail-in-Glacier-National-Park.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Gla7-35-Pam-Solon-backpacking-the-Ptarmigan-Tunnel-Trail-in-Glacier-National-Park.jpg?resize=150%2C100&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/thebigoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Gla7-35-Pam-Solon-backpacking-the-Ptarmigan-Tunnel-Trail-in-Glacier-National-Park.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1 1200w” sizes=”(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px” data-recalc-dims=”1″ />Pam Solon backpacking the Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail in Glacier National Park.

After a thoroughly relaxing lunch break on the pebbly beach at Elizabeth Lake—where the perfect combination of solar warmth and soft breeze probably converts in direct value to about a thousand hours of counseling—we start the long climb to the Ptarmigan Tunnel. Reaching the open alpine terrain, I repeatedly stop to spin 180 degrees and take big bites of our view of the valley of Helen and Elizabeth lakes and the peaks on the other side, which shelter what remains of a couple of glaciers in the shade of north-facing cliffs just below the mountaintops.

I’ve backpacked this trail before; this isn’t new to me. But time slowly renders a bit fuzzier the memory of how constantly breathtaking it is—which is, in a funny way, a gift to us: We get to experience that awe anew each time.

Everyone laughed when the legendary Yogi Berra said, “It’s like déjà vu all over again,” but I think I knew what he meant.

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