NASA Selects Mission Proposals to Study Stellar Explosions, Galaxies & Stars



The NASA Explorers Program has chosen four mission designs for further consideration. The missions proposed will investigate exploding stars, distant galaxy clusters, as well as nearer galaxies and stars.

Mission concept studies will be carried out by two Explorer Missions of Opportunity and two Astrophysics Medium Explorer missions. After carefully examining the results of these studies, NASA intends to choose one Mission of Opportunity and one Medium Explorer to move on with implementation in 2024. It is planned to launch the chosen missions in 2027 and 2028, respectively.

Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, stated of the picks, "NASA's Explorers Program has a rich legacy of supporting creative approaches to excellent science, and these selections offer that same promise." These plans are inspiring in their scope and originality to explore the uncharted territory in our universe, ranging from examining the history of galaxies to studying explosive, high-energy occurrences.

The spiral galaxy Mrk (Markarian) 1337, which is about 120 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo, is depicted in this image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: A. Riess et al., ESA/Hubble & NASA.

NASA Explorer missions carry out narrowly focused scientific research and create instruments that bridge the knowledge gaps between the organization's more extensive space science missions. The potential scientific value and viability of the development plans were used to choose the ideas in a competitive process.

For a nine-month mission concept study, each of the two Medium Explorer teams chosen at this point will receive $3 million. The price of each Astrophysics Medium Explorer mission, excluding the launch vehicle, is restricted at $300 million. The chosen suggestions are:

UVEX would carry out a thorough scan of the entire sky in two bands of ultraviolet light, offering fresh perspectives on the development of galaxies and the life cycle of stars. The spacecraft would be able to quickly change its direction to see the explosion that occurs after a burst of gravitational waves from colliding neutron stars. A UV spectrograph would be aboard UVEX for a more in-depth examination of big stars and stellar explosions.

Survey and Time-domain Astrophysical Research Explorer Fiona Harrison, Caltech, Pasadena, California, is the principal investigator (STAR-X)

A powerful wide-field X-ray telescope and an ultraviolet telescope on the STAR-X spacecraft would be able to quickly rotate to gaze at transient cosmic sources like supernova explosions and active galaxies. Deep X-ray surveys will record the heated gas that is trapped in far-off galaxy clusters; when paired with infrared views from NASA's planned Roman Space Telescope, these studies would show how large galaxy clusters developed over the course of cosmic history.

William Zhang is the lead researcher at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

For a nine-month implementation concept study, each of the two Mission of Opportunity teams chosen at this point will receive $750,000. Costs for each NASA Mission of Opportunity are restricted at $80 million. The chosen suggestions are:

All-sky Moon Burst Energetics Monitor (MoonBEAM)

In its orbit between Earth and the Moon, MoonBEAM would have access to practically the whole sky at any given moment, allowing it to quickly alert other telescopes to research the source when it detected bursts of gamma rays from far-off cosmic explosions. Astronomers might use the MoonBEAM's ability to detect gamma rays earlier or later than telescopes on Earth or in low orbit to identify the location of the gamma ray source in the sky.

Chiumun Michelle Hui is the lead researcher at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The LEAP experiment, which would be mounted on the International Space Station, would investigate gamma-ray bursts produced by intense jets generated during the merger of compact objects or during the development of a black hole following the violent death of a big star. It is possible for the high-energy gamma ray radiation to be polarized, or to vibrate in a specific direction, which can discriminate between conflicting jet-nature theories.

Mark McConnell is the lead researcher at the Durham campus of the University of New Hampshire.

The longest-running NASA program is the Explorers Program. The program's goal is to offer regular, affordable access to space through principal investigator-led space science research that are pertinent to the astrophysics and heliophysics missions of the Science Mission Directorate.

The Explorers Program has launched more than 90 missions since the launch of Explorer 1 in 1958, which revealed the Earth's radiation belts, including the Uhuru and Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) missions, which earned their researchers Nobel Prizes.

For NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, which undertakes a wide range of research and scientific exploration initiatives for Earth studies, space weather, the solar system, and the universe, NASA Goddard is in charge of managing the program.

By NASA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do You Sleep on Your Back or Side? Here's The Research on 'Optimal' Sleep Positions

Image
William Dement, a renowned sleep researcher at Stanford University, is quoted as saying that after 50 years of study, the only reason he can think of for why we sleep is "because we become sleepy." Sleep certainly matters for our health and wellbeing even though it may be, as one researcher put it, "the sole major habit in quest of a function." Do we, however, have it right? What do studies on sleeping positions say? Is there a proper sleeping position? The majority of people favor sleeping on their side. This is encouraging news because people who sleep on their backs are more likely to have trouble falling asleep or breathing during the night. Most of the time, we have a tendency to shift around quite a bit at night. According to a study involving 664 sleepers, on average, participants slept on their side 54% of the time, their back 37% of the time, and their front 7% of the time. Males are more likely to change positions throughout the night and move their arms, ...
Read more

New DNA Research Unlocks Secrets of Native Rodents’ Rat Race to New Lands

Image
More than 150 different native rodent species from Australia, New Guinea, and Melanesian islands have had their DNA sequenced in recent studies. It provides a fuller understanding of their connections and the circumstances surrounding their expansion throughout the Pacific. The Australian National University's (ANU) Dr. Emily Roycroft, the study's lead author, said native rodents are an interesting but frequently underappreciated evolutionary group. Dr. Roycroft noted that over 150 species in Australia and New Guinea are unique to those regions and include the rakali, sometimes known as the "water rat," which is frequently spotted swimming in the lakes near Canberra. We now know relatively little about the history and development of native rodents, particularly those found in New Guinea. In order to obtain DNA from museum specimens up to 180 years old, including several extinct and secretive species, the study team developed a novel technique. "One Guadalcanal ra...
Read more

A Briefcase-Sized Box Is Already Making Oxygen on Mars

Image
Currently, the Martian atmosphere is in no way hospitable to Earthlings. It is formed primarily of carbon dioxide and is over 100 times less dense than Earth's atmosphere. It would soon stop breathing completely for any individuals who tried to breathe in it. A modest device, about the size of a suitcase, has been consistently extracting breathable oxygen from the Martian atmosphere on that sandy, arid, alien world. In order to manufacture breathing air for a human expedition to the red planet, it is the first demonstration of the processing of in situ resources for human use on another world. Its name is MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Experiment), and it is a device that utilizes electrolysis to separate Martian carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen. It is mounted inside NASA's Perseverance rover. According to the researchers, MOXIE produced oxygen seven times as much between February 2021, when Perseverance arrived, until the end of 2021. Acco...
Read more