Space News Update — September 19, 2014 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1: Pursuit of Dark Matter Progresses at AMS

Story 2: NASA Mars Spacecraft (MAVEN) Ready for Sept. 21 Orbit Insertion

Story 3: Hubble Helps Find Smallest Known Galaxy Containing a Supermassive Black Hole

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

Space Calendar

NASA-TV Highlights

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1. Pursuit of Dark Matter Progresses at AMS

New results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment show that a possible sign of dark matter is within scientists’ reach. Dark matter is a form of matter that neither emits nor absorbs light. Scientists think it is about five times as prevalent as regular matter, but so far have observed it only indirectly.

The AMS experiment, which is secured to the side of the International Space Station 250 miles above Earth, studies cosmic rays, high-energy particles in space. A small fraction of these particles may have their origin in the collisions of dark matter particles that permeate our galaxy. Thus it may be possible that dark matter can be detected through measurements of cosmic rays.

AMS scientists—based at the AMS control center at CERN research center in Europe and at collaborating institutions worldwide—compare the amount of matter and antimatter cosmic rays of different energies their detector picks up in space. AMS has collected information about 54 billion cosmic ray events, of which scientists have analyzed 41 billion.

Theorists predict that at higher and higher energies, the proportion of antimatter particles called positrons should drop in comparison to the proportion of electrons. AMS found this to be true. However, in 2013 it also found that beyond a certain energy—8 billion electronvolts—the proportion of positrons begins to climb steeply.

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“This means there’s something new there,” says AMS leader and Nobel Laureate Sam Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and CERN. “It’s totally unexpected.” The excess was a clear sign of an additional source of positrons. That source might be an astronomical object we already know about, such as a pulsar. But the positrons could also be produced in collisions of particles of dark matter.

Today, Ting announced AMS had discovered the other end of this uptick in positrons—an indication that the experiment will eventually be able to discern what likely caused it. “Scientists have been measuring this ratio since 1964,” says Jim Siegrist, associate director of the US Department of Energy’s Office of High-Energy Physics, which funded the construction of AMS. “This is the first time anyone has observed this turning point.”

The AMS experiment found that the proportion of positrons begins to drop off again at around 275 billion electronvolts. The energy that comes out of a particle collision must be equal to the amount that goes into it, and mass is related to energy. The energies of positrons made in dark matter particle collisions would therefore be limited by the mass of dark matter particles. If dark matter particles of a certain mass are responsible for the excess positrons, those extra positrons should drop off rather suddenly at an energy corresponding to the dark matter particle mass.

If the numbers of positrons at higher energies do decrease suddenly, the rate at which they do it can give scientists more clues as to what kind of particles caused the increase in the first place. “Different particles give you different curves,” Ting says. “With more statistics in a few years, we will know how quickly it goes down.”

If they decrease gradually instead, it is more likely they were produced by something else, such as pulsars. To gain a clearer picture, AMS scientists have begun to collect data about another matter-antimatter pair—protons and antiprotons—which pulsars do not produce.

The 7.5-ton AMS experiment was able to make these unprecedented measurements due to its location on the International Space Station, above the interference of Earth’s atmosphere. “It’s really profound to me, the fact that we’re getting this fundamental data,” says NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan, who recently visited the AMS control center. “Once we understand it, it could change how we see the universe.”

AMS scientists also announced today that the way that the positrons increased within the area of interest, between 8 and 257 GeV, was steady, with no sudden peaks. Such jolts could have indicated the cause of the positron proliferation were sources other than, or in addition to, dark matter.

In addition, AMS discovered that positrons and electrons act very differently at different energies, but that, when combined, the fluxes of the two together unexpectedly seem to fit into a single, straight slope. “This just shows how little we know about space,” Ting says.

Fifteen countries from Europe, Asia and America participated in the construction of AMS. The collaboration works closely with a management team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. NASA carried AMS to the International Space Station on the final mission of the space shuttle Endeavour in 2011

Source: Symmetry Magazine, NASA Return to Contents

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2. NASA Mars Spacecraft (MAVEN) Ready for Sept. 21 Orbit Insertion

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is nearing its scheduled Sept. 21 insertion into Martian orbit after completing a 10-month interplanetary journey of 442 million miles.

Flight Controllers at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton, Colorado, will be responsible for the health and safety of the spacecraft throughout the process. The spacecraft’s mission timeline will place the spacecraft in orbit at approximately 9:50 p.m. EDT. “So far, so good with the performance of the spacecraft and payloads on the cruise to Mars,” said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The team, the flight system, and all ground assets are ready for Mars orbit insertion.”

The orbit-insertion maneuver will begin with the brief firing of six small thruster engines to steady the spacecraft. The engines will ignite and burn for 33 minutes to slow the craft, allowing it to be pulled into an elliptical orbit with a period of 35 hours.

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Following orbit insertion, MAVEN will begin a six-week commissioning phase that includes maneuvering the spacecraft into its final orbit and testing its instruments and science-mapping commands. Thereafter, MAVEN will begin its one-Earth-year primary mission to take measurements of the composition, structure and escape of gases in Mars’ upper atmosphere and its interaction with the sun and solar wind.

“The MAVEN science mission focuses on answering questions about where did the water that was present on early Mars go, about where did the carbon dioxide go,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from the University of Colorado, Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. “These are important questions for understanding the history of Mars, its climate, and its potential to support at least microbial life.”

MAVEN launched Nov. 18, 2013, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying three instrument packages. It is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the upper atmosphere of Mars. The mission’s combination of detailed measurements at specific points in Mars’ atmosphere and global imaging provides a powerful tool for understanding the properties of the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere.

“MAVEN is another NASA robotic scientific explorer that is paving the way for our journey to Mars,” said Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Together, robotics and humans will pioneer the Red Planet and the solar system to help answer some of humanity’s fundamental questions about life beyond Earth.”

The spacecraft’s principal investigator is based at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado, Boulder. The university provided two science instruments and leads science operations, as well as education and public outreach, for the mission.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the project and also provided two science instruments for the mission. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations. The Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley provided four science instruments for MAVEN. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, provides navigation and Deep Space Network support, and Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

To learn more about the MAVEN mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/maven.

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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3. Hubble Helps Find Smallest Known Galaxy Containing a Supermassive Black Hole

Astronomers using data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground observation have found an unlikely object in an improbable place -- a monster black hole lurking inside one of the tiniest galaxies ever known. The black hole is five times the mass of the one at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. It is inside one of the densest galaxies known to date -- the M60-UCD1 dwarf galaxy that crams 140 million stars within a diameter of about 300 light-years, which is only 1/500th of our galaxy's diameter.

If you lived inside this dwarf galaxy, the night sky would dazzle with at least 1 million stars visible to the naked eye. Our nighttime sky as seen from Earth's surface shows 4,000 stars.

The finding implies there are many other compact galaxies in the universe that contain supermassive black holes. The observation also suggests dwarf galaxies may actually be the stripped remnants of larger galaxies that were torn apart during collisions with other galaxies rather than small islands of stars born in isolation.

"We don't know of any other way you could make a black hole so big in an object this small," said University of Utah astronomer Anil Seth, lead author of an international study of the dwarf galaxy published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Seth's team of astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini North 8-meter optical and infrared telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea to observe M60-UCD1 and measure the black hole's mass. The sharp Hubble images provide information about the galaxy's diameter and stellar density. Gemini measures the stellar motions as affected by the black hole's pull. These data are used to calculate the mass of the black hole.

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Black holes are gravitationally collapsed, ultra-compact objects that have a gravitational pull so strong that even light cannot escape. Supermassive black holes -- those with the mass of at least one million stars like our sun -- are thought to be at the centers of many galaxies.

The black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy has the mass of four million suns. As heavy as that is, it is less than 0.01 percent of the Milky Way's total mass. By comparison, the supermassive black hole at the center of M60-UCD1, which has the mass of 21 million suns, is a stunning 15 percent of the small galaxy's total mass."That is pretty amazing, given that the Milky Way is 500 times larger and more than 1,000 times heavier than the dwarf galaxy M60-UCD1," Seth said.

One explanation is that M60-UCD1 was once a large galaxy containing 10 billion stars, but then it passed very close to the center of an even larger galaxy, M60, and in that process all the stars and dark matter in the outer part of the galaxy were torn away and became part of M60.

The team believes that M60-UCD1 may eventually be pulled to fully merge with M60, which has its own monster black hole that weighs a whopping 4.5 billion solar masses, or more than 1,000 times bigger than the black hole in our galaxy. When that happens, the black holes in both galaxies also likely will merge. Both galaxies are 50 million light-years away.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.

For images and more information about Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble.

Source: Spaceref.com Return to Contents

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The Night Sky Friday, September 19

In early dawn Saturday morning, Jupiter shines upper left of the waning Moon in the east, as shown at right. How long has it been since you turned your scope on either Jupiter or the maria-covered waning crescent?

Saturday, September 20

In bright twilight, Mercury and fainter Spica are in conjunction 0.6° apart just above the west-southwest horizon. Use binoculars to scan for them about 20 minutes after sunset.

The eclipsing variable star Algol (Beta Persei) should be at its minimum light, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for a couple of hours centered on 10:55 p.m. EDT.

In early dawn on Sunday the 21st, the waning crescent Moon shines far below Jupiter and closer to the right of Regulus, as shown above.

Sunday, September 21

Aquila's dark secret: If you're blessed with a really dark sky, try finding the big dark nebula known as "Barnard's E" near Altair in Aquila, using Gary Seronik's Binocular Highlight column and chart in the September Sky & Telescope, page 45.

And if you have a sky that dark, also use binoculars to investigate the big, dim North America Nebula and its surroundings near Deneb in Cygnus using the September issue's Deep-Sky Wonders article, page 56.

Monday, September 22

The September equinox comes at 10:29 p.m. on this date EDT (2:29 September 23rd UT). This is when the Sun crosses the equator heading south for the year. Fall begins in the Northern Hemisphere, spring in the Southern Hemisphere. Day and twilight-plus-night are nearly equal in length. The Sun rises and sets almost exactly east and west.

As summer ends, the Sagittarius Teapot is moves west of due south during evening and tips increasingly far over, as if pouring out the last of summer.

Source: Sky & Telescope Return to Contents

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ISS Sighting Opportunities

For Denver:

Date Visible Max

Height Appears Disappears Sat Sep 20, 4:28 AM < 1 min 14° 14 above NNE 11 above NNE Sat Sep 20, 6:03 AM 1 min 10° 10 above NNW 10 above N Sun Sep 21, 5:14 AM 2 min 11° 10 above NNW 10 above NNE Mon Sep 22, 4:27 AM < 1 min 10° 10 above NNE 10 above NNE Mon Sep 22, 6:02 AM 2 min 11° 10 above NNW 10 above NNE

Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Daylight Time) Saturday, September 20

12:30 a.m., Video B-Roll Feed of the Processing of the SpaceX-CRS 4 Falcon 9 Rocket and the Dragon Cargo Craft (all channels) 1 a.m., Coverage of the SpaceX-CRS 4/Dragon Launch (Launch time is 2:14 a.m. ET) (all channels) 3:45 a.m., SpaceX-CRS-4/Dragon Post-Launch News Conference (all channels)

Sunday, September 21

9:30 p.m., Live Coverage of MAVEN - Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) - Clean Feed (NTV-3 (Media)) 9:30 p.m. Live Coverage of MAVEN - Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) (NTV-1 (Public), NTV-2 (Education)) 11:59 p.m., Post MAVEN - Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) News Conference (all channels)

Monday, September 22

5:30 a.m., Coverage of the Grapple of the SpaceX-CRS 4/Dragon at the ISS (Grapple of Dragon scheduled at appx. 7:30 a.m. ET) (all channels) 9:30 a.m., Coverage of the Berthing of the SpaceX-CRS 4/Dragon to the ISS (Berthing scheduled to begin appx. 9:45 a.m. ET) (all channels) 2 p.m., Video File of the ISS Expedition 41/42 Crew Activities and Soyuz TMA-14M Spacecraft Encapsulation at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (all channels)

Watch NASA TV on the Net by going to the NASA website.

Return to Contents

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Space Calendar

• Sep 19 - [Sep 13] Comet 309P/LINEAR At Opposition (1.276 AU) • Sep 19 - Comet 95P/Chiron Occults UCAC4-444-130878 (14.5 Magnitude Star) • Sep 19 - Asteroid 2014 RH12 Near-Earth Flyby (0.058 AU) • Sep 19 - Asteroid 3672 Stevedberg Closest Approach To Earth (0.978 AU) • Sep 19 - Asteroid 1996 Adams Closest Approach To Earth (1.199 AU) • Sep 19 - Asteroid 2097 Galle Closest Approach To Earth (1.328 AU) • Sep 19 - Asteroid 1865 Cerberus Closest Approach To Earth (1.458 AU) • Sep 19 - ESA Digital Signal Processing (DSP) Day 2014, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

• Sep 20 - [Sep 19] Dragon CRS-4/ Spinsat/ Arkyd-3/ RapidScat Falcon 9 Launch (International Space Station)

• Sep 20 - Comet P/2014 L2 (NEOWISE) At Opposition (1.314 AU) • Sep 20 - Comet P/2011 A2 (Scotti) At Opposition (3.190 AU) • Sep 20 - Comet C/2012 Q1 (Kowalski) Closest Approach To Earth (9.373 AU) • Sep 20 - Asteroid 12249 (1988 SH2) Occults HIP 1821 (6.4 Magnitude Star) • Sep 20 - [Sep 16] Asteroid 2014 RW18 Near-Earth Flyby (0.016 AU) • Sep 20 - Asteroid 2014 QJ33 Near-Earth Flyby (0.040 AU)

• Sep 21 - [Sep 18] MAVEN, Mars Orbit Insertion • Sep 21 - Mercury At Its Greatest Eastern Elongation (26 Degrees) • Sep 21 - Comet 148P/Anderson-LINEAR At Opposition (1.844 AU) • Sep 21 - Comet C/2013 P3 (Palomar) Closest Approach To Earth (7.657 AU) • Sep 21 - Comet C/2013 P3 (Palomar) At Opposition (7.657 AU) • Sep 21 - Asteroid 2011 UT Near-Earth Flyby (0.057 AU) • Sep 21 - Asteroid 9969 Braille Closest Approach To Earth (1.744 AU) • Sep 21 - Asteroid 11739 Baton Rouge Closest Approach To Earth (2.050 AU) • Sep 21 - Asteroid 2104 Toronto Closest Approach To Earth (2.629 AU) • Sep 21 - Kuiper Belt Object 120347 Salacia At Opposition (43.573 AU) • Sep 21 - 40th Anniversary (1974), Mariner 10, 2nd Mercury Flyby • Sep 21 - 65th Anniversary (1949), Beddgelert Meteorite Fall (Hit Hotel in Wales) • Sep 21 - Gustav Holst's 140th Birthday (1874)

Gustav Holst (composer of the orchestral suite “The Planets”), circa 1921

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

NASA Chooses American Companies to Transport U.S. Astronauts to International Space Station

U.S. astronauts once again will travel to and from the International Space Station from the United States on American spacecraft under groundbreaking contracts NASA announced Tuesday. The agency unveiled its selection of Boeing and SpaceX to transport U.S. crews to and from the space station using their CST-100 and Crew Dragon spacecraft, respectively, with a goal of ending the nation’s sole reliance on Russia in 2017.

"From day one, the Obama Administration made clear that the greatest nation on Earth should not be dependent on other nations to get into space," NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "Thanks to the leadership of President Obama, the hard work of our NASA and industry teams, and support from Congress, today we are one step closer to launching our astronauts from U.S. soil on American spacecraft and ending the nation’s sole reliance on Russia by 2017. Turning over low-Earth orbit transportation to private industry will also allow NASA to focus on an even more ambitious mission – sending humans to Mars."

These Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts are designed to complete the NASA certification for human space transportation systems capable of carrying people into orbit. Once certification is complete, NASA plans to use these systems to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station and return them safely to Earth.

The companies selected to provide this transportation capability and the maximum potential value of their FAR-based firm fixed-price contracts are:

-- The Boeing Company, Houston, $4.2 billion

-- Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Hawthorne, California, $2.6 billion

The contracts include at least one crewed flight test per company with at least one NASA astronaut aboard to verify the fully integrated rocket and spacecraft system can launch, maneuver in orbit, and dock to the space station, as well as validate all its systems perform as expected. Once each company’s test program has been completed successfully and its system achieves NASA certification, each contractor will conduct at least two, and as many as six, crewed missions to the space station. These spacecraft also will serve as a lifeboat for astronauts aboard the station.

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NASA's Commercial Crew Program will implement this capability as a public-private partnership with the American aerospace companies. NASA's expert team of engineers and spaceflight specialists is facilitating and certifying the development work of industry partners to ensure new spacecraft are safe and reliable.

The U.S. missions to the International Space Station following certification will allow the station's current crew of six to grow, enabling the crew to conduct more research aboard the unique microgravity laboratory.

"We are excited to see our industry partners close in on operational flights to the International Space Station, an extraordinary feat industry and the NASA family began just four years ago," said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. "This space agency has long been a technology innovator, and now we also can say we are an American business innovator, spurring job creation and opening up new markets to the private sector. The agency and our partners have many important steps to finish, but we have shown we can do the tough work required and excel in ways few would dare to hope."

The companies will own and operate the crew transportation systems and be able to sell human space transportation services to other customers in addition to NASA, thereby reducing the costs for all customers.

By encouraging private companies to handle launches to low-Earth orbit -- a region NASA's been visiting since 1962 -- the nation's space agency can focus on getting the most research and experience out of America's investment in the International Space Station. NASA also can focus on building spacecraft and rockets for deep space missions, including flights to Mars.

For more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program and CCtCap, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew.

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

Aurora over Maine

Explanation: It has been a good week for auroras. Earlier this month active sunspot region 2158 rotated into view and unleashed a series of flares and plasma ejections into the Solar System during its journey across the Sun's disk. In particular, a pair of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) impacted the Earth's magnetosphere toward the end of last week, creating the most intense geomagnetic storm so far this year. Although power outages were feared by some, the most dramatic effects of these impacting plasma clouds were auroras seen as far south as Wisconsin, USA. In the featured image taken last Friday night, rays and sheets of multicolored auroras were captured over Acadia National Park, in Maine, USA. Since another CME plasma cloud is currently approaching the Earth, tonight offers another good chance to see an impressive auroral display.

Image Credit & Copyright: Jeremy P. Gray Source: Astronomy Picture of the Day Return to Contents

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