Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This artist’s concept shows the Moon’s hot interior and volcanism about 2 to 3 billion years ago. It is thought that volcanic activity on the lunar near side (the side facing Earth) helped create a landscape dominated by vast plains called mare, which are formed by molten rock that cooled and solidified. NASA/JPL-Caltech Analyzing gravity data collected by spacecraft orbiting other worlds reveals groundbreaking insights about planetary structures without having to land on the surface.
Although the Moon and the asteroid Vesta are very different, two NASA studies use the same technique to reveal new details about the interiors of both.
In the lunar study, published May 14 in the journal Nature, researchers developed a new gravity model of the Moon that includes tiny variations in the celestial body’s gravity during its elliptical orbit around Earth. These fluctuations cause the Moon to flex slightly due to Earth’s tidal force — a process called tidal deformation — which provides critical insights into the Moon’s deep internal structure.
Using their model, the researchers produced the most detailed lunar gravitational map yet, providing future missions an improved way to calculate location and time on the Moon. They accomplished this by analyzing data on the motion of NASA’s GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) mission, whose spacecraft, Ebb and Flow, orbited the Moon from Dec. 31, 2011, to Dec. 17, 2012.
These views of the Moon’s near side, left, and far side were put together from observations made by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA/JPL-Caltech In a second study, published in the journal Nature Astronomy on April 23, the researchers focused on Vesta, an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Using NASA’s Deep Space Network radiometric data and imaging data from the agency’s Dawn spacecraft, which orbited the asteroid from July 16, 2011, to Sept. 5, 2012, they found that instead of having distinct layers as expected, Vesta’s internal structure may be mostly uniform, with a very small iron core or no core at all.
“Gravity is a unique and fundamental property of a planetary body that can be used to explore its deep interior,” said Park. “Our technique doesn’t need data from the surface; we just need to track the motion of the spacecraft very precisely to get a global view of what’s inside.”
Lunar Asymmetry
The lunar study looked at gravitational changes to the Moon’s near and far sides. While the near side is dominated by vast plains — known as mare — formed by molten rock that cooled and solidified billions of years ago, the far side is more rugged, with few plains.
NASA’s Dawn mission obtained this image of the giant asteroid Vesta on July 24, 2011. The spacecraft spent 14 months orbiting the asteroid, capturing more than 30,000 images and fully mapping its surface. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA Both studies were led by Ryan Park, supervisor of the Solar System Dynamics Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and were years in the making due to their complexity. The team used NASA supercomputers to build a detailed map of how gravity varies across each body. From that, they could better understand what the Moon and Vesta are made of and how planetary bodies across the solar system formed.
Some theories suggest intense volcanism on the near side likely caused these differences. That process would have caused radioactive, heat-generating elements to accumulate deep inside the near side’s mantle, and the new study offers the strongest evidence yet that this is likely the case.
“We found that the Moon’s near side is flexing more than the far side, meaning there’s something fundamentally different about the internal structure of the Moon’s near side compared to its far side,” said Park. “When we first analyzed the data, we were so surprised by the result we didn’t believe it. So we ran the calculations many times to verify the findings. In all, this is a decade of work.”
When comparing their results with other models, Park’s team found a small but greater-than-expected difference in how much the two hemispheres deform. The most likely explanation is that the near side has a warm mantle region, indicating the presence of heat-generating radioactive elements, which is evidence for volcanic activity that shaped the Moon’s near side 2 billion to 3 billion years ago.
Vesta’s Evolution
Park’s team applied a similar approach for their study that focused on Vesta’s rotational properties to learn more about its interior.
“Our technique is sensitive to any changes in the gravitational field of a body in space, whether that gravitational field changes over time, like the tidal flexing of the Moon, or through space, like a wobbling asteroid,” said Park. “Vesta wobbles as it spins, so we could measure its moment of inertia, a characteristic that is highly sensitive to the internal structure of the asteroid.”
Changes in inertia can be seen when an ice skater spins with their arms held outward. As they pull their arms in, bringing more mass toward their center of gravity, their inertia decreases and their spin speeds up. By measuring Vesta’s inertia, scientists can gain a detailed understanding of the distribution of mass inside the asteroid: If its inertia is low, there would be a concentration of mass toward its center; if it’s high, the mass would be more evenly distributed.
Some theories suggest that over a long period, Vesta gradually formed onion-like layers and a dense core. But the new inertia measurement from Park’s team suggests instead that Vesta is far more homogeneous, with its mass distributed evenly throughout and only a small core of dense material, or no core.
Gravity slowly pulls the heaviest elements to a planet’s center over time, which is how Earth ended up with a dense core of liquid iron. While Vesta has long been considered a differentiated asteroid, a more homogenous structure would suggest that it may not have fully formed layers or may have formed from the debris of another planetary body after a massive impact.
In 2016, Park used the same data types as the Vesta study to focus on Dawn’s second target, the dwarf planet Ceres, and results suggested a partially differentiated interior.
Park and his team recently applied a similar technique to Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, using data acquired by NASA’s Juno and Galileo spacecraft during their flybys of the Jovian satellite as well as from ground-based observations. By measuring how Io’s gravity changes as it orbits Jupiter, which exerts a powerful tidal force, they revealed that the fiery moon is unlikely to possess a global magma ocean.
“Our technique isn’t restricted just to Io, Ceres, Vesta, or the Moon,” said Park. “There are many opportunities in the future to apply our technique for studying the interiors of intriguing planetary bodies throughout the solar system.”
News Media Contacts
Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-2649
ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated May 14, 2025 Related Terms
Vesta Dawn Earth's Moon GRAIL (Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory) Jet Propulsion Laboratory Planetary Science Small Bodies of the Solar System The Solar System Explore More
7 min read Webb’s Titan Forecast: Partly Cloudy With Occasional Methane Showers
Saturn’s moon Titan is an intriguing world cloaked in a yellowish, smoggy haze. Similar to…
Article 3 hours ago 5 min read NASA’s Europa Clipper Captures Mars in Infrared
Article 2 days ago 5 min read NASA’s Webb Reveals New Details, Mysteries in Jupiter’s Aurora
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured new details of the auroras on our solar…
Article 2 days ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
ICON’s next generation Vulcan construction system 3D printing a simulated Mars habitat for NASA’s Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) missions.ICON One of the keys to a sustainable human presence on distant worlds is using local, or in-situ, resources which includes building materials for infrastructure such as habitats, radiation shielding, roads, and rocket launch and landing pads. NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate is leveraging its portfolio of programs and industry opportunities to develop in-situ, resource capabilities to help future Moon and Mars explorers build what they need. These technologies have made exciting progress for space applications as well as some impacts right here on Earth.
The Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology (MMPACT) project, funded by NASA’s Game Changing Development program and managed at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is exploring applications of large-scale, robotic 3D printing technology for construction on other planets. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but demonstrations using simulated lunar and Martian surface material, known as regolith, show the concept could become reality.
Lunar 3D printing prototype.Contour Crafting With its partners in industry and academic institutions, MMPACT is developing processing technologies for lunar and Martian construction materials. The binders for these materials, including water, could be extracted from the local regolith to reduce launch mass. The regolith itself is used as the aggregate, or granular material, for these concretes. NASA has evaluated these materials for decades, initially working with large-scale 3D printing pioneer, Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis, a professor of civil, environmental and astronautical engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Khoshnevis developed techniques for large-scale extraterrestrial 3D printing under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. One of these processes is Contour Crafting, in which molten regolith and a binding agent are extruded from a nozzle to create infrastructure layer by layer. The process can be used to autonomously build monolithic structures like radiation shielding and rocket landing pads.
Continuing to work with the NIAC program, Khoshnevis also developed a 3D printing method called selective separation sintering, in which heat and pressure are applied to layers of powder to produce metallic, ceramic, or composite objects which could produce small-scale, more-precise hardware. This energy-efficient technique can be used on planetary surfaces as well as in microgravity environments like space stations to produce items including interlocking tiles and replacement parts.
While NASA’s efforts are ultimately aimed at developing technologies capable of building a sustainable human presence on other worlds, Khoshnevis is also setting his sights closer to home. He has created a company called Contour Crafting Corporation that will use 3D printing techniques advanced with NIAC funding to fabricate housing and other infrastructure here on Earth.
Another one of NASA’s partners in additive manufacturing, ICON of Austin, Texas, is doing the same, using 3D printing techniques for home construction on Earth, with robotics, software, and advanced material.
Construction is complete on a 3D-printed, 1,700-square-foot habitat that will simulate the challenges of a mission to Mars at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The habitat will be home to four intrepid crew members for a one-year Crew Health and Performance Analog, or CHAPEA, mission. The first of three missions begins in the summer of 2023. The ICON company was among the participants in NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, which aimed to advance the technology needed to build housing in extraterrestrial environments. In 2021, ICON used its large-scale 3D printing system to build a 1,700 square-foot simulated Martian habitat that includes crew quarters, workstations and common lounge and food preparation areas. This habitat prototype, called Mars Dune Alpha, is part of NASA’s ongoing Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, a series of Mars surface mission simulations scheduled through 2026 at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
With support from NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program, ICON is also developing an Olympus construction system, which is designed to use local resources on the Moon and Mars as building materials.
The ICON company uses a robotic 3D printing technique called Laser Vitreous Multi-material Transformation, in which high-powered lasers melt local surface materials, or regolith, that then solidify to form strong, ceramic-like structures. Regolith can similarly be transformed to create infrastructure capable of withstanding environmental hazards like corrosive lunar dust, as well as radiation and temperature extremes.
The company is also characterizing the gravity-dependent properties of simulated lunar regolith in an experiment called Duneflow, which flew aboard a Blue Origin reusable suborbital rocket system through NASA’s Flight Opportunities program in February 2025. During that flight test, the vehicle simulated lunar gravity for approximately two minutes, enabling ICON and researchers from NASA to compare the behavior of simulant against real regolith obtained from the Moon during an Apollo mission.
Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/space-technology-mission-directorate/
Facebook logo @NASATechnology @NASA_Technology Keep Exploring Discover More …
Space Technology Mission Directorate
NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts
STMD Solicitations and Opportunities
Technology
Share
Details
Last Updated May 13, 2025 EditorLoura Hall Related Terms
Space Technology Mission Directorate NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program Technology View the full article
-
By NASA
Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing: Jackie Branc (CC BY) JunoCam, the visible light imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft, captured this view of Jupiter’s northern high latitudes during the spacecraft’s 69th flyby of the giant planet on Jan. 28, 2025. Jupiter’s belts and zones stand out in this enhanced color rendition, along with the turbulence along their edges caused by winds going in different directions.
The original JunoCam data used to produce this view was taken from an altitude of about 36,000 miles (58,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops. JunoCam’s raw images are available for the public to peruse and process into image products. Citizen scientist Jackie Branc processed the image.
Since Juno arrived at Jupiter in 2016, it has been probing beneath the dense, forbidding clouds encircling the giant planet – the first orbiter to peer so closely. It seeks answers to questions about the origin and evolution of Jupiter, our solar system, and giant planets across the cosmos.
Learn more about NASA citizen science.
Image credit: Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS; Image processing: Jackie Branc (CC BY)
View the full article
-
By NASA
Artemis II crew members, shown inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, stand in front of their Orion crew module on Aug. 8, 2023. Pictured from left are CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch.Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA will host a live Twitch event to highlight the ongoing Moon Mascot Challenge, which invites the public to design a zero gravity indicator for the agency’s Artemis II crewed test flight around the Moon. Viewers will have the opportunity to provide real-time input to an artist who will create an example of a zero gravity indicator during the livestream.
Zero gravity indicators are small, plush items carried aboard spacecraft to provide a visual indication of when the crew reaches space.
The event will begin at 3 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, May 13, on the agency’s official Twitch channel:
https://www.twitch.tv/nasa
The contest invites global creators of all ages to submit design ideas for a zero gravity indicator that will fly aboard the agency’s Artemis II test flight, the first crewed mission under NASA’s Artemis campaign.
Up to 25 finalists, including entries from a K-12 student division, will be selected. The Artemis II crew will choose one design that NASA’s Thermal Blanket Lab will fabricate to fly alongside the crew in the Orion spacecraft.
During this Twitch event, NASA experts will discuss the Moon Mascot Challenge while the artist incorporates live audience feedback into a sample design. Although the design example will not be eligible for the contest, it will demonstrate how challenge participants can develop their own zero gravity indicator designs. The example will be shared on the @NASAArtemis social media accounts following the Twitch event.
The Artemis II test flight will take NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back. The mission is another step toward missions on the lunar surface to help the agency prepare for future human missions to Mars.
To learn more about NASA’s missions, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov
-end-
Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated May 12, 2025 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Artemis 2 Earth's Moon Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate Social Media View the full article
-
By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This picture of Mars is a composite of several images captured by Europa Clipper’s thermal imager on March 1. Bright regions are relatively warm, with temperatures of about 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). Darker areas are colder. The darkest region at the top is the northern polar cap and is about minus 190 F (minus 125 C).NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU Headed for Jupiter’s moon Europa, the spacecraft did some sightseeing, using a flyby of Mars to calibrate its infrared imaging instrument.
On its recent swing by Mars, NASA’s Europa Clipper took the opportunity to capture infrared images of the Red Planet. The data will help mission scientists calibrate the spacecraft’s thermal imaging instrument so they can be sure it’s operating correctly when Europa Clipper arrives at the Jupiter system in 2030.
The mission’s sights are set on Jupiter’s moon Europa and the global ocean hidden under its icy surface. A year after slipping into orbit around Jupiter, Europa Clipper will begin a series of 49 close flybys of the moon to investigate whether it holds conditions suitable for life.
A key element of that investigation will be thermal imaging — global scans of Europa that map temperatures to shed light on how active the surface is. Infrared imaging will reveal how much heat is being emitted from the moon; warmer areas of the ice give off more energy and indicate recent activity.
The imaging also will tell scientists where the ocean is closest to the surface. Europa is crisscrossed by dramatic ridges and fractures, which scientists believe are caused by ocean convection pulling apart the icy crust and water rising up to fill the gaps.
This picture of Mars is a colorized composite of several images captured by Europa Clipper’s thermal imager. Warm colors represent relatively warm temperatures; red areas are about 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius), and purple regions are about minus 190 F (minus 125 C).NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU “We want to measure the temperature of those features,” said Arizona State University’s Phil Christensen, principal investigator of Europa Clipper’s infrared camera, called the Europa Thermal Imaging System (E-THEMIS). “If Europa is a really active place, those fractures will be warmer than the surrounding ice where the ocean comes close to the surface. Or if water erupted onto the surface hundreds to thousands of years ago, then those surfaces could still be relatively warm.”
Why Mars
On March 1, Europa Clipper flew just 550 miles (884 kilometers) above the surface of Mars in order to use the planet’s gravitational pull to reshape the spacecraft’s trajectory. Ultimately, the assist will get the mission to Jupiter faster than if it made a beeline for the gas giant, but the flyby also offered a critical opportunity for Europa Clipper to test E-THEMIS.
For about 18 minutes on March 1, the instrument captured one image per second, yielding more than a thousand grayscale pictures that were transmitted to Earth starting on May 5. After compiling these images into a global snapshot of Mars, scientists applied color, using hues with familiar associations: Warm areas are depicted in red, while colder areas are shown as blue.
By comparing E-THEMIS images with those made from established Mars data, scientists can judge how well the instrument is working.
“We wanted no surprises in these new images,” Christensen said. “The goal was to capture imagery of a planetary body we know extraordinarily well and make sure the dataset looks exactly the way it should, based on 20 years of instruments documenting Mars.”
NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, launched in 2001, carries a sister instrument named THEMIS that has been capturing its own thermal images of the Red Planet for decades. To be extra thorough, the Odyssey team collected thermal images of Mars before, during, and after Europa Clipper’s flyby so that Europa scientists can compare the visuals as an additional gauge of how well E-THEMIS is calibrated.
Europa Clipper also took advantage of the close proximity to Mars to test all the components of its radar instrument in unison for the first time. The radar antennas and the wavelengths they produce are so long that it wasn’t possible for engineers to can do that in a clean room before launch. The radar data will be returned and analyzed in the coming weeks and months, but preliminary assessments of the real-time telemetry indicate that the test went well.
To leverage the flyby even further, the science team took the opportunity to ensure that the spacecraft’s telecommunication equipment will be able to conduct gravity experiments at Europa. By transmitting signals to Earth while passing through Mars’ gravity field, they were able to confirm that a similar operation is expected to work at Europa.
Europa Clipper launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 14, 2024, via a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, embarking on a 1.8 billion-mile (2.9 billion-kilometer) journey to Jupiter, which is five times farther from the Sun than Earth is. Now that the probe has harnessed the gravity of Mars, its next gravity assist will be from Earth in 2026.
More About Europa Clipper
Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL designed the main spacecraft body in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
Find more information about Europa Clipper here:
News Media Contacts
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-287-4115
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2025-065
Share
Details
Last Updated May 12, 2025 Related Terms
Europa Clipper Europa Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Explore More
3 min read Dave Gallagher Named 11th Director of JPL as Laurie Leshin Steps Down
Article 5 days ago 6 min read NASA’s SPHEREx Space Telescope Begins Capturing Entire Sky
Article 2 weeks ago 4 min read Robots, Rovers, and Regolith: NASA Brings Exploration to FIRST Robotics 2025
Article 2 weeks ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.