Blue Danube waltzes into space to mark Strauss' 200th
The European Space Agency's big radio antenna in Spain beamed the famous waltz into the cosmos on Saturday.
Operators aimed the dish at Voyager 1, the world's most distant spacecraft more than 24 billion kilometres away. Travelling at the speed of light, the music was expected to overtake Voyager 1 within 23 hours.
The Vienna Symphony Orchestra performed the Blue Danube during the space transmission, which actually sent up a version from rehearsal. It's part of the yearlong celebration marking the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II, who was born in Vienna in 1825.
The Strauss space send-off also honours the 50th anniversary of ESA's founding.
Launched in 1977 and now in interstellar space, each of the two Voyagers carries a Golden Record full of music but nothing from the waltz king. His Blue Danube holds special meaning for space fans: It's featured in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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News.com.au
5 hours ago
- News.com.au
US, India to launch powerful Earth-monitoring satellite
A formidable new radar satellite jointly developed by the United States and India is set to launch Wednesday, designed to track subtle changes in Earth's land and ice surfaces and help predict both natural and human-caused hazards. Dubbed NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), the pickup truck-sized spacecraft is scheduled to lift off at 5:40 pm (1210 GMT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India's southeastern coast, riding an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket. Highly anticipated by scientists, the mission has also been hailed as a milestone in growing US-India cooperation between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Our planet surface undergoes constant and meaningful change," Karen St Germain, director of NASA's Earth Science division, told reporters. "Some change happens slowly. Some happens abruptly. Some changes are large, while some are subtle." By picking up on tiny changes in the vertical movement of the Earth's surface -- as little as one centimeter (0.4 inches) -- scientists will be able to detect the precusors for natural and human-caused disasters, from earthquakes, landsides and volcanoes to aging infrastructure like dams and bridges. "We'll see land substance and swelling, movement, deformation and melting of mountain glaciers and ice sheets covering both Greenland and Antarctica, and of course, we'll see wildfires," added St Germain, calling NISAR "the most sophisticated radar we've ever built." Equipped with a 12-meter dish that will unfold in space, NISAR will record nearly all of Earth's land and ice twice every 12 days from an altitude of 464 miles (747 kilometers). - Microwave frequencies - As it orbits, the satellite will continuously transmit microwaves and receive echoes from the surface. Because the spacecraft is moving, the returning signals are distorted -- but computer processing will reassemble them to produce detailed, high-resolution images. Achieving similar results with traditional radar would require an impractically large 12-mile-wide dish. NISAR will operate on two radar frequencies: L-band and S-band. The L-band is ideal for sensing taller vegetation like trees, while the S-band enables more accurate readings of shorter plants such as bushes and shrubs. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and India's ISRO shared the workload, each building components on opposite sides of the planet before integrating and testing the spacecraft at ISRO's Satellite Integration & Testing Establishment in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru. NASA's contribution came to just under $1.2 billion, while ISRO's costs were around $90 million. India's space program has made major strides in recent years, including placing a probe in Mars orbit in 2014 and landing a robot and rover on the Moon in 2023. Shubhanshu Shukla, a test pilot with the Indian Air Force, recently became the second Indian to travel to space and the first to reach the International Space Station -- a key step toward India's own indigenous crewed mission planned for 2027 under the Gaganyaan ("sky craft") program. ia/jgc
The Advertiser
2 days ago
- The Advertiser
All you need to know about a celestial double-act across Australia
Two meteor showers will grace our skies this week in a celestial double-act. The Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids will both peak between July 28-30. The Southern Delta Aquariids is visible from mid-July to mid-August but likely to exhibit peak activity on July 28 or 29. This meteor shower is best viewed in the pre-dawn hours, away from the city lights. Under perfect conditions, you can expect to see about 25 shooting stars an hour. The Alpha Capricornids shower will also peak this week, expected to be brightest on July 30. It started as early as July 7 and continues until around August 15. This shower is less frequent but is known for its slow-moving, colourful and bright meteors. READ MORE: When cringe was cool: sixty objects that shaped Australian history Meteor showers are leftover comet particles and bits from broken asteroids, according to NASA. When comets orbit the sun, the dust they emit gradually spreads into a dusty trail around their orbits. Two meteor showers will grace our skies this week in a celestial double-act. The Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids will both peak between July 28-30. The Southern Delta Aquariids is visible from mid-July to mid-August but likely to exhibit peak activity on July 28 or 29. This meteor shower is best viewed in the pre-dawn hours, away from the city lights. Under perfect conditions, you can expect to see about 25 shooting stars an hour. The Alpha Capricornids shower will also peak this week, expected to be brightest on July 30. It started as early as July 7 and continues until around August 15. This shower is less frequent but is known for its slow-moving, colourful and bright meteors. READ MORE: When cringe was cool: sixty objects that shaped Australian history Meteor showers are leftover comet particles and bits from broken asteroids, according to NASA. When comets orbit the sun, the dust they emit gradually spreads into a dusty trail around their orbits. Two meteor showers will grace our skies this week in a celestial double-act. The Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids will both peak between July 28-30. The Southern Delta Aquariids is visible from mid-July to mid-August but likely to exhibit peak activity on July 28 or 29. This meteor shower is best viewed in the pre-dawn hours, away from the city lights. Under perfect conditions, you can expect to see about 25 shooting stars an hour. The Alpha Capricornids shower will also peak this week, expected to be brightest on July 30. It started as early as July 7 and continues until around August 15. This shower is less frequent but is known for its slow-moving, colourful and bright meteors. READ MORE: When cringe was cool: sixty objects that shaped Australian history Meteor showers are leftover comet particles and bits from broken asteroids, according to NASA. When comets orbit the sun, the dust they emit gradually spreads into a dusty trail around their orbits. Two meteor showers will grace our skies this week in a celestial double-act. The Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids will both peak between July 28-30. The Southern Delta Aquariids is visible from mid-July to mid-August but likely to exhibit peak activity on July 28 or 29. This meteor shower is best viewed in the pre-dawn hours, away from the city lights. Under perfect conditions, you can expect to see about 25 shooting stars an hour. The Alpha Capricornids shower will also peak this week, expected to be brightest on July 30. It started as early as July 7 and continues until around August 15. This shower is less frequent but is known for its slow-moving, colourful and bright meteors. READ MORE: When cringe was cool: sixty objects that shaped Australian history Meteor showers are leftover comet particles and bits from broken asteroids, according to NASA. When comets orbit the sun, the dust they emit gradually spreads into a dusty trail around their orbits.
9 News
4 days ago
- 9 News
The asteroid that will spare Earth might hit the moon instead. What happens if it does?
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here The asteroid known as 2024 YR4 is out of sight yet still very much on scientists' minds. The building-sized object, which initially appeared to be on a potential collision course with Earth, is currently zooming beyond the reach of telescopes on its orbit around the sun. But as scientists wait for it to reappear, its revised trajectory is now drawing attention to another possible target: the moon. An artist's impression depicts an asteroid orbiting the sun. (ESA via CNN Newsource) Discovered at the end of 2024, the space rock looked at first as if it might hit our planet by December 22, 2032. The chance of that impact changed with every new observation, peaking at 3.1 per cent in February — odds that made it the riskiest asteroid ever observed. Ground- and space-based telescope observations were crucial in helping astronomers narrow in on 2024 YR4's size and orbit. With more precise measurements, researchers were ultimately able to rule out an Earth impact. The latest observations of the asteroid in early June, before YR4 disappeared from view, have improved astronomers' knowledge of where it will be in seven years by almost 20 per cent, according to NASA. That data shows that even with Earth avoiding direct impact, YR4 could still pose a threat in late 2032 by slamming into the moon. The impact would be a once-in-a-lifetime event for humanity to witness — but it could also send fine-grained lunar material hurtling toward our planet. A vapor cloud trail left by the Chelyabinsk asteroid. (M. Ahmetvaleev/ESA via CNN Newsource) While Earth wouldn't face any significant physical danger should the asteroid strike the moon, there is a chance that any astronauts or infrastructure on the lunar surface at that time could be at risk — as could satellites orbiting our planet that we depend on to keep vital aspects of life, including navigation and communications, running smoothly. Any missions in low-Earth orbit could also be in the pathway of the debris, though the International Space Station is scheduled to be deorbited before any potential impact. Initially, YR4 was seen as a case study in why scientists do the crucial work of planetary defence, discovering and tracking asteroids to determine which ones have a chance of colliding with Earth. Now, astronomers say this one asteroid could redefine the range of risks the field addresses, expanding the purview of the work to include monitoring asteroids that might be headed for the moon as well. The moon is covered in craters like Daedalus, as seen by the Apollo 11 crew on the moon's far side. (CNN) "We're starting to realise that maybe we need to extend that shield a little bit further," said Dr. Paul Wiegert, a professor of astronomy and physics at the Western University in London, Ontario. "We now have things worth protecting that are a bit further away from Earth, so our vision is hopefully expanding a little bit to encompass that." In the meantime, researchers are assessing just how much chaos a potential YR4 lunar impact could create — and whether anything can be done to mitigate it. The threatening hunk of rock appears as just a speck of light through even the strongest astronomical tools. In reality, YR4 is likely about 60m in diameter, according to observations in March by the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space-based observatory in operation. "Size equals energy," said Julien de Wit, associate professor of planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who observed YR4 with Webb. "Knowing YR4's size helped us understand how big of an explosion it could be." A graphic shows the range of possible locations of the asteroid in yellow on December 22, 203 (CNN) Astronomers believe they have found most of the near-Earth asteroids the field would classify as "planet killers" — space rocks that are 1 kilometre across or larger and could be civilisation-ending, said Dr. Andy Rivkin, planetary astronomer from the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. The planet killer that slammed into Earth 66 million years ago and led to the extinction of dinosaurs was estimated to be roughly 10 kilometres in diameter. Smaller asteroids such as YR4, which was colloquially dubbed a "city killer" after its discovery, could cause regional devastation if they collide with our planet. About 40 per cent of near-Earth space rocks larger than 140m but smaller than a kilometre — capable of more widespread destruction — have been identified, according to NASA. An illustration shows NEO Surveyor, NASA's next-generation near-Earth object hunter. (CNN) But astronomers have never really had a chance to watch a collision of that size occur on the moon in real time, Wiegert said. The latest glimpses of YR4 on June 3 before it passed out of view revealed a 4.3 per cent chance of a YR4 lunar impact — small but decent enough odds for scientists to consider how such a scenario might play out. Initial calculations suggest the impact has the largest chance of occurring on the near side of the moon — the side we can see from Earth. "YR4 is so faint and small we were able to measure its position with JWST longer than we were able to do it from the ground," said Rivkin, who has been leading the Webb study of YR4. "And that lets us calculate a much more precise orbit for it, so we now have a much better idea of where it will be and won't be." ESA's NEOMIR mission could spot previously unknown asteroids (Pierre Carril/ESA via CNN Newsource) The collision could create a bright flash that would be visible with the naked eye for several seconds, according to Wiegert, lead author of a recent paper submitted to the American Astronomical Society journals analysing the potential lunar impact. The collision could create an impact crater on the moon estimated at 1 kilometre wide (0.6 miles wide), Wiegert said — about the size of Meteor Crater in Arizona, Rivkin added. It would be the largest impact on the moon in 5000 years and could release up to 100 million kilograms of lunar rocks and dust, according to the modelling in Wiegert's study. Even pieces of debris that are just tens of centimetres in size could present a hazard for any astronauts who may be present on the moon, or any structures they have built for research and habitation, Wiegert said. The moon has no atmosphere, so the debris from the event could be widespread on the lunar surface, he added. On average, the moon is 384,400 kilometres away from Earth, according to NASA. The Webb telescope captured images of YR4 in March using its NIRCam and MIRI instruments. (A Rivkin/Webb/STScI/CSA/NASA/ESA via CNN Newsource) Particles the size of large sand grains, ranging from 0.1 to 10 millimetres in size, of lunar material could reach Earth between a few days and a few months after the asteroid strike because they'll be travelling incredibly fast, creating an intense, eye-catching meteor shower, Wiegert said. "There's absolutely no danger to anyone on the surface," Wiegert said. "We're not expecting large boulders or anything larger than maybe a sugar cube, and our atmosphere will protect us very nicely from that. But they're travelling faster than a speeding bullet, so if they were to hit a satellite, that could cause some damage." Not all lunar debris that reaches the Earth is so small, and it depends on the angle and type of impact to the moon, according to Washington University in St. Louis. Space rocks slamming into the lunar surface over millions of years have resulted in various sizes of lunar meteorites found on Earth. Hundreds to thousands of impacts from millimeter-size debris could affect Earth's satellite fleet, meaning satellites could experience up to 10 years' equivalent of meteor debris exposure in a few days, Wiegert said. Humankind depends on vital space infrastructure, said Dan Oltrogge, chief scientist at COMSPOC, a space situational awareness software company that develops solutions for handling hazards such as space debris. "Space touches almost every aspect of our lives today, ranging from commerce, communications, travel, industry, education, and social media, so a loss of access to and effective use of space presents a serious risk to humanity," Oltrogge said. Hundreds to thousands of impacts from millimetre-size debris could affect Earth's satellite fleet (AP) The event is unlikely to trigger a Kessler Syndrome scenario in which debris from broken satellites would collide with others to create a domino effect or fall to Earth. Instead, it might be more akin to when a piece of gravel strikes a car windshield at high speed, meaning solar panels or other delicate satellite parts might be damaged, but the satellite will remain in one piece, Wiegert said. While a temporary loss of communication and navigation from satellites would create widespread difficulties on Earth, Wiegert said he believes the potential impact is something for satellite operators, rather than the public, to worry about. Scientists and astronomers around the world are thinking about the possible scenarios since they could not rule out a lunar impact before YR4 disappeared from view, Wiegert said. "We realise that an impact to the moon could be consequential, so what would we do?" de Wit said. A potential planetary defence plan might be clearer if the asteroid were headed straight for Earth. A potential planetary defence plan might be clearer if the asteroid were headed straight for Earth. (AP) Rivkin helped test one approach in September 2022 as the principal investigator of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, which intentionally slammed a spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos in September 2022. Dimorphos is a moonlet asteroid that orbits a larger parent asteroid known as Didymos. Neither poses a threat to Earth, but the double-asteroid system was a perfect target to test deflection technology because Dimorphos' size is comparable to asteroids that could harm our planet in the event of an impact. The DART mission crashed a spacecraft into the asteroid at six kilometres per second to find out whether such a kinetic impact would be enough to change the motion of a celestial object in space. It worked. Since the day of the collision, data from ground-based telescopes has revealed that the DART spacecraft did alter Dimorphos' orbital period — or how long it takes to make a single revolution around Didymos — by about 32 or 33 minutes. Though defence plans for a potential moon impact still aren't clear, YR4's journey underscores the importance of tracking objects that are often impossible to see. (Getty) And scientists have continued to observe additional changes to the pair, including how the direct hit likely deformed Dimorphos due to the asteroid's composition. Similarly, if YR4 strikes the moon and doesn't result in damaging effects for satellites, it could create a tremendous opportunity for researchers to learn how the lunar surface responds to impacts, Wiegert said. But whether it would make sense to send a DART-like mission to knock YR4 off a collision course with the moon remains to be seen. It will depend on future risk assessments by planetary defence groups when the asteroid comes back into view around 2028, de Wit said. Though defence plans for a potential moon impact still aren't clear, YR4's journey underscores the importance — and the challenges — of tracking objects that are often impossible to see. YR4 was detected by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS telescope, in Río Hurtado, Chile, two days after the asteroid had already made its closest pass by Earth, hidden by the bright glare of the sun as it approached our planet. The same thing occurred when an asteroid measuring roughly 20m across hit the atmosphere and exploded above Chelyabinsk, Russia, on February 15, 2013, damaging thousands of buildings, according to the European Space Agency. While no one died, about 1500 people were injured when the windows in homes and businesses blew out due to the shock wave. Trying to observe asteroids is challenging for many reasons, Rivkin said. Asteroids are incredibly faint and hard to see because rather than emitting their own light, they only reflect sunlight. And because of their relatively tiny size, interpreting observations is not a clear-cut process like looking through a telescope at a planet such as Mars or Jupiter. "For asteroids, we only see them as a point of light, and so by measuring how bright they are and measuring their temperature, basically we can get a size based on how big do they have to be in order to be this bright," Rivkin said. For decades, astronomers have had to search for faint asteroids by night, which means missing any that may be on a path coming from the direction of the sun — creating the world's biggest blind spot for ground-based telescopes that can't block out our star's luminosity. NASA and other space agencies are constantly on the lookout for potentially hazardous asteroids. (Don Pettit/NASA via CNN Newsource) But upcoming telescopes — including NASA's NEO Surveyor, expected to launch by the end of 2027 and the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Mission in the InfraRed, or NEOMIR satellite, set for liftoff in the early 2030s — could shrink that blind spot, helping researchers detect asteroids much closer to the sun. "NEOMIR would have detected asteroid 2024 YR4 about a month earlier than ground-based telescopes did," said Richard Moissl, head of ESA's Planetary Defence Office, in a statement. "This would have given astronomers more time to study the asteroid's trajectory and allowed them to much sooner rule out any chance of Earth impact in 2032." NASA and other space agencies are constantly on the lookout for potentially hazardous asteroids, defined as such based on their distance from Earth and ability to cause significant damage should an impact occur. Asteroids that can't get any closer to our planet than one-twentieth of Earth's distance from the sun are not considered to be potentially hazardous asteroids, according to NASA. This illustration made available by Johns Hopkins APL and NASA depicts NASA's DART probe, upper right, on course to impact the asteroid Dimorphos, left, which orbits Didymos. DART is expected to zero in on the asteroid Monday, Sept. 26, 2022, intent on slamming it head-on at 14,000 mph. The impact should be just enough to nudge the asteroid into a slightly tighter orbit around its companion space rock. (Steve Gribben/Johns Hopkins APL/NASA via AP) (AP) When the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located in the Andes in Chile, released its first stunning images of the cosmos in June, researchers revealed the discovery of more than 2,100 previously unknown asteroids after seven nights of observations. Of those newly detected space rocks, seven were near-Earth objects. A near-Earth object is an asteroid or comet on an orbit that brings it within 190 million kilometres of the sun, which means it has the potential to pass near Earth, according to NASA. None of the new ones detected by Rubin were determined to pose a threat to our planet. Rubin will act as a great asteroid hunter, de Wit said, while telescopes such as Webb could be a tracker that follow up on Rubin's discoveries. A proposal by Rivkin and de Wit to use Webb to observe YR4 in the spring of 2026 has just been approved. An illustration depicts the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft as it descended toward the rocky surface of asteroid Bennu. (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona) Webb is the only telescope with a chance of glimpsing the asteroid before 2028. "This newly approved program will buy decision makers two extra years to prepare — though most likely to relax, as there is an 80 per cent chance of ruling out impact — while providing key experience-based lessons for handling future potential impactors to be discovered by Vera Rubin," de Wit said. And because of the twists and turns of YR4's tale thus far, asteroids that have potential to affect the moon could become objects of even more intense study in the future. "If this really is a thing that we only have to worry about every 5000 years or something, then maybe that's less pressing," Rivkin said. "But even just asking what would we do if we did see something that was going to hit the moon is at least something that we can now start thinking about." CONTACT US
