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    • By European Space Agency
      A team of European scientists have published the most detailed geologic map of Oxia Planum – the landing site for ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars. This thorough look at the geography and geological history of the area will help the rover scout the once water-rich terrain, in the search for signs of past and present life.
      View the full article
    • By NASA
      The plane of our Milky Way galaxy, as seen by ESA’s Gaia space mission. It contains more than a billion stars, along with darker, dusty regions Gaia couldn’t see through. With its greater sensitivity and longer wavelength coverage, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s galactic plane survey will peer through more of the dust and reveal far more stars.Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has announced plans for an unprecedented survey of the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. It will peer deeper into this region than any other survey, mapping more of our galaxy’s stars than all previous observations combined.
      “There’s a really broad range of science we can explore with this type of survey, from star formation and evolution to dust in between stars and the dynamics of the heart of the galaxy,” said Catherine Zucker, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who co-authored a white paper describing some of the benefits of such an observing program.
      Scientists have studied our solar system’s neighborhood pretty well, but much of the galaxy remains shrouded from view. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will peer through thick bands of dust to reveal parts of our galaxy we’ve never been able to explore before, thanks to a newly selected galactic plane survey. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center A galactic plane survey was the top-ranked submission following a 2021 call for Roman survey ideas. Now, the scientific community will work together to design the observational program ahead of Roman’s launch by May 2027.
      “There will be lots of trade-offs since scientists will have to choose between, for example, how much area to cover and how completely to map it in all the different possible filters,” said paper co-author Robert Benjamin, an astronomer at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
      While the details of the survey remain to be determined, scientists say if it covered about 1,000 square degrees – a region of sky as large as 5,000 full moons – it could reveal well over 100 billion cosmic objects (mainly stars).
      “That would be pretty close to a complete census of all the stars in our galaxy, and it would only take around a month,” said Roberta Paladini, a senior research scientist at Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California, and the white paper’s lead author. “It would take decades to observe such a large patch of the sky with the Hubble or James Webb space telescopes. Roman will be a survey machine!”
      Milky Way Anatomy
      Observatories with smaller views of space have provided exquisite images of other galaxies, revealing complex structures. But studying our own galaxy’s anatomy is surprisingly difficult. The plane of the Milky Way covers such a large area on the sky that studying it in detail can take a very long time. Astronomers also must peer through thick dust that obscures distant starlight.
      While we’ve studied our solar system’s neighborhood well, Zucker says, “we have basically no idea what the other half of that Milky Way looks like beyond the galactic center.”
      Observatories like NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope have conducted shallower surveys of the galactic plane and revealed some star-forming regions on the far side of the galaxy. But it couldn’t resolve fine details like Roman will do.
      “Spitzer set up the questions that Roman will be able to solve,” Benjamin said.
      Roman’s combination of a large field of view, crisp resolution, and the ability to peer through dust make it the ideal instrument to study the Milky Way. And seeing stars in different wavelengths of light – optical and infrared – will help astronomers learn things such as the stars’ temperatures. That one piece of information unlocks much more data, from the star’s evolutionary stage and composition to its luminosity and size.
      “We can do very detailed studies of things like star formation and the structure of our own galaxy in a way that we can’t do for any other galaxy,” Paladini said.
      This image shows two views of the same spiral galaxy, called IC 5332, as seen by two NASA observatories – the James Webb Space Telescope’s observations appear at the top left and the Hubble Space Telescope’s at the bottom right. The views are mainly so different due to the wavelengths of light they each showcase. Hubble’s visible and ultraviolet observation features dark regions where dust absorbs those types of light. Webb sees longer wavelengths and detects that dust glowing in infrared. But neither could conduct an efficient survey of our Milky Way galaxy because it covers so much sky area; since IC 5332 is around 30 million light-years away, it appears as a small spot. It would take Hubble or Webb decades to survey the Milky Way, but NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could do it in less than a month. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), Rupali Chandar (UToledo), PHANGS Team Roman will offer new insights about the structure of the central region known as the bulge, the “bar” that stretches across it, and the spiral arms that extend from it.
      “We’ll basically rewrite the 3D picture of the far side of the galaxy,” Zucker said.
      Roman’s sharp vision will help astronomers see individual stars even in stellar nurseries on the far side of the galaxy. That will help Roman generate a huge new catalog of stars since it will be able to map 10 times farther than previous precision mapping by ESA’s (the European Space Agency’s) Gaia space mission. Gaia mapped over 1 billion stars in 3D largely within about 10,000 light-years. Roman could map up to 100 billion stars 100,000 light-years away or more (stretching out to the most distant edge of our galaxy and beyond).
      The Galactic Plane Survey is Roman’s first announced general astrophysics survey – one of several observation programs Roman will do in addition to its three core community surveys and Coronagraph technology demonstration. At least 25% of Roman’s five-year primary mission will be allocated to general astrophysics surveys in order to pursue science that can’t be done with only the mission’s core community survey data. Astronomers from all over the world will have the opportunity to use Roman and propose cutting-edge research, enabling the astronomical community to utilize the full potential of Roman’s capabilities to conduct extraordinary science.
      The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
      Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
      By Ashley Balzer
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
      Media contact:
      Claire Andreoli
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
      claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
      301-286-1940
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      Last Updated Mar 12, 2024 Related Terms
      Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Galaxies Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Missions Spitzer Space Telescope Stars The Milky Way The Universe View the full article
    • By NASA
      4 min read
      Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
      The GUSTO mission successfully launched on a scientific balloon from Antarctica Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m. local time (Dec. 31, 1:30 a.m. EST). GUSTO is flying on a 39 million cubic-foot zero-pressure scientific balloon. The balloon is used to fly missions for long periods of time during the Austral Summer over Antarctica. On Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024, GUSTO broke the record for longest flight of any NASA heavy-lift, long-duration scientific balloon mission.NASA/Scott Battaion Fifty-five days, one hour, and 34 minutes was the NASA record to beat, and the GUSTO (Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory) scientific balloon mission did just that Saturday, Feb. 24, while flying high above the icy surface of Antarctica. GUSTO is now the new record-holder for longest flight of any NASA heavy-lift, long-duration scientific balloon mission.
      “The success of this balloon mission is a fantastic tribute to all the people that support the program,” said Andrew Hamilton, acting chief of NASA’s Balloon Program Office at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. “From the operations team at Peraton, to our balloon manufacturer at Aerostar, to the National Science Foundation and their support staff in Antarctica, and to the Mission Management team with NASA, every one of them has been vital to the success of this mission which absolutely demonstrates the capability and value of Long Duration Ballooning to the scientific community.”
      GUSTO was launched at 1:30 a.m. EST Dec. 31 from the Long Duration Balloon Camp near McMurdo Station, Antarctica. The balloon mission not only broke the flight record but continues its path circumnavigating the South Pole. The stadium-sized zero-pressure scientific balloon and observatory are currently reaching altitudes above 125,000 feet. “The health of the balloon and the stratospheric winds are both contributing to the success of the mission so far,” said Hamilton. “The balloon and balloon systems have been performing beautifully, and we’re seeing no degradation in the performance of the balloon. The winds in the stratosphere have been very favorable and have provided stable conditions for extended flight.”
      GUSTO’s record-breaking flight claimed the NASA title from the Super-TIGER (Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder) balloon mission, which launched from Antarctica in December 2012.
      GUSTO, an Astrophysics mission managed by NASA’s Explorers Program Office at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is led by principal investigator Christopher Walker from the University of Arizona with support from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
      “NASA’s Long Duration Balloon program provides researchers the ability to fly state-of-the art payloads at the very edge of space, affording them the opportunity to make groundbreaking observations of the cosmos more frequently and at a significantly lower cost than conventional orbital missions,” said Walker.
      GUSTO is mapping a large part of the Milky Way galaxy, including the galactic center, and the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. The telescope is equipped with sensitive detectors for carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen emission lines. Measuring these emission lines gives the GUSTO team insight into the full lifecycle of the interstellar medium, the cosmic material found between stars. GUSTO’s science observations are performed from Antarctica to allow for enough observation time aloft, access to astronomical objects, and solar power provided by the austral summer in the polar region.
      The GUSTO science mission is scheduled to run just over 60 days, and even after the science mission is complete, the balloon will continue to fly and perform technology demonstration work. “After that, we plan to push the limits of the balloon and fly as long as the balloon is capable to really demonstrate the capabilities of Long Duration Ballooning,” said Hamilton.
      NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia manages the agency’s scientific balloon flight program with 10 to 15 flights each year from launch sites worldwide. Peraton, which operates NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) in Texas, provides mission planning, engineering services, and field operations for NASA’s scientific balloon program. The CSBF team has launched more than 1,700 scientific balloons over some 40 years of operations. NASA’s balloons are fabricated by Aerostar. The NASA Scientific Balloon Program is funded by the NASA Headquarters Science Mission Directorate Astrophysics Division. NASA balloon launch operations from Antarctica receive logistical support from the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, which leads U.S. research in Antarctica.
      For more information on NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program, click here. Track the GUSTO mission in real-time on NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility website.
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      Details
      Last Updated Feb 26, 2024 EditorOlivia F. LittletonContactOlivia F. Littletonolivia.f.littleton@nasa.govLocationWallops Flight Facility Related Terms
      Scientific Balloons Astrophysics Explorers Program GUSTO (Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory) Wallops Flight Facility View the full article
    • By European Space Agency
      Playing a huge role in moderating the climate, oceans are fundamental to the functioning of our planet. Understanding more about how seawater temperatures are rising and how oceans are absorbing excess atmospheric carbon dioxide, as well as knock-on issues such as ocean acidification, is key for understanding climate change and for taking effective action.
      A recent scientific paper highlights just how satellites are becoming increasingly important in providing unique information on ocean health to guide climate mitigation and adaptation efforts.
      View the full article
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